Neither my partner Lynn Axelrod nor I had taken even a short vacation for a couple of years, so last week we spent Thursday afternoon to Saturday afternoon in Gualala on the coast of Mendocino County. The town is only 80 miles north of here, and it took us about two and a half hours to drive there.

Superficially, Gualala resembles Point Reyes Station. Highway 1 is the main street, and the population is not noticeably larger: 1,927 versus 848.

Both towns are rich in history and share some of the same problems. Where Point Reyes Station’s historic Grandi Building, erected in 1915, is derelict and boarded up, the 1903 Gualala Hotel (second from right) has closed its restaurant, lodgings, and once-renowned bar, but the building is in better condition.

Gualala is perched on a bluff at the edge of the Pacific, and many homes and businesses enjoy views of the water, which helps make it an exotic getaway. And because of moist breezes off the ocean, all manner of flowers bloom throughout the town.

As for the origin of the name Gualala, there are two main theories. One is that Gualala was taken from the Pomo word Wallali, meaning a place where two rivers meet or where a river meets the ocean.

The second is that Gualala is a Spanish rendering of Walhalla (a.k.a. Valhalla), which in Teutonic mythology was the abode of heroes fallen in battle. According to this theory, Walhalla was given its name by a German immigrant, Ernest Rufus. He and a partner in 1846 had received a Mexican land grant to an extensive region up there.

I had stayed in Gualala twice before and had found a charming inn, the Breakers, so Lynn and I had made reservations there for two nights.

All the rooms have decks with views of the ocean, as well as the Gualala River, and Lynn (above) immediately fell in love with the place. The bathroom included a two-person spa. A fireplace in the living room/bedroom made our accommodations seem especially cozy. All the rooms are thematically decorated. We had the Connecticut room which was vaguely reminiscent of colonial New England.

Lynn and I had not traveled to Gualala primarily to stay at the Breakers, however. After all, Mitchell cabin has its own deck with a narrow view of Tomales Bay, a hot tub, and a fireplace. A key attraction was the Gualala River where we wanted to go canoeing.

We had reserved a canoe from Adventure Rents and paddled upstream for a couple of miles, coming ashore on a rocky beach to look around. Dozens of cliff swallows were skimming over the river to catch insects. In addition, we saw what appeared to be a plover nesting on the beach, so we kept our distance to avoid disturbing it.

The Gualala River bridge is not only utilitarian but a work of art. We launched our canoe just downstream from the bridge. The river mouth is closed at this time of year because ocean waves throw up sandbars once there isn’t enough water coming downstream to wash them away.

While looking down on the bridge from the bluffs above revealed its grace, looking up at the bridge from our canoe revealed numerous clusters of swallow nests. The chance to see the nests was one reason I personally wanted to go canoeing.

Birds, in fact, were everywhere. This seagull kept showing up on our deck in hopes we would feed it pieces of bread, which I did. Often more than one gull would perch on the railing, which sometimes led to tussles over who got the bread.

Sunset in Gualala. The mouth of the river can be seen at the right.

Notwithstanding Gualala’s small size and relatively isolated location, it is remarkably sophisticated in many ways. It boasts a large (32-page) weekly newspaper, The Independent Coast Observer, which has all the coverage one would expect in a community newspaper and more.

Its election coverage was outstanding and included a well-written piece on the too-soon-to-call battle between Democrat Norman Solomon of Inverness Park and Republican Dan Roberts of Tiburon for the second spot in the District 2 congressional race.

The Coast Observer also printed a lengthy Sheriff’s Log and the usual land-use planning stories. Perhaps the most surprising story in last week’s issue was a first-person account by a local burlesque dancer who had just returned from India where she had worked with abused women and fought sex trafficking.

The burlesque star, Melinda Miller-Klopf, wrote that she has been criticized in the US and India for fighting sex-trafficking and abuse of women while working as a burlesque performer. To this she responded, “At their heart, they are the same issue with the same goals: self-empowerment for women and girls, ownership of sexuality, and love and respect for the bodies we are born into….

“What is titillating about burlesque is only partially the skin; most of the allure comes from the slightly scandalous feeling one gets from watching women having way too much fun.” Miller-Klopf was about to put on a burlesque show in the Gualala Arts Center, and apparently her argument was convincing. Just before we left town, Lynn and I saw women young and old lining up to buy tickets.

Saturday we headed back to Point Reyes Station but stopped at the Sea Ranch Chapel to admire its architecture. The chapel, built in 1985, was designed by the award-winning San Diego artist James Hubble.

Three large stained-glass windows give an understated elegance to the chapel’s interior.

Lynn peers through a sculpted fountain outside the chapel.

Our final stop on the way home was in Jenner where harbor seals could be seen basking on a sandbar. Lynn got into a conversation with an older couple from Los Angeles, who had also stopped to enjoy the scene, and came away convinced she had been talking with actor Ed Asner. I couldn’t tell, and we’ll probably never know for sure.

All in all, our short adventure was as exotic as a trip to Hawaii, and for a tenth the cost.

I was rounding a curve while driving up to Mitchell cabin last week when I encountered a doe in my driveway. I stopped so she could calmly move on, but while I watched, two small fawns struggled out of tall grass and crossed the driveway in front of my car to catch up with their mother.

No doubt the mother would have preferred to proceed into the field in front of her, but in order to feed her hungry offspring, she was willing to accept my being present.

The fawns were so small they frequently disappeared while walking in tall grass.

When following their mother through the grass, the fawns at times had to bound over it to make any progress.

The fawns never got too far away from the doe, but they were even more intent on staying close to each other.

As I observed them from the driveway and later from my deck, the ability of their spots t0 camouflage them became all the more evident.

If their mother leaves them on their own while she forages, the fawns lie down in the grass. Should danger approach, they don’t move and even slow their breathing. This trait has in the past allowed me to stand over a motionless fawn, bend the grass aside, and snap a photo.

I later asked Point Reyes Station naturalist Jules Evens about the fawn’s not flinching while I photographed it from just a couple of feet overhead. “He probably thought he was invisible,” Jules replied.

The fawns, however, can no longer count on their spots and diminutive size for hiding in my grass. Tractor operator Gary Titus of Tomales came by last Thursday and mowed my fields and my neighbors’. The county fire department requires us to do this every year in the interest of homeland security.

Making a few spring days agonizing is the annual removal of thistles. I’ve already put in five full days cutting hundreds of thistles and weed whacking others that I could not easily cut by hand. My partner Lynn Axelrod spent three days at it.

I also cut thistles in two neighbors’ fields because if I don’t reduce their thistle problems, they will quickly add to my thistle problems.

As a result, the garbage company in the last month has hauled four green-waste containers’ worth of thistles from Mitchell cabin. That represented the contents of 12 tightly packed contractors’ bags.

Days later, Lynn and I are still finding thorns in our arms, hands, and socks. (The stickers don’t all come out in the wash.) Our faces are sunburned, and we’ve both been exhausted by the end of several thistle-cutting days.

Back on the ecstasy front, we have more quail pecking around Mitchell cabin this spring than I’ve seen in the last several years.

Looking every bit as self-important as a courtier during the reign of King George I, this portly fellow struts along the railing of my deck.

A little ecstasy cum agony: For the first time last week, a peacock showed up here. Perched on the limb of a tree next to the house, it was the first peacock I’ve ever seen at Mitchell cabin although I used to frequently see them around Nicasio.

By the way, it’s true what people say: their calls sound like a woman screaming in distress. At first, having a peacock around was fun, but after its piercing screams started waking Lynn up in the early morning, she soon became impatient with the bird.

Signs of life. Lynn was walking down our outside steps last week when she noticed on the ground half the shell of a small egg. With it were a couple of shell fragments and a bit of a nest.

On our next trip downtown, Lynn and I stopped by the Institute for Bird Populations where Rodney Siegel determined that, based on the egg’s size and spot, it belonged to a towhee (left).

There was no tree over the spot where the egg was found, but Rodney told us towhees nest on the ground. After the eggs hatch, the mother towhee often takes parts of the shell out of the nest, flies a short ways, and dumps them on the ground.

Lynn and I were worried that another bird or four-footed predator had stolen the egg from the nest and eaten its contents. Rodney, however, said the broken edge of the shell was typical of what remains after a chick pecks its way out.

Since a woodstove is the only source of heat in Mitchell cabin, I need to regularly haul loads of firewood from a woodshed uphill to the house. Carrying the loads used to require a fair amount of exertion, but Anastacio Gonzalez of Point Reyes Station advised me to try carrying heavy loads the way campesinos (field workers) do.

Great idea. One’s legs, not one’s back or arm muscles, bear most of the load, making it seem light. I’d put this revelation in the ecstasy column.

When one talks turkey, he may sometimes be speaking about the country, the bird, or an inept person or performance.

Leaving aside Turkey, let’s talk about birds and inept people.

A wild turkey marches along my railing.

In the past week, a flock of wild turkeys, which is often seen in the fields around Mitchell cabin, has begun making almost daily incursions onto my deck in early morning and late afternoon. They come to eat the seed we put out for smaller birds, and their pecking and gobbling are loud enough to awaken us from a sound sleep.

But the real problem is their leaving piles of poop all over the deck and railing. For those of you fortunate enough to be unfamiliar with turkey poop, it sufficeth to say the volume can be intimidating.

Wild turkeys are usually fairly skittish, but this past week they’ve been so absorbed with eating that I have been able to join them on the deck to take their pictures.

Male turkeys, which are called Toms, have a large, featherless, reddish head, red throat, and red wattles on the throat and neck. The head has fleshy growths called caruncles.

When males are excited, a fleshy flap on the bill expands. Along with the flap, the wattles and the bare skin of the head and neck all become engorged with blood. When a male turkey is sexually aroused, its head turns blue. When it’s ready to fight, its head turns red. Or so I’ve read.

A wild turkey flies from my deck to join the rest of the flock in a field below. Perhaps it heard me laughing at a turkey in The (London) Time’s Literary Supplement, and that drove him off.

The Times Literary Supplement last year commented on a review, which had appeared in Scotsman magazine, of the novel Kill Your Friends by John Niven. The Times Literary Supplement wryly noted that the critic for Scotsman “could think of no higher praise than ‘bed-wettingly funny.'”

Turkeys hunt and peck their way across my fields, looking for insects and seeds.

And here are two slightly risque jokes that also come from The Times Literary Supplement. They’re funny but not bed-wettingly so:

“A six year old and a four year old decide to start swearing. ‘When we go down for breakfast,’ the older brother says, ‘you say hell and I’ll say ass.’ Downstairs, Mom asks the younger what he’d like for breakfast.

“‘Hell, I think I’ll just have cornflakes.’

“Mom whacks his head and sends him back upstairs, to the horror of his brother. ‘And what do you want for breakfast?’ she says.

“He starts to cry. ‘You can bet your ass it won’t be cornflakes.'”

“A young, country priest is accosted by a prostitute on his way through town. ‘How about a quickie for £20?’ she asks. The priest hurries on. He meets another prostitute. ”£20 for a quickie, father?’ Bewildered, he heads back to the country. There he meets a nun.

“‘Pardon me, sister, but what’s a quickie?’

“‘£20,’ she says. ‘Same as in town.'”

That should be enough turkeys for one posting. Have a happy Leap Year Day.

Last week I reported that a Guatemalan wife and mother of two, Cristina Siekavizza (at right), disappeared July 7.

Authorities suspect she was murdered by her husband, Roberto Barreda de Leon, and that he has probably fled to the United States, taking the couple’s two children, Roberto Jose, 7, and Mari­a Mercedes, 4, with him.

As I wrote, I became interested in the case because my former wife Ana Carolina Monterroso is a friend of Cristina’s relatives. She and Cristina’s brother Pablo have notified me that roughly 25,000 people are currently using social media to track down Roberto.

I believe it. Last week’s posting drew a record 1,217 visitors in the first three days after it went online. Some 432 of those were in Guatemala. Readers have posted links to this blog on their Facebook pages and on other websites. Truly social media in action.

An international warrant for the English-speaking husband’s arrest has been issued. If people spot him, they should notify local law enforcement or the FBI. Please note that the email address in Guatemala for reporting his whereabouts is incorrect on the wanted poster. It should be busquedacristina@gmail.com.

Point Reyes Station.  Mitchell cabin with its red roof is near the center of the photo.

Around Mitchell cabin two foxes are making themselves more and more at home with every passing week. Lynn and I can hand feed them slices of bread although one is more skittish than the other. The first sits around the kitchen door waiting for me to hand it dinner. Usually we have to throw the slices to its partner.

For a year or more we had been feeding our foxes and raccoons honey-roasted peanuts along with bread, but that became fairly expensive.

Our problem was solved by Gayanne Enquist of Inverness.

She recommended we forget about peanuts and feed our critters dog kibble. It was a brilliant idea.

Once we determined through experimentation which brand they prefer, Kibble and Bits, we could eliminate peanuts and most bread from their dinners.

However, the kibble is so popular that we might as well be feeding two large dogs.

Along with the foxes, we get five or six raccoons every night.

One raccoon is a solitary male. The others belong to two families that don’t like each other, so we have to put out two trays of kibble on the deck and keep refilling them.

That adds up to about 40 pounds of kibble per week.

The foxes wait their turn for the kibble until the raccoons leave although the raccoons are also a bit wary of the foxes.

Of course, we’re not always Johnny on the spot in setting out their dinners, and here a fox waits patiently while a raccoon approaches cautiously.

We also feed a variety of birds, including towhees, sparrows, doves, and scores of redwing blackbirds. They have a set feeding time, somewhere between 4:30 and 5 p.m. However, the birds aren’t the only beneficiaries of the birdseed. Roof rats, those cute little rodents, show up almost as soon as the blackbirds leave.

Blacktail deer are ubiquitous around Mitchell cabin. This year I’ve seen as many as 14 at one time. Here a fawn sleeps right outside our kitchen window while two does graze nearby.

The deer are so comfortable around us that I can often approach them within a few feet.

Although we’re in the middle of winter, these are great days to relax. Just keep your eyes out for a murder suspect fleeing Guatemala.

Hosting our wildlife neighbors. My girlfriend Lynn Axelrod is a reporter for The West Marin Citizen, which for the past two weeks has been publishing its annual pet issues. She and I don’t have any pets ourselves because they would drive away birds and four-footed wildlife, but in recent years I too have sometimes published an animal issue at the beginning of the new year.

Among the most common wildlife around Mitchell cabin these days are wild turkeys, and last weekend, they began showing up on the railing around our deck. Here one marches past our dining-room window.

Wild turkeys can be aggressive, and a decade or more ago, they began chasing and otherwise terrorizing school children in Tomales. This young deer, however, was not at all intimidated when it found itself grazing among a flock of turkeys between Mitchell cabin and neighbors Dan and Mary Huntsman’s home last Sunday.

A turkey stares at me from behind a lamp hanging over our dining-room table.

A mother raccoon (at rear) introduces her four kits to our kitchen.

A bobcat hunting just uphill from the cabin.

A gray fox on our deck.

This possum didn’t mind being petted as long as I gave it something to eat.

A coyote in the field below Mitchell cabin two weeks ago.

A mother badger and her cub as seen from my field.

One of my favorite wildlife photos, which I’ve published before, is of a buckeye butterfly on a chrysanthemum. The plant was growing in a pot on my deck.

Two close friends from Los Angeles, Janine Warner, who reported for The Point Reyes Light when I owned the newspaper, and her husband Dave LaFontaine, have been staying here for the Christmas holidays.

On Christmas Day itself, however, some even more exotic guests showed up.

Around noon Janine went out on the deck to enjoy the sunny Christmas Day and soon spotted a coyote in my field. Here it heads into some eponymous coyote brush.

Immediately I hurried inside and grabbed my camera. Before long, the coyote reemerged next to my parking area. It could hear us chattering on the deck and began staring at me while I took its picture.

The creature then looked down my driveway to make sure all was clear. Coyotes can be fierce, but they’re not foolhardy.

When it finally decided to leave, it started off at a brisk walk. Whether walking or running, coyotes are amazingly graceful.

Coyotes have a walking speed that sometimes tops 20 mph while their running speed can easily top 30 mph. This coyote, however, was just meandering. It took him almost half a minute to travel 0.2 miles to the bottom end of the driveway, where he then sat down to survey the area. Before long, he had disappeared without a trace.

Less than five minutes later, as if on cue, two bucks showed up outside our kitchen window. Both were good looking animals, but the buck in the foreground had an especially regal bearing.

Accompanying the bucks were two does. Like the bucks, the does were not particularly nervous, even when I went out the back door to get a clear photo of them.

Of course, these were not the only wild animals to visit Mitchell cabin on Christmas Day. Our familiar raccoon families showed up in the evening. We fed them slices of bread, but, to save money, we’re now supplementing that with dog kibble instead of honey-roasted peanuts.

Also showing up were our usual pair of gray foxes. One is comfortable enough around us to take slices of bread from our hands. The other, however, is sufficiently skittish that most of the time we have to throw slices to him.

Having a peaceful relationship with the animals around us is key to our having a decent existence, as most religions agree. “Life is dear to the mute creature as it is to a man. Just as one wants happiness and fears pain, just as one wants to live and not to die, so do other creatures,” wrote the XIV Dalai Lama in 1967.

“There is not an animal on the earth, nor a flying creature on two wings, but they are people like unto you,” proclaims the Qur’an. “Animals, as part of God’s creation, have rights which must be respected,” Dr. Donald Coggan, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, observed. “It behooves us always to be sensitive to their needs and to the reality of their pain.”

Many people will enjoy some turkey come Christmas. I’m enjoying 13 already. There are always wild turkeys around West Marin, but at this time of the year, there are more than usual around Mitchell cabin.

A flock of 13 wild turkeys this week parades across my field toward a stockpond.

While most people feel they know a fair amount about turkeys, domestic and wild, there have been many misconceptions over the years regarding the bird, which originated in North America and was first domesticated by the Aztecs.

One misconception is that wild turkeys have no white meat. They do, just proportionately less than domestic turkeys. While many Americans prefer white meat, people in other parts of the world are more likely to prefer dark. Or so I read.

Because much of the white meat comes from a turkey’s breast, the main domestic turkey we eat, the Broad Breasted White breed, has been bred to have a large chest. One result of this breeding, however, is that domestic turkeys, unlike wild turkeys, cannot fly. In addition, because of their large size and weight, they cannot mate, and hens must be artificially inseminated.

Likewise, domestic turkeys are white because they’ve been bred to be white. White feathers don’t leave unsightly pigment spots on turkeys after they’ve been plucked.

The wild turkey is an elegant bird. Benjamin Franklin felt it should have been chosen as the national symbol instead of the the eagle, which he considered “a bird of bad moral character.” Franklin didn’t having like a carrion eater as this country’s symbol.

Spanish conquistadors in Mexico in 1524 were the first Europeans to taste turkey meat. They found it delicious and brought some turkeys back to Europe. By 1524, turkeys had reached England, where they were quickly domesticated. Shakespeare refers to a “turkey cock” in Twelfth Night written in 1601.

Turkeys got their unlikely name because the “turkey merchants,” who did business in the Ottoman Empire (of which Turkey was the seat), were were the same merchants who brought turkeys to England from North America. This led to a widely held misimpression that the turkeys were coming from Turkey. Similar mixups occurred in other cultures. The Hebrew word for turkey literally means “chicken of India” while the Turkish word for turkey is “Hindi,” which refers to Northern India.

As for the country’s name, Turkey (which in Istanbul is Türkiye) is a combination of “Türk,” which is believed to have meant human beings in an archaic version of the Turkish language, while the “iye” apparently meant land of. In short, “Turkey” originally meant land of human beings, as a friend from Turkey confirms.

Elsewhere this turkey and fawn would be at risk of ending up on someone’s dinner table come Christmas. In this time and place, however, they can safely graze together, the fawn eating grass and the turkey eating insects and seeds. Merry Christmas, and I send you my wish that also on your Bach 40, sheep may safely graze.

It’s time for another look at wildlife that have been showing up this fall around Mitchell cabin.

Last week I reported finding coyote scat on my driveway and noted that neighbor George Stamoulis had not only found the scat on his driveway, he’d seen the critter itself ambling up Campolindo Road.

Finally I saw the beast for myself. About 1:30 p.m. Saturday, I looked out the kitchen’s glass door just in time to see a coyote round the corner of the cabin. I grabbed my camera, went out on my deck, and managed to catch this shot of the coyote marking its territory by urinating and scratching the ground.

I get a kick out of seeing coyotes, but, of course, I’m not a sheepman. For 40 years, there were no coyotes in West Marin, but they never disappeared from Northern Sonoma County. After the federal government made ranchers stop poisoning them, coyotes began returning southward. They reached West Marin in 1983 and within the next 15 or so years wiped out a majority of sheep ranches in West Marin and Southern Sonoma County.

Along with sheep, coyotes sometimes hunt deer and not infrequently eat domestic dogs and cats. Among their most-common prey are small mammals, birds, snakes, lizards, and large insects. Traditionally diurnal, coyotes are becoming more nocturnal because of pressure from human development.

Hunting outside my kitchen window.

Last week I posted a couple of photos of a bobcat that had just shown up outside my kitchen window. Here’s a third image that shows it hunting. Bobcats’ favorite prey are rabbits and hares, but they’ll eat anything from insects to rodents to deer.

Gray foxes are omnivorous, eating fruits along with birds and small rodents. They also like cheap, white bread. Gray foxes tend to be nocturnal or crepuscular (active at dawn and twilight).

Along with the Asian raccoon dog, they are the only members of the Canidae family that can climb trees. That’s one way they can raid bird nests and avoid the coyotes.

After sizing up the situation Saturday night, a gray fox takes a slice of bread from my girlfriend Lynn’s hand.

Also visiting our deck each evening, hoping for slices of bread and honey-roasted peanuts, are two families of raccoons. While the families don’t like each other, they are at ease around us. Here a young raccoon curls up outside our kitchen door to take a nap. (Photo by Lynn Axelrod)

When Lynn and I returned home from a visit to my optometrist in Terra Linda last week, we found a mirthful message on our answering machine from Linda Sturdivant of Inverness Park. “Hey Dave,” she said. “I want to tell you about something beautiful I saw yesterday.

“As I was leaving here, I got to the end of the levee road. At the pumpkinhouse, there is one of the most beautiful red trees you could ever see. Get a picture.”

The pumpkinhouse gets its nickname from the pumpkin displays that once were on its front porch and fence every year. If you check Janis Ceresi’s comment, she includes a link that shows what the pumpkin house used to look like on Halloween.

Wanting more information regarding the tree’s location, I called Linda back, and a friendly young woman answered. Not recognizing her voice, I asked, “Is this Linda?” She said she was. “Just where is this beautiful tree?” I asked, and she sounded confused. “Which tree?” she responded. “The one you called me about.” She then asked me, “Where are you?” and I replied, “In Point Reyes Station.”

“Well, I’m in San Francisco,” she said. We both laughed and hung up, and I called the real Linda Sturdivant.

The tree Linda saw is not the only one around here with brilliant fall colors. This allée of maple trees is across Highway 1 from Campolindo Road, where I live.

Last week I had just started down my front steps when I heard a commotion in a pyracantha bush on Doreen Miao’s property uphill from mine. Not sure what I was seeing, I grabbed my camera and started snapping photos.

Before long the source of the disturbance became obvious when a flock of wild turkeys fluttered to the ground. What had they been doing up in the bush? I was surprised that the bush’s bitter berries are safe to eat, so I checked the Seasonal Cooking website. “Contrary to a common myth, they are not poisonous,” the site said. “Pyracantha, a relative of apples and roses, is entirely edible.”  In fact, you can use the berries to make preserves and jelly.

As we head toward winter, a variety of wildlife has begun hanging around just outside the cabin. I photographed this blacktail buck just below our deck. In addition, a doe and her fawn are so comfortable here that I can walk within a few yards of them.

Last week I was looking out my kitchen window when I spotted this bobcat looking back at me.

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a bobcat so close to Mitchell cabin, but it didn’t seem to mind my presence and soon resumed hunting.

Another predator that I haven’t seen for more than a year showed up this week. I didn’t see the coyote, but I found its scat in my driveway. Neighbor George Stamoulis found a fair amount of coyote scat in his driveway and saw the animal itself moseying up Campolindo Road.

Last night, Lynn and I spotted still another creature that hasn’t been around for months. A young possum showed up on my deck to eat the remainder of peanuts Lynn had put out for raccoons. Raccoons and grey foxes have become so common during the evening at Mitchell cabin that they’ve become fairly comfortable with us. We can feed them slices of bread by hand with no problem.

I’ll close on a linguistic fact I learned from the WildCare magazine this week. There is a name for the burbling sounds mother raccoons and their young make among themselves. It’s called trilling, as in Lionel, and we’ve heard it many times.

What do you call a group of raccoons? They’re sometimes called a nursery, but the most common name is a gaze.

Three raccoon kits squeeze into the birdbath on my deck to clean their paws after eating.

I’ve always been fond of raccoons, but I’m beginning to wonder if a surplus is developing around Mitchell cabin.

Of course, there are many raccoon tails in Marin County. The Marin Humane Society, for example, rescued a baby raccoon from a gutter’s drainpipe in the Hamilton area of Novato Thursday afternoon.

The trapped raccoon was discovered by children who heard its cries, The Marin Independent Journal and Bay City News both reported.

It took animal control officers, who used a plumbing camera, two hours to locate the approximately month-old raccoon and then pull it out to safety.

The baby raccoon is now at the WildCare wildlife rehabilitation center in San Rafael.

Here eight raccoons, two mothers, each with three kits, dine on honey-roasted peanuts on my deck. A ninth raccoon, a solitary male adult, will show up after this gaze has left.

Possums are found throughout West Marin wherever ponds, creeks, marshes, and even drainage ditches provide riparian habitat. West Marin’s possums originated in the Deep South where “common opossums” are commonly called possums, thanks to a linguistic phenomenon known as aphesis. Calling mosquitoes “skeeters” is another example of aphesis.

“The common opossum,” writes Point Reyes Station biologist Jules Evens in The Natural History of the Point Reyes Peninsula, is “the only marsupial native to North America [but] is not native to Point Reyes or the Pacific Coast. After the first known introduction into California at San Jose about 1900 (for meat, delicious with sweet potatoes), opossums spread rapidly southward: by 1931 they were common on the coastal slope from San Francisco Bay south to the Mexican border. Point Reyes avoided the onslaught until about 1968.”

Another introduced species often found in the fields next to Mitchell cabin, Equus caballus.

They’re called Arabians in the sign on the pasture gate, but I doubt a one of them has ever seen the Mediterranean. This being the Far West, “cayuse” (rhymes with “dye use”) would seem more appropriate. Surely you remember Willie Nelson singing Don’t Fence Me In: “On my cayuse let me wander over yonder/Till I see the mountain rise.”

“Cayuse” in reference to a horse comes from the name of the Cayuse people of the Pacific Northwest. Sort of like Belgian referring to both a people and a chestnut-colored draft horse.

Canada geese flying over the hill behind Mitchell cabin.

Hundreds of Canada geese winter annually on Tomales Bay, on Nicasio Reservoir, and at Bolinas Lagoon. Along with these snowbirders, a year-round population of Canada geese is developing in West Marin.

Many of the year-rounders are descendants of geese that people with a surplus goose or two dropped off at the pond in front of the Cheese Factory on the Point Reyes-Petaluma Road, beginning back in the 1970s.