Treetops, Culverts, Hedges, and Pests

I was sitting in my Laboratory for Creative Ideas slowly sipping on a mug of coffee and blankly staring at my computer screen. I was stuck with a case of brain dryness. A literal Sahara desert of sand in my skull where my brain should be.  Then I heard it — aggressive rapping on my window.

Turning to look outside, not to find out who it was, but to acknowledge that I heard him, I stared into the face of that menace of a squirrel who was coming for his protection payment. You see, my neighborhood is controlled by two mobs: the four squirrels and a black lab dog. There is a constant turf war going on and the occasional casualty. It was time for the daily, give me the nuts ‘or else.’

Treetops

I have a history with squirrels. Cheryl and I were walking down a trail in the woods one sunny afternoon. It became heavy on my mind that we live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest and whenever we are hiking through the forests, our eyes are focused on the trail ten feet in front of us, very rarely higher than 45 degrees and only looking 90 degrees when we are stopped. This is sad because the beauty of the forest is in the treetops as well as the ground.

“Look up into the treetops,” I said to Cheryl. “Wouldn’t it be cool to be a bird or a squirrel? If I were Peter Pan or the Lost Boys, I would be sitting way out on that limb looking down on us right now. The perfect spot for an ambush.”

We continued our hike, but I focused my eyesight into the treetops. This resulted in my tripping over a stump and nearly falling into a ravine. For a short break, we sat down under an old growth fir tree. I laid on my back and stared at the beauty of the surrounding canopy overhead. It was at that moment that I detected movement, high in the branches of the old fir. A squirrel was far out on a branch of the tree. He was pulling on one of the large unripe green fir cones, trying to make it fall. The branch and fir needles waved back and forth.

“Look up on that limb,” I said as I pointed for Cheryl. “There is a squirrel trying to pull a cone off the branch.”

And at almost the same moment I said that, he broke it free. The large green cone fell, bouncing off bows and limbs, ping-ponging back and forth down to the earth and before I could roll out of the way, it hit me . . . exactly halfway between my knees and my nipples. The resulting high-pitched scream was enough to put any sasquatch in the area on the run. The squirrel thought it was funny.

Culverts

My best friend, Chuck, and I were always exploring new uncharted areas of the beach in front of my house and the vastness of the woods behind us. One day we were walking the BN railroad tracks which lay at the top of the Cliffside cliffs. The tracks went over a ravine.  The railroad workers had laid a long cement culvert down the center of the ravine for water to flow through and then dumped gravel over the top of the culvert and built it up 50 feet high for the railroad bed.

Hiking down into the ravine, we found the culvert and being summer, it was dry. The culvert was 80 feet long with a 4 foot inside diameter. With much arguing and questioning of our manliness, it was decided that we should crawl through the culvert tunnel. Though we assumed the culvert was laid straight, we could not see light from the far end. After repeated flips of a coin, I won (or lost), and crawled in first with Chuck following.

We were on hands and knees in the pitch blackness of the tube. With each foot of distance forward we touched rotten sticks and rocks which had been pulled in by the water flow through the ravine. Talking caused small echoes. At what must have been the 40-foot mark, the culvert began to vibrate, slightly at first but then greater and a roaring sound could be heard coming from both ends of the culvert. A BN freight train was passing over the top of the ravine.

We recognized that it was a train. What we didn’t recognize was the loud chirping sounds just ahead of us in the darkness. It sounded like five different beings making squealing screams in the culvert, easily drowning out the noise of the freight train above us. As soon as Chuck and I quit squealing, that left only three. I reached my hand into my jeans and pulled out a lighter. Flicking my Bick twice, the culvert lit up from the light of the flame.

There in front of us, traveling in our direction were an adult male and a female raccoon with a baby. The startled racoon adults stood upright on their hind legs, spread their front legs wide and growled. From behind me I heard what sounded like the barking of a Rottweiler. Personally, I didn’t think I would have gone with it, but if that’s how Chuck expressed fear it was fine with me. The outcome was that both groups turned 180 degrees and shot out the same end of the culvert they entered.

Boxwood hedges.

This was a fine ancient hedge that had been trained and trimmed for years. It was finely cut like a tall rectangular wall. The flat top was 8 feet tall, and it was six feet wide. The branches and leaves were so thick, there were no gaps. Out of curiosity I wondered, “What would be forgotten in the center of this old hedge?” So, I went over to look.

I started at the far end next to the street sidewalk. With my hands, I spread the branches, stuck my face in and investigated the center. There were no leaves in the center, just five-inch diameter trunks. On the ground I saw pop cans and a ball which were lost years ago.

Moving 8 feet down the hedge I once again spread the branches and looked inside. There was a riser pipe for an outside faucet. “Wow, I wonder if they even know that it is there?” I heard a slight cracking of branches and dry ground leaves about six feet higher up the hedge.

“Ah ha! The neighbor’s cat? A rabbit? Another squirrel?”

Moving up the hedge I got on my knees, parted the branches about a foot off the ground and pushed my head inside.

There was nothing much to see except the uplifted black and white tail of a skunk.

Not only does tomato juice not work for removing skunk spray, but I also now get a gag reflex every time I sip tomato soup.

Sitting in my Laboratory for Creative Ideas, still sipping on a mug of coffee and blankly staring at my computer screen, I hear a yip at the door. The other half of the mafia has arrived. I reach into a sack by my desk and grab a dog treat for his daily payoff.

It is, after all, a very rough neighborhood.

Faith Family Life Getting Older Growing Up Misadventures Music Patriotism Pets or Pests? Serving Others Snips Tributes