Then Monday, the dog began worrying the Suburban where it was parked just outside the garage. My SO went out to see what she was after, opened the hood and started the car. Nothing. Tuesday, she was still nervousing around the Suburban, so he repeated opening the hood and starting the car. I was outside piddling with my plants and he called me over. He asked, "Is this cat shit?" I peered into the guts of the Suburban. There were little piles on various parts under there, lying on the motor etc. I said I didn't think so. Anyway, cats bury their feces. We decided that the manure probably belonged to the two possums he had shot, and the dog was just smelling that they had been in there at one time. Case, along with the hood, closed.
Wednesday we're all outside. The dog is obsessed with the Suburban. SO opens the hood again, starts the engine. The insulation lining the underside of the hood has pulled loose. With the handle of a shovel, he bumps the loose insulation, and OMG! a ringtail comes slithering out of it's hidey-hole. Well, the dog went ballistic. I jumped away from the car. The SO cursed as the ringtail burrowed further into the open hood, disappearing into the belly of the Suburban, hiding in the drivetrain or somewhere under there. I quickly ran to take the cat inside, did not want him involved in this situation at all. The dog, I think, got the ringtail for a split second as it tried to escape out the back end of the car. But it shook itself loose and decided to quickly return to its dark hiding spot.
The dog and my SO harassed the ringtail for at least a half hour, trying everything to get it to show itself again. He beat on the car with a shovel. He sprayed all around and up under the car with a high pressure water nozzle, managing to get himself and the dog soaked, but the ringtail did not come back out in the open. I'm sure it was traumatized. I finally suggested that maybe if we all went back inside, the creature would come out of its own accord to seek a safer, less rowdy, place to nest. The SO backed the Suburban out into the grass, left the hood up, and we went into the house. We really don't know if the ringtail left or not. We never saw it again, but we did take that car to Austin mid-week, so maybe we relocated the critter. The dog, however, has not forgotten that the Suburban recently housed a wild animal. She continues to lie beneath it and stare longingly into the murky interior under there.
Tonight the house has been attacked by a large owl. Not the horned owl that lives here. This is a little smaller, reddish owl that apparently likes to use the roof of the living room as his lookout position. We have a small yellow light on a photocell at the edge of the outer wall. The cat and I were watching "The Pacific" on HBO tonight, the house was relatively quiet, we were minding our own business, when suddenly, a hellacious noise commenced on the roof. I looked at the window in time to see a red blur divebomb off the peak of the roof. I jumped up and turned on several floodlights. Finally I saw the owl when I turned on the porchlights as it swooped out of the big live oak in front of the house. In a while, I heard him ramming against the skylight in the office upstairs. I looked it up on Wikepedia. Did not realize that owls like insects as much as small furry mammals. I guess the lights have attracted bugs, and he was having himself a little smorgasbord.
Ah country life in Springtime ... sigh!
Onward ....
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