The subdivision I lived in before I moved into the woods wasn’t bad. My neighbors were all good people and for the most part minded their own business. Church going was a thing with most folk and I was openly not going to church and hostile to any suggestions I might need to do so.
I moved to a place where the odds of seeing someone up close depended entirely on me going looking.
About three years ago the pond beside my house flooded, and then hurricanes came in. Seems odd, but in just a few days, I had alligators popping in from all directions. Most of them were small, and I think they came from a larger lake about a half mile away.
Alligators are pretty cool to have as neighbors. They’re fun to watch and they don’t really get involved in human activities. In the two and a half years my property was flooded I had one five footer get into the back yard, and he didn’t stay long.
We all know Alligators will go after dogs, this is true, but the fiver haunting the flooded area never acted interested in the residents. They were wary of him.
In twenty-five years, I’ve had two dogs zapped by cottonmouths and both lived. One of them, Tyger Linn, hunted Cottonmouth but no other snake. She was bitten four times in two years, including a day it was 40 degrees. She dug a Cottonmouth out of a stump hole and got popped. She lived. Tyger also didn’t learn from experience, clearly.
In twenty-five years I haven’t killed any animal out here. I didn’t move into the woods to declare war on nature. I assumed me and mine could, and would, accept the risks associated with the environment and our non human neighbors and we would live in peace.
I’ve been told I’ll regret this.
I regret watching a dog die because he was hit by a car when I was a kid. I regret not ever seeing pond birds up close until I moved out here. I regret one of my neighbors losing her sense of security when her house was robbed in town.
I don’t regret seeing the Milky Way at night out here or listening to owls hunt in the darkness. I don’t regret the deer feeding in the yard or the sight of a fawn following its mom across the yard at down. I don’t the silence, the solitude, or the peace. I don’t regret the mindset of the people who live near me, who never bother me, but will check in with me after a hurricane.
Living within the realm of nature isn’t without sorrow or loss but being alive means you’re going to experience both. Hiding from it or killing creatures to avoid loss is cowardice.
It takes a certain sense of acceptance a lot of people simply won’t commit to living.
Take Care,
Mike
