Last night, right in the middle of one of my usual nightmares, I was awoken by a terrifying sound. It was coming from directly in front of and below my bed, and sounded like heavy footsteps right on my front porch. I lay silent, blind eyes open in the dark. Then I heard it again, several loud thumps, booted feet just outside.

Cold adrenaline filled my veins in the time it took to sit up and and turn on the light by the bed. It was just after 1:00 a.m. I opened my nightstand and took out the can of pepper spray that’s always there. For an ironic second I remembered the recent day I visited my friend Aaron and he showed me a small Glock pistol, suggesting it would be a good thing to have stashed in a bedroom drawer. He, like most of the men who know how I live out here, wants to see me armed.

I crept out of bed and over to the “oh, shit” floodlight switch on the wall. I’d asked for this switch to be installed when the house was built for just this sort of event, so if I was ever feeling threatened I could flood the yard with light without leaving my bedroom. I turned on the lights, praying they’d be enough to frighten this person off my porch, and stood listening.

It was quiet.

I moved to the top of the stairs, and undid the safety clasp on the pepper spray.

Still quiet.

I steeled myself for a confrontation, and walked down the stairs and over to the front door. I looked out the sidelight into the night.

And there was a raccoon, doubled over at the end of the walkway, eating something. And instantly I knew what it was. I’d been using some heavy glass eggs in the chickens’ nesting box to try to induce one of them to go broody. I’d removed them yesterday because a real chicken egg had cracked, coating the glass eggs with raw yolk. I’d stashed these eggs in a planter on the front porch until I could take them in to wash, and of course I forgot about them.

So this raccoon had managed to get a glass egg out of the planter, no doubt creating the crashing sounds I heard on the porch, and was trying to eat it. My glass egg, which by the way, was very pretty and kind of pricey and sold as a decorative objet at fancy boutique store downtown.

I opened the door, and the raccoon started running down the driveway. With my glass egg. Dammed if that little bastard was going to give me the fright of the year and make off with my home decor. I ran after the raccoon, down the driveway in my pajamas and sock feet, making my best frightening noises.

And when the raccoon got to the road, he dropped my glass egg and disappeared into the tall grass. Triumphant, and oh, so relieved, I picked up the raccoon-spit covered egg, returned home, and deposited it with the others in a bowl, inside.

Then I went back to bed, where I couldn’t sleep from the stress hormones still zinging in my bloodstream and the nausea they induced. I lowered the air conditioning in the room by four degrees, and opened a fairly technical book on perennial pruning to try to bore my mind quiet. My cat jumped on the bed and sat watching me, her toes touching my flank, as she conducted some of my fear energy away.

And when my eyes began to close, she jumped off the bed, I turned off the light, and we both went back to sleep.

Looks like round two of the 2013 bluebird babies have arrived. There were five eggs in here. I can’t tell yet if they’ve all hatched.

In other news, I am fairly certain I saw all five members of the previous hatch lined up on the fence near their nestbox. I also saw six bluebirds at once in my peach tree, some of them colored like juveniles. Apparently it’s not uncommon for juveniles to hang out near their parents for a while after fledging.

Let’s hope this group is as successful.

Despite how it looks, this story doesn’t have a Disney ending. Stop reading now if topics such as the natural order, predation, working farm dogs, and death are ones you’d rather not read about right now.

For the last week or so the garden around my house has been plagued by a nocturnal visitor. Every young and vulnerable plant fell victim, including new seedlings of rare, mail-ordered zinnias, the newest shoots of dozens of star gladiolus that were just emerging, small bedding coleus, and young red chard transplants that I’d been watering three times a day to get them to take—basically everything I’d lined up to provide summer interest in my garden. As any gardener knows, there is nothing more disheartening than to spend money and time fussing over young plants just to come out each morning find them eaten to the nub.

Because of the pattern of damage, I suspected a rabbit. My suspicion grew Wednesday morning when Tucker went nuts in the front garden, trying to climb inside some of the larger shrubs. I knew he was in pursuit of something, but I feared that in his frenzy I’d lose even more plants. So I called him off and kept him inside.

That night, however, he was outside with me and spent hours working something near the corner of the well house. Around sunset I went outside and found the scene above. There was no going back—the rabbit had already sustained significant damage.

I like this photo below because it reminds me of all those classic paintings of working dogs with their quarry: the labs with their ducks, spaniels with grouse and pheasant, hounds with deer and boar and bear, and terriers with ground-dwelling varmints.

Because I think it is important to reward Tucker for this hunting behavior, which is exactly the kind I want him to exhibit. So I praised him and left him with his kill. And he was oh, so proud. When I went to collect him for bed, at almost 10:00 p.m., he was crunching the last of the bones.

Yes, the rabbit was adorable and I think they are lovely creatures. I enjoy seeing them in the fields ands try my best to not hit them when they dart in front of my car. But this rabbit picked the wrong salad bar, and I am proud that I have an English Shepherd that is pulling his weight around the farm as a working dog as well as a pampered pet. Like all the happiest dogs, he has a job and it is a joy to see him able to fulfill his nature in such a helpful way.

I have confirmed that all five bluebird eggs have transmogrified into five almost-fledged bluebird babies. After years of minimal success in the bluebird box, this is a joy to behold. Of course, a big test is yet to come: fledging.

Last night when I opened the box, one fledgling let out a squawk as it repositioned deeper in the box. Hearing his progeny sound this warning greatly displeased Mr. Bluebird, who loudly scolded me from a nearby tree. I shut the box and beat a hasty retreat.

Based on the tail feather growth I see here, I suspect fledging at any moment. I will be watching, hoping to catch the great leaps!

Brood II of the 17-year perennial cicadas has arrived! Last night I found this big guy in the woods sitting on a clump of irises and daffodils. I didn’t think the soil temp is up to 64 degrees at 8″ yet. I suspect some cicadas might have been driven out of the ground by the several inches of rain that’s fallen in the last few days. Still no deafening trill outside—that’s yet to come.

Please excuse the creepy latex glove. I don’t normally walk around sheathed in plastic, it’s just that I sliced my finger open Sunday night and wanted to keep dirt—and cicada legs—out of the wound.

The bluebird nestlings were peeking out of the nest box entrance hole when I approached today. They’re fully feathered and there are at least four babies in the very crowded box. I hope I can get an accurate count to see if all five eggs made it to fledglings—a 100% success rate!—but at this stage the birds are easily spooked and I don’t want to scare any out of the box while its open.

It won’t be too much longer until they fledge into this beautiful blooming spring outside their nest box. The tree with the white blooms is a hawthorne planted as part of the new forest installation.

I’ll have to keep an eye on Tuck in the next few days to make sure he doesn’t encounter a fledgling in the grass.

Recent creatures found around the farm:

A little snake making its home in the newly mulched front garden.

Tuck dug this mole out of the ground near the chicken coop. I was too proud of his hunting skills to be mad about the holes in the yard.

Periodical cicada nymphs discovered whilst digging in the garden. This is the year Brood II of the 17-year cicadas will emerge as soon as soil temperatures hit 64 degrees. They hatched from eggs laid when I was in high school, which makes me feel old! I need to get some netting up soon to protect my smallest trees and woody ornamentals. For more on the periodical cicadas in Virginia, click here.

But what better way to celebrate?

While others scrutinize royal pea coats for any sign of swelling, and still others seek all “news” of reality star/rapper spawn, my eyes will be fixed in the backyard, right here:

Mr. and Mrs. Bluebird are nesting again. I have high hopes this time around, as this is the first early spring clutch since installing my homemade metal baffle, which should help protect the nest from snakes and other predators.

I had mixed success in years’ past, with some eggs disappearing, some chicks mysteriously dying, and then others that made it to—I think—fledging.

I just checked back and it was one year ago to the day that I had discovered last year’s first clutch of eggs. I find this chronological tidbit fascinating.

I came down from bed this morning to find a small male cardinal trapped on the back porch. He flew this way and that, banging his head into the glass walls with a trapped bird’s confused panic. I was afraid he’d kill himself, so I opened the door and tried to shoosh him out. That just made him bang even harder. So in one of his moments of postcollision confusion I tried to grab him with my bare hand. He squawked like a parrot, loud enough to bring my dog running from the field in front of the house. Each time my hand approached, the bird opened his surprisingly large orange beak wide enough to swallow a fingertip and threatened to do just that. I have been around enough birds to know to stay away from that sort of display, so I reckoned that I’d catch him up by his tail just like I do the chickens.

Well, when I grabbed the cardinal’s tail most of it came away in my hand as the bird shot through the open door and away to the forest. It’s a weird sensation to be left holding half of a speedily departed creature in your hand whist watching its other half take flight. Kind of like pinning a skink only to see it scuttle away, sacrificing the blue twitching tip of its tail.

I hope the cardinal can do okay without most of his tail feathers. But I guess it’s better that than a broken neck.