Friday, October 14, 2016

The Next Wild Thing

It was time to get up. The alarm had gone off. Button started calling to be let in. Fine. I'm getting up. Just wait a second. Then I heard another voice. It turned to kitty caterwauling. Cat fight! I started moving faster.





















Button and an orange tabby cat where having a loud discussion by the propane tank. Really? There is another feral kitty roaming the mountain top. I grow weary of all the domesticated animals running wild across my mountain.

The yellow mums and blue asters are looking nice as I watched the new wild kitty disappear in a flash.





















I have the full menu of wild things to contend with as it is. I put up a bat house after they continued to roost under the eaves despite the wire screen I slid up in there. Poop kept dropping on my back porch. I'm not sure the bats like that house.



























This was the second attempted cat fight I have broken up in a week. Button and Orange kitty must be discussing living arrangements. They rarely work out. It took months before I was able to scoop up the last wild kitty and take him to the shelter. There were many confrontations while he was in the neighborhood. I don't need a repeat of that.

It is near normal when I come home and pull into my driveway to scan the area for any signs of loose cows, free range chickens and wild pigs. Now I have to watch for an orange flash.





















Are my beautiful blue asters still there?





















Fall is here and every damn varmint, loose farm animal and a host of vermin at the bottom of the food chain are foraging through the gardens fattening up for winter. It's a mad house out there.





















Every morning my neighbor's scalped hillside of grass is more chewed up. Today I found cloven foot prints. We don't have armadillos.....yet. We have pigs. Oh dear Lord have mercy on us.

It just so happens I saw my deer hunter at the Lowes this week. I inquired if he and his boys would enjoy some pig hunting. Sure, he said. This evening I called my neighbor and offered my deer hunter's services. She was receptive which was most excellent and even told me they had given permission to someone else to get those damn pigs but he hadn't gotten to it yet obviously.  Well, let's get one of them on it quick.




















I have never seen one, but I know they are here. My deer hunter saw one in the back forty and told me just to make sure that I knew. It did seem a bit odd that a raccoon was able to move a thirty pound sack of roadside trash that I left in the back of my truck as it chewed a hole through the plastic. I never leave kitchen garbage in my truck over night unless I put it in the cab. I know better.

Creatures of the Night.



















Way out in the middle of nowhere I expect the wild things. I wasn't expecting the variety, quantity and seemingly endless supply of the domesticated and formerly domesticated. Is this normal or do I live in a hot spot high on the low spot?


4 comments:

Dianne said...

Let me add another worry. My little 17 pound dog who thinks he is a mighty hunter was bitten by a Copperhead Wednesday evening. Luckily, I have a great vet that would see him at 6:30PM. No, I did not see the snake, or I would have killed it. Copperheads nor Rattlers get a pass...all others do. Almost all the swelling is gone and he is ready to resume his previous activities and I hope he leaves snakes alone. He was bitten on the side of his face so I am thinking that the snake was provoked.

beverly said...

This month's Garden Design has an article on Hog Hill (CA), named after an invasion of wild pigs. Perhaps a re-naming is in order (not!) The garden looks beautiful notwithstanding invasions.

Christopher C. NC said...

Dianne I like to tell myself that my cool and higher elevation keeps the snake population down. I have never seen a copperhead or rattler up here. The snakes I do see are usually small and black or corn snakes or some such. My bumper crop of okra this year may be signalling a change in that thinking.

Bev I like to tell myself that wild pigs won't cross a two lane paved state highway. The freakish amount of digging I have had in the garden this year must be from a congregation of skunks. Ha. I'm still better off than my neighbor's scalped hillside of grass. We just need to get the hunters in here.

Lisa at Greenbow said...

I am glad you engaged some hunters to try to rid the area of the pigs. I would hate to see what they would do in your garden. Darn. You live in a very wild area. Lucky that you don't have rattlers and copperheads. Ugh