Patty got up very early today, went outside to greet the day… and was greeted in her turn by a great big woodchuck. I wonder where his burrow is.
I don’t know, but we seem to be getting visits from all sorts of wildlife lately, including a bear on the sidewalk.
Be attentive–the Lord may be speaking to us.
I was sitting outside in the shade, reading, when I chanced to look up from my book to see a big black bear come ambling straight for me.
What could I do? It was only a few yards away from me and my broken hip barred any attempt to get away. I was a sitting duck. But he only spared me a glance or two and then wandered off into the parking lot. Two police officers were trailing him.I took their advice to go back indoors.
Patty and I are both still sick. But the bear looked plenty healthy.
So I went outside to write in the heat, wanted to finish a chapter of The Witch Box, and when I’d had enough, I came back in to lie on the floor and cool off. I was just getting settled when Patty reported, with alarm, “What’s that on your back? Oh, it’s some awful kind of great big spider!”
“Well, are you going to just stand there looking at it? Get it off me!” I may be Mr. Nature, but I’d just as soon not have some great big spider crawl under my shirt.
“How? How do I get it off you?”
“I don’t know! Do something!”
She started to pull up my shirt. I wasn’t having that! “Oh! It’s got a long body like a grasshopper!” She was still messing about with my shirt when the big nasty spider suddenly “flew away.”
“What? A spider that can fly? Where did it go?”
“I don’t know! It just flew off!”
By and by I found the creature resting on a windowpane. Now that I could see it, I realized it was an assassin fly. I drew Patty’s attention to it. “Is this what you saw?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“There’s no problem, then. It’s an assassin fly. It’s a predator. It has no interest in human beings.”
“Does it eat bugs? Will it eat flies?”
“Flies, and anything else it can catch.”
“Well, then, it can stay here and be welcome,” Patty said.
So it’s still there on the windowpane, waiting for a tasty fly to come along.
Convincing, isn’t it?
This is presented as a public service.
Really, you don’t need to bang on the can. If you want to avoid unpleasantness, just gently turn the can onto its side and go away. The possum (or possums) will soon get up and leave. Because usually they’re in garbage cans because they can’t get out.