Critters

I've just finished taking the dog for a walk. An interesting critter this chihuahua, a strange combination of fierce protector and latent coward. Earlier this evening, step-son Warren took the dog out for a few minutes and came back complaining that the dog wouldn't quit barking at a much larger dog they had encountered. I've seen it before. The mighty chihuahua thinks that he's about twice the size of any other dog. But if the encounter is with something else, well, the dog shows his yellow streak.

Take what happened this evening.

Here we were, walking down the street when a small, unleashed animal comes loping toward us. It wasn't a rabbit or a squirrel... the dog loves to chase after rabbits and squirrels - it was an opossum. A simple opossum. The dog watched as the animal loped nearer, then availed himself of the services of a nearby storm sewer to hide from us. The dog didn't know what to do. It was one of those moments when he couldn't figure out whether to s*** or go blind (a favourite expression I'll credit to the late Steve Crabtree - but that's another story).

There's lots of critters in the area. The first time I saw an opossum was after son Stuart saw the thing from my apartment balcony and loudly exclaimed "WHAT IS THAT???" I could hardly blame his question for I hadn't seen an opossum in North Texas prior to that evening.

We'd seen armadillos, lots and lots of armadillos, mostly dead in the middle of the road. Our first live encounter with an armadillo was in Dinosaur Valley State Park. We were off the beaten track returning from a cache hunt when we heard this scratching. It was an armadillo trying desperately to hide from us by digging into a bank as quickly as it could. We stepped around the armadillo to give it enough room to quit feeling fear from the approaching humans.

Coyotes are another critter which seem to thrive in this area. In a previous life in another part of town they tended to wander seemingly at will and I would see them occasionally while on walks with the dog-du-jour. One night the dog went nuts in the middle of the night and when I investigated I found that there was a coyote doing figure 8s in front of our house in full view of the dog.

The same park where the coyotes had been seen was home to at least one road runner seen on a drive through the park, raccoons which lived in the storm sewers and a bobcat which showed himself from time to time between eating rabbits and squirrels.

Then there are the hawks and owls. I've seen both in the immediate neighborhood. There was at least one owl in a tree in the adjacent yard which pleasantly surprized the lovely Miss Carol at one point soon after we moved here. Hawks live in the small copse along Park Place within sight of our front door. Beautiful creatures, hawks. Just love to watch them fly. Good thing that they seem to be abundant in the area.

Squirrels, well, they seem to be abundant, too. Squirrels are cute, that is until they find that hole which leads to one's attic and start scratching in the middle of the night. Thankfully I was able to oust the squirrels in our attic and repair the hole. We quit feeding them in our back yard and they finally got the message.

Living in a rapidly expanding suburban area has some advantages for people, but the critters get the short end of the stick, being ousted from their homes in order that we may live in ours. I am somewhat thankful that we live in an older neighborhood where the displacement has mostly been completed and the critters have found their own niches in which they can live and thrive... and occasionally confuse the snot out of a small chihuahua on a nice January night.

Be Seeing You!