This is Speckles. I was elected to tell you about the animals that live outside our house.
For the most part, we’re really happy to be inside looking out, but every now and then, we would like to get out and play.
We Want To Play With…
The birds! We would love to watch the birds that come close to the house, and the ones that fly around in the trees around the house. But every time we go outside to the kitty condo, the birds fly away. They’re faster than us, and they can go higher.
The chipmunks are pretty fun to watch, too. I have a fantasy every now and then, that the window melts away and I can jump out and catch those two that play in the rock garden. We all know the legend of The Day Tiger Lily Caught A Chipmunk, and we can only dream it can be us!
Here’s the story. Tiger Lily lived here all by herself. (Except for Mommy. Mommy lived here, too, and sometimes Uncle Jim’s dog Daphne.) In those days, Mommy let Tiger Lily go outside on a leash. One day, she was out on the leash, and a chipmunk got too close to her! She caught it! Daphne tried to help her, and it looked for all the world (to Mommy) that Daphne was trying to kill Tiger Lily!!!!! Mommy ran to the patio door and opened it, and YUP, YOU GUESSED IT! That chipmunk ran inside the house! Mommy had to take Daphne and Tiger Lily to Uncle Jim’s house and lock them in. Then she opened all of the doors and sat in the kitchen real quiet. That chipmunk, lucky for mommy, ran upstairs, looked at Mommy, then ran out the kitchen door.
Like I said, we all wish it could be us.
There are rabbits that come around, and we would like to play with them, too, especially the babies.
Bugs. Lots of bugs. Bugs that fly and bugs that crawl and bugs that light up in the night. Lots of them fly to the windows at night if there’s a light on. They are trying to get in, and we wish they could. But Mommy has these things called screens that keep them out.
Oh! There are turkeys! I could have talked about them with the birds, but they’re different. They come out in big groups. They look really fun.
The little baby deer come right up to the window to look at us. I don’t think they would hurt us, but it might be fun to play tag with them. Sometimes the baby raccoons play tag with the baby deer.
I, me in particular, I want to play with the baby raccoons, but Mommy won’t let me get close to them. I watch them through the screen door, though, and sometimes we’re just a foot or two apart. They’re always looking for food!
We Would Hide From…
There’s a big, fat groundhog. Not only does he look big, I think, if it came down to it, he would probably fight with us. Frankly, he doesn’t look like he knows how to play.
The skunks are cute, but something tells me we should stay away from them. I’m not sure what it is, but… if we were lucky enough to get outside, I’d leave them alone.
The foxes … I don’t think they would hurt us, but their teeth are pretty sharp looking!
Inside The House…
We do a great job hunting lots of things that are in the house. There are gray mousies and colored mousies and balls and an orange rodent and a shapeless pink thing and skittery things and other kinds of things with feathers and bells…. We’re great hunters, so we don’t have to worry about getting outside of the house to hone our skills.