My Florida
By Melody Murphy [melody@ocalasgoodlife.com]
W
hen the world fell apart in March, I was lucky enough to keep my job and to be able to work from home. My dining-room table became my office. The weather was lovely, so I shut off the air conditioner and opened the windows and the back door. On especially pleasant days, I set up a card table on my patio and worked out there, enjoying the cool jasminescented air, warm sunshine, and birdsong. As spring passed, the magnolias blossomed, their lemony fragrance wafting on the breeze. A tangle of wisteria and trumpet honeysuckle vines rioted along the fence. The mimosa and rain lilies bloomed into pink perfection, and the golden-yellow flowers of the shell ginger plant lured hummingbirds and honeybees. I was supposed to be onstage in April as Miss Maudie in To Kill a Mockingbird at Ocala Civic Theatre. Then life got cancelled. Instead, I’ve been living like Miss Maudie, spending all my time outdoors among my azaleas, with actual mockingbirds. Also included among my new colleagues are lizards, squirrels, cardinals, Carolina wrens, butterflies, and the neighbor’s black cats stalking through my jungle of ferns. I keep my binoculars by my laptop for when I hear the hoot of a barred owl, the shriek of a red-shouldered hawk, the cry of a pileated woodpecker. There are lots of big old live oaks, magnolias, pecan trees, and sweetgums around here where they nest. The first week of working from home, I heard a persistent screeching, day and night, from high up in an
On especially pleasant days, I set up a card table on my patio and worked out there, enjoying the cool jasmine-scented air, warm sunshine, and birdsong.
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OCALA’S GOOD LIFE retirement redefined
old live oak. I also kept hearing barred owls hooting and calling in the daytime. Then I realized—the screeching was baby owls. Their nest was in that oak. And the grown owls were unusually vocal by day because they were out gathering food for the babies. The baby owls must have hatched at the end of March. They spend about a month in the nest before they fledge, and these appeared in early May. There were three of them, fluffy and demanding and just learning to fly. They would sit in my yard, wobbling on low tree limbs or the fence, and screech at me while their parents were out gathering dinner. I spoke nicely to them, they screeched back, and we conversed in this manner. They let me get remarkably close. In late May, once their flying had improved, they began their hunting lessons. One night I saw one sitting in the middle of the street. When I went out to check on him, he looked up at me and screeched, lifting his little talon, in which was clutched... something. I was thankful it was dark. But I was oddly proud of him. And I think he was proud of himself for his first catch and wanted to show me. I feel a little like their godmother, which is a peculiar way to feel about owls. I started seeing only two of them together in my yard. The third would come from the north at dusk for a family reunion at my street corner. It reminded me of the Fates or the three witches in Macbeth. By the beginning of June, only one had made his home in my yard. I still go out and speak to him every evening. He is bigger now and perches confidently on higher branches and the corner of my roof. And he is a little more wary of my company. If I step too close for his comfort, he clicks his beak at me and ruffles up his feathers. You have your social distancing, I have mine, he says. I have learned his limits and respect them. I probably appear unhinged, lurking in my yard in the twilight gloom, conversing with birds of prey. I do not care. In times of quarantine, we take whatever company we can get, and are grateful.
Harry Collins Photography/Shutterstock
Social Distancing From My Backyard
