Vocal Point : Wild creatures add to awareness of life

In this season of thanks, I am adding something to the long list: the wild animals that we live with and have become intertwined with in our daily life.

When we first moved to Spokane four years ago, I fantasized about a large flower garden. But the fantasy was considered just that, fantasy, by a lot of people.

The animals will slap me into my senses, everyone promised. Pigheaded and unconvinced, I planted a few roses the first year.

Soon my vision of a garden nearly met its demise.

When the roses started to bud, I counted them. I went to bed counting the buds and got up in the morning counting the buds.

Soon I found myself subtracting buds daily. Then one morning, everything was gone, buds and all. Just the ugly chewed-up twigs remained, like a whip on the face for all summer’s anticipation.

At 6 a.m., I stood in the yard, letting out howls of defeat and heartbreak, followed by profanity and threats of violence. I screamed so loudly it scared my husband, who urged me to seek professional help.

Never one to accept defeat in the first round, I bought more roses. Meanwhile, I made no attempt at hiding my sentiment toward my mysterious nemesis.

Inevitably somebody would say: “Well, they were here first. This is their land, too.”

“This may be their land,” I secretly retorted, “but we are paying the taxes! Does that mean anything?”

So with the burning desire to make paying property taxes show, and an assumption that brute force could bring a few spared blooms, I stubbornly pressed on.

Today, after four years, 200 roses and, most importantly, a good deer repellent, I have finally found a middle ground. I have learned to incorporate deer damage into my plans.

This compromise lets me see the animal as it is meant to be seen – a magnificent creature graceful and regal to behold.

But then, turkeys showed up – hundreds of them. The invasion threatened to destroy the garden within minutes, taking the soil and mulch with it.

I found myself waving a broomstick and flinging everything in sight at these equally determined birds.

I begged my husband to stop watering in the high heat. I pleaded with the boys to stand sentry by the garden.

Everyone was utterly oblivious to my plight.

One day, a visiting flock wandered into the path of the regulars. Tempers flared, bodies scattered, feathers flew and loud shrieks pierced the heavy afternoon air.

My son, Hunter, 6, who is something of a World War II buff, called out to me: “Look! Mama! Look! It’s the Battle of Bulge!”

A summer of chasing around and facing the accusing looks of the young environmentalists in the house finally makes me throw in the broomstick. I bought bird netting.

It looks terrible. But there is peace in the garden.

But I still dread the heat of next summer because of the rattlesnakes that decided to live under the rose bushes.

One day, one of them lunged at my husband. Another day, one confronted me, all coiled up under the rosebush.

With children around, rattlesnakes are not a risk we are willing to take. So my husband shot it.

Who would have thought gardening could be a violent pursuit that involved a shotgun? I have now taken to poking around the garden with a 6-foot bamboo pole, like a blind man testing the ground.

Entertainment, challenges and dangers lurk in every corner of our savage backyard. But that’s what makes living with nature so exhilarating and humbling at the same time.

We learn to devise coping skills and begin to see ourselves as part of all living things – a link in the chain. That’s worth more than a dozen roses any day.