Animal Stories

I have a few stories that I like to tell over and over again because the telling takes me back to that wonderful moment and I get to relive it.

The stories that give me the most joy are the ones where I have some significant interaction with an animal.  Meeting an animal and becoming fast friends... or whatever the animal equivalent is.  I've had a horse follow me around.  Met a dog in farmer's field off the road and went for a walk together.  I've had a couple herds of cows run up to their fences, just really curious about why I was walking by. A swallow fly along side me for several blocks.  A tapir trying to nose my face.  A pelican that clamped down on my arm. Looked after some pigs last summer and got to know their personalities very well. 

The most resent comes from this past summer.  I went out to my friend's family farm with a bunch of other friends.  We had a great time and one night we played sardines.  It is reverse hide-and-seek.  One person hides and everyone searches.  As each person finds the hidden person they hide with them.  Last one searching hides next.  Fun game but I was having a terrible time finding everyone in one round.  I knew it was down to just me and one other guy.  Then I spotted the farm cat.  I said hello and said I was looking for his master.  The cat meowed at me a few times and walked a straight line to where the rest of the group were hiding.  I just followed along. I definitely didn't have to hide first the next round.

But my favourite was my butterfly.  I had been working at a green house when I saw a butterfly caught up in an old spider web.  I got the notion in my head that this wasn't going to serve anything to have the dead bug just get caught up in it.  Also there wasn't much going on in the way of customers so I took my time.  I got a small bit of plant and used it to give the butterfly some purchase rather than whip around.  I used a bit of twig to free his wings from the webbing.  I never touched the butterfly itself, I was too worried that its wings might be as sensitive as a dragonfly.  I merely got the web caught on the twig and gently pulled it off the wing.  I got most of it off and I knew his feet weren't stuck because he hoped off the bit of plant and climbed onto my hand and set up shop on my finger.  I left him there to get over his trauma and went back to work.  A lot of customers were confused and thought it was a fake.  Eventually my manager just told me to go for lunch as my new little guy was distracting to everyone.  I sat and ate, I kept a sharp eye on his wings because he hadn't opened them yet and I was worried they might be stuck together.  But over the course of the lunch he tested his wings out and flapped them a bit.  He went back to sitting and I went back to my lunch.  I ended my break and headed back into work.  Again the customers were incredibly confused and couldn't seem to function with him sitting on my finger.  I eventually just had to shoo him away and really force him out the door to try flying again.  He took off and seemed to have no troubles.

What is your best animal/insect interaction story?

Spiders

As fair warning this one is probably not going to be something that everyone will want to read (this next section particularly).  Odds are that the people most afraid of spiders skipped this week based on the title alone but if you were just brave enough to get this far and want a cute story about a spider then I suggest you skip the italicized paragraph.  

I have very limited experience with spiders but I like them.  They keep bugs under control and I love seeing the detail and variety in their webs.  I'm fine when I don't need to be near them but if there is even the slightest possibility that they could bite me I get away as quick as possible.

When I was in elementary school I was sitting in class and noticed that my hand was feeling like it was burning in one section and up my arm.  I looked down to find that my skin on the back of my hand was bubbling.  Yes it was as terrifying as it sounds. I got checked over at the doctor's and they found two bite marks on the same arm as my hand.   They diagnosed me as having an allergic reaction to spider bites that I would just have to wait till it went away.  Eventually it did fade but even with being more than 15 years ago the scars are still there.

The happiest story I have about a spider is from when I was working as a school photographer.  I was driving all around the province going for a day or a week to different towns and putting a lot of time in on the road.  I began to notice a spider web that was always in pristine condition on the passenger side rear view mirror of my car.  It was in the perfect position that the wind was broken by the mirror causing the web to sway just slightly in the draft rather than being ripped up.  I assumed that it was catching the odd bug but it never seemed dirty so  I left it in the interest of seeing what it would do over time.  I didn't really think about it all that much for the next couple of trips.

One day I was sitting in my parked car having my lunch and rather large spider came out from behind the side mirror and inspected the webbing.  It wandered about eating what it had caught on the drive down.  I was amused to have a lunch companion.  That evening on the way back to the city I could only assume it was back behind the mirror.  I was hopeful that it hadn't wandered away.  Nothing like stepping out for a walk and your home having driven off.  The next day a fresh new web was ready for the drive out of town.

This continued on for the whole summer. I would come out to find a new web or the spider sitting somewhere on the webbing.  As soon as I turned on my car that little arachnid was behind my mirror and ready to travel.  It was great having a little car companion for all those months and hours on the road.  I find that I actually miss him from time to time when I am driving around.