my neighbors

my neighbors
I found an isolated long abandoned piece of wooded property & built a cardboard hut. as I built it a great big eagle watched me from the top of a tree maybe 50 yards away. When he first landed I thought he would fly away as soon as he seen me. So I stood still looking at him. After a while I went back to work but he didn't fly away. I was entering my rabbit hole after dark and he lifted off a branch near my hut. I was down at the bayou fishing one evening and he landed in a branch sticking out over the water and sat there watching me. I guees he's not used to seeing people off the sidewalk.
One day as I was walking out I seen a rather large rabbit laying there in the grass near the woods. I hunted rabbit when I was growing up & like to eat them so my first thought was was eating it but I didn't know how long it had been dead.It's head & neck was completely gone. I had seen a few big dogs around and wondered if maybe they did it.Whatever killed it ate its head and neck and left the rest just laying there. What a waste of meat. I didn't think much of it and then I got on with my struggle trying to be not homeless. Then one evening after dark I was entering the woods & something jumped down out of a tree & disappeared into the bushes. I thought it may have been a stray cat or some animal that lives in the bayou as it was only a short distance away. I heard in the night something screaming and it sounded like two big tom cats fighting. I made sure I could reach out and lay my hand on my machete if I needed it as my front was still open. There is a drop off about 10 feet from the front of my hut. I was laying there, my feet to the opening with my little radio playing softy til I got sleepy then I would turn it off and go to sleep. I raised up looked around and seen a new shadow. it was round and as big as a head of cabbage with a neck just as big sticking up over the drop off. I realized it was an animal so I grabbed up my machete and and mad a noise like a caveman would to scare it off and make it think I was mean and mad. It disappeared, I didn't think much about it. I figured it was as afraid of me as I was of it.I was selling the newspapers the next Sunday & seen an article about people spotting a mountain lion. I realized then that was probably what it was. I seen it's paw print in the sand and it was almost as big as my fist. I have not seen it again. The only thing is I had hung my trash up about 5 feet hanging from a limb because something got into my trash the night before. Something tore a hole in the bottom and side. I guess it was the mountain lion. I don't know if it is a he or she and don't really want to find out. I keep my trash inside now as I have finished the front and made a door that I can close. I'm not afraid of it bothering me as I would hunk a chunk out of it with my machete.
I also have blue jays some cardinals and other birds big and small.there is an old milk jug cut in half setting about 10 feet from where I sit and I watch the birds land on the side and dip their heads in and drink. I hope to put up a feeder for them as well as for the squirrel.
I was setting on the drop off one day and a rabbit came around the bottom below me peacefully, just a few feet away, munching on greens. I felt trusted and welcomed in my new neighborhood which gave me a lot of pleasure.
I also would like to plant a few tomato plants and a few hot pepper plants also. I did that in diff. places I have lived.
I had a pepper plant live inside my window when I was in Boston in a studio apartment. It lived for two years and I took it to Rochester NY. My ex wife's sister had a garden there. I planted it and let it live out its natural cycle with the other plants in the garden.
I was awoke this morning by I think a raccoon at after 4 am. It was messing around with the side of my hut. I think I built it in the middle of it's normal path. The outside of my hut is covered with thick flat black plastic. I think it was traveling along and all of the sudden it hit the wall and was confused. After I ran it off and was about to go to sleep a mouse or rat was trying to getin on the other side and I had to slap on the side of the cardboadrd wall to scare it off.



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