Looking back

We're nearing the end of the season. Blooms are fading (late bloomers are coming on, though. there's hope). Weeds are everywhere. But it wasn't always this way. This is what my garden looked like in May this year.

Lions and foxes and bears, oh Al Gore!

One of my coworkers has a theory about why there are so many foxes (and mountain lions, bears and coyotes!) in the Denver area. Something strange is going on, something beyond more people pushing into the foothills, moving into animals' natural habitats. She thinks its another sign of global warming. Wildfires and drought = less food for little critters and fewer little critters = less food for bigger animals = more animals of all kinds moving into territory they don't belong. Like people's houses.

Wild Kingdom Weekend

Last night, my cat killed a mourning dove. I saw them, cat and not-yet-dead bird, in the grass outside the kitchen window. It was too late to save the dove, but at least it could die in peace. I lured the cat in with a can of wet food. When my husband came home, he cleaned up the carnage.

This morning, I noticed black fur in the mock strawberries. When I got closer I could see it was a tail. Next to it was a cat's leg, the foot attached, but everything else gone. Not one of my cats. Some other cat attracted to our yard maybe because of the good hiding places the rocks and flowers create, or because of the smells my cats have left behind. When I ran back inside, my husband said, "We heard that." He had heard a cat screaming outside our window after we went to bed. I was blessedly already asleep because I heard nothing. We think a fox got him.

Again, my husband went out to clean up. This time not so agreeably. He shoveled the remains into the trash can to take them to the Dumpster. I looked at the spot after he was done. Wasps swarmed over the blood left on the mulch and a little piece of gut left behind. I scooped it up and followed to the Dumpster.

We live in Denver. Not in the burbs or the foothills. In the middle of the city where you get almost used to drive-bys, home invasions and serial killings (a few summers ago, bodies were found in the backyard of a house walking distance from ours). This Wild Kingdom I am not used to.