Hollis Baker’s Blog

I lost a good friend the other day. I say friend, I never spoke to him, but we waved to each other often as I drove to work. Well, I waved. It looked like he was waving back as he wiggled his long ears and hopped off into the 100 or so acre field where he and his family lived. Mr. J. W. Rabbit, better known around here as Jack Rabbit. Or more correctly, jack rabbit. I affectingly just called him Jack for short. He seemed to me a connection to the land in a primeval way. Jack died when he was hit by a motor vehicle. His internment was a little primitive and we will all miss him. You see, his home, the large, open field he and his ancestors have lived on forever, had been claimed in recent years by the Carrol family, has been sold to a developer. The developer has cleared the land of brush, put in underground utilities, and built curbed, paved streets. One more piece of the farm has gone to the city.

This, at first, distressed me. However we have been doing this very thing since landing at Plymouth Rock. I remember when we first moved to this area from the big city. The first night, camping out on our newfound property, the whippoorwills calling kept us up most of the night. They weren’t really whippoorwills we later discovered. They were chuckwillswidow. They look alike, act alike; they just sing a different song. We cleared the land of brush and mowed the grass to make it look more like the city we had just fled. And, sure enough, the chuckwillswidow had to find another place to live. Not only the loss of the night singing birds, we lost the quail. Remember how peaceful it sounded, late in the evening as the shadows lengthened, the call of the Bob White quail made a peaceful feeling that seemed to envelope us? I miss that.

Across the road from Jack’s field was another open field where lived families of Shrike and Scissor Tail Flycatchers. They have been evicted by yet another home developer. Who knows what other creatures we have run off in building more and more houses. I don’t suppose we should be surprised. We did the same to the buffalo and Indian.

I don’t really mind those folks building beautiful houses, soon to be homes. And I welcome the new folks that will move into them. That is the way our society is working. I trust, when I drive to work each morning, just as the sky is blushing orange, that the people going for the paper, will take a moment to wave back to me. Then I will remember Jack, and say a prayer for his health, where ever he has gone.