We had an uninvited guest a few days ago. It wasn't that he wasn't welcome, just unexpected. Have you had a rooster on your roof lately? A neighbor called. “What is a chicken doing on your roof?” He noticed the rooster when he heard it shouting its lungs out, “Cockle-doodle-do!” Where could it be? He finally spotted it on the front roof of our house, standing at the roof's edge, singing his heart out. I thought roosters only announced the dawn.

As Anne rushed out the door to verify the report, I shouted after her, “Grab your camera. No one will believe it if you don't have a picture.” When you check my Facebook page you will find three views of his majesty standing at the very edge of our roof. Let me describe him. He is this year's White Leghorn rooster, about fryer size. As this year's baby chick, he still has a way to go to gain full rooster status.

He was up there until dark, walking back and forth, sometimes clucking, sometimes crowing. Was he lost? We thought so. He is the first live chicken at 155 Summers Road. We have eaten many of his kin, but he is the first one to come here voluntarily.

Anne opened a window at the back of our house and began “clucking” at him. He quickly answered her call. She could hear his claws strike the metal roof as he walked back to where she was, clucking in return. I didn't know Anne could speak chickenese.

Anne drove up the back part of Summers Road asking if anyone had lost a rooster. None of our neighbors raise chickens, it turned out. She checked on Hickory Star Road, too. No one was home there. The rooster was here until dark. By morning, he was gone.

This spring has been a lively one around here. There are two mother raccoons raising babies, seven in total. They seem to hang together. Possums come by in the evening. However, the most unusual visitor, other than the rooster, was a sand hill crane.

I was in my sitting room watching TV when movement outside caught my eye. I could hardly believe it! A sand hill crane was scoping out my back yard. He was just standing there, looking around, all of four foot tall. There was not doubt about it. He was a sand hill crane. We had many of them in the area where we lived before coming to Tennessee. I used to call them pterodactyls because of their shadows as they flew over our yard. But here in East Tennessee? In the woods? No way.

We had a squirrel that delighted in sitting on the roof edge, throwing hickory nuts at our cats. They were furious. I wonder if that's the squirrel they finally caught and ate? Deer are regular visitors. A beautiful red tail fox sat right outside at the back of our house the other day, just hanging out. He saw Anne in the window and quickly scampered up into the tree line. We have had coyotes here. A bear lived back in a cove until someone chased him out. What's next? An elk? Maybe.