I live in a small town in west-central Missouri, U.S.A. The terrain is gently rolling to flat; we are less than an hour away from the Missouri River. My little town is one down-ramp from Interstate 70 between Columbia and Kansas City, a great place to dehydrate and re-hydrate, a potty break town. Now that you know where I live, I want to tell you about my surroundings and tiny black fighter jets.
A menagerie of creatures lives on my ten acres. There is me, my high school daughter, my traveling husband, a traveling, researcher son, a college student son, two dogs, Schwartzie and Fritz, a miniature goat, one little red hen, three Embden geese, and a dozen fancy show rabbits. Schwartzie started out as a 4-H project, she and my daughter had to take obedience training for 4- H competition. Fritz is a black labrador retriever. One of the "neighbors" dumped him on our driveway when he was about three months old; his right eye is naturally blind, according to the vet.
The miniature goat was just a strange decision that I am not going to talk about. The little red hen, Mrs. Chicken, is an escapee from a leftover 4-H project from the college son. The geese are the remainders of eight that my husband gave me as a gift, which I requested. Embden geese are the great big white geese that like to act like watch dogs or at least make that much noise. Some of the geese were given to my sister and her family, some made the fox and coyote population healthier, some begat others and also helped the fox and coyote population and some stood on the road too long and the "man things" found them.
So, I only have three geese now. A dozen fancy show rabbits might seem a little extravagant, but we are a 4-H family. My daughter shows her rabbits at many shows, county and state fair and national competitions throughout the year. The rabbits travel frequently; too bad they do not get frequent flyer miles. Most of my menagerie lives in the backyard.
My backyard is like a cereal bowl. I think of it that way because the erosion from the berm is like the sugar falling off of the cereal and sinking through the milk to the bottom of the bowl. I occasionally have standing water at the bottom of the bowl and the geese like to muddle it; which makes it look like milk. The glass sliding door faces south into the backyard and opens onto a big deck. The deck is oddly shaped to accommodate the shed, the shaded deck, where the rabbits live, and the steps down to the earth.
The fenced garden is next to the deck allowing the composting of rabbit droppings during the winter. The garden is not big; it fits in this niche very nicely. I like a garden that is manageable. If I cannot reach to the center and pull weeds easily then it is too big for me, no one else enjoys gardening at my house, so I keep it simple. The west side of the backyard is a huge berm that leads up to the highest part of the ten acres. It is high to accommodate a shallow pond. The berm sweeps around from west to south making a corner of the backyard, encircling it to make the cereal bowl part. The sloping part of the berm is clay as is most of the soil in the ten acres, and it tends to erode to the bottom of the bowl by silting into crumbs and not growing anything. I sow pounds and pounds of seeds on it to no avail. Currently, I am trying native prairie grass, which takes two whole summers to establish. I am told that it should not be mown during this establishment time. Wow, is it ugly but the erosion is slowing! Sowing seeds is a chore that leads to more chores such as mowing, eventually. Chores are the little things we do to get through the day a little easier and to prevent doing twice as much tomorrow.
Outside chores are weeding the garden, and feeding the dogs, the goat, the chicken, the geese, and the rabbits. My daughter cares for the rabbits and I care for the geese and chicken, goat and dogs. The animals are well fed. Sometimes the geese do not eat all the feed at once, due to their grazing and meandering nature; therefore, wild creatures are attracted. Wild rabbits and many species of birds seem to know about the feed dish.
When chores are complete its time to go inside, wash up and get busy on the kitchen chores. I have a very nice picture window over my kitchen sink that frames the view of the back yard. This is my wildlife spy window. The curtains shade the afternoon heat away in summer and provide camouflage for the wildlife spy, that's me. There is one little cottontail that likes to sneak over to the feed dish at dusk.
