02 October 2007

More Wild Prairie Adventures

First, a big shout out to my favorite wordsmith/Pitty-advocate/cake-baker/shoe-maven
--Moi!
For her many successes,
but especially for introducing us
to the word "crap-weasel"
~~By Royal Decree declare this to be the word of the year.
~~~Hear Ye, hear Ye.

Now onto the stories of the day.
On Friday last Princess Wicked paid a visit to Her Reclusive Highness, Doris Rose MacBean for the purpose of determining whether or not she had clean socks, plenty of biscuits and cheese, and an ample draught of whiskey.
After determining that the criterion were met, they spent the remaining time in stimulating conversation, A Sufficient Silliness and gossip. When it came time for the Wicked One to leave, HRH provided her a brief tour of the garage (the story of reconstruction will continue with the next post).


And as they decided to exit they were stopped in their tracks in the presence of Clyde Jr.- a juvenile, but fearsome, rattlesnake. As startled as they were, Clyde was more startled and began rattling his little tail to beat the band-and would've beaten anything in the way of that tail.
Both Princess Wicked and Her Royal Highness ran for their cameras (of course) and snapped wildly at this vicious beastie from a very safe distance.
(I've since learned that rattlesnakes can lunge one third to one half their body length, and since Clyde was 12 to 14 inches long, the royal ones were fairly safe at 10 feet.)
Her Royal Highness, felt that Clyde was not safe sunning himself on the apron of the garage and went about gentley encouraging his departure-with a broom... oh, the indignity of it all.
He, of course, returned the favor by promptly burrowing under the garage into a rather large hole.

The Story continued the following day, when, during the "great garage adventure" he was spotted exiting a hole on the other end of the garage. And it should be noted, he was just as irate being discovered at this end--poor bugger.


So here's today's question: should Clyde and his family be encouraged to stay in their -not so secret hidey hole-under garage (for up to 20 years) keeping the world safe from small vermin and in the process, but presenting a ginormous worry for HRH and her two curious beasties?

Or should they be encouraged to move on and have the holes plugged up, allowing the mice of the world to return to Grousemoor manner?
(It is not EASY being Mistress of the Manor)
Stay tuned.

3 comments:

A.Fanny said...

If Clyde is like all of God's creatures (including the crap-weasle, judging from the numbers of those one encounters) he will attract a MATE and REPRODUCE! That is, unless Clyde is actually Clarissa and is already tending to a pile of eggs in the hole! Your garage is not the only lot around - let your new construction job and other measures encourage him to find more suitible digs! I'll email my pest experts to see what they say.

Wicked Thistle said...

He skeert me a little with his rattlin' tail. I agree with afanny, I think as soon as the rattling and banging of hammers ensues, he'll scram (with a tiny but angry rattle in your direction. "Pah! Take that, o cruel mistress of relocation!" rattle, rattle...).

moi said...

First, thanks for the shout out. Credit for crap weasel, however, is entirely S.B.'s One of his more charming "southernisms." A glorious word, no? (Moi's S.B., for all his engineering tendencies, is, I believe, a secret word smith.)

Second: As you may or may not know, I loves me some rattlesnake, and have become quite familiar with their behavior after dealing with one or two or five bazillion over the course of my lifetime. So this I know:

A. They have both summer homes where they breed and feed and winter homes where they hibernate. They migrate between the two as the seasons change. Not sure which is which in your case, since we're in "tweener" season. However, they are exceptionally stubborn when it comes to their territory.

B. They are also exceptionally shy and non-aggressive. You basically have to either step on them by accident or stick a body part up in their face to get them to bite you. So you're most likely safe. Da dawgs? Most likely not so much.

C. You should therefore move 'em. You'll have to move 'em far, though, so this may require professional help. I think there are folks in the phone book who do this without killing. Otherwise call me . . .

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