Nature With(out) Man

photo from Wiki Commons taken by Ken Thomas

My good friend JMC just had his first kid but he’s committed to staying in his Manhattan apartment. To him it’s either full on city or deep in the country. “None of this half ass suburbs stuff,” he likes to say.

I live in the suburbs. Boring? At times. Too high a minivan-to-person ratio? Most definitely. But try as many do to manicure it to sterility perfection, nature creeps back in. On Monday a red tailed hawk took down a morning dove in my neighbor’s front yard. All that’s left are feathers mixed in with acorns and fallen oak leaves to rake.

My other neighbor had a possum take residence in his trash can for two days. One mean son of a bitch.

Me? I noticed these holes on one of the columns on my back porch.

Not termites or carpenter ants. A mysterious interloper with a predilection for destruction. Yesterday, I saw him at work. A downy woodpecker that somehow manages to hammer things out in stealth mode outside my home office window.

Hey I’m not even mad. I’m impressed. That’s amazing.