Get Off My Lawn!
I turned 64 years old the first of August. And I’m ok with that – no, honest, I am. I don’t mind getting older but I do dislike the toll that aging is having on my body. My youngest granddaughter loudly pointed out the aging factor to me when we were all in the candy aisle of the local Dollar Tree store stocking up on contraband candy for their sleepover at Gaga and Pap’s. I didn’t have the right pair of glasses (don’t ask, I have 2 pairs of glasses – one for driving and one for reading because I can’t do bifocals) and I was squinting to see the names of the candy packages. And then it happened… Miss O called me out, “Gaga, did you know that young people have better eyesight? And that as you get older, your eyesight is not as good? Like yours? You’re old!”
Oh yes, honey child, I am quite aware of that fact and the fact that I am very hard of hearing, my torn meniscus is making my knee scream 24/7 and I am crankier than normal. Bless you, my child.
The wildlife have been wreaking havoc at the Homestead. The raccoons have nightly raids on my bird feeders, my potted flowers and they like to poop on my porches. The chimney cleaner man was here last week and when he climbed down the ladder from the roof of our 2-story, 205 year old farmhouse, he told my spouse that we had raccoon poop ON THE ROOF!
We have too many squirrels and chipmunks to count – and they also are doing a number on my bird feeders. A groundhog is living underneath our shed. I ran into the biggest opossum I have ever seen on one of my morning walks. A couple of weeks ago, I was walking around the side of the house one night to take a photo of the sunset, which was stunning by the way, when I encountered a Mama skunk and her 2 babies. It was SURPRISE! for all of us! At first, I was like, “Awwww… look at that cute little family of skunks. I actually took 2 or 3 steps towards them, all while saying, “Hey guys! Whatcha doin’?” And then the skunks scurried up to the side of the house and sneaked into the bushes directly below one of my home office windows!
A Cooper’s Hawk, who I nicknamed Asshat Hawk decided that our little piece of heaven was also his little piece of heaven and he took up residence without asking my permission. How rude! The Asshat killed and devoured one of my beloved Hairy Woodpeckers, a Blue Jay and a Robin – leaving only a scattered pile of feathers on my lawn. I was upset and crying and my son said, “Well, Mom, can you blame him? You’ve set up quite the little smorgasbord up here with all of your feeders.” Oh, bless you, too, child…
The critters that I absolutely love and have no issue with are the family of deer that have been visiting us for a couple of years. Big-Eared Bertha comes up to the video bird feeder almost every night and has herself a little feast. She has 2 fawns, which my grandkids have named Sprout and Lavender. Another doe, who remains nameless has a fawn that my grandson calls Bean. They’ve been eating all of our hostas around the house and I hate the hostas, so that makes me happy. I am less thrilled about them eating the leaves off my Althea, peach and apple trees. My son-in-law is not happy that that they are munching his soybeans in his family’s field across from our Homestead.
Now I said that I was cranky – and that’s been very evident because I now roam our yard and woods on a constant basis. I chase Asshat during the day, yelling “Get the blankety-blank out of my yard! Leave my birds alone”. I will leave my home office multiple times a day to do this and I run all over the place, like a demented old lady with my wobbly arms (I know that they are wobbly because Miss O kindly pointed this out to me in the Dollar Tree – bless you, child. My arms are flapping and jiggling and I’m screeching and swearing. It’s a good thing that we don’t have neighbors.
And then nighttime comes and my spouse meanders upstairs at an early hour to go to bed. And I begin my nightly foot patrols. I secure the perimeter early and bring in my hummingbird and grape jelly feeders, Around 9 pm I open the back door and take a peek outside. And it’s usually at that time that I have my first encounter with Fat Bastard, the big daddy and leader of the infamous Raccoon Pack. I bellow, “Get Off My Lawn!”. He looks up from munching the bird seed from the video bird feeder and raises an eyebrow and gives me that look that says, “Who you talking to you, girl?”
And the gauntlet is thrown, my friends. I am attired in my old lady pajamas and housecoat (never a robe, always a housecoat) and I get in my hands-free step-in Sketchers and I am out that door like a woman possessed! FB (Fat Bastard) looks up and thinks, “No way is this little old lady going to chase me”. Spoiler alert, this little old lady does indeed chase him like a bat out – well, you know where. I waddle across the yard with my wobbly arms flailing wildly and my “Get Off My Lawn” threats are so loud that have caused the moon to duck and take cover behind the clouds. FB rounds up his family and then make a mad dash to the woods. This will repeat itself at least 3 more times during the night until I get too tired to continue and I head to bed at 12:30 am. And that’s probably when FB returns and thinks, “Hey, the old bag told me to get off her lawn, but she nothing about being on the roof of her house. I think I’ll climb up there and leave her a nice little gift…”
I’m telling ya, they’re all Jagoffs – well, except for the deer.