Life In These Parts

My mom and sister joke with me that New Hampshire is SO populated and SO full of traffic and people. I guess when you live in Alaska, everything seems more populated. I love living in rural New Hampshire and I especially living in our home and in our neighborhood. We don't live way out in the boonies, but neither do we have houses right on top of each other in our neighborhood. In fact, in summertime, you can hardly see the houses on either side of us because of all of the trees. There is quite a bit of privacy. It is quiet and peaceful. Because our property borders on woods that cannot be developed, we get a few furry, feathered and slimy visitors here and there. We've seen foxes, wild turkeys, deer, woodchucks, skunks, moles, snakes, frogs, all kinds of birds, the occasional lost cow, horse and even a peacock wandering around our neighborhood. Taigen even saw (after 10+ years of living in New England) a moose on the way into work one morning recently!

Tuesday morning I was washing up some dishes after breakfast when I looked outside to see a new creature lurking around the lowest tier of our deck. I said to myself, "That is the biggest weasel I've ever seen!" But then I said, "That's no weasel. I think that's a fisher cat!" I watched him walk around the deck and, I thought, disappear. I was disappointed that I hadn't had time to grab the camera. I was also disappointed the the kids hadn't been able to see it. I continued washing my dishes and watching outside. He reappeared! He had been on our deck right next to the house the whole time! He was sniffing and searching for something under the deck. Maybe one of the stray cats? Maybe a mouse? Who knows but he was looking. He dived under the deck. I got the camera out and waited. Sure enough, he reappeared and started heading into the woods behind our house. I was able to snap up a few pictures of him. This was incredible. We had heard of fishers, and many have heard them (they have an unearthly scream...one that would curdle your blood!), but it's rare to actually see one.

I called Taigen and told him, "I think we had a fisher cat in our yard this morning!" While I was on the phone with him I watched the fisher wander off into the woods. At the same time I googled "fisher cats" on my iTouch. (Go ahead and google it yourself and be sure to click on Google Images at the top of the screen. They are scary!) Once the images loaded up, I knew I had guessed correctly. These are not friendly beasts. They are mean and their teeth alone would be something that would scare you indoors! Combine that with their scream and you have a creature perfect for a nightmare. I was glad to have observed him from indoors.

The kids came down and I told them that they had just missed seeing a fisher cat. Just then, the fisher came wandering out of the woods and was walking along our property again! The kids were able to see him very clearly from our patio door and then from a side window and then from our front door! He was headed over to our neighbor's house. I quickly called her and told her not to let out her dog. Their poodle would have made a nice snack!

I am glad for the quiet, peaceful life that we have and for the woodsy feel of our neighborhood. It's great that we have some wildlife exposure, but it is also wonderful to observe some of these from the comfort (AND safety) of our house.