Scorpions & coyotes & snakes, oh my....

Life in the Hill Country is different than life in Clear Lake. I think the worst critter-problem we ever had in Clear Lake was when a mama raccoon left her baby in our attic. We sealed up the hole in the roof before we knew there was a baby up there, and of course the mama kept coming back night after night, trying unsuccessfully to get back in. Meanwhile, the baby crawled around the attic and fell into a hole in the attic floor and landed inside the wall behind the dishwasher.

We had to pull out the dishwasher, cut a hole in the wall back there, and out came the beanie-baby-sized raccoon. My neighbor and I fed it milk and water with a doll bottle, then we named it Vinnie (after Vincent VanGogh, because his ear got folded back flat during its fall), and then my husband put his foot down and said we had to give it back to its mother. Which we did, that very night, when mama raccoon came searching for her lost child. Vinnie went screaming into the night when his mother lifted him out of the laundry basket that I had set out on the back deck. I'm sure he had visions of being cuddled forever in a cute little blanket and fed with a Tiny Tears baby-doll bottle.

Here in the hills, however, there are more critters and creatures that I can count. We haven't seen a raccoon yet, but I know they're out there because a trash bag was torn to shreds one night when we didn't put it into the trash can. We can hear the coyotes at night-- especially the little ones, who cry like puppies when their mamas are out searching for food.

We also have armadillos, which make little tunnels in the leaves and the mulch in the flower beds. I saw an armadillo walking out near the back porch one night-- it froze in its armored tracks when it saw me, then it waddled into the bushes till I came inside. I haven't seen a possum yet, but I have no doubt that they're out there in the woods beyond our pond.

There are crickets of all shapes and sizes, most of which jump away from you when you get near them, and they do make that crick-crack, crick-crack sound.... which scared me half to death the first time I heard it because I thought it was a rattle snake. I don't even know if rattlers are in this part of the Hill Country, but there are other snakes that are all over this county. One of our neighbors used a brick to kill a snake that was right near his front door. "It came up that close?" Yes, indeedy... said J. Good grief. The first time I see a snake, I know I'll be locking myself in the house for at least a week. Maybe two.

Within the first week of moving here, we got acquainted with a scorpion. My husband found it first, or rather, it found him. He was in his bathroom, and it fell on his shoulder.... fell right out of the air conditioning vent... onto his shoulder and then to the floor, where my husband promptly smashed him with his foot (which was thankfully in his slipper at the time). Then he brought me the tissue-wrapped scorpion so I could see it.... he said he knew it would scare me, but I needed to know what they looked like. I was so scared that I didn't look too close.... all I remember was a smashed reddish-looking thing wrapped up in a Puffs tissue. Since that morning, I have never walked underneath an air-conditioning vent without first looking up, and I won't sit under one of those vents in a restaurant. Apparently, when it gets very hot, the scorpions go searching for water, which leads them to air-conditioning units, which can lead them to the vents if they've a mind to search that far. Just our luck... a scorpion who read the Lewis & Clark stories found our air-conditioner and he set out to discover new lands.

We are inundated with bees and wasps, ants and spiders, dragon flies, crickets and lizards. But we also get the nice creatures--- hummingbirds and bluebirds, horses and cows, goats and chickens, barn swallows and purple martins, and countless butterflies, along with a peacock or a wild turkey now and again. We had a nest of baby barn swallows on our front porch when we moved in here. We watched the mother bird feeding her just-hatched brood of five, and they all survived. The baby birds grew from soggy skinny skeletal-looking creatures into full-feathered, blue-chested, brown-winged swallows. We were out on the front porch the day the baby birds decided to try out their wings for the first time. And we watched every day as they flew around the columns of the front porch and played in the crape myrtles. Back to the nest they came every night, piling in there one on top of the other and we felt sorry for the poor little bird on the bottom.

We're mindful of the scorpions and the snakes..... and careful of the spiders and the wasps. One of the reasons we're thinking about raising some chickens is that they will eat up all the crawling and flying things-- including the scorpions. They will not, however, keep away the snakes. The snakes will be attracted to the chicken coop because they will want to eat the eggs. Which is why the guy at the feed store told us to keep in a good supply of the heavy white ceramic eggs that look real-- the snakes will swallow those heavy fake eggs and then go off and die.

(This is about where you can start humming that theme song to "Green Acres," if you've a mind to.........)