It’s a Cruel World

 

Contemporary History #13 – It’s a Cruel World 

WARNING!

This post contains content that some may find upsetting.

WARNING!

 When I was still in single digits, I loved Saturday Morning cartoons. In fact, a memory that has stayed with me since I was six-years-old dealt with Saturday Morning Cartoons. I turned six in October, 1963. On Friday, November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, TX. The next morning, Saturday, when I turned on the TV, I was one very angry, very disappointed, little boy. All that was being aired was President Kennedy’s funeral! TV coverage of his funeral pre-empted my cartoons and to a six-year-old, at least to THIS six-year-old, cartoons were very important. In fact, that funeral was all that was on TV the whole weekend!

Tennessee Tuxedo, Quick Draw McGraw, Mr. Peabody, Heckle and Jeckle, Road Runner, Woody Woodpecker, Mister Magoo, heck, I even liked Davey and Goliath! Of course, also in the mix was Bugs Bunny. He was always being hunted by Elmer Fudd. Most important, Bugs lived in a hole in the ground. That’s the image I carried with me through the years for where rabbits lived.

Of course, I knew rabbits didn’t have furniture and a stove and a phone, nor did they sit down there in an overstuffed chair by a lamp reading newspapers while munching on carrots and saying, “What’s up, Doc?”. My impression was a cave-like place the bunny could crawl into to escape from the world full of predators when a nap, or an escape, was needed. In fact, turns out I was right! North American Cottontails, the bunnies around Drumyngham, don’t live in social burrows or warrens like their European cousins. “Ours” appear to be more independent (Written on the Fourth of July).

Cotton Tails actually do dig a small hole to crawl into or, better yet, find a place under a building or similar structure, any place they can be warm and dry, to survive.  I had never seen one of their holes, however. Thus, I had no idea what it was that I had found in my lawn.

All I knew was that it was a rather strange hole. It was located in a less travelled, but still very open and near-by, area of our backyard. In the middle photo above, the arrow points at the nest. We are standing with Drumyngham behind us, looking South. Lower right is still looking South, but somewhat closer to the nest. Lower left is same location but now looking North. The nest is circled in these two lower photos.

As I reported in our post 

This photo was taken on June 14,
after the nest was full of babies.
Once I confirmed this was a rabbit’s
nest, I placed that large rock near
the nest to mark its location.
Then I bought a Wildlife Trail
Camera  to “spy” on the
mother and babies.
On June 23, we attached
it to the rock.
The photos below were mostly
taken by this camera. 

Flora and Fauna of Drums #2 – Mammals! - Growls, Snorts, Bugling, and Digging: 

On June 12, 2021, I noticed a spot in our lawn that I thought resembled what one might find if a very small meteor might have slammed into the yard. There was a long (12 inches) slash across the lawn that ended in a roundish cavity, about the size of a softball, in the earth. I couldn't imagine what might have caused this. Too small for a Ground Hog, too big for a skunk digging for grubs. I wondered if it was the start of a rabbit hole, but why would it be right in the middle of the yard and not hidden away under brush or high weeds?  

I asked Google. Google's response was a photo that looked a lot like my "slash". I was beginning to believe it was the start of a rabbit nest! Apparently, they do these things to create a bunny nursery. If the assumption was correct, I expected that the cavity would be filled in the next day. 

It was. I didn't pull back the grass "lid" to see if baby bunnies were there. I just assumed they were. When Chris came to mow the yard, I suggested he not mow over the nest. He thought that was a good idea as well. If all is correct and things go as "planned", the new bunnies, about the size of chipmunks, should be joining the world on or near the fourth of July. Yup, Independence Day!

It is now PAST Independence Day, so, I can NOW give you the REST of the story. I must warn you; it isn’t the happy ending that we all expected. However, I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself.

Now that we had some “nature” to watch, we bought a camera to watch it. After a bit of online “research”, we decided our best bet was this little contraption, a CamPark T85 Digital Wildlife Camera. The Koala did not come with it. We took the camera to the rock and strapped the camera to it. The next morning, we rushed out to see what the camera “got”.

Nothing. This camera came with a very confusing Owner’s Manual. Seems we had it set incorrectly. Our lack of results told us we needed to set it exactly opposite to what we had set it, and, of course, the next night we got better success.

The next morning, when we checked the camera again, we found this:

We had a rabbit! Seems these mama bunnies have their kits and then leave them in the nest. Each morning and evening, or occasionally once in the very early hours of the day, Mama Bunny comes and nurses her kits. Then she tucks them in and leaves again, only to return the next morning to continue the cycle. This morning/evening routine is maintained for three weeks. By then the kits are big enough to leave the nest and see for themselves what the world holds for them.

Each day, we’d check the camera and each day we were rewarded with photos of Mama Bunny, all usually looking very much the same as above, a rabbit in the grass – but then, what else would one expect?

Well, we didn’t expect this. This photo was snapped on June 27 at 12:27am. One of Mama Bunny’s mid-night visits.

We had placed the camera very close to where the actual kits were nesting. So, it isn’t so much that Mom is looking into our camera as it’s that she is just maneuvering over her nest.

 Or not.

 Well, we didn’t expect this, either. We think this is Mama with her back turned to the camera. It does look odd, however.

It was taken at 4:37pm on June 27.

The camera, by the way, takes color photos during daylight hours then switches to infra-red, which look black and white, after dark.

This activity went on for most of the rest of June - Mama Rabbit in the grass, Mama Rabbit hopping, Mama Rabbit eating, Mama Rabbit, Mama Rabbit, Mama Rabbit. 

The next three shots are all one visit made at dawn on June 29, but are a good example of the photos we were getting. 

Here she has just arrived at the nest; the camera shows 5:07am. It is still dark enough for infra-red.

 

By 5:14am, there was enough light for the camera to change to color. Mama Bunny is not dancing here, I think she is pulling aside the grass cap. 

In the third photo, taken at 5:18am, she is, I believe, nursing the kits.

June 30 saw similar photos as seen before. It was the afternoon of July 1 when my son asked me if I had checked the camera for more photos. I hadn’t. I suggested he go ahead and do so while I finished watching a news report on TV. I had become so accustomed to seeing photos of a rabbit in the grass that I almost didn’t check in with Philip. When I did, I asked with a chuckle, “Any more photos of rabbits?” “We have new photos,” he answered, “but not of rabbits.” That increased my curiosity. “What have we got?” I hesitantly asked. “This” and he turned the computer screen my way.

 “What the heck is that?” I asked a bit stunned. “Wait ‘till you see some more.” came Philip’s response.

 

“That is not a rabbit,” I said, partly to myself. “I know.” he replied.

“A Raccoon?” I asked.

“I think so.” said Philip. “Have you looked at the nest?” I asked. Philip just nodded “yes”. I didn’t have to ask the next question: was it empty. I knew the answer. The next photo confirmed that guess.

There were a number more Raccoon face or leg photos. 

The last photo snapped at 1:44.21 am. It was of a raccoon leg.

“Wait.” Philip said. “There’s more.” At 3:11.34am, approximately 1.5 hours later, the camera was activated again. Once again, we found ourselves asking, “What is this?” 

Did the raccoon return, send a friend, or what!?  After a few more pics of a furry leg, or just the grass, we got this pic.

Clearly, the raccoon had returned for a second seating. Had it not finished the first time, been scared off the first time, or was it hoping for more? A furry raccoon tail was the last pic snapped at 4:16am. 

We expected to see the rabbit return, looking for its babies, but if it did, it never got near enough to the camera to activate it. 

We left the camera in place beside the empty hole for a few more days but when nothing was seen by the morning of the Fourth of July, the day the babies were supposed to be ready to leave the nest, we removed the camera and filled the hole.

I found myself wanting to see this story through human eyes, wondering how the mama is getting along after her shock. Then I read an article about rabbits that said that, under certain conditions, mother rabbits will eat their own young. 

Information like that certainly puts things into perspective!

 

Now you know why I titled this post: 
“It’s a Cruel World”.

 

 

 

Finding History in a Beautiful Morning

Contemporary 1 - A beautiful Morning

History.

I looked it up in Merriam-Webster. Good old Merriam gave me words like “Tale” and “Story”. It said that history is a chronological record of significant events. It didn’t say, however, who would judge which events were significant nor how they would so be judged. It did suggest that often an explanation of the significant events’ causes would be included. As I read further Merriam clarified that “history” is simply the events of the past.

hmmm, Past. So, what exactly is “past”? Back I went to Merriam. “Just gone or elapsed. A period before the present.”  Well, that made sense, I guess. Still one more question. “Present.”

“Now existing or in progress.” Good old Merriam-Webster. Has a definition for everything, which, by the way, according to Merriam, is “a: all that exists b: all that relates to the subject.”

Based on this information so far, there are any number of philosophical paths I could shoot off on but I began with “History”, so I guess I should stick to history. Based on what I’ve seen so far, then, I’m thinking a case could easily be made that all of what I’ve written in this post so far, is “History”, in more ways than one. I wrote it and that’s an event. It is past, not present meaning it is not “now” so it must be “before”, so it is history.

Now, if something so recent can be called “History”, certainly what happened yesterday can be called History, or last week, or last year. We often think of History as the things that transpired in 1957 or 1870 or 1738 or 1600 or 1492. But here we are saying that what happened just yesterday is history! If what happened yesterday is history than stories of the Drums of Drums from yesterday, or even this morning, seem relevant to this blog.

That was a way-too-long-way of saying that as occurrences from the present take place that may have relevance to the Drums of Drums story, I’ll write them up and post them here, sort of “in-between” the stuff about the more distant past. I have a friend who refers to stuff like this as “Contemporary History.” I suggest that “Contemporary History” may be even more important than plain old “History History” because, as the occurrences of the moment become the actions of the far distant past, the reports chronicling the events of the present will become invaluable to those of the future seeking to understand what happened in the past.

So, we begin with this morning, August 15, 2018. It was a beautiful morning.

The sun had not been up for very long when I decided it was the perfect morning to take a walk. Lately it has been raining. It has been raining since, well, it feels like forever. Today dawned bright and clear and, most importantly, dry. At least the sky and the air were “dry”. The ground and the grass and the trees and the roofs were all covered in a thin layer of water as if all that moisture that had been making it rain these past few days just decided to lay down and rest for a while.

So, I headed out across the Drumyngham property. I’ve allowed what once was an orchard, to grow wild, to fill itself with Raspberry bushes, Goldenrod, Queen Anne’s Lace, and, unfortunately, a bit of Poison Ivy. As the ground turned from the browns and whites of winter into the greens and pastels of spring, I cut a path through this orchard so I could wander past the old apple trees, some now overgrown with grape vines and Virginia Creeper, past the Dogwood and the Blue Spruce, and through the stands of Goldenrod that I knew by fall would be as tall as me, or taller. It was down this path that I walked today.

The layer of water that had taken its rest on the grass and leaves around me began to grow restless, so formed into droplets, and began jumping down to the ground below, or, as was often the case, onto my head, cheeks, or nose. As the sun made its way higher into the sky, these droplets caught some of the sun’s rays and broke them into hundreds of thousands of tiny rainbows causing the scene in front of me to dance in flecks of colors almost too tiny to see. It was beautiful. What a pleasure.

The growing warmth of the sun gave many of the orchard’s insects the courage to “come to life” and take flight, some sending tiny splashes of the morning dew up into the air about them as they leapt from their leaf or stem. Small Flower Flies, always so brave and curious, looking like tiny bees in their yellow and black striped outfits, began to make me the center of their curiosity as they circled around my head, landing on my hands and arms, tasting to see if I had brought them something delicious to breakfast upon.

The Katy-dids had all by now stopped their raspy overnight scratchings of their namesake leaving just the night crickets to call for their mates. Their constant soft whir was beginning to give way to that of the day grasshoppers whose calls can raise a sound that at times can be deafening. I know that later in the day they will be joined by the harsh buzzing calls of the Cicadas and the orchestra will then be in full voice. But not yet, it is still early, the songs still soft, like the dew.

As I made my way along my path, harsh caw-caws of some crows could be heard coming from the field down below. Suddenly the scolding cries of a much closer Robin replaced the caws in my ears as mother Robin warned me to stay away. Her nest is near, and she means business, so stay away, she warns. A Mourning Dove sitting high in one of the spruces beside me coos her soft, sad call, as if trying to sooth mother Robin and let her know this visitor means her no harm.

By now my pant legs had become quite soaked and, as I was reaching the end of my path, I turned to head back in, back into the house where I grew up, where so many of my memories reside, as do I. As I stepped from the bright sun into the cool darkness of the basement, I thought of how often I’d done this same thing in the past, following my dad, hearing my mom call me from the kitchen above. Both are long gone now but it seemed I could still hear Mom saying, “Get out of those wet things! You are dripping all over everything and you’ll catch your death of cold!” and my dad chuckling, as he always did when she made such a command.

I almost hated to do it, but I did as she asked and pulled off my wet things. I hung them on the clothes lines still stretched around the basement where she, herself, had tied them. I hated to do it because it meant my morning was ending and the day now needed to get started.

So now this morning, too, has taken its place among the many memories I have of life at Drumyngham.

What relevance this will have for some future historian researching the past I’m sure I don’t know, but it sure was a beautiful morning.