|
Just because we moved out to
the country a couple years back does NOT mean we want to
run a farm. Tending to animals is just not how we want to
spend our time. We don't want cows or sheep or chickens.
We don't want hogs or ducks. We don't even want a dog or a
cat to train.
OK, so my wife says that
she wants a cat, but that's only because she knows I won't
have anything to do with it. I suspect that if I ever
said, "OK, you win. Let's get a cat", she would
run screaming down the stairs pulling at her hair and just
keep on running... causing damage to the stairway carpet,
not to mention the window at the bottom of the staircase.
We don't want a parrot or a
rabbit or a hamster or even a mouse.
But when you live in the
country, you have pets, whether you like it or not.
The first summer, we were
welcomed by Muffet the skunk. Although she never responded
to that name, we let her keep it. She just loved our
compost heap. In fact, she had a frequent-eater pass at
the all-you-can-eat compost buffet.
The second summer we were
skunk-free, but this summer we were blessed with a new
traveling perfume salesman. We did not name him, but we
have determined that he is on a diet. He stays away from
the all-you-can-eat compost buffet.
He is also much less
intelligent than Muffet. When we see him, we jump and
shout and wave our hands to get his attention,. But we
usually have to get his attention three or four times
before something in his microbe-sized brain clicks in and
says, "Wait a minute. That's not the hot dog vendor
beckoning me to clean up his leftovers. Maybe I should
turn around."
But he is smart enough
provide a two-tier burglar deterent. First, he drives them
away with his odor. "Peee-ew. Let's go rob the
Jensons down the road." Second he digs thousands of
tiny pits all over the lawn to trip any burglar foolish
enough to try to escape.
And to answer your
question, no I did not personally verify the gender of
these skunks. But you are free to check if you doubt my
word.
This summer, we discovered
an exotic spider (See http://www.vitamin-supplements-store.net/spider.html
). Painted on its inch-long black back are two bright
yellow eyes. Spooky. We even watched it wrap its prey –
a small, light brown flying thingy. With amazing speed,
the spider scurried from the center of her web toward the
helpless victim at least a foot away. Then in a matter of
two seconds flat, the spider spun the fly around three or
four times, weaving it into a web cocoon like rolling a
corpse in a carpet behind Luigi's Fine Finer and Smokes.
No gangster could have operated with one tenth the speed.
Just a few hours ago, I was
proud to show off a bees nest over a foot tall hanging
from a low branch in our One Acre Woods.
"Wow. It's just like
in Winnie the Pooh!" That was Little Lady, now 3
years and 3 months old.
"Destroy it. There
must be thousands of bees in there!" That was my
wife.
The fact is that I have had
to destroy four bees nests in the past three weeks, all
between the stones in our foundation. I am not keen to
drive the bees away from their forest nest and toward the
house. In fact, I think I'll post an arrow sign near the
house pointing to the forest: "Cheap rent. Spacious
hive. Vibrant community."
So far, we've avoided the
pets inside the house – we won't discuss the "storm
trooper ants incident" or the midnight mouse-trap
peanut-butter visits – and we have kept the hogs and
sheep at bay (although the chickens sheepishly crawl
through the fence and the stray cats like to run hog wild
around our land).
No pets, perhaps. But you
still have to share your space with skunks and spiders and
bees when you live in the country.
Coming soon to a humor
column near you: How I adopted 14,673 cluster flies on a
Tuesday afternoon....without even breaking into a sweat.
|
