Outside Our Door

I have always been pulled between the country and the city. I love the peace, quiet, and beauty of the country but I also love the hustle, convenience, and opportunity of a city. Surprisingly, by moving into an apartment in Ohio I have managed to find a bit of both. I had reservations about moving into an apartment. I liked my house in Connecticut, though not the specific location, and didn’t particularly want to go back to not having a yard and being able to hear my neighbors through the walls. Fortunately, we can’t hear our neighbors through the walls and we have a nature preserve outside our building. The park is reasonably small at about 80 acres and it includes a 13 acre lake. It is surrounded by residential and commercial buildings but it still peaceful. We have been amazed at the variety of wildlife we have seen in the few weeks we have lived here.

Most evenings, a family of deer wander out from the strip of woods to the side of our building, through the green space behind us, and into the park. The most we have seen at one time is seven. They don’t seem to be bothered by people and they happily make their way through the woods to the lake and stream where they play in the water and eat the vegetation.

There is a family of woodchucks who live near the stream. This one was eating the grass by the path and obviously thought all the people walking were a nuisance. He reluctantly moved over and watched us go by with a distinctly disapproving expression.

One of the first evenings we went for a walk my daughter spotted a raccoon sleeping in a tree. Since then we have seen them a number of times. They like to sleep in the tree right opposite our balcony. This guy was ambling down the path in front of us and clambered up the tree when we got too close. He then kept peering around the side to see if we were still there. His friends were in the brush nearby and we saw three others scampering away.

The most exciting animal we have seen is the beavers. They aren’t there every night which makes every walk a bit of an adventure. At one end of the lake there is a boardwalk going across the edge with some marshy area near it and the beavers like to hang out there and eat the tall grass. They are so much fun to watch.

We have also seen ducks and ducklings, geese and goslings, two great blue herons, rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels, turtles, a variety of birds, and fish. There are supposed to be mink in the woods too but we haven’t seen them yet. These photos aren’t the greatest because I snapped them on my phone when we were out for walks but I am planning to take my good camera out there one afternoon and try to get some better photos. Probably all the animals will hide that day because I will be prepared to take their picture!