Animals I Love to Hate

I live in a zoo of my own making.  I have a back room that is floor to ceiling windows, and right now I’m watching squirrels digging into my potted plants to bury their acorns for the winter.

May I mention how I hate squirrels?  First, they’re ugly.  Second, every single year when I’m planting my flowers in the spring, they are there uprooting said flowers to find the last of their acorns.  So I spend my time replanting the annuals I’ve already planted.

I have a bird feeder hanging from a very dead branch on my spreading oak tree—I mention that it’s spreading as it’s like a canopy over my deck, sparing me from the sun.  Some day I suppose I’ll have to get it pruned again.  I get such great joy watching the birds come to my feeder and also prance around my deck and the bushes surrounding it.  What doesn’t make me happy is watching the squirrels scrambling up the tree trunk and onto the dead branch, where they bounce and then sometimes descend the pole that’s holding the bird feeder, grab onto the feeder’s ring and try to get their greedy little mouths on seeds for the birds.  Hah!  I have a pressure-sensitive feeder that doesn’t allow the gray rats in, but still they bounce and swing until they get their reward, sunflower seeds.

A happy moment a few weeks ago when I saw a fox on my front yard grabbing a squirrel by the neck.  I watched for a while and then decided I must go out.  Previously, a fox or coyote had eviscerated a baby raccoon on my front lawn and I had to dispose of it.  I didn’t want to have to deal with a dead squirrel too.  I opened the front door.  The squirrel had been playing dead. No longer.  Mr. Fox grabbed him and carried him away to another person’s lawn.  For some reason I don’t mind foxes, maybe because I don’t have chickens.  They are quite beautiful against a falling snow.

Chipmunks.  Disney had it wrong.  These are disgusting little creatures, who’ll dig their holes everywhere.  Fortunately, unlike several of my friends, I do not have a patio they can destroy.  But I hate seeing them scamper across my deck.  And just the other day, as I was pulling out of my garage, I saw a chipmunk pulling in. This shall be dealt with!  And don’t talk to me about “humane.”  “Humane” has “human” in it, not “chipmunk.”

I have a friend who thinks raccoons are cute.  Obviously, she never had them under her deck.  When I had my deck rebuilt, mainly so I wouldn’t step through one of the rotten planks and kill myself, I explained my raccoon problem to the builder, so he staked chicken coop fencing between deck and soil.  Well, that lasted until the hammering stopped and the workmen were gone.  Back came the raccoons.

Every February they mate.  The screeching that goes on is pornographic and can last for several days.  Thinking back to my own efforts at procreation, I don’t think I was half as loud.  When spring comes so do the babies, marching behind their mother, who proudly leads them across my deck.  Nocturnal?  Not especially.  Dusk to dawn mostly and absolutely no fear when I open the sliding door to try to scare them off.

I have tried everything to get rid of the raccoons. I even hired someone who came back day after day and could never catch them.  So I hiss and they hiss back.

Only one animal gets rid of the raccoons under my deck and that’s the skunk.  Yes, the skunks have also found a comfy home under my deck.  How do I know?  They reek.  Oh, how delightful it is to sometimes wake up early in the morning and see three skunks under my bird feeder.

However, the good thing about skunks is they know when to leave.  Ammonia and they are gone!

Mice in the basement?  They come every year when the weather gets chilly.  My cat Tuffie used to take care of them, but Tuffie has gone the way of all flesh, leaving only his fleas behind, whereupon I had to call in an exterminator.  So now I must use traps and believe me I do.  It’s man against the elements and one thing I don’t want is mouse turds all over my house.

I would complain about deer; but, with a changing neighborhood, everyone has put up fences so they no longer come and destroy the hostas. Actually, I rather like deer.  They are beautiful animals.  Unfortunately, I’d stay away from them due to ticks.

I can’t say I really hate coyotes because so far they haven’t bothered me.  I do see them proudly parading across our suburban streets.  Once a woman was walking her dog and was followed by a coyote as I was driving along the street.  She was almost ready to run, and I wanted to stop and give her a ride. Instead I chased after the coyote.  No, don’t call me a hero, I was just being neighborly.

Mosquitoes?  Picture me of an evening, out on my deck, enjoying the great out of doors, ignoring the movements of the raccoons underneath me and then suddenly I hear a buzzing around my ears.  West Nile anyone?  So I make a quick retreat inside where the only insect I avoid are the spiders, which are allegedly helpful.  To whom one might legitimately ask.

Oh well, nature will do what it will and it doesn’t always have to be man against nature.  We can co-exist. Let me rephrase that.  Do I have a choice?