Plastic Surprise

The animals are everywhere now.  As I was sitting in the yard on the peach Adirondack chairs, I felt a presence nearby.  At first I thought it was the asters I was looking for on the right side of the hill. You can imagine what joy it was to finally see them.  Fall is nearly upon us.  Even with heat in the low 90s.  It is the foreshadowing for which those of us in the natural world search.

With paint spotted blue crocs on, I climbed the steep hill and dug my feet in.  I wasn't going to miss capturing these pretties.  As soon as I snapped this photo, I could hear rustling of the bushes.  Something was there.

So I slid, yes, slid, down the hill, this hill ten years ago was easy to climb and descend.  Now I was just happy to get a close encounter with these wildflowers.  Turning under the dogwood trees, the sense of the presence was stronger.  Then it happened.

Something told me to look down.  

    This plastic was part of a dish I used to bait the raccoon in early May.  It was part of a dish which held a rotisserie chicken. What is odd is that it was ten feet away from where it was dropped.   I thought I had found all the pieces.  Curiously enough, one piece after another shows up when a friend of mine contacts me.  It is an odd metaphor.  He brought the dish and chicken here in early spring we could protect this bandit from itself.  It was digging one foot holes in my garden making mowing quite dangerous.  But for a month or so, I hadn't seen any of the chewed plastic.  Until today. I also have not seen him.

I still do not know what was in those woods beyond the white pines, mountain laurel and Canadian hemlocks.  Whatever it was, I suspect it will come out soon.