Animals - part 1

The birds were all atwitter this morning. Not just twitter, but ooot-oo, her-up, and coydoy. I think they were celebrating. Snow's gone.
A young woman, visiting recently from Spain, was enchanted with the plentiful birds and squirrels in the U.S.
Squirrels? I thought they were ubiquitous.
Then I remembered a trip to California. In Sacramento my mother and siblings and I spent a long time in a public park waiting for my father to reemerge from some bookstore or other. We couldn't believe it. There were real, live squirrels in this park!
My brothers and I ran after some. Even my baby sister toddled along in optimistic pursuit. Those wily little creatures scampered off, ever just beyond reach, but that's not the point. The point is that we saw squirrels, running wild. We were thrilled.
My early childhood unfolded in woodlands outside of Portland, Oregon. Apparently squirrels don't live there. I don't remember any, that's for sure. I don't remember any wildlife. Just those sheep.
The Meekers kept sheep. The sheep were as tall as I was and much bulkier. I didn't like them. Sometimes they crowded up against the wire fence between our properties and I had to notice them when I skipped down the dirt path into the woods to swing on the monkey vines or play some other game. The sheep were always dusty and always munching grass.
My mother loved that house. She loved the woods behind it and the mountainous vista all around and Portland down in the valley, often submerged under a silvery fog lake.
Mom thought it would be a good idea to get a burro for us kids. We could ride it and feed it hay. I think she even proposed names for the burro.
Even though there weren't squirrels, there were birds in those woods. Kildeer is the Oregon state bird. I made a hansome paper mache replica of a kildeer but never actually saw one.
I did see lots of other birds and a goodly number of those giant garden slugs that inch along in the early morning hours and leave a shimmery trail of slime.
But birds, slugs, the Meeker's sheep and the prospective burro were all I knew of Oregon wildlife.