rmwarren
Member
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2010
- Messages
- 3,063
For a while now I have been thinking of starting a thread as a place to gather up our favorite tales from Wayne Tinker, what finally pushed me over the top was reading his tale published in his local town online magazine, the Wilton Vibe.
A while back someone nominated Wayne as the Bard of the Board, there was debate and at least one second, the motion passed by acclimation. I think that honor is fitting and well earned, & propose that we copy our favorite tales and save them on this thread, to simplify reading them & foster some enjoyable conversations. Here's a favorite of mine to start things off, the original thread is here:
For the past few years, we have had a fox visit our yard. We have an "L" shaped lot that is mostly hillside and across the road is about 2000 acres of swamp, wetlands and town forest (Ridgefield, Danbury and CT. State Forest. I tell people i am paying taxes on 1/2acre but have a 2000 acre front yard. We have coyotes in the woods that often serenade me abbot the time i am arising around 3am.
I am sure it is year round, but i only notice the fox's visits in the winter time and only when the snow is on the ground. I see his tracks about every week and a half to two weeks and those tracks always take the nearly exact same route, almost within inches with practically no variation. I have never actually seen the fox, but whenever the snow has arrived, I look for the tracks.
A few years after we were married, we started having visits from other animals, most notable raccoons. Our garbage was being stored on steel cans which I ould put a heavy stone on the cover to keep them out. I had a vegetable garden in those days and as others, I always knew when my corn was ready for picking. Those raccoons would start raiding. It was always a challenge to waitunil the very last minute to pick. I knew when it was best time to pick for best flavor. trouble was, those raccoons knew as well. Quite accidentally, I discovered that they also loved watermelon rinds. Not only as well as corn, but even better. As long as I had the veggy garden, from that point on, we ate lots of watermelon in the late summer, starting just before the corn was ready for picking.
One evening, as we were just sitting down for evening dinner, there was a knock on our back door that was right next to the kitchen table. I reached for the door handle and opened. Our next door neighbor walked into the room and suggested we keep ut dog inside for a couple of days. It seemed he was tired of the raccoons' raids and was putting poison around his area. We were all flabbergasted and speechless as he turned and walked out immediately. My wife and looked at each other, still unable to come up with words to express our horror. Our children were both upset as they were, by that time, as much dog and wild life friendlyas there parents.
From that time on, until had built a solid enclosure to store garbage, we placed our table scraps, and especially watermelon rinds, on top of the stonewall I had been building just beyond our kitchen entrance. Every morning, what ever scraps we had put out there were gone with no trace. eventually, we not only had a family of raccoons, but a couple of skunks, possums, probably some rats and some other wild critters visiting. Often, there would be a line up of our visitors waiting for me t place goodies on the wall. They were no afraid, and once used to me, hey were not particularly stand offish either. Our dog, even tho a hunting breed, would not give chase ad it was like we were all one happy family.
Shortly, my wifes nephew and niece came to visit from Germany. On our way home from picking them up at Kennedy Airport, we were telling the two youngsters about our daily evening visitors. The two were very excited about the prospects of seeing us feed our wild friends and hoped they could see them up close. When we got home from the airport, of course just about all the conversation was of the German tongue, with only an occasional interpretation in english as my wife tried to keep our children and me up to date as best she could. There was plenty of talk, >>> but no animals!!! The children from across the pond were disappointed, to say the least. They stayed disappointed for the entire two weeks visit. The day after we took them to the airport for their return to Germany, the entire lineup reappeared.
Eventually, the neighbor who had planned to poison our friendly visitors moved away. They brought different problem in the form of a rather nasty dog. That is another long story. The feeding of our "livestock" soon came to an end, but we enjoyed the trip while it lasted.
[member=550]Tinker[/member] thank you for sharing all the wonderful stories and keep them coming!
RMW
A while back someone nominated Wayne as the Bard of the Board, there was debate and at least one second, the motion passed by acclimation. I think that honor is fitting and well earned, & propose that we copy our favorite tales and save them on this thread, to simplify reading them & foster some enjoyable conversations. Here's a favorite of mine to start things off, the original thread is here:
For the past few years, we have had a fox visit our yard. We have an "L" shaped lot that is mostly hillside and across the road is about 2000 acres of swamp, wetlands and town forest (Ridgefield, Danbury and CT. State Forest. I tell people i am paying taxes on 1/2acre but have a 2000 acre front yard. We have coyotes in the woods that often serenade me abbot the time i am arising around 3am.
I am sure it is year round, but i only notice the fox's visits in the winter time and only when the snow is on the ground. I see his tracks about every week and a half to two weeks and those tracks always take the nearly exact same route, almost within inches with practically no variation. I have never actually seen the fox, but whenever the snow has arrived, I look for the tracks.
A few years after we were married, we started having visits from other animals, most notable raccoons. Our garbage was being stored on steel cans which I ould put a heavy stone on the cover to keep them out. I had a vegetable garden in those days and as others, I always knew when my corn was ready for picking. Those raccoons would start raiding. It was always a challenge to waitunil the very last minute to pick. I knew when it was best time to pick for best flavor. trouble was, those raccoons knew as well. Quite accidentally, I discovered that they also loved watermelon rinds. Not only as well as corn, but even better. As long as I had the veggy garden, from that point on, we ate lots of watermelon in the late summer, starting just before the corn was ready for picking.
One evening, as we were just sitting down for evening dinner, there was a knock on our back door that was right next to the kitchen table. I reached for the door handle and opened. Our next door neighbor walked into the room and suggested we keep ut dog inside for a couple of days. It seemed he was tired of the raccoons' raids and was putting poison around his area. We were all flabbergasted and speechless as he turned and walked out immediately. My wife and looked at each other, still unable to come up with words to express our horror. Our children were both upset as they were, by that time, as much dog and wild life friendlyas there parents.
From that time on, until had built a solid enclosure to store garbage, we placed our table scraps, and especially watermelon rinds, on top of the stonewall I had been building just beyond our kitchen entrance. Every morning, what ever scraps we had put out there were gone with no trace. eventually, we not only had a family of raccoons, but a couple of skunks, possums, probably some rats and some other wild critters visiting. Often, there would be a line up of our visitors waiting for me t place goodies on the wall. They were no afraid, and once used to me, hey were not particularly stand offish either. Our dog, even tho a hunting breed, would not give chase ad it was like we were all one happy family.
Shortly, my wifes nephew and niece came to visit from Germany. On our way home from picking them up at Kennedy Airport, we were telling the two youngsters about our daily evening visitors. The two were very excited about the prospects of seeing us feed our wild friends and hoped they could see them up close. When we got home from the airport, of course just about all the conversation was of the German tongue, with only an occasional interpretation in english as my wife tried to keep our children and me up to date as best she could. There was plenty of talk, >>> but no animals!!! The children from across the pond were disappointed, to say the least. They stayed disappointed for the entire two weeks visit. The day after we took them to the airport for their return to Germany, the entire lineup reappeared.
Eventually, the neighbor who had planned to poison our friendly visitors moved away. They brought different problem in the form of a rather nasty dog. That is another long story. The feeding of our "livestock" soon came to an end, but we enjoyed the trip while it lasted.
[member=550]Tinker[/member] thank you for sharing all the wonderful stories and keep them coming!
RMW
