Moving status:
1. There is a dumpster in the driveway, waiting for us to clean out the garage. As soon as that task has been accomplished (no easy feat, believe me), we can start moving all of the boxes I’ve packed into the garage and make the rest of the house look de-cluttered.
2. Our contractor guy is coming to install our new kitchen cabinet doors tonight and tomorrow night (he has a day job, so evenings and weekends are kind of his thing). It’s looking like most of the interior work that needs to be done on the house will be finished by Sunday. I almost can’t believe that. I have a feeling we’re going to find at least a half-dozen other projects as soon as he’s finished.
More motivation to move:
1. Yesterday, it was raining on & off, and the cats were driving me insane wanting to either go outside or come back in, depending on the weather. I finally gave up and left the door open for them. Mistake! Beaumont came running in with a still-alive, mostly-disemboweled mouse, and dropped it in the front hall. No one else was home but me. Lucky, lucky me. I won’t get into the details of how I dealt with it, just in case any of y’all are eating while you read this. But my stomach still knots up every time I think about it. And seriously, the whole incident put me in such a foul mood that for a couple of minutes there I would’ve been happy to load up all four cats and drop them off at the nearest shelter.
2. This morning, as soon as I got home from dropping Cate off at Patsy’s house, I had to run into the backyard to chase off a coyote. Again.
When I first moved out here, I wondered if I would know a coyote on sight, or if I would just think it was an exotic-looking dog. You know how a lot of people cross-breed their Siberian Huskies with wolves or whatever? I wondered if it would be something like that, and I’d be all “oooh, hello puppy,” and then get my face bitten off. Well, let me reassure you, if you ever see this in your backyard:
You’ll know without a doubt in your mind that that is a f’ing coyote. And if you’re anything like me, you will wig the hell out. I don’t know how bright it is of me to go running toward the coyote screaming at it to go away, but I guess the whole cat-owner instinct takes precedence over common sense sometimes.
It’s funny how my southern redneck heritage comes out during moments like this, though, because I swear that I actually screamed, “GO ON! GIT!!” Which, dude. I’m pretty sure that’s the first time that’s ever come out of my mouth. At least I didn’t call him a varmint or say dagnabbit or anything like that. I’ll save that for the next coyote.
What in TARNATION wuz you doin’ chasin’ that thar cayote?
Actually, that’s probably along the lines of what you should do because you want the coyote to think that your house is craaaazy and you’re craaaazy and it’s not worth the trouble to hang out there. I always hear that you should bang pots and pans together when there’s a bear or something predatory in your yard. You know, as long as you’re not between the thing and its offspring or anything. Maybe do it from the safety of your kitchen window.
By next week you’ll be SO CLOSE to getting the house listed!! Woohoo!
Ok, I admit it, I live in the boonies too but if we had coyotes visit in our back yard, I would freak! Worst we have for now are the cute deer that graze because we haven’t managed to do anything with the land yet. DH is working on it but the weather just keeps getting in the way.
Oh yeah, we get the deer too. They’re very tame, they come right up to the deck to graze and don’t pay any attention to us. Cate noticed them the other day when the back door was open, and she shrieked with glee at them. They just looked at her and then went back to snacking on the grass. So funny.
And Cat, you’re right, you’re supposed to make a huge racket and scare them off. That’s what they told us to do when there were a bunch of cougar sightings around here. Which, thankfully, I’ve never seen. Although a couple of neighbors told me that they’ve seen bobcats near our house, and that freaks me out.
I guess my perspective on wildlife comes down to this: herbivores? Totally cool. Any animals that might possibly hurt me, my family, or my pets? Not cool at all.
Think yourself lucky your not a Brit
‘IF IT’S NOT TOO MUCH TROUBLE. KINDLY MOVE ALONG!’
No wonder the pets don’t listen to me 🙂
Sweetie, that’s why you married me. You need my rude American self to help balance things out if you’re going to survive in this country.
Coyotes don’t bother people. Bobcats most likely won’t bother you, either. They’re very, very shy. It’s probably best not to try to chase off cougars if you should happen to see any. Not that anyone would expect you to!
But if one of these days you should happen to chase off a cougar, it’ll make for a great blog post!
True, coyotes generally don’t bother people, but the coyotes in our neighborhood have already killed a few of our neighbors’ dogs and cats, so you can’t really blame me for trying to chase them off.
And I would only chase off a cougar if Cate was in danger. Otherwise I’m pretty sure I’d be too scared to do anything.
But I don’t know about bobcats being shy, because when my across-the-street neighbor saw one, she said it just looked at her and kept on sauntering across the street, totally indifferent to her.