Although our home is rather small by today’s standards, we share it with a number of different critters, 3 dogs and 3 Siamese Fighting fish, to be exact. In addition however, a number of other forms of wildlife have chosen to share their lives with us.
Shortly after moving in we became aware that we were not alone and that the scampering noises we heard so frequently, weren’t from squirrels on the roof, as we had hoped, but in the roof. A whole family herd of them, trotting around on the plaster ceiling. Also, mild though the weather was, we were astonished at the number of wasps in the house. Nobody likes being stung by a wasp but Dear Wife suffers from extreme allergic reactions so it simply wasn’t an option for her. The first local serviceman to visit our house was the Pest Control Guy.
He traced the wasps to a hole in our living room ceiling, and neatly sealed it up. The squirrels were a bit more of a challenge, but according to the Pest Control Guy, the trick is to catch the female; then the guys will mosey away on their own. A trap was set not too far from the back door and in short order we had a small and apparently female squirrel, neatly caught in the trap. Did I mention we had 3 dogs? Did I mention the trap was close to our back door? I’m not sure who was closer to being driven insane, them or us. It was a long two days before the Pest Control Guy came to take it away.
Before very long however, we learned that the theory of just catching the female is a bunch of hooey. Less than a month later our attic was once more party central for the local squirrel population and the hole, carefully sealed the last time, was now twice as big. We called a new Pest Control Guy this time and he set traps all over the place. In the roof, on the roof, in the trees, everywhere. It took about 3 days but we snagged pretty much every squirrel in the neighborhood. The hole was sealed up again and while squirrels are still frequent visitors to our trees (much to the fury of the dogs), they have yet to seek lodgings in our roof.
Other wild animals have been much more welcome. Mainly because they haven’t attempted to live in our roof. We live on an unfenced wooded acre, and while houses surround us; the neighborhood still has a very rural feel. Deer and elk are regular visitors to our yard and as long as we don’t make too big a deal out of it, are more than happy to ignore us. We need to ensure the dogs are kept under control of course, not only is it illegal for them to chase the wildlife, we don’t want to discourage the animals from coming. On the bright side, we do have our own early warning system to let us know something interesting has wandered into the yard. Although we’ve been here almost two years now, this is still a terrific novelty and we’re constantly calling each other to “Come quickly, look!”
The deer and elk are the most common visitors, but there have been others too. For a spell we had a little blond fox living nearby. He could be seen quite often, just sitting in someone’s driveway, watching the world go by. As far as I know, no coyotes have come close to the house, although we can occasionally hear a pack of them singing, late at night. If you’ve never heard coyote song, it’s a haunting, eerie and primal sound that makes you wish humanity would just leave this planet and take all their detritus with them.
Probably our most exciting visitor has been a large black bear. As it happens, it’s not really a good sign that a bear is spending time in an area inhabited by humans. If he’s come to rely on us as a food source then he’ll lose the ability to survive in the world. Also, it’s a sad fact that if there’s any conflict with a human, he’s going to end up the loser. Unfortunately, we perhaps contributed to the problem by breaking one of the cardinal rules of mountain living when we left our trashcan out one night. Maybe he was just passing through, maybe the empty pizza box attracted him, but either way, I was headed out to fetch something from the shed when I spotted two eyes shining back in my flashlight beam.
Black bears don’t usually attack humans but either way; I walked sloooowwly backwards to the house. Popular lore has it that making lots of noise will scare a bear away so I collected some pots and went back outside making enough noise to awaken the dead. I probably awakened the neighborhood at least, but the lure of our garbage was too much for the bruin and he only backed away a few paces. I figured if I at least got the trashcan away from him, that would help, so I bent sideways to pick it up. Of course, you can’t pick up something that heavy one handed unless you’re really giving it your full attention so all that happened was it slid along the ground. Making a noise…not unlike a large, angry, unidentifiable animal. The bear certainly thought so and this achieved what my percussion had not. He hightailed it out of there and our trashcan has lived in the shed ever since.
However, that was in no way the most dangerous creature we’ve had visit. That singular honor goes to a harmless, quite attractive looking dragonfly type flying beastie, which found its way through the insect screens late one night. I know it was late, because I’d been asleep for some time when Dear Wife awoke me to deal with it. Grumbling obscenities I shuffled over; caught the insect in my cupped hands and proceeded to give Dear Wife a lecture about how she didn’t have to wake me to deal with every harmless creature she saw. It was at that point it bit me. I still don’t know what the insect was as it was hard to identify after I’d beaten it to death with a shoe, but it caused my hand to swell up like a balloon for several days.
It’s dangerous up here in the mountains.
Shortly after moving in we became aware that we were not alone and that the scampering noises we heard so frequently, weren’t from squirrels on the roof, as we had hoped, but in the roof. A whole family herd of them, trotting around on the plaster ceiling. Also, mild though the weather was, we were astonished at the number of wasps in the house. Nobody likes being stung by a wasp but Dear Wife suffers from extreme allergic reactions so it simply wasn’t an option for her. The first local serviceman to visit our house was the Pest Control Guy.
He traced the wasps to a hole in our living room ceiling, and neatly sealed it up. The squirrels were a bit more of a challenge, but according to the Pest Control Guy, the trick is to catch the female; then the guys will mosey away on their own. A trap was set not too far from the back door and in short order we had a small and apparently female squirrel, neatly caught in the trap. Did I mention we had 3 dogs? Did I mention the trap was close to our back door? I’m not sure who was closer to being driven insane, them or us. It was a long two days before the Pest Control Guy came to take it away.
Before very long however, we learned that the theory of just catching the female is a bunch of hooey. Less than a month later our attic was once more party central for the local squirrel population and the hole, carefully sealed the last time, was now twice as big. We called a new Pest Control Guy this time and he set traps all over the place. In the roof, on the roof, in the trees, everywhere. It took about 3 days but we snagged pretty much every squirrel in the neighborhood. The hole was sealed up again and while squirrels are still frequent visitors to our trees (much to the fury of the dogs), they have yet to seek lodgings in our roof.
Other wild animals have been much more welcome. Mainly because they haven’t attempted to live in our roof. We live on an unfenced wooded acre, and while houses surround us; the neighborhood still has a very rural feel. Deer and elk are regular visitors to our yard and as long as we don’t make too big a deal out of it, are more than happy to ignore us. We need to ensure the dogs are kept under control of course, not only is it illegal for them to chase the wildlife, we don’t want to discourage the animals from coming. On the bright side, we do have our own early warning system to let us know something interesting has wandered into the yard. Although we’ve been here almost two years now, this is still a terrific novelty and we’re constantly calling each other to “Come quickly, look!”
The deer and elk are the most common visitors, but there have been others too. For a spell we had a little blond fox living nearby. He could be seen quite often, just sitting in someone’s driveway, watching the world go by. As far as I know, no coyotes have come close to the house, although we can occasionally hear a pack of them singing, late at night. If you’ve never heard coyote song, it’s a haunting, eerie and primal sound that makes you wish humanity would just leave this planet and take all their detritus with them.
Probably our most exciting visitor has been a large black bear. As it happens, it’s not really a good sign that a bear is spending time in an area inhabited by humans. If he’s come to rely on us as a food source then he’ll lose the ability to survive in the world. Also, it’s a sad fact that if there’s any conflict with a human, he’s going to end up the loser. Unfortunately, we perhaps contributed to the problem by breaking one of the cardinal rules of mountain living when we left our trashcan out one night. Maybe he was just passing through, maybe the empty pizza box attracted him, but either way, I was headed out to fetch something from the shed when I spotted two eyes shining back in my flashlight beam.
Black bears don’t usually attack humans but either way; I walked sloooowwly backwards to the house. Popular lore has it that making lots of noise will scare a bear away so I collected some pots and went back outside making enough noise to awaken the dead. I probably awakened the neighborhood at least, but the lure of our garbage was too much for the bruin and he only backed away a few paces. I figured if I at least got the trashcan away from him, that would help, so I bent sideways to pick it up. Of course, you can’t pick up something that heavy one handed unless you’re really giving it your full attention so all that happened was it slid along the ground. Making a noise…not unlike a large, angry, unidentifiable animal. The bear certainly thought so and this achieved what my percussion had not. He hightailed it out of there and our trashcan has lived in the shed ever since.
However, that was in no way the most dangerous creature we’ve had visit. That singular honor goes to a harmless, quite attractive looking dragonfly type flying beastie, which found its way through the insect screens late one night. I know it was late, because I’d been asleep for some time when Dear Wife awoke me to deal with it. Grumbling obscenities I shuffled over; caught the insect in my cupped hands and proceeded to give Dear Wife a lecture about how she didn’t have to wake me to deal with every harmless creature she saw. It was at that point it bit me. I still don’t know what the insect was as it was hard to identify after I’d beaten it to death with a shoe, but it caused my hand to swell up like a balloon for several days.
It’s dangerous up here in the mountains.
