Tuesday, June 7, 2011

how to kill a beaver.... or a wombat... or a hedgehog or something.

06-07-hole1

A couple days ago, in a fit of lawnmowing rage (because lawn mowing around here usually results in a near child like tantrum by the glass man), Gene happened across a hole in the ground. He then proceeded to tell me "hey there's a big hole in the ground over there".

I flashed back on my childhood for a millisecond remembering back to when I discovered the open hole in my own childhood backyard.

"Mom, there's a hole in the yard."
"oh, it's just a snake hole."
"no it's not, it's big!"
"yes it is, we have some big snakes." (we did, fyi. I found those too)
"No!! it's huge, you have to look!"
(repeat this for a while until I finally get my mom to look).

In the end, it was the top of the septic tank caving in.
Told you it was big hole.

So when Gene said there was a "big hole" in the ground, I had that sinking feeling that my own mother must have had when she realized what it was. I said "you sure it's not the septic tank?"

Gene: "uhh... no. It's 'something'"

He was right, it was 'something' indeed.

Something bigger than a snake and if you don't believe me, look here:



06-07-hole2

Yes, I threw a hanger next to the hole as a size reference. Mainly because I didn't know where a ruler was, and I was entirely too lazy to go look for one.

The thing is, this hole is just plonked down randomly in my back yard. What you should know is that we live in bean field - quite literally. I can see at least a half mile in most directions and we have exactly 2.32 trees on our property. There's no access to water (well, there's the leech field to the still working properly (knock on wood) septic tank). There's no food (well, there are a herd of chickens that run around here sometimes. And voles... there's always voles.)

Sigh.

OK, it might be something, but still the logistics of the placement of the hole makes zero sense, it was right out there in the open, with no easy access to chickens or sewer water.

We determined it was probably a ground hog or a fox. My lengthy (4 minutes) research on the internet suggested that it definitely WAS a bad spot for a fox to build a den. (Maybe it was a really stupid fox). Which isn't good if it was, you know that old story about a fox in the hen house? Yeah... not cool.

So we did what all good rednecks do. We decided whatever it was, needed to be kilt ded, and here's how the glassman set out to do that.


First:
Gather some newspaper, and a lighter. Shove it in the hole and set it on fire.



06-07-hole3



Second:
Use your wife's only dustpan to get it smoking and wave the smoke around a lot.



06-07-hole4



Third:
Gather your garage sale lawn chair with no cushion and a shot gun and wait for something to shoot out of the hole so you can take a whack at it.



06-07-hole5


{I'm strangly attracted to him right now}

Fourth:
Nuthin.


That's it. Exactly nothing happened. I kinda expected that to happen anyway, as in my head I shot about 7 holes in this theory but it was fun to watch regardless. From the safety of a telephoto lens FYI.

He was armed after all.

After investing about 12 minutes into this process. The glassman lost interest and did what I figured he'd do from the start.
He crushed the hole and peed on it.

No.
Lie.

If you want to have a deterrent for pests, have a male regularly pee in that area and the critters (may) disappear. Guess what. It worked.

No.
Lie.

Either that or the nagging groundhog/fox wife had this conversation: "Do you really expect me to hatch out a nest of critters HERE?? It's in the middle of nowhere and all we have to eat is voles and fast chickens. Don't even get me started on the sewer water, and to top it all off it SMELLS LIKE PEE! Now go find me something acceptable before I chew your face off."

At least that's how *I* would do it.

5 comments:

Jessie K said...

I have to agree: There is something strangely fascinating and attractive about a man holding a gun!

linda said...

Hahahahahaha!!!
Love the photo of him and his trusty shotgun sitting in the chair. Too too funny.
Shades of days gone bye. Oh yeah. I remember things like that.
Thanks for the giggle.

Swimtaxi said...

Add me to the club of women liking the idea of your dh sitting with that shot gun waiting to protect you.

TOTALLY COOL

www.quackandquill.com said...

Too funny! BTW ... I would LOVE it if you'd change your settings so I could use my URL as my id ... (Quack and Quill) ... I think you have to allow anonymous comments though, for that option to show ... Good to be catching up on you!

Natalie said...

I'm with the rest. The picture of him and the gun is the best.

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