Critters Down on "D Farm"

There are plenty of critters in Kansas.  When I say “critters” I don’t mean dogs or cats, horses or cattle, goats or sheep.  And I should make it perfectly clear that I don’t consider critters a derogatory term; they aren’t bad.  They are the indigenous wildlife.  Because they were here first, I think we have a responsibility to at least attempt to coexist peacefully, even though we may sometimes find ourselves at cross-purposes. 


One of the first “critters” I saw here on “D” Farm this spring was an opossum.  Actually Guillie spotted it first.  It was about midnight when he started growling from where he had been sleeping at the foot of my bed.  Then he went to the slider door and started barking.  It was pitch black out.  I turned on the outside light but saw nothing at the time. 


Guillie settled down after awhile but started up again within the hour.  This time when I hit the light I saw it too.  An opossum about the same size as Guillie, scurrying along across the yard about 15 feet from the slider door. 


My first thought was, “How do I catch it?”  I remembered that my neighbor Kelley has a live trap, similar to but larger than those we use in California to capture those pesky ground squirrels who constantly undermine the property with their burrowing.  


I credit Henry David Thoreau for inspiring my second thought: “is there any reason we can’t just get along?” * I don’t know if possums do anything particularly good but, other than going after eggs, chickens or kittens (of which I had none….at the time), they don’t do anything bad so perhaps we can get along.  I decided to leave him/her alone, providing he stayed outdoors, of course.  


The same goes for mice. They can be mighty cute but they have no business in the house.  And when you live out in the country, they are in the house ALL THE TIME!  It is something we have struggled with for years using all types of contraptions, the most effective of which is my new cat, Tipsy.  


Mice have done a lot of damage over the years at “D” Farm, chewing through anything they can sink their teeth into including all forms of paper, plastic, and cloth.  Last year while I was going through some dressers upstairs, I opened a drawer and there was a little brown mouse with huge black eyes looking up at me, every bit as surprised as I was.  “Oh, excuse me!” I said, closing the drawer again just as quickly.  I felt as though I had just accidentally walked into someone’s private boudoir. 


Moving right along: I don’t even like talking about snakes. I recall my grandmother going after one out in the garden with a hoe with great fervor when I was very young.  Only once have I found one in the house.  Neither I nor anyone in the household was willing to remove it so we closed the door to the room and waited for my brother to come for a visit to trap it.  That was a matter of weeks later!


Here on “D” Farm, as in California, there are good snakes and bad snakes or, more accurately stated, useful snakes and dangerous snakes.  I’ve actually seen my share of rattlesnakes in California, one of which struck my Jack Russell Terrier who, by the grace of God  (after $1000 in vet bills) survived the experience.  In Kansas I have heard horror stories about the cotton mouth water moccasin, copperheads, and prairie rattlers.  But the more prevalent species like the black snake and rat snake are not only harmless, they keep the rodent population in check.  So I try to keep my paranoia under control and make the effort to  differentiate those that are ok from the others, once again so long as they STAY OUT OF THE HOUSE.
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And then there are raccoons.  See critters part two….coming soon.


*I have referred to Henry David Thoreau because I was reading Walden at the time of my opossum observation.  In it Thoreau chronicles his experience living with nature for 22 months on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts.