The Animals Come to Play: Meilani Makes Friends

One of the fun parts about living in this part of the country is a new landscape and wildllife to explore. We are staying with friends, Jan and Pat Wright, and their home is up on a hill surrounded by woods on three sides. This means we have quite the parade of wildlife through our front yard and even closeby at Hollins University.

On Tuesday, Ericlee was sitting just inside the garage reading a book and Meilani was napping with him. A deer came right up to the house within two feet of them. He slowly walked by while Ericlee stayed very still and prayed Meilani would wake up on her own. Meanwhile, I saw a deer family of four as I was driving home from class at Hollins.

Yesterday we took Meilani in the jogging stroller for a run around the Hollins campus. Hollins is a big equestrian school so on one end they have a stable and lots of fields dedicated to horses. We were able to take her right up to the fence and she could watch the horses run and drink their water. One horse played hide and seek with her behind the fence.


Last night during dinner we spotted some kind of beaver (we debated a while on whether it was a marmit, hedgehog, groundhog, etc.). He looked exactly like a beaver minus the big, flat tail. Maybe one of you can help out us city folk...Anyway, Meilani LOVED him and watched him for the whole dinner as he dug in the grass and ran around the yard. Her famous quote was, "Ooh. ooh. OOh!" with wild pointing to make sure Mama saw the creature. She also spotted a lizard skittering across the window sill.

Of course, we have seen all kinds of "B-ird, bird, BIRDS!" - her favorite word. We hope to go hiking on part of the Appalachian trail in a few weeks and introduce Meilani to more. Every day is an adventure.