An opossum, recently
For some time now, I have been treading carefully when mowing the lawn (which is now no longer necessary despite our mild weather this year) and raking the leaves. The reason for this is that a mysterious creature had been leaving rather smelly bundles of scat scattered (love that alliteration!) throughout the yard.
The mysterious creature has been identified, as I was suddenly jolted from the comfort of the smallest room in the house to see our visitor sitting on the fence. Not politically speaking, of course.
Well, this being America, it did not take long before my spouse Dr. N. heard the sound of something colliding with the back wall of our house. And then again. Rushing to the upstairs window with the greatest vantage point, we watched in horror as the neighbor from across the way aimed a rifle at the opossum. The sounds we had heard were probably pellets from the air rifle hitting the wall of our house.
Well, I realize that for some these critters may do damage to the garden/yard/property, but sometimes the hunter-gatherer instincts are too much. With some loud shouting the rifle bearing neighbor reluctantly put down his weapon. Dr. thought she may have seen some blood on our furry friend, but we are hoping he/she got away.
In the UK the law is clear on these matters, and I quote “it is an offence for the pellet to go beyond the boundary of the premises on which the gun is being used unless there is permission from the adjoining landowner”. I guess in the US where discharging firearms is probably less of an offence than breaking wind, your neighbour can fire his gun into your premises with impunity. Either way, I think I’d be seriously annoyed, regardless of my feelings for the furry visitor.
I assure you, we were most seriously displeased. Just short of a call to the police.
The raccoons that often visit our garden (and sometimes even come into the house – I leave the back door open for the cats if I’m home during daylight hours) are rather vicious critters that refuse to back away even when you’re yelling and waving a broom right in their face. However, a well-aimed jet of water from a garden hose works wonders. No need to call in the rifle brigade… if someone was hitting my house with air rifle pellets, I think I’d be calling the police PDQ!
I was thinking of buying a tank to protect ourselves. After all, I have a license…
http://tanksforsale.co.uk/
Only problem is that the gas mileage is better on my Prius…
Given your training in the IDF, I’d say that driving a tank across the neighbour’s yard and flattening his house with a well-aimed blast from a howitzer is an appropriate and proportionate response to his peppering your house with air gun pellets. (Runs away).
Oh, BTW, we don’t have possums at the Maison des Girrafes.
Yet.
Careful, they sell ballistic missiles online that could reach the village of Cromer from this side of the pond…
Bring it on. We Cromerites ain’t afraid of nuttin’.
I pressed the button. Anyone still there in Cromer?
We Cromerites fart in your general direction, you silly Monsieur Steve Caplan and his silly kerniggits!
I believe Opossums live here in Southern Ontario too, but I’ve never seen one. Raccoons, on the other hand, are widely believed to outnumber people in the Toronto area. That may or may not be true, but they’re everywhere, including the back yard of Chateau Ricardipus. And their smelly scat splats can be full of a very dangerous roundworm.
If fuel consumption is an issue, you could always mount a .50 cal or a 30mm cannon or something similar on your Prius. Just sayin’.
I knew I should have bought the one with a sun-roof. Perfect for mounting a turret (and not the syndrome, either).
We too have raccoons, but I didn’t realize their scat posed such danger.
We have possums here, too. They’re not native to NZ and they are considered pests. Traps are laid, or they are shot. In fact, my local botanical gardens is closed some nights for a possum shoot. The first time I saw the warning notices “suggesting” people not come into the gardens in certain evenings, it took me by surprise.
Just out of curiosity, why was it merely a “suggestion” that people not show up in the gardens during open season? And was Dick Cheney ever there?
It’s more than a suggestion, hence the inverted commas 😉
And was Dick Cheney ever there?
Nah, Dick Cheney couldn’t shoot a fly at 5.08 centimetres.
We have neither opossums or raccoons in Norfolk. We do, however, have the Black Shuck. http://norfolkcoast.co.uk/myths/ml_blackshuck.htm
There’s nothing like real, down-to-earth, source-verified journalism.
The best thing about the Black Shuck is that sightings are most concentrated on the coast between Sheringham and Overstrand. And guess who’s right between the two? Yes, Cromer. In fact, I’m sure the Black Shuck lives in our street.
Is that the “Black Shuck?” And here I thought it was a typo for the “Black Shmuck.”
As for this: “We Cromerites fart in your general direction, you silly Monsieur Steve Caplan and his silly kerniggits!”
1) We in Omaha do NOT smell of Elderberries, nor do our fathers (last time I checked)
2) Monsieur S. Hussein, formerly of Baghdad, had us well trained in the use of gas masks
Nothing like that Shuck here in Ontario. You’d need to go pretty far to find something similar (like the west coast, where they have both Bigfoot and the Ogopogo).
Coyotes and bears, we can do. Maybe even the occasional Cougar/Panther/Mountain Lion. And my dad will happily tell you a lengthy story about an escaped Hippopotamus.
We have a fish restaurant on our street celled “Shucks.” Great mussels.