Spring flowers
autumn moon
summer breezes
winter snow:

With mind uncluttered
·  this is  ·
the finest season!

-Wúmén Huìkāi

Too close for comfort?

The stream is shrunk – the pool is dry,
And we be comrades, thou and I;
With fevered jowl and dusty flank
Each jostling each along the bank;
And by one drouthy fear made still,
Forgoing thought of quest or kill.

Now ‘neath his dam the fawn may see,
The lean Pack-wolf as cowed as he,
And the tall buck, unflinching, note
The fangs that tore his father’s throat.

The pools are shrunk – the streams are dry,
And we be playmates, thou and I,
Till yonder cloud – Good Hunting! – loose
The rain that breaks our Water Truce.

    – Rudyard Kipling, How Fear Came To The Jungle

 

The last snows of winter are gone—but spring has its own challenges. Including more snow. Still-frozen ground preventing excavation for worms and grubs, new growth still sparse, fruits and berries and frozen bugs long since harvested: a tough time to be a mid-size mammal, however omnivorous, and especially if eating for two (or three or nine).

A scattered handful of bird-seed is enough to attract company like these cute

S0403592fp

and companionable opossums

S0472160fp

or raccoons:

S0143407fp

– Though at least one knows how to play rough, whether in pursuit of food, competition for a mate, or defense of self/family/territory, as neck and throat wounds raw

S0163427fp

and fresh

S0443221fp

show. Attempts to build rapport between genera

S0193085fp

are not always successful:

S0203091fp

The addition of a new player with long-range weapons changes the dynamic, with temporary alliances forming and dissolving

S0163076fp

S0872314fp

until everyone spreads to a more comfortable distance:

S0872321fp

 

With no Hathi to broker and enforce a snow-truce, all will walk on thin ice until spring’s bounty at last emerges anew.