Wednesday 27 March 2013

Turkeys, Possums, Frogs....Enough!

I love animals and I love nature.  In fact, I'm very dedicated to sharing my space with the creatures that share our world.  Live and let live is my motto.  I don't even kill bugs...with the exception of flys and cockroaches which by anyone's standards are just too gross.   Whenever there is a spider in the house I always encourage (loudly) Mr G to put it outside.

Now, with all this love and tolerance there comes a time when one has to call time out.  To say enough. is. enough.  Time for us all - creatures and people - to stay in ones own abode and out of each others.  Why now?  Why has it come to this?  Well there's been an influx of the rare lately that's been a tad unsettling.

First, on Tuesday, there was a brush turkey (or scrub turkey or bush turkey..all the same bird really) on the back porch which, while I chased it around the backyard with a camera, seemed to have absolutely no fear, awareness or care about me what so ever.  This is an Australian brush turkey ....




Now this little fellow would normally be very welcome in our back yard except for a few things worrying me. 

1.  Molly may eat him/her, or at least kill it for sport.  After all she doesn't know what the hell it is and to her he/she is in Her (Molly's) backyard so all the more reason to make it leave or die.

 2.  Our neighbour has a cat...and the across the street neighbour...and the two houses up the street neighbour.  Normally they don't come near our house due to Molly...but a big, apparently juicy, brush turkey may just be too much for a cat to bear.  Which could cause Molly to have two rare treats - one feathered and one - or more - furry. 

They have little to no relation to the American turkey, are natives of Australia as far as I can tell and they are quite neat looking.  As far as I can tell this one is very young.  Hope he/she makes it to old age.

Secondly our little house in the tree above the clothes line seems to be a popular site for possum raising.  We have our second mom and baby in the house this season.  At least I think they are different...they react differently to me/Molly...and look a little different.  Here's a photo of the mom.  I tried to get the baby too but it scampered inside when I went to fetch the camera.  I think they are so cute....but they've made a mess of our tomatoes this year.  I'd say we've had one tomato to their 5.



And tonight, as I go into my bathroom to get ready for bed, the final straw.  A frog!  A cute little frog that must have been in a drain, or hiding under the bathtub, judging from all the dust and hair on it, was sitting next to the trash bucket.  Again, I love frogs....in their environment.  But I don't want to live in the house with them...and certainly not in my bathroom. 


Mr G is tucked in bed and refuses to get up to help me get the wee thing out and back into it's proper environment.  So, like the giant wolf spider of a few weeks ago, I'm shutting the door and hoping we can find him/her in the morning to take outside.  (FYI - we never found the spider, and haven't seen it since...so popular belief is it went out.  Silly?).  In spite of my love of nature I don't think I can face trying to catch it all by myself late this evening.

Anyway.  Message to nature... I love you and I want you to be safe and happy.  BUT.  Can we please live our lives separately?

1 comment:

  1. Your possums aren't as fugly & greasy looking as ours, LOL! Are they as big?

    Do your turkeys taste good like ours do? There is a flock living over by Emory for about 10 years.

    We have all kinds of encroaching critters. Coyotes live in my neighborhood anymore. They have been eating cats & small dogs in addition to rabbits. Wish they would clear out the chipmunks that are undermining my shrubbery and perennials!

    Do you remember that I could not stand to squish a cockroach and I would just trap them under a plastic cup until they died then scoop them up and flush them? I would have cups all over the kitchen. Phyllis & Ellen would spray their apartment and they would all run over to mine and I would spray and they would run back. The neighbor between us used to laugh and say he could tell the last one to spray because of which way they were running through his apartment :)

    28 March 2013 03:02

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