The permanent local wildlife included harmless turkey vultures at the bottom of the garden; vicious fire ants and chiggers – you didn’t go bare foot outside.
Occasional visitors included a brown recluse – that I dropped a book on; a black widow spider – that got sprayed; a roadrunner that ran past the porch shortly followed, I kid not, by a coyote; small albino lobsters we became adept at dealing with; hummingbirds that came to feed at the back porch and there was a doe that ran across the yard. Wasps
Went out driving we used to joke that a van went around at night and threw dead animals onto the road: skunks – they really do smell; armadillo; copperheads and diamond-backed rattlesnakes.
southworth-barlow
