Informal Settlers

I apologize again for the long absence. In addition to being in and out of town, I've also been experiencing problems with laptop battery retardation. I'm operating a laptop now without a battery, so I always need power to blog-- I can't blog in transit. That's making me a bit remiss in recording my thoughts.

But anyway, someone has taken residency near our workshop/garage. It's a little white puppy with short legs, the child of the white dog who makes frequent appearances in our garden. Here it is, resting in a relatively hidden spot before sprinting across the grass into its home.



It's a really cute thing and scared of people. I'm a bit fascinated as to how the mother-child tandem are able to work out an arrangement of living close to each other (the ma lives somewhere in our garden, I suspect), but separate, for the sake of safety. The puppy climbs into the tangle of vines and baskets, and surfaces to be with his/her mother or to eat.

One time, because of my brutish nature, I waited by its home and tried to grab the puppy to inspect it more closely. Unfortunately, it was really frightened, and half its body was inside the basket-jungle, so I would have had to tear it in half to extract it. It started crying with a voice that much exceeded its size, and the mom arrived on the scene soon after. Honestly, I felt really bad about stressing it out, but I was just overcome with curiosity. The mom was kind enough to just stand beside us and make sure I didn't harm the pup.

Often they go out together, presumably on learning lessons about hunting or foraging for food, or maybe plain togetherness. Here is a photo of the pup crossing the dangerous grass area where it is likely to be grabbed by curious residents of our home:



And here is the mom following it across: