We live in a rural area. It's not the Outback, it's not off-the-grid, but we live where critters mingle, albeit it cautiously, with humans. We've seen scores of deer, wild turkeys, foxes, muskrats, turtles, sand hill cranes and various other fauna traipsing through our neighborhood. This is surprising only because up the road lives a hunter with plenty of acreage that he rents to hunters during deer season, and the report of rifle shots is heard with enough regularity to know that hunters are honing their aim.
Still, it's not as if bears are breaking down our doors or moose trample our gardens. Our animals are smaller and much more likely to be viewed as cute and cuddly.
The pets we have -- bulldogs Sherman and Custer and Manx cat Bupkes -- are the best toys I've ever owned. They're playful, full of personality and friendly to a fault. But they're not beyond giving us trouble, as evidenced by Sherman's recent use of the living room and basement as his toilet, Custer tearing up cardboard boxes for no good reason and Bupkes's bending the blinds out of shape while he stalks prey outside the house that he'll likely never catch. All in all, we haven't had too much trouble with our quadrepedal neighbors and pets.
Ah, but what happens when the outside animals meet the inside pets? That's quite another story.
A couple of months ago we had a fire in the fireplace and forgot to close the flue the next morning. That evening when Karen got home, she found a panting Custer half out of his mind loping about the living room unable to contain his joy. Karen was mystified, worried more than anything that the boy was having a heart attack, until she made her way to the bedroom where a wayward starling was frantically trying to find its way out of its confinement. Unfortunately for both concerned, the starling did a fly-by right by Karen's head, which caused her to flee the bedroom and shut the door behind her before she called me in a panic.
Eventually, after I got home, I was able to trap with the use of child's fish net and then release the intruder into the wild. After Karen disinfected the bedroom and bathroom, we were able to resume using those rooms two days later.
A week later I had to take the standing mirror to the curb for the garbagemen to take because Custer, in his unrepentant zeal, had crashed into it on his fool's errand chasing the starling. Amazingly, Custer was unhurt. The same could not be said for the mirror, which was smashed on the lower third.
This past week we heard a bird somewhere inside the chimney. We'd smartly closed the flue this time, but this bird had somehow gotten stuck and wasn't leaving whence it came. We decided that after our jaunt out, we'd try to release the bird into a blanket or sheet and then get him out of the house.
Karen and I went to the disappointing flea market, where the only thing that was really prolific was the amount of dampness and mud. We came home to find the fireplace screen down and the smaller mesh screen torn from its channel. Sticking out of one of the holes in the vents on the left side wasn't discernible at first, but upon closer inspection, it appeared to be the lower half of a bird that somehow had been pulled through one of the circular vent holes. I got my gloves and tried to pull it through the hole, but the direction of the wings and their feathers prevented me from getting it through. Somehow, I pushed it through the hole and grabbed it in the hole beneath the one in which it was originally found and managed to extricate the carcass, less a few feathers and some blood. Custer, needless to say, was quite interested in the proceedings, while Bupkes kept a safe distance from his handiwork lest he get spanked. Yes, I've spanked our cat. Sue me.
I then vacuumed the section of the fireplace and Karen washed it down. We replaced the screens as best we could and went back out. When we came home, the screen was once again flat on the ground and the pets were hopping around as if someone were shooting at their paws. We quickly put the screen back up and shut Bupkes in the basement (he loves it down there anyway). We let him out after awhile and he tried to jump up on me as I sat in the chair, but I pushed him away, which made him sad. He pouted awhile until I picked him up and petted him. He only went by the fireplace once, and I threw one of Custer's chewtoys at the fireplace to startle him away from it. He didn't go back there the rest of the evening.
Later, Karen went to look at something on the computer and Custer strolled over to the edge of the fireplace, curious as ever. He nudged the screen with its nose and it came crashing down, as Bupkes watched from the safety of his perch on the back of the chair. We couldn't figure out how Bupkes, all twelve pounds of him, could get that heavy screen down by himself, and thanks to Custer, we now had our answer. It was a tag-team effort. Custer's curiosity opened the door, so to speak, to Bupkes's rapacity. It all became glaringly clear how that darned starling met its end.
Unimpressed by all of this was Sherman, who laid in his bed bored if not perturbed by the proceedings, probably wishing the both of them just stopped being so stupid.
(c) 2016 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
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