It was a busy week, so I ended up spending most of it with my butt in the chair and my fingers on the keyboard, not getting much of a look at the wider world outside other than what I could see by occasionally lifting my eyes and peering over my computer screen. But in the few, brief minutes I did manage to make it outside, I got to meet a few of my neighbors.

On Wednesday afternoon, while Irene was out front fertilizing the daffodils so that those of you who make it to next year’s spring party will have something to look at, she spotted a tiny wanderer on the driveway who was moving along at a … well … at a snail’s pace, and called me over to look.

The next day, while taking a postprandial evening hike, I was about half a mile away from our house when I saw this guy fluttering on the road. The fact that he barely moved as I snapped his picture told me that there was something wrong with him, though I wasn’t sure what. He’d hop a few inches, and then become still again. I moved him to the side of the road, so however his apparently short life would end, it wouldn’t be with a splat from a car tire.

My final new friend popped up yesterday. Irene was mowing the lawn (which I don’t end up doing much thanks to the siren call of the keyboard) and saw this guy wandering in the grass. She called me outside to give my morning a needed boost. He was the most active of my three new friends, zipping along quickly.

I almost made a fourth new friend this week, but I was away this morning taking part in a mock jury (about which more later … maybe) when Irene spotted a huge black rat snake climbing a tree on its way to savage a robin’s nest … the bastard! If I’d been here, I’d have felt called upon to protect it.

Yeah, I know, it’s all part of the Circle of Life. But me, I root for the robins!