Doo, Doo, Doo, Looking Out My Back Door

When I bought my house four years ago, the development was brand-new with houses still being built around mine. One reason I chose my house was because there were no houses directly behind it, just a steep drop and some tree trunks. The ground was that distinct Carolina clay color with some weeds sprouting up and a trickle of water running.

Looking out my back door now, I am amazed at how the landscape has healed from the shock of bulldozers and backhoes that disrupted it a few years ago. Instead of red earth, what I see now is leaves. The tree trunks I thought were dead are sprouting. There are wildflowers on the hill behind my house. Lately a rabbit has been spending time in my back yard. Cosmo, who is usually hanging on by a thin thread, goes absolutely bananas when the rabbit appears. There are birds all over the place. (For those of you who know me well, as long as the birds and I are separated by windows and walls, I can deal with them.) They jump around on my deck, they chirp in the trees outside my windows.

When this development was being built, the squirrel population must have died out or moved elsewhere. I have yet to see a squirrel here. I can’t say I really miss them (I know how they drive my bird-feeding and tomato-growing relatives to distraction), but I think that when I do see a squirrel in the neighborhood, it will be a sign that the landscape really is back to normal.