Get Out of Here You Majestic Son of a..!

I remember when I was a kid how special it was to see a bald eagle. America’s National Symbol of Freedom and Majesty.

Pause….

Many of you might not like this article. I apologize but there might be a few of my opinions that you find objectionable. Actually, never mind you need to know me better anyway. If you have read my other posts hopefully you know me well enough now that my opinions won’t stop you from checking in. Then again…

Back to the bald eagle. We would see a bald eagle and stop the car and pull over to see what it was doing. They were big, beautiful birds that owned the skies and made me think of Stars and Stripes.

Not now.

To me they are flying raccoons, one of several reasons I have to throw on a pair of shoes and run out to throw something at, scream at, or put my ducks away, Now I know that I am not supposed to throw anything at or injure a bald eagle in any way(and I don’t), but honestly I want to. There are other reasons for my hurried response though.

One of my favorite movies of my adolescence was “The Great Outdoors”. A movie about city folk going out and staying in a vacation cabin on a resort lake. Not really the great outdoors but it was John Candy and Dan Akroyd so I will let it go. In the movie these raccoons would come and tip over trash cans, eat out of them, make a huge mess, and talk about stupid people. This is the traditional view of a raccoon, “trash pandas”. I always thought it was awesome to see a raccoon growing up in Wyoming. They were not that big and I only saw them on rare occasions.

My experience in the “Great Northwest” is something else entirely. Instead of cute “little” trash pandas, they are HUGE duck slayers! One night I shined my flashlight into a tree across our pond to see 16 eyes looking at me, all with masks on. My wife caught one of them ripping the throat out of two of our ducks and crawl over a chicken wire fence to get away. Just last night we lost another duck to one of the above animals. I may or may not have projected a high speed object at two trash panda’s that were giving me the bird right outside our door. Seriously, they just stood there looking at me when I came out on my porch like they were supposed to be there. One of them might be descending into animal hell right now (that’s where raccoons go), I cannot say for sure, it was dark.

Now a more controversial animal for some of you. If I have to read one more post about the Possum being the cute animal that I need to let live because of all of its benefits I will start leaving live possums in peoples mailboxes. I appreciate your opinions people and you all are entitled to your opinions, but they are not cute!

I have seen small ones and big ones and I can tell you they are truly ugly animals. And another thing (I am on a role) when they wander into my duck house and just kill a duck (not eat, just kill) they get to follow the raccoon to the bad place.

A quick shout out to the fresh water otter I saw one night that did not stick around and I will move on to my last enemy.

Last but not least (there are so many of them!) are the rats. Not mice, not small rats, Norwegian Wharf Rats. These punks are almost the size of the possums and they have decided that duck food is their favorite. It is somewhat entertaining watching the online forums on how to get rid of these little buggers, I will summarize the results below:

• Barn Cat
• Rat Terrier
• Clap Traps
• Guns and Beer (my personal favorite)
• and something called “The Ratinator”

I did spend a few nights out in the yard taking shots at these rats with a pellet gun, but I could swear that they were laughing at me.

Here’s the thing, I am on their turf and so are the ducks. That does not mean that I don’t get to defend my ducks (our losses are in the double digits now. Free ranging is difficult), but it does come with the realization that this is life in the woods.

The ducks love our pond so I am not sure that life for them would be better if they were cooped up. I am starting to think that we need to reconsider the animals that we husband (that is the term, don’t think I am weird. At least don’t tell me).

We have also had coyotes, bears, and cougars in the area although they haven’t made their way here yet. It may only be a matter of time. Life is different in the woods, but there is something about it that helps us see life as it really is, not as an artificial environment that spars with merely ideas and not nature. He says while sitting in his warm house typing on his computer.