Tag: Back Yard Wild Kingdom

Creepiness

You know how when you live in the woods you often hear noises coming from somewhere in the trees and you can almost never see whatever it is that’s making the noise?

Why is it, when you go outside in the daylight, that noise always sounds like a squirrel or a chipmunk or something small enough that you can step on it and put it out of its misery, but when you go outside at night that sound always sounds like a deer, or a coyote, or a bear, or a gorilla, or a manbearpig or a Targaryen dragon?

While you ponder that, check out the moon. iPhone astrophotography and shit.

Christmas Light Critters

We left our Christmas lights from last year hung up along the edge of the roof. A few weeks ago I noticed a spot near the end of the string where it was broken. Crap. I guess we have to replace them this year.

That’s where things started getting weird. The lights were wrapped around the railings next to the stairs leading up to our two front doors. Strangely, the wires have been broken all over the railings and all of the bulbs are gone. What the hell?

Now there are 3-4 places along the edge of the roof where the strand has been broken, and again many of the bulbs are gone.

Over the last week or so I have started seeing bulbs in random places in the yard. Once I saw three of them in the back yard next to the house. For reference, we didn’t hang any lights on the back of the house. Today if you were to look in the same spot, all three bulbs are gone.

There is, however, a bulb on the fire pit, and other bulbs in random places in the back or on the sides of the house, nowhere near where the lights were hung.

So there are two questions to ask. First, which critters are chewing the lights off of our house, and two, if I put up new lights are the same critters going to chew through those as well?

Bird!

We politely asked this bird to please exit the premises and it politely said no. Well, if that’s how you want it Mr Bird then I guess we’ll just leave your insanely gigantic birdness to it then. Would you like us to bring you some water? Maybe some cigarettes?

That is a big sucker. I don’t think it’s a hawk, but I really can’t say. It looks like a hawk but the colors seem wrong. Either way, he lives here now and we are going to pay him rent so that we can stay.

Two Firsts

Isn’t it a lovely morning? Doesn’t the sky look a little brighter? Doesn’t the air feel a little fresher? Doesn’t the grass look a little greener? If I didn’t know better I would say the Red Sox eliminated the Yankees from the post season or something. If I didn’t know better, of course.

Two weird things happened to me just now.

Tuesday is trash pick up day in our neighborhood. Today is Wednesday. I should have taken the barrels in from the street yesterday, but I didn’t so I took them in this morning. We had a shit load of trash go out this week so there were four barrels. Two of them have their covers attached and two of them don’t. The attached guys are much bigger than the others so I figured I would grab those two first and walk them back to the side of the house where we store them.

One of the lids was closed. The other was open. When I went to flip it closed I noticed we had a stow away. There was a chipmunk in the barrel. The barrel was otherwise empty, but he was just hanging out. I figured I’d be nice and not give the little bastard a heart attack by carrying him away and I tipped the barrel onto it’s side. Run away, Chip or Dale, be free! He didn’t run away. He just sat there. What the hell, rodent? Get out of my damn barrel. I then started to tip the barrel upside down and that did it. He dashed out at full speed. So long, friend. I hope you don’t get hit by a car or anything.

So the two big barrels are now properly stowed away and I went back to the street to get the smaller barrels. I put the cover onto one and was reaching down to the ground (given my girth, that must be pretty funny to watch) to pick up the second cover and right where my hand was about to grab I see fur. It was a mouse. A little grey looking mouse, snuggled against the cover. He probably saw me coming and tried to hide under it, but I bumped it a little and he was exposed. Poor little guy. He was clearly scared shitless and didn’t know what to do. He started to go for the cover again, but I kicked it out of the way. The last thing I want is to actually reach down to get the cover and have mickey freak out and bite me and give me rabbis that turn me into some kind of Cujo. You know how it is, I’m sure. Mighty mouse, in his fear started burrowing. I reached down for the cover and startled him again so he ran a little ways away and started burrowing again.

Two trash barrel related rodent incidents within seconds of each other. I have never had either of those things happen to me before. What is going on with the universe? Is this the start of some weird, lame, doomed to fail, rodent uprising? Were they just Yankees fans who tried to drink their misery away and were too hung over this morning to run away when the gigantic human came stomping around?

We may never know the truth. At least there weren’t any squirrels. I’ve seen Rick and Morty. I know better than to mess with squirrels*.

*From Morty’s Mind Blowers:

Noisy Birds

The weather is spectacular today. Clear, sunny, mild temps in the mid-70’s. Perfect. Everything you want from June in New England.

I have the windows open and the AC off so it should be super quiet. It’s not though. The birds, man. The birds are being crazy loud. It’s like Bird Coachella or something. It feels like any minute now Roger McGuinn and David Crosby are going to tear into Eight Miles High*.

*Get it??? Noisy birds??? The Byrds??? Get it???