Life in the Wild

 

by Pa Rock

Farmer in Spring

It was a relatively mild winter and the spring rains have so far been largely non-existent, all of which seems to have led to an uptick in ticks, and my little patch of the Earth has an abundance of them this year.    I went to the local pharmacy earlier this week to buy a tube of overpriced ointment to dislodge and kill ticks, but when I stepped up to the counter and asked where that product was located, the nice lady told me that there was no such thing.  Sensing my disappointment, and not being swamped with customers that late in the day, she whipped out her cellphone and did some research for the pathetic, tick-addled, old coot, and quickly told me that the two "cures" for ticks were fingernail polish or petroleum jelly.  "Or,' she added helpfully, "When I have one I just grab a pair of tweezers and pull it out."

I explained to her that the ticks who find me always head to places that I can neither see nor reach.  When she didn't volunteer to grab her tweezers and help me out, I left.   I take ticks seriously because one of the little bloodsucking buggers sent me to the hospital a couple of years ago - and, as everyone knows, hospitals WILL kill you!

I managed to get half of the yard mowed yesterday, the second mowing of the year, and I will finish this afternoon.  The mowing won't kill the ticks, but it does keep them stirred up and undoubtedly pisses them off.  I don't understand how the grass keeps growing without rain, but it does, and in just two weeks since the first mowing some of it was already nearly knee-high.

Gypsy took me for a pull the other morning, and while we were out near the old chicken coop she suddenly went into hunting mode.  Her nose went to the ground and she was quickly vacuuming about a ten-foot square, hot on the trail of some varmint that I couldn't see - but Gypsy knew it was there.  Finally she lunged her snout deep into the grass and came up with a large field mouse in her mouth.  By the time I got the poor thing away from her it was dead.  The goofy dog is a mouser!  Great.  (Gypsy gets absolutely crazy when she spots ground hogs - which are also rodents - so perhaps she was a cat in a past life!)

Speaking of wildlife in my big yard jungle:  yesterday afternoon while mowing I stirred up a nest of little brown bunnies.  They were apparently in an open burrow that I failed to see.  I spotted one running toward the fence in an absolute panic, and a few minutes later I saw a second heading out in the same general direction.  Then I found an injured one on the ground that had been caught by my monster mower.  He was dying and I placed him in a sheltered area.  The final one, the fourth, was disoriented and ran in several directions before finally making to the safety of the brush in the fence row.  I never did see the mama rabbit, but she had to be close by.

And there's more . . . 

This morning while standing at the back door and looking out at all of the mowing that I have left to do this afternoon, I spotted three beautiful wild turkeys walking across the width of the backyard.  Fortunately Gypsy and Rosie were both inside, and the big, regal birds were able to enjoy their morning walk in relative peace.

All of that and the dogwoods are still in bloom and so are the pawpaws!

Eat your hearts out, city slickers!