Oh My Ears and Whiskers!

We've lived in our house for 6½ years. For the first 4 or so, we had neighbors to the left who were pretty okay, generally, friendly and outgoing, but they had a couple of glaring flaws that never quite jibed with who they appeared to be in most cases. They were absolute barbarians when it came to on-street parking, always taking up more space than they needed, poaching spots in the winter instead of shovelling their own, etc. (I watched them drive over someone else's folding chair once, on purpose.) The wife was particularly pushy and bossy, and she was inclined to start feuds with neighbors over perceived slights that she had no qualms about foisting on other people. And, they had a Rottweiler.

Now we have nothing against Rottweilers, and their dog was seriously one of the sweetest I have ever known. I don't remember ever once hearing him bark. We used to sneak him hamburgers if one fell off the grill and on the ground. He was perfectly fine. Except, well, he was a Rottweiler, and the neighbors didn't keep him leashed when they let him outside to "do his business."

Not sure if you're familiar with Rottweiler refuse, but it's some pretty high-test stuff. There used to be a hedge of assorted roses between our yard and the neighbor's, all different colors and sizes, and by someone's calculations once, the bushes were at least 10 years old, possibly as old as 15. The neighbors just let their dog pee all over these rose bushes, and now they are essentially gone, burned down to stumps from Rottweiler urine sitting in the sun all day. Once the dog marked himself a through-way between the roses, he would come over and make his messes in our yard. We spent a lot of time throwing bags of dog poop back over in the neighbor's yard and trying to rescue heirloom flowers in our beds that were victims of their dog's bladder.

Le sigh.

Those neighbors have been gone for a couple of years now, but it's taken a while for all of the territorial markings from the Rottweiler to wear off, because we are finally starting to see more and more wildlife in our backyard. We're practically running a refuge for field mice liberated from our kitchen:

And we keep seeing this rabbit running around our place at night:

And when my mom was down working in my side flower bed, the one in the shade with the hydrangea and some bleeding hearts and the giant hostas and the clover? You guys, she found a freakin' rabbit's nest, complete with three wee little baby kits:

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS, these are the cutest things I ever seen in my whole entire life and I include my own kid in there somewhere. SO CUTE! They're probably as big as my hand, and there are three of them, and you can see in the pictures that they are totally adorbs and also that their fur looks so SOFT. I just want to pick one up and smell it but of course I know the rules about not touching it so the mama doesn't reject it blahablahblah. I'm not going to DO IT, because come on I have read "Bunnicula"* but still.

Baby bunnehs in my own yard. And last year we had the robin's nest in the butterfly bush. I am thinking about getting a statue of St. Francis of Assisi.

* Amazon affiliate link.