About once a month I have a late night drive home after babysitting grandson so daughter can work an evening shift. Last night was one of those times. It had rained heavily most of the afternoon and evening but luckily, it was mostly dry by the time of my drive. It was a pitch black night and because of construction on my usual route, I had to take another long country road home. The sky was completely starless and the trees in the headlights loomed shapeless and haunting. Not another car on the road and the farm houses few and far between, I was thankful to live in the age of cell phones. But what I couldn't get over were how many creatures were out and about. Perhaps their roaming for food got delayed because of the rain but I saw more four legged critters on that one drive than all my drives on my own route put together.
A mother raccoon and three babies started off my show and I know there were three because they crossed the road in single file in front of me. (Raccoons are identifiable because they have that funny hunched look about their backs when running.) A young rabbit hopped away from my lights next, then another one and another! There were so many cats and kittens skulking around the side of the road and in the ditches, I lost count. My car lights caught several sets of eyes that indicated something taller, maybe deer. Oh yes, and all the while, frogs were doing their daredevil leaping across the pavement; apparently frogs like to move around on rainy summer nights. I kept trying to avoid them so it slowed down my drive considerably and I can't be sure I still didn't unintentionally end some little amphibian life.
Always so happy to see the lights of home, even after such a great late night show.
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