Coffee Share 210305: Spring is Here

This is a Weekly Coffee Share Essay. I’m part of a small group of bloggers who stay in touch and chat about blogging, writing, or just about anything else that might be of interest.

Link to This week’s full list

Link to my Story Blog:  Table of Contents.

Greetings all.

It is here.  Spring has now undeniably arrived to Sonoma County, California.  Along with lots of interesting wild life, there are lots of things blooming that exhale, exude, expel, and fumigate the whole county with yes, allergens. So we’re all sneezing and wiping our noses in-between trips to the pharmacy to load up on antihistamines and Afrin — lots of Afrin. 

I’ve been trying to capture a photo of our Red Shouldered hawks, but for all their innate coolness, they really are camera shy and won’t sit still if they see me pause and aim my phone at them.  So, they are still gracing us with their cries as they shoot across our skies. 

Sometimes they outright cheat and go out of their way to frustrate this photographer by sitting in a sparely branched tree, but with the sun almost right behind them. A photo of that would be a boring glare. 

On the other hand, we have a new renter behind the backyard planter box.  And he’s pretty cool. I’ve mentioned we are on the edge of suburbia and with a nearby new construction site which has stirred up the local vermin, we, for the moment have driving off the local rats who are hunting for new homes.

Join me, please, in wishing the hawks good hunting in the regard. But I’m leaving out a single live trap just in case one wanders by.  It’s one of those neat little cages with bait (peanuts) near the back and when a rat goes in to grab a bite, he must step on a pressure plate that releases and locks the door, so I can dispose of him at my leisure. I’ve not caught one yet, but this week I did my daily check and found the door locked, but no rat inside.  It’s a hair trigger release, I thought.  So I was not surprised. A large enough rain drop would be able to spring the release.

But when I stooped down to pick up the trap for resetting, I found there was something — someone, captured inside.  If you’ve read many of my coffee shares, you know we host a family of small alligator lizards and I thought, of course I would capture a critter I like having around.

I carefully carried the trap over to the planter box where they all live and opened the trap door and left to attend to other chores.  When I returned, I expected the trap to be empty, but no joy.  I had to sit down with a small stick and gently prod him out.  I had the trap on my lap and the opening rested on my left knee and when he jumped out, he landed on my knee and stopped right there, clinging to my pant leg. Then he just turned his head to watch whatever I might do. Hmmm. 

“Well, hello to you and aren’t we just the friendly guy today?”

What I decided to do was to take his photo as these guys never let me get very close, but here he sat, comfortably resting on my knee. But wait!  “Who and what are you?”  His skin and features were all wrong.  Even his coloring was off somehow, so I zoomed in for a closer shot.

This was interesting.  He’s not an alligator lizard, There’s too many things wrong: shorter snout, ridges down his back, his ear slot is too pronounced and low and pinpoint dots of bright blue (which did not survive well in my blowup below) on his out of focus back and much of his skin covered with tiny thorns. “Are you a miniature dragon?”So we sat and chatted for a bit, but he really wasn’t the talkative type. So, as I slipped my phone back into my pocket and he finally tired of watching me from my knee and darted off.  For a lizard, this guy was downright friendly. 

Okay, be honest.  Would you have just sat there with him on your knee?

Next I need to give you an update on the volunteer cherry tree. It’s doing really well. It had plenty of blossoms but for whatever reason, they weren’t very resilient and the slightest breeze would shake off the petals, but the new leaves – they’re everywhere, top to bottom.

The tree has not grown any taller that I can tell.  It’s still about 10 feet, which I thought was too tall for a successful transplant, but here it is, making quite a show of surviving and flourishing. Since the new leaves are so small, I thought a shot with my finger would help you see the scale of what this look like.

Finally, I got one new story out last weekend after posting my previous coffee share.  I decided to add one story about a cat I had back in the mid 1970s.  He had personality. He had a conniving mindset. He had resilience.  He had discernment that I could not understand and he had a name like no other.  If you missed it, please give my one pet gato a click and enjoy his 8-minute story. My One Cat Story

So spring has really arrived and that’s it for me this week.  Thanks for stopping by. I’ll be around to visit your share shortly.

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Blessings all! 

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