back yard wild life – Inside the Red Head's Head

I’m covering a day shift at my mother’s house today as I slowly get back into the swing of that thing. Today is trash day, so I put the barrels out on the street last night so that I wouldn’t have to worry about them this morning.

The squirrels get into my trash barrels all the time, but they have never staged an attack while they were on the street. Until today that is.

The damage wasn’t bad, but one barrel was open and there was a small amount of trash scattered across the front yard. When I went outside to fix things I found two squirrels, three chipmunks and a handful of various birds checking out the wreckage.

Oh good, now the squirrels are cluing the rest of the wild kingdom into the buffet that is the crap we throw away. It’s like some perverse Disney cartoon.

Damn you, rodents. Fuck you, squirrels. We have foxes, bobcats, hawks, owls, and on one occasion a coyote living in the woods behind our house. None of those super predators eat squirrels? Come on, assholes. Control our rodent infestation!

I may have developed a new lunch time ritual for the days I telecommute. More on that in a second, but first there is gore to share.

I went downstairs this morning at a little before 9:00 to put a load of laundry in the washing machine. There was another garter snake on the cellar floor. I walked up to him, he didn’t flinch. He’s dead, thinks me. I put the wash on, went upstairs, closed the cellar door so the cat couldn’t get at the slithery bastard, and started working. When it was time to put the wash into the dryer I went downstairs with a bucket and something to scoop up the corpse.

It wasn’t there.

DAMN IT! It was still alive!

An hour later I went back downstairs and he was back, just a short distance from where he was when I first saw him. I wasn’t taking any chances this time. I went upstairs and got a couple of things. One was the camera… obviously.

The other item I brought downstairs was a big honkin’ snow shovel with a nice sharp edge on it. I brought it down on the snake with a vengeance. His back was nice and crushed. I waited a few moments. He didn’t move. I scooped him onto the shovel and what do you know, he started moving. Damn thing still ain’t dead! I dropped him and gave him another slam with the shovel. I paused again and then brought it down one more time, just south of his head. He didn’t move again. I scooped him out and threw him in the woods. I hope something gross eats what’s left of him. Something like a slug, or a worm, or whatever. Stupid home invading snake.

So now that that drama was over, I could happily go back to work. When lunch time rolled around I had an idea. Every time I got up today, I went to the bedroom window to check on the bird feeder, and every time there were squirrels and chipmunks all over the thing. I yell, they run, I leave, they come back.

I decided that for lunch, I would cook some hot dogs on the grill, grab a camp chair and my camera, and sit outside on the grass. I could watch the birds and keep away the rodents all at the same time. Success!

I was lucky enough to catch a couple of birds just as they jumped off the feeder. I think a good clear shot of a bird in flight is the new goal for the summer.