Nature's Wonder

It seems this weekend we had several reminders of nature.

First, there was a short but severe thunder storm that rolled through our area on Saturday morning (according to the radar we were only supposed to see the very tip of this storm, most went north of us). I woke up to thunder, and quickly decided I better get the farm chores done before the rain hits. I thought I timed it all out perfectly: I had the animals fed before the rain fell, and I had monkey bread baked before our electricity went out. What I didn't plan on was how long the electricity was going to be out. I had a bad feeling and had just started to fill up water buckets when the electricity went out, I hadn't collected near enough water for the next 29 hours (which is how long we were without electric). We did fine with eating. Lunch of sandwich and chips is easy and for dinner we cooked hot dogs on a camp fire. We could have lite the stove if desired. The issue became water, not only for us to drink, but for the alpacas, and to wash up with. I had to laugh a bit at modern technology, while our electricity was out, I had a laptop charged and access to the internet (via dial-up) so I was on-line the entire time. Neighbors who have cable internet were not able to access it while the electricity was out. During this entire experience we had a taste of what we take for granted and how much easier our life is with electricity. Mother nature gave us a bit of a lesson in that regard.

Another incident in nature was while we were sitting in our backyard with our campfire. The alpacas seemed to know something was wrong and they all gathered in a group. Miss Kitty was at the head of the group and they were all looking out into the woods. Then Miss Kitty started to sound the alarm call (I describe this sound as a high pitched bird call, but you really have to hear it, it's quite unusual). The kids were about to get mad at Miss Kitty but I suggested that instead we trust the alpaca's intuition and look out into the woods. We followed where their eyes were looking and saw the white part of a deer tail! It took some searching with our eyes between the trees but in the end we saw a total of four deer! That was really neat. The kids wondered why the alpacas were alarmed at the deer to which I explained that deer are not threatening animals, but alpacas don't know that. Alpacas will sound the alarm when any animal they don't know is nearby. Alpacas are very vulnerable animals and in nature would need to be overly cautious. We enjoyed seeing the deer and also were intrigued by the alpacas behavior throughout the whole thing. I've often said each herd member has a job and it's clear Miss Kitty's job is "alarm sounder".

Sunday's interaction with nature was one I'd prefer to have done without. We had gone to the beach, and when we arrived home we found the electricity was back on! We were so happy!! I don't know why, but for some reason I didn't go straight into the house, but walked into the backyard. A loud crying sound caught my attention. That is when I noticed there was a bat on the inside of the screen door to my bedroom! The screen door was shut, the sliding glass door was partially open, and the bat was in my bedroom. The bat clearly wanted to get out of the house, but was stuck on the screen. It was screaming. I was worried it would see me and fly further into the house. I yelled inside the house for the kids shut my bedroom door from the inside so that the bat couldn't get further into the house. At least then it was trapped in my bedroom. I stayed outside, and carefully slide the sliding screen door ever so slightly so that I could get my hand in there to close the glass door. The bat slide with the screen, didn't fly inside the house, but also didn't fly at me. Phew! Now the bat was on the screen but couldn't get back inside the house because the sliding glass door was shut. I let the kids come out and see the bat (after all how often do you get to see a real life in the wild bat) but then told them to go inside while I freed the bat. I thought if I grabbed the sliding screen door off the track, I could turn it (me on one side, the bat on the other), and the bat could get free (with me on the other side of the screen for safety LOL). It worked! I pulled the screen off the track and turned slowly with it. As soon as the bat had a chance it flew off into the woods.

Since this is a three day weekend, I'm a bit nervous what experience nature has waiting for us today!