Highspire from the PA turnpike bridge
This post is just a little about our home. We’ve lived in the same house for forty years. When we moved in there was an active corn field behind us. It was a narrow strip of land, but several blocks long. An assortment of wildlife found its way into our yard and even into our house.
Wetlands behind our house.
We have had an assortment of stray cats, groundhogs, mice, bats, turtles, moles, squirrels, opossums, raccoons, and even a deer just last year find their way into the field, now just a field of weeds and groundhog burrows. The mice. two bats, and two turtles found their way inside our house.
Pennsylvania Canal on the other side of the field
Let me just preface this next part with a note that neither my husband nor I can or want to kill any living thing, and that include bugs and insects for my husband, I don’t go that far. We caught both bats (YUCK!!). One had been in the house (upstairs room that we used for storage) for a while. We found the evidence. That one had to be “dealt” with, but we couldn’t do it so a neighbor helped with it. The second one was only a few years ago. We had our cats, and they had a ball chasing this flying rodent from room to room before we captured it (hubby caught it in a fishing net on a pole, and I put a broom on top of it to keep it from getting loose.) This one had just gotten into the garage and from there into the house so we felt save in turning it loose. In case you don’t know, bats will return to a nesting place, but if they haven’t established living quarters, most likely it will not.
The cats have been taking care of our mice population that swells as the weather gets colder. We’ve been successful about fifty percent of the time in capture and releasing them.
One of two Turtle X-ing signs
The first turtle we found was in the basement and we can only guess it came up through a french drain. It was only the size of a quarter and was a snapping turtle. The second one was today. It was a box turtle and was the size of my husbands hand. Because the township has put in a park on the other side of the empty field, and the park borders the old Pennsylvania Canal, and reservoir, we carried the turtle back there and turned it loose in the trees and weeds around the water.
The pictures in this post are of that release area, and the “turtle” crossing signs warning cars of the reason for the 25 MPH speed limit. Its a beautiful park and a real tribute to the Civil War era when the Canal flourished, and White House Lane (the street passes the park) was the location of a White House Inn, a resting place for Canal travelers.
