A new couple has moved into the neighborhood, and I’ve named them Lucy and Ricky. They are two pine martens, and they’ve been as entertaining as their namesake the 1950’s I Love Lucy show. I never know when they’ll come or go, but life is never dull with them around.
Just the other day, as I was sipping the last of my morning coffee, a loud thud on the deck caught my attention. Grabbing my camera I ran to the window and there she was—the one I’ve dubbed Lucy—sitting on the deck railing. As I watched, she gazed up at the suet ball, then stood erect on her hind feet looking like she was going to make a giant leap up to the hanging suet.
I had been hiding from view behind the large croton plant that is taking over my living room, but now I left my hiding spot, readied my camera and crept closer to the window. She didn’t notice, she was so engrossed in her task. I aimed my camera, clicked and hoped for the best.
What a sight. She stood on her hind legs, brown furry body straight as a ballerina’s and suddenly made a tremendous leap through the air. Silently, I cheered her on, but she fell short of the luscious suet, bounced off the house wall and landed on the deck.
Undaunted by failure, she ran toward the corner pillar.
Engrossed in watching the action right in front of me, I was startled when something dark at the bird feeding area on the ground caught my eye. It was Ricky, the other pine marten, chomping down sunflower seeds like there was no tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Lucy changed tactics. She clambered up the corner pillar and shimmied up the rainspout to the roof. Her little paws disappeared but suddenly her cat-like face popped out over the roof ’s edge, directly over the suet. She hung upside down, peeping over the eave until she realized this too was futile. She could not reach her prize.
Clearly not one to dwell on the negative, she shimmied back down to the deck and headed straight for a bulging garbage bag sitting by my front door. Oh no, I’d set it out and forgotten to put it in the can, and now Lucy was bearing down on it.
I visualized a scattered mess of leftover pizza and ham sandwiches on the deck and thought about running out and shooing her away, but that would have ruined my morning’s entertainment. What would she do? Would she rip it apart or open the ties?
But Lucy was not a patient animal. Speed seemed to be her forte, and she soon found she couldn’t easily get at the food and ran around the back of the house.
That wasn’t the end of Lucy. Soon she popped up on the deck near the kitchen door. Flitting over snow-covered planters, she circled the deck once, then dropped to the ground and circled the house again at the lower level, looking for any morsel of food that might be hidden under the snow.
Eventually she decided to move on and disappeared down a small ravine and out of my sight. Meanwhile, Ricky finally must have eaten his fill, and he too, followed Lucy’s path and disappeared.
I went back to my daily chores feeling rather proud. I’d found the perfect name for the two animals…Lucy and Ricky…new in the neighborhood.
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