The Wildlife Visits

This is my outdoor kitchen.

It is entirely metal and it contains metal pots and pans, empty propane cylinders, empty wine bottles and the dish washing supplies. The back of it used to be open to the trailer, but too many 4:00 am visits by the raccoons rattling around right under where we were asleep forced us to close it up. We thought that was the end of them.

Justin learned that they were still around, when he left some corn soaking in water that he was hoping to cook over the camp-fire. Come morning, the bucket was empty and it wasn't until a few days later did we find evidence of the night time raiders.

That raccoon had left a tidy little trail of corn-cobs, each one as picked clean as the next. This is what the cooler looks like most morning now and all we keep in it are drinks.

It seems raccoons aren't the only visitors. One night this week, with the full moon, Andre awoke in the middle of the night to hear the coyotes yipping and howling. I guess it really is true, "a guy gets high on a bottle of rye, and coyotes get drunk on the moon" - (Ian Tyson).

The deer are changing colors, or is it they look a different shade against the changing leaves? The chipmunks are so busy gathering nuts and stuff that they hardly notice we are here and run right across our boots. The frogs are fewer, but each morning there are a few hairy caterpillars that are the size of our finger crawling up the newly plastered walls. The wild turkeys are everywhere now. But I am happy to report that crazy hissing thing has never made a return.

Oh, did I not mention the crazy hissing thing? The thing that hissed so loudly as I made my way to the port-a-potty at about 3:00 am one morning. At first, I thought I maybe was hearing things as what could possible hiss so loudly, but while sitting there, I heard it three more times. Holy ****. Good thing I was where I was, sort-of. So now I had to choose to stay in there, which wasn't a nice choice, or risk life and limb with whatever was hissing. I chose to stay a while and hope that Andre would notice me not in the bed next to him. When I finally decided to leave there and dash to the trailer, upon my return, Andre asked what took me so long. I said I was scared of the hissing thing, and he said he just thought I'd fallen asleep in there. I guaranteed him, that I would never fall asleep in there, no matter how exhausted or intoxicated I might ever get, and that he should have checked on me. And then he confessed that he would have, but he didn't want to scare the hissing thing!