wild things encouraged in the house

hi all,

i've been living in the woods (old growth forest near the central oregon coast) in a fixer i bought about 3 years ago.  it's a fairly good sized old hippie cabin i fell in love with.

ever since i was a kid reading stories about cute animals living in kitchen cupboards i've wondered what it would be like to share a house with wildlife.

i decided to try it out with this place.  i leave all my windows wide open, even through the winter unless it's too windy.  i took my bird blocks out and now the house has "gills".  i talk to the mice in the walls, have bats flying around regularly and i enjoy watching the moths fly around my strand of string lights.  i talk to every creature i see and get a lot of enjoyment out of it.  there's a wren that comes in regularly and a lot of "one timer" birds and squirrels that come in out of curiosity.

it's just me and my dog here and i live like a quaker.  i could probably fit all my belongings in a backpack.  there's not a speck of food anywhere and scrubbing all the surfaces in the kitchen with plenty of soap and water every morning is a ritual.

wondering if anyone has adopted a similar relationship with wildlife in the house.

rissa

Over the years we have had different adorable critters in our house.

When we lived in Dallas, there was a chameleon lizard that hung out in my kitchen.  If I remember correctly I oened the screen when it was nice weather to let it out.

There have been pet spiders and praying mantis over the years.

Where we live now there was a lizard when we bought the unfinished house.  We were often gone and it probably did not survive the hot summer or maybe it just got out.

We have deer we are fond of though they do not come into the house.

When our daughter was a teenager she had fish, turtles and an opossum.

I am sorry, though that I cannot tolerate mice and rats so we have a cat.

She is the only wildlife that stays in the house though only at night.  Who knows what she does during the day.

I for the most part have a live and let live view towards the world.  The creepy-crowlies if they stay mostly out of sight, I'm OK with sharing. if they feel the need to run across the floors, well they win a free trip to the great outdoors.

Larger critters I would not invite in.  

Except one or two of the crows that I have been feeding.  (It's a bucket list thingy, to hand feed one or more, before --- well you know!)


Peace

how did your daughter end up with an opposum?!

i'm not sure how it happened but the spiders have taken over the bathroom.  i can't stop being fascinated by all the drama.  i keep telling them and myself i'm going to clean the corners and windows and they'll have to make a new start.  but then i start looking closer and can't bring myself to disturb them.

there are black funnel spiders that make the most beautiful webs, the spindly cellar spiders (the top dogs) and a few huge hairy brown types (with equally huge fangs). before watching them in my bathroom i assumed each spider had it's own web and rarely left it.  now i know it's like musical chairs every night.

this is the time of year the bugs get sparse and the spindly cellar spiders eat all the big hairy spiders and a good portion of the bigger funnel spider population.  i used to be scared of the big hairy spiders but now i see them and feel scared FOR them.  it's rare to see one but every time i do the spindly cellar spiders get it by morning.  i try not to judge but the cellar spiders are brutal.

I find that if you give rodents a fraction of an inch they will take a mile. So like them I am pretty aggressively territorial. This side's yours, that side's mine. I suspect that if you start to grow, harvest and store food, your perspective may shift. My 2c.

hi douglas

i think my perspective shifted in the opposite direction, haha.

i should add i've taken several truckloads of rodent infested pink insulation to the dump.  as i repair this place i clean the walls out.

the surprising thing is the lack of rodent visitors since having my open door policy.  

i can't help but notice each time i decide to let a particular creature come in at will, it no longer comes in.  lol, not sure what's going on there.  some kind of universal law?

rissa