Category: wildlife

The Big Bad Wolf and the Scary Woods

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I have two big dogs. And while I didn’t get them for protection, and they are both friendly to dogs and man, I always figured they’d be good to have on my side if ever we were to run into Big Scary Monsters.

Today I learned how true that is.

It’s been cold here this weekend, so we haven’t been venturing out for as many daily miles as normal. In fact, it was a balmy 2 degrees when we woke up this morning, so we decided to postpone our morning walk a little and hope for a little more red to appear on the thermometer.

By the time we ventured out around 10, it had warmed up 6 times over to a much more reasonable 12 degrees. And since it was also nice and sunny, it felt like at least 13.

We had done a nice vigorous hike through the woods to get our body temp up, and Pavi had rearranged the forest by moving a few trees from here to there to keep his blood pumping, and were heading back to the car.

We had come out of the woods and were crossing the field to the parking lot, when Pavi, my big, intimidating, 95 pound black Shepherd, suddenly stops dead and stares intently into the woods.

Then the hackles all the way down his back go up and he starts barking at whatever he is staring at.

I walk up next to him and prepare myself for an enormous porcupine, or coyote, or wooly mammoth or BigFoot himself to charge out at us.

But nothing happens.

After a few more seconds pass with no monster emerging from the woods, I start to relax.

But my furry 4 footed companion has not.

And now he’s added a little lunge forward/ leap back move to his armor.

This helps me pinpoint the Big Scary Monster.

Someone had rolled a big ball of snow, like the bottom of a snowman, through the field and left it beside the trail.

And this Monster Snowball had set off all the alarms and sent my ultra tough protector into DefCon 5 mode.

It wasn’t until I went and sat on the snowball and finally lured my watchdog in with treats, so he could neutralize the threat, that we could finally continue down the trail and back to our car.

I don’t know what will happen if we ever do encounter Big Foot, but at least I know I am safe from snowballs.

The Death of Muskrat

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I know being stuck at home with quarantine and social distancing can start to feel old and mundane. But I am here to share a story that shows even home can be an exciting place to be.

It started Thursday night when I happened to notice some animal had been hit by a car across the street from the end of my driveway. I did a double take, hoping it wasn’t someone’s cat or small dog, and once I determined it was only a muskrat, I didn’t give it much thought, assuming the road crew, or whomever was in charge of disposing of road kill would be along eventually to do their thing.

Last evening, the dogs and I went out in the yard for our nightly game of ball, when Ember suddenly perked up and took off toward the end of the driveway. I turned to see a crow take off at the same time, and caught up to Ember just as both she and I realized the birds had picked up the muskrat and decided to use the end of my yard as their dining table for their dinner.

I grabbed Ember just as she grabbed hold of a piece of Muskrat’s innards that apparently seemed too appealing to leave.

And I was left with no choice but to yank them out of her mouth and throw them back to the birds.

Needless to say, the rest of the evening was spent with her visiting every window, trying to convince me to let her out to finish her dessert, and me trying to recover from the forced, and way too up close encounter with dead things, and trying to decide if I could make do without that contaminated hand for the rest of my life.

That would have been bad enough, but of course the story doesn’t end there.

This morning, I get up, hopeful that the crows and turkey vultures, have finished their dinner, and cleaned the remains from the dining table that is my lawn.

But of course they haven’t, and Muskrat lay right where he was left.

And now it’s Saturday, so even if I wanted to call the town office and ask how to get in touch with the roadkill crew, there is no way to do this until Monday.

So I am forced to take matters into my own hands, and find myself out on my lawn with a shovel and a Hefty bag, cleaning up Muskrat’s remains. I decide I have little choice but to make my first trip to the dump in my new home town.

Not only is this my first trip to the dump, but also my first experience dealing with road kill, so I really have no idea what proper protocol is, and as I pull in, I stop at the attendant station to explain the situation and figure out where I’m supposed to take poor Muskrat.

“I don’t think we take road kill here” is the response I get.

“Well, what am I supposed to do with it then?”

” You can talk to the boss. That’s him right over there”

I walk over to The Boss, and again explain the situation.

And again get “We don’t take roadkill here” as the response.

And again I ask “What am I supposed to do with it then?”

“You can bury it”

“Where?”

“Just in your yard”

Planning a Muskrat funeral was not exactly top of my to-do list for the day. And starting an animal graveyard in my yard is not a very appealing option. I’m tempted to ask why, if my yard is an acceptable burial site, the dump is not, but I refrain.

” I can’t bury it in my yard. I have dogs”

“Yeah, if you have dogs, they’ll dig it up.”

I blink at him.

“You could just throw it across to the other side of the road” he replies with a shrug.

I give him the head tilt and more blinks, because I’m truly at a loss as how to reply to that.

I turn to walk back to my car to figure out a plan B, and as I pass the attendant shack, the lady I first spoke to, asked what The Boss had said to do. I told her he was not very helpful, and I was still unsure how I was supposed to dispose of Muskrat.

“Just take it to the woods and dump it. That’s what the cops would do if you called them. I hit a baby deer once and that’s all they did. Let the other animals take care of it”

I don’t know what else to say but to thank her and get back in my car.

I’ve watched enough mob movies to know that a car driving into the woods and tossing a Hefty bag out of the back, or digging a grave to bury a bundle is never viewed as suspicious activity. But that seems to be the only option I am left with.

Had I known how quickly my life would devolve into the seedy underbelly today, I would have had more coffee this morning.

And this is how I find myself driving deep into the woods and disposing of Muskrat in an unmarked grave, wondering again how I landed in the role of clean-up in the death of Muskrat, and if “the dump people made me do it” will hold up under future questioning.

RIP poor Muskrat. RIP.

Goldilocks & Papa Bear

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While things have been a little quiet on the travel front this summer, tonight I have a story for you, thanks again to my dog Auni.

As any of my followers know, Auni suffered from a broken leg this past winter, and already has arthritis in her front leg. So as part of her “therapy” to keep her as active as possible, we go on almost daily walks.

Tonight, we headed out for our constitutional after dinner, and after the thunderstorms decided to clear out, around 7pm.

We were having a nice leisurely walk, stopping to sniff anything that might be suspicious, and exploring everything that might have changed since our walk two days ago, when I happened to catch a glimpse of something moving out of the corner of my eye.

We have a creek that runs parallel to the road in our neighborhood, and most of the driveways have little bridges going over the creek to get up to their houses.

Taking his evening constitutional and heading across one of these little bridges in our direction was our neighborhood Black Bear.

When I saw him, we were about 10 feet from running smack dab into him at the end of the driveway.

Luckily, since he was looking in the other direction, and ambling even slower than my canine companion, we were able to quickly back up about another 10 feet and come to a stop before he got to the end of the driveway and the road we were on.

And it gave me a few seconds to get my camera.

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I actually never carry my phone with me on our walks, but I happened to be waiting for a return call (on a package delivery issue, of course) and so had brought it with me tonight. However, my photography skills were a little lacking after this one picture when I realized he was looking right at us. I figured I should maybe pay more attention to what he was going to do, then take pictures.

And what did my faithful companion do? The same companion who literally turned into a wild woman 3 nights ago, when this guy was clearly outside our house around 10pm? That night she was pacing back and forth across the house, barking at every door and trying desperately to make me let her out to face her foe head on. (There were a few moments when I wondered why I wasn’t doing just that). But tonight, when she actually did confront her foe head on?

She sat calmly by my feet and watched him with me from our spot on the side of the road.

Which is probably a good thing in hindsight.

Our fellow ambler spent a few seconds in the above pose checking us out, and then turned and loped off across the street and into the yard on the other side, and we turned and continued our walk back to our house.

It’s always nice to make new friends in the neighborhood.