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Plans for a short
vacation in the Smoky Mountains
What’s new right now is that Donna Rai’ and I are
anticipating a great mini-vacation later this month in
the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. We’ve got a “rustic”
cabin rented and plan to use it for evening campfires
and sleeping, but most of our time will be spent in the
forest. We plan to do miles of hiking every day and take
lots of outdoor photos and - maybe - check out the place
for fly-fishing. You can expect a destination column on
the subject sometime soon, probably in June.
My next column will come out on Sunday, May 20th, and I
just might write about “wildlife in the city of Sharon,”
which sounds like a contradiction in terms, but you
wouldn’t believe the animals we’ve seen at our new
location in town near Sharon High School in our big back
yard and old stone quarry. We see lots of birds and
squirrels, of course, but you’d be surprised at the
hawks that have been cruising the airways above our back
patio. I see a pair of sharp-shinned hawks out there
almost every day, swooping down and scaring the
daylights out of bird-feeder tweety birds and even
shadowing the occasional neighborhood cat. And there’s a
big stick nest in our next-door neighbor’s maple tree
with a huge redtail hawk incubating her eggs there.
Plus, we apparently have deer in the area. I saw some
tracks in the snow last winter and neighbors Chuck
Bestwick and Mark DeMario each spotted a small herd when
I was out of town. Amazing. They must have come in from
Buhl Park, Sharon Country Club, or the Dum-Dum golf
course. It just goes to show how adaptable wildlife can
be, I guess.
Good luck out there. And have a great week outdoors
~ Don Feigert, 5-8-07
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