The Animal Conspiracy – Tim Bedore Is Right!

Often I am asked whether I’m worried about living in a city often featured on “Cops” or diving in waters where sharks live.  Many assume that one is very safe living in a small city, surrounded by cornfields.  Well, don’t be fooled.   I have found that living behind the corncob curtain one faces an almost daily assault by four-legged beasts intent on take-over of the yard and/or house or threatening our very being. 

Last year, some of you may recall my war with the pocket gophers.  I tried humane traps and succeeded in trapping several chipmunks, who were probably the scouts for the larger beasts.  The chipmunks were released a couple miles from the house, and we hoped our scent would be obscured by the car tires as we sped off.  Anywho, fewer scouts.   Meanwhile, the tunneling continued.  I had several suggestions for solutions:  hand grenades, double-barreled shotgun (which would require me sitting 24/7 in the yard with night goggles), running a tube from my car’s exhaust pipe down their holes (has anyone tried this??), I finally resorted to poison pellets.  Not sure if this worked, but the tunneling stopped, or perhaps they went further underground….(cue the music from “Jaws”). 

This year, I found that the animals have gotten bolder and are allies with each other as the assault on the house/yard continues.  Imagine my horror when I saw squirrels, chipmunks, birds, and the neighbors’ cat all roaming freely on our screened-in patio!  Thanks to a faulty lock on the door, the animals must have been partying all spring and summer and I felt like a parent that arrived home early to find a wild party in progress.  The squirrels must have been “high” on acorns for their favorite spot was hanging upside down on the screens.  The chipmunks were merely rude, chattering at me as if I was the intruder!!  The birds just seemed freaked out; dropping in on a party in progress only to find that things were way out of hand!  Well, the lock got fixed and Damian has been posted as a sentry …sort of an animal ADT; too bad he’s easily distracted by the sound of a can opener.  I just hope the squirrels don’t find out.      

Other evidence that the animals are advancing on us and now inside the perimeter (i.e. they’ve penetrated the fence) was the discovery that some beast(s) has been chewing on the support posts of our deck!  Whaaa???  Off to Bing where I typed “what wild animal chews wood”.  Here is a website I found that gave me a whole new set of worries.   http://www.ehow.com/info_11403016_wild-animal-eats-wood-pellets.html  Armored catfish, gorillas, shipworms, horses.  Holy crap, it’s worse than I thought!!   Damn those chipmunks!!!  OK, I gotta get a grip!!  Hoping it’s not any of these animals, I’m back to wondering if its gophers again, but I’m not sure about their climbing skills.  Perhaps they have allied with another beast.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, a full-on frontal assault has also been mounted from across the road.  Its harvest time and you can almost see the ground move with the field mice stampeding….and where are they headed???  Straight for our house!!!  I learned a long time ago to leave the garage door down.  But somehow every year field mice manage to invade, and it’s never just one.  While I’ve managed to plug all the holes with steel wool, invariably one or more (no one ever has just one) manages to sneak into the house and die behind the walls.  So, as you fondly picture a romanticized notion of life in a bucolic setting with pumpkin pie cooking (remember pie in Indiana is a 24/7 thing), nothing masks the smell of dead mouse. 

It doesn’t get better.   John had a near-deer encounter just last week!  He said that one deer seemed to be stalking him since he watched it jump into the road, then run along the tree line then run across the road again!  For those who aren’t from the Midwest, it’s a known fact that cars do hit and kill deer, especially in rural areas.  However, more collisions occur in November than in any other month.  According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 200 Americans are killed in deer-car encounters!!  Huh, and I’ll bet many of you thought the most dangerous animals had fangs, claws….or JAWS!!  In 2010, only two deaths from unprovoked shark attacks were reported.  Well, give me the sharks, please!!!