Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Wildlife at the Hacienda

Since moving into our new house in west Atascadero, we find ourselves surrounded by wildlife. Our area is one of steeply rolling oak woodland hills. Lot sizes run around 3 to 8 acres, and there is still a fair number of undeveloped lots around.

Sooooo-- we are a haven for birds of all kinds, deer, bobcats, coyotes and turkeys. The deer and turkeys and birds we see every day. The carnivores less often, but still regularly. There are certainly a whole lot of other creatures about that we don't see very much. I know we have skunk about. Great horned owls hang out occasionally. I've seen mice. Lots of little lizards sun themselves on the south-side boulders, tantalizing the cats.

Yesterday we watched a new little guy in action. A gopher. Lucky for him he's excavating in an "allowed" area near the lizards' favorite sunning rock. I think he's kinda cute, but I don't really want to get close enough to see for sure. I've heard that the Macabee gopher trap is quite effective, so the little sucker better stay out of our flower garden. He's got acres of allowed ground to tear up as much as he wants.

Cold, windy and rainy again. Dinner was strictly crappy-weather comfort food. Nachos. A bag of corn chips. A can of Cuban-style black beans. A bag of shredded cheese. A container of fresh salsa. I call it dinner, even if Alice Waters would never eat such a thing. God bless Trader Joe's.

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