Pet peeves

There's a certain sound that signals Spring in my yard...well, actually, it's a buzz. The pieris off the front porch (also known as Japanese Andromeda), bursts forth with it's tiny bell-shaped blossoms (which look strikingly like lily-of-the-valley flowers), and the bees head to it in droves. I'm not kidding, so many bumbles stumble around it's branches, drunk on sweet nectar, it makes the whole tree hum. I call that pieris The Bee Tree.

Yesterday morning I walked the front yard accompanied by the strains of that continuous hum, and I too, made a bee line (couldn't resist the bad pun) to The Bee Tree to take a few shots. The photo above is a close-up of one industrious nectar-gatherer, though all the bees let me get within a few inches of them. When the pieres is in bud, little else matters to my tiny striped friends. We enjoy nature's bounty together.

That got me thinking about the other inhabitants of my yard. I've often joked that our little plot of land is like a wild kingdom, with all manner of untamed insect, amphibian, reptile and mammal eventually making its way inside my house, but the truth is, I enjoy them immensely when they are just where they need to be: outside my four walls.

I've always had an abiding affection and respect for animals, but I've seldom longed to own them--unlike my daughter who at one point or another has seriously checked into getting herself an assortment of critters that would rival Noah's ark. Among the candidates for her personal pet search: pot-bellied pig, lop-eared rabbit, hedgehog, de-skunked skunk, baby goat, angora cat, just about every type of dog breed, chicken (two of them, she would name Chick and Dick), hamster, exotic bird, guinea pig...you get the picture. And her quest DID land a few furry inhabitants within my home. I can now claim, or have claimed in the past, two miniature hamsters, three shih tzu pups, a lhaso apso, two domestic shorthair cats and that too-cute-to-pass-up lop-eared rabbit (okay, so I am not totally immune to the lure of pet ownership).

Here's the thing: I think that we humans just can't help our need to control things. Of course this can be a good thing. We guide our careers, pay our bills and keep our homes tidy, ensuring our world is not ruled by chaos. But we just can't help ourselves, can we? We have to be the masters of our--and everyone else's--fate. We take on pets because we truly do believe that we can do a better job than Mother Nature. And often we discover, too late, that we can't. That's why pythons are set into the U.S. woods to fend for themselves in unfamiliar territory, turtles and fish from other areas of the world are dropped into local waterways to decimate the natives, and shelters are full of unwanted animals of every size, shape, color and species. Conversely, animals that offer no value as pets are promptly sent away, sometimes violently. I've heard tales of squirrels, raccoons and bears being shot at with BB guns--and worse.

There's a better way. A simpler way. Share the world with animals rather than trying to own them. You wouldn't try to tame a flock of birds landing on your back deck, or a skunk snooping around your back yard stream. But you shouldn't try to chase them off, either. If we all switched up our thinking a bit, and realized that the natural world all around us is good enough to share its magnificence, what an honor for us to accept the gift.

We can do our part. Buy a few bird feeders and fill them up each week; create a pond for local creatures of all kinds to drink from and frolic in (and don't clear away all the algae since fish and tadpoles nourish themselves with it); adopt a stray cat or dog at the local shelter if you need a closer tie to the animal world than wildlife offers. And for goodness sake, don't chase away the opossum who just wants to get a drink from the puddle in your driveway, or the squirrel gathering nuts for the winter. Keep your trash cans secured in a covered shed or your garage to discourage the influx of raccoons or bears; don't squash the errant bee who happens to fly by. He's got important pollination activities on tap, and we reap the benefits of his hard work. Most of all, realize that the most important thing to control is your own frame of mind. Start small. Adopt a "citizen of the world" approach to pet ownership, sitting back (with your shelter pet by your side!) and enjoying nature's "pets". They all belong to you, and you belong to them.

As for my destiny, I hope one day to be through with cleaning cages and litter boxes, waking up at the crack of dawn to walk the dogs, and being able to book a vacation without worrying about who's going to watch all the pets--but I'll always fill the birdfeeder.