How to express my dismay and sheer chagrin at the mutilation and destruction of the luscious vegetation covering the mundane chain link fence across the way. Not only had it provided much needed shelter and food for the Cardinal couples and Titmouse’s flitting to and from my front yard bird feeder; it provided a graceful screen of the abandoned, dilapidated house across the street.

The city-kitties came by a few weeks ago and sheered off a goodly amount. Randomly hacking and cutting with wanton disregard for anything except “neatness”. I stood on my front stoop and glared my sharp disapproval, but the man said: “I’m just doing my job. Gotta keep the fire-hydrant clear.” I looked him in the pocket protector and then looked 20 yards to the west where the Fire Hydrant still squatted in the same drab disarray as it had before his steely machinations. He looked there with me and then looked askew at my girly shape and said: “M’am: You surely should be grateful…there’s snakes and bugs in yonder that will have to go some-a-wheres else now.”

Exactly. The same snakes and bugs that kept the other wild things either in check or well fed. The Yellow Rat snakes will now move down the block, but the rats won’t! They’ll take the easy way to get fed and come looking in my larder. The Black Racer that split his time (and tongue!) between my (sorta) trimmed bushes where the pickings were easier and the choked fence line across the street, (where he had to be extra slick) will now likely lay low and not even bother. The frogs and crickets he ate will now put up a horrendous racket and disturb my beauty sleep.

The Sulpher Moths will not have anywhere to shade from the brutal noonday sun and the Ant-Lions (better known as “doodle-bugs”) will not be able to doodle in quiet seclusion. It will be mayhem and chaos among the small and crawly ones! No where to sleep, no where to eat and no where, no how, to hide!

This I could not abide. In the low-light of the coming thunder storm, I went over there. I stood still and looked so very softly. Then I began to sing an old song, something I heard in a church one time. I opened up my heart and held my arms wide, up to the lowering sky. And two by two, and then three by three and then all of a sudden a whole bunch of them ran, and crawled and flew and doodled right past me, right into my yard.

There in the shade of the Spider-Wort grown tall and the Beauty-Berries proud and lush, they made a new home. Dirt here was aplenty, and tall grasses and weeds to spare! A mighty Oak and a silly, frilly Crepe Myrtle welcomed them all to their new home.