Northwest Living

I’m a city girl at heart, specifically a beach city, but always loved the idea of nature…. the idea of it. My parents dragged us camping when we were kids maybe two or three times. As an adult I braved camping once on my own (with a college class) and loved it. Other people were cooking and dealing with fires, and there were public restrooms, but it was great.

It helped we were across the street from a beach 🙂

I’ve lived in beach cities, and desert cities. I’m now a resident of Washington State and it’s gorgeous! I’m just having to adjust to some of the crazy lifestyle changes.

For instance, in Arizona and Texas, keeping grass alive in a small patch was a struggle. Something against nature and all water restrictions. Here it pops up everyfrickinwhere. And in all forms. Moss, algae, fungus, mold. Anything that can sprout and/or root WILL. It grows on concrete, for pete sake!

There are pests. In Arizona it was scorpions. Everywhere you go you had to shake something out first. I don’t know why, necessarily. The little f-ers can hang onto anything. But regardless, you smack your shoes, you shake your towels, you billow your sheets. The alternative is unacceptable.
Also in the dry pizza oven heat were frogs. Big fat frogs that sit on your property in the dark croaking and luring your dog to just take a small lick so they can kill your pets. Poisonous introduced species of frogs that would get as big as a dessert plate. I had to walk our acre and a half property and put them in a bucket to toss them elsewhere so as not to kill our family mastiff. These things were big, fat, slimy and would piss all over themselves when you pick them up. Fun times!

In Texas it was Longhorn fans. They are everywhere! 🙂
Also, there were ants. Everywhere. Multiple species and a spray for each kind. Fire ants, acrobat ants, carpenter ants, pharaoh ants, crazy ants. (yes, that’s the actual name of it!) And my own personal favorite; chiggers. I’m itching just remembering that catastrophe.

Here we have hobo spiders. Wolf spiders. Indoor spiders, outdoor spiders, garage spiders, wall-clinging spiders. Beer drinking, chain smoking hairy wall climbing spiders.

I’m not a fan of bugs. At all. et al. Todo los crawlies.

However, there’s a whole new category of critters I need to accommodate my brain to understand.

Deer. They are all over our current neighborhood. Driving home the other night, there was a rather large female (i think) standing and chomping at the end of our street. Coming back this morning from dropping my son off at school there was a family grazing along the side of the road. Three or four of ’em just meandering throughout people’s properties, inches from the curving blind turning street.

Bears. We have been warned by our next door neighbor that 2 years ago, one was right on her front lawn one morning.

A frigging BEAR!

Across the street from that neighbor, this person tells me there are “a couple of coyote dens” behind her house.

What. The. Fuck ?!

I say, “Oh man, it must be frustrating to not let your two boys just go play in the backyard unsupervised.” she scoffed at me and said, “Oh, they go out alone, they just know to not investigate the rustling noises in the woods.”

….. huh?

Mountain Lions. There aren’t any around us, but while on our house search, one area is actually named Cougar Mountain. We decided not to purchase there.
I’m considering enclosing our property in a glass bubble. That way i’m guaranteed not to trip and stumble into the arms of a bear before my morning coffee, but i’m free to admire all the wildlife traipsing around here from the safety of my observation deck.

No paper route for my kids!