The Titmouse Outside My Brain

I have a bird feeder that hangs just a few feet outside my office window. The things I observe outside my office window are truly incredible as I am just minding my own business, working, or not, and I look up only to see two male mule-deer bucks have lain down two feet from the window. One is cleaning the other or one is sleeping while the other keeps an eye out; or a fox is working its way up the slope of my yard then the jackrabbit once again, is carefully moving through the weeds, nibbling cautiously at each stop. Or it's Peebles the titmouse at my bird feeder, methodically tossing out the cheap seed, to get to the very few sunflower seeds. I know this bird. I have been friends with him for many years. Yes, I recognize him. Don't ask me why I call him Peebles. Hell if I know. But he is used to me now as I sit sorting my piles out on the top of my desk, talking to myself, listening to the news. He jerks left and right as if doing some token search for predators, then continues to throw all my cheap bird seed on the ground. Then, of course, the ecological chain of events unfolds because the towhees and jays hit the ground to get the cheap seed and then a small vole or mouse heads out for the same then I see the red-shouldered hawk hanging around in my black oaks about the time I am (and he is too apparently) ready for lunch. I have absolutely nothing to do with any of this. All I did is put up a feeder. The giant "rural" subdivision I live in has no fencing so the wildlife move through the 3,000 acres easily. They are used to us. I am trying to decipher my phone bill while a titmouse is scolding a wren. They don't care about my phone bill, and I really don't care about their squabbles. Only that they are there every day, living their lives, doing whatever it is they do among themselves and so it is, we co-exist, in peace.