“In the circle of life
It’s the wheel of fortune
It’s the leap of faith
It’s the band of hope
‘Til we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the circle, the circle of life”
                                                ~ Elton John, Circle of Life

I caught our dog chewing on something in the back yard, and discovered the carcass of a dead rabbit. Pretty beat up and decayed in parts, I knew it was unlikely to be a fresh kill. In the past, she has either killed or caught a wounded rabbit, but this one was older and more torn up.

We’ve had bunnies living under our shed at the back of the lot and the dog chases them when she notices them, so they’re pretty wary. Since we also have two cats, I worry about young bunnies, but have felt relatively secure about the grown ones. We also have an abundance of squirrels that hang around on the ground below the two bird feeders. The small birds tend to stay in the bushes or trees if not on the feeders, but the bigger Doves, Jays and flickers often feed on spilled seed on the ground. The dog and the cats will chase them away but seldom get very close as they’re difficult to corral.

Things have changed quite a bit over the years. We’ve added several new trees and replaced a few elderly ones that were here when we came. The shrubbery has changed as well as most of the flower beds, and the vegetable garden has expanded and shrunk over time. We still maintain a large water tub for the dog that is routinely visited by both birds and squirrels.

In some ways, it’s a jungle out there. Survival of the fittest (fastest, wariest) on a small scale in our own backyard. I wonder how many generations of birds and squirrels have visited our feeders in the forty-six years I’ve lived here.

Our neighborhood is in an historic district in the old part of Golden, and our house dates to 1872.  Positioned between downtown Golden, the Colorado School of Mines campus and Clear Creek, most of the houses are older and were originally owned by downtown merchants or college faculty. Most of the current residents have done a good job of preserving and improving the houses and maintaining the mature tree cover through the neighborhood. ADU’s have proliferated, both to capture the off-campus student housing needs and to eliminate the possibility of replacing historic structures. Street trees abound, and even though the older trees have slowly disappeared they have been mostly replaced.

When we moved in those years ago, our neighbors were mostly older and had been in their homes a good long time. Over the years, many have died or moved to other places to be replaced by younger people. It’s hard to believe that we are now the older folks, the ones that have been here a long time. We’ve seen and lived through many changes, both large and small, and hope to continue to do so.

We’ve seen the changes in the town, not just our neighborhood. Some of the downtown stores and restaurants have survived, but many have disappeared, to be replaced by newer enterprises. Other aspects of life here are different now, too. Recently, we’ve had two doctors and our dentist retire and have had to break in new ones. Our main grocery store relocated a little farther away, and was soon eclipsed by a larger newer megastore (though we stubbornly continue to use the older one).

As I get older, I’m more conscious of how things have changed and continue to change. In Texas, they used to say, “Tired of the weather? Wait a minute.” I feel that way now, watching the people around me, the place where I live, and the world we live in as it constantly changes. I suppose it has always been so, but it feels different when it is happening around you.

“Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel
As the images unwind, like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind!”
                                                ~ Michel Legrand and Marilyn Bergman, Windmills of Your Mind