Paying it Forward

So what kinda person are you? Well I'm the type of girl who can be a little over the top sometimes and I tend to usually put everything ahead of myself, even little wild animals. Yes, I'm the kinda girl that saves turtles. You know what I'm talking about. After the rain you see them in the middle of the road. Do you stop to move them? Do you swerve to miss them? Or do you keep driving as if they were not there? I'm the kinda girl that if possible I stop and move them to the side of the road to which they are headed. But this year I seem to have gone beyond just saving turtles.

So let me introduce you to my animal kingdom. It started out this spring with a bird's nest. Which was all nice and good. Three babies hatched, I watched them grow and then one day they left the nest never to return. But it was time. I had watched them grow, their first attempts to fly (in which one flew straight into the side of the house), and now they were big enough to be on their on.

Then there's Herby. Who is a lizard that likes to hang out on the back porch with me in the evenings. Yep I named the lizard. Before getting Hyper this was the only pet I had. And every evening he would come and sit on the rail as I sat at the table on the porch and enjoyed the evening. I thought Herby was a he but I came home one evening to see Herby with another lizard and we'll say after that encounter I determined that he was perhaps a she. And now I believe I have baby lizards running around.....

Then on a hanging basket a spider had a built a web, and one day in this web appeared many, many little dots. You guessed it Charlotte's web was now a nursery (notice everyone seems to be reproducing but me?). And no I could not kill the spiders. I let them be and watched as they to grew up and left the web.

Now on to the saving part: A few months back I was feeding horses and Onyx, on of our big stallions, was jumping around and having a fit. Everyone gets excited at feeding time so I told him to hold on it was almost his turn. He snorted and jumped throwing himself against the front wall of his stall. This caught my attention because he's never that impatient. As he huffs and puffs I open his stall door. By this time he has himself as close to the front wall of his stall as he can get. "What is wrong with you?" I asked watching this huge horse cower in fear. Then out the corner of my eye I saw a slight movement, to witch Onyx snorted again. In the back of the stall was a baby bird hoping around on the ground trying to fly to the window above. Every time he would hit the wall and fall back down. So my elephant seemed to be afraid of mice. At this point I noticed Scooter (the barn cat) standing behind me eyeing what he hoped to be his next victim.

I shooed him away and pulled my gloves out of my back pocket. I spoke soothingly to Onyx and made my way slowly toward the baby bird. It took a minute but I did catch him. I held him up the window and he flew away. Onyx was relived to have his stall once again to himself and Scooter was mad at me for running his potential hunt. Me? I felt like I had done my good deed of the day.

So then a few weeks later I'm sitting on the back porch with Hyper (my new Jack Russel Terror puppy) when I see a movement at the top of the driveway, a tiny gray blur that darts into the woods. Not far behind is the neighbors calico cat who pauses for a moment looking for the gray blur. I realize it's a baby rabbit. Yep I'm a softy. I walked off the porch and as soon as I made it in the driveway the baby rabbit came running straight to me. This caught me a little by surprise. The rabbit to the grass about foot from my feet and stopped, breathing heavily from what I took had been a long chase. The cat sat at the top of the driveway eyeing me. Poor little rabbit looked scared to death as it laid down in the grass still trying to catch its breath. Apparently it was not afraid of me at all. By this time Hyper (who is afraid to walk down stairs) starts barking at me from the porch. She seems aggravated she was not allowed to be part of the excitement. At her barking the cat turns and walks away. The rabbit sits a moment longer, looks around, and then scurries off into the woods.

So as you can see I'm a softy. And I seem to be on a roll this year with saving wildlife. But I believe what goes around comes around so hopefully I'm just paying it forward.