Tag: wild kingdom

Mouser Fail

Okay, before you get all judgmental I am going to say that we live in the woods, it’s winter, it’s freezing cold out, and we got a metric tonne of snow last night. All of that combined leads to one unfortunate truth: Little tiny furry critters are going to find their way into our house. It is inevitable. It doesn’t mean we’re leaving food out or any shit like that, it just means our house is warm. That’s all. Get over your shit and just enjoy the stupid little story, m’kay?

I was sitting on the couch in the living room working on some music on my laptop. My wife was at her desk in her office working. The two cats were laying together on top of one of the cat trees. They were asleep, as far as I could tell.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement in the hallway between the living room and my wife’s office. It was a mouse. It was casually strolling around the corner into the living room. It stayed close to the wall and went behind a chair and I lost sight of it. A few seconds later it popped out again and walked calmly right up to the base of the cat tree! Neither cat noticed. They didn’t move a muscle. Way to sleep on the job, felines!

The mouse changed direction and ran into the next room. I followed it but quickly lost sight of it. I made some noise and shifted some furniture around but the little sucker was nowhere to be found. I went back to the couch and got back to work.

About half an hour later or so I saw it in the hallway again. This time it did not come into the living room with me. Instead it changed direction and ran into Jen’s office. I watched as it went right under her desk, literally inches away from her feet! We can’t have that now can we? I went into the room after it and pulled Jen away from her desk. We had the little home invading bastard cornered against the wall but with the desk in the way neither one of us could really reach it.

Eventually it made a dash for the door and left the two slow moving humans in the dust. Straight out the door, across the hallway, through the living room door and straight into Robin the Cat! It was like something out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon. The mouse skidded to a stop, squeaked, “Holy shit!” clearly at the same instant that Robin yelled, “Holy Shit!” back at it, then it turned around and ran back into the office.

We had it cornered again, this time on the other side of the room. We also had two cats taking a keen interest, but again the little shit managed to make a break for the door and leave us all behind. The four of us gave chase, but it lost us all again and eventually we gave up looking for it. Robin is still stalking around the house determined to catch the furry little asshole. Jen and I are both back to what we were doing before. Lily is doing what she does best… sleeping.

If the cats don’t catch it tonight I am probably going to have to put traps out tomorrow. Sorry, mouse.

New Critter

My eagle eyed wife spotted a new critter strolling through the grass in the front yard. I don’t know how she saw him through the window, but she did because she’s amazing.

Check out the latest critter addition to our little corner of wild kingdom:

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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.

Wild Kingdom

Remember this date everyone.  September 20, 2015 at 6:45am.  We had our first deer sighting of the season.   A doe, a deer, a female deer in the yard at the tree line.  Just hanging out, doing what ever deer do.  The groundhog also made an appearance at about 7:55am, but he suddenly is less impressive.  Wild deer will do that to a rodent, you know?

I wonder what other exotic wild forest beasts will be visiting us today?

Lazy Hawk

I saw a hawk in the backyard. I was looking out the window (I should have looked at your face instead… sorry… Rush lyrics just took over my brain for a second… I’m okay now) and woosh it flew out of the woods onto a tree on the edge of our yard. It seemed a little small. I wonder if it was the bird equivalent of a teenager? Anyway. I also saw a squirrel in the backyard. I was hoping… hoping… hoping… to see that hawk act out a little bird revenge on the bastard who keeps stealing all of the seed out of the feeders.

But alas, no. The hawk was a lazy asshole and the squirrel lives to steal bird seed another day.

What the Hell was That?

Was that a bobcat I just saw in the woods? I thought maybe it might have been a fox, but it didn’t seem to have that much of a tail. I honestly don’t know what the hell it was.

Here kitty kitty (he said before running for his fat life)

I am the Angel of Death (in Some Circles)

I took a picture of a snake in the cellar last night. It was dead. I left it there with the intention of getting rid of it this morning.

There is a snow shovel in the cellar. Why? Because once I found a live garter snake and I used a snow shovel to kill it. Now, so long as the shovel is not needed in the driveway, it stays in the cellar. I grabbed our broom and took it downstairs with the plan to sweep the corpse onto the shovel, dump it into a trash barrel, and then take the barrel outside. I had to walk over to the other end of the cellar to get the shovel. As I was heading over to the laundry area, where last night’s dead sucker was decaying, I walked behind the couch.

There was another one.

Mutha Puss Bucket!

Was it dead? I don’t know. It wasn’t moving. What do I do? I reached out with the broom and poked it. It was alive all right. It took off for a hiding place, but I used the broom to sweep it back out into the open, where I bashed it with the shovel. SLAM! It wasn’t all the way dead, but it was broken enough that it didn’t matter. Sweep sweep, scoop scoop, it’s in the trash. Sweep sweep, scoop scoop, last night’s bastard was in the trash.

Now I’m paranoid. I went wandering around, looking for more of the little s.o.b’s. Turns out there was this thing that I thought was a twisty tie (the cat LOVES to play with twisty ties) in a corner that turned out to be another dead one. I first saw it a couple of days ago but didn’t think anything of it. Sweep sweep, scoop scoop, carry the barrel outside and deposit three little home invaders.

I should also add that last weekend while I was mowing the grass I happened to see one slithering along the edge of the patio. Garter snakes are easier to kill with a lawn mower than with a shovel, I’ll tell you that for nothing. I left the corpse behind, figuring some animal would make use of it. The next day I took a look and it was gone.

I’m going to assume that it was the screwy weather last night that brought two of them into the open. I’m also going to assume that the very, very cold cellar floor will put and end to all of those that do come out of hiding. If not that, then the cat. Those that do show themselves and somehow manage to survive will have to face me and my shovel. From the garter snake’s point of view, I am the angel of death. I am the back breaker. I am the head smasher. I am snakey heaven’s justice.

(if you are a garter snake) Don’t mess with me.

More Tablet Fun

I mentioned yesterday that my wife wanted to shake up her tablet using ways. This directly affected me in two ways. First, as mentioned yesterday, I inherited a Nexus 7. The second, much more important way, is that I just inherited her iPad Air. Ah, retina display! I was using the second iPad 3. The one with the lightning connector. This one is newer, lighter, and smaller but with the same size screen. Jen, my love, has switched to an iPad Mini. So far we are both pleased.

I restored the Air with a back up of the 3 I made this morning. I’ve had some trouble restoring in app purchases. I hate those things. The big issue is that iTunes is telling me I can’t access iTunes Match for 42 days. Whatwhatwhat???

In unrelated news, while cooking lunch on the grill outside, I think I found the hawks’ nest. It’s really close to the yard. I’ll be camping outside with my camera soon.

Parasite

During our first nice-weather family gathering in our new house (it was my step daughter’s birthday) my niece caught herself a tick. Her parents found it when they got home. Everyone else at the party checked for more, and no more were found.

Until today. I knew there was a chance, seeing as the kids and I all went outside to do some spring cleaning. This morning I found one of the little bastards digging into my gut. Yippee. Did it fall apart as I was pulling it off of me? Oh fer sure it did. Do I get to go make an appointment to get checked for lyme disease now? Ah hells yes I do!

Effin’ parasite.