Crime Spree In Me Backyard

26 June 2018
915

R. Linda:

Never a dull moment! I have limited experience reporting crimes, but these three I think I can write up with not much difficulty. The crime wave all started last month, in a very subtle manner. It started with mass murder, then an assault and finally a rescue leaving one dead the other probably never wanting to go in a swimming pool again! 

My neighbour next door has chickens that she lets free-range. Occasionally these chickens cross the cobble wall onto me property to peck at small pieces of gravel on the driveway. I don't much mind, if anything we have found the flea and tick population wiped out by these marauding chickens.

One dusky afternoon, on a Saturday I was sitting on me back deck and could hear a ruckus being raised next door. It sounded like a chicken convention where everyone was clucking at everyone else in raised chicken voices. It also sounded like something was terribly wrong, but I figured whatever it was, the owner could hear it and would see to her chickens.

Now this ruckus, which be the only way I can describe it, happened two more times within the week. When I drove by my neighbours, I noticed the chickens were in their pen and not free-ranging on me driveway. I paid that no mind really, but noted it in the back of me brain. Two days later, I had me day off, it being a Monday, when I heard the crows (which are as big as chickens since I see them feeding on chicken feed WITH the neighbour's chickens) squawking angrily so I went outside to see what was the matter and I saw this:

Momma Fox down by our pond

I knew there were foxes where I used to live. We'd see them quite often, but this was the first one I saw at my new abode. I thought not much of it, but the screeching of the birds went on until she was over the hill and had moved on. 

About five minutes later, I went down the drive to pick up me mail at the mailbox when I came across what looked like a chicken that had been plucked in me driveway. After another few yards and another “murder scene” I realised quite quickly what had happened. I looked over at me neighbour's coop and spied several dead bodies littering the pen ground. BEGORRAH A chicken massacre!

I felt terrible. I had assumed me neighbour was aware of the sly and cunning killer in red, but maybe not? 

It was for a few days after that the crows would be swooping down in the distant meadow at what I presumed was the murderous lady fox, but for the high grass, I could not see her. Speaking of high grass, you know what lurks in that right? My Mam goes bonkers if I don’t cut the lawn to an inch of its life. Well, that brings us to you know what don’t you? The reason the grass is so high! Yes indeed, a day or so later the heavens opened for three straight days of downpour and assaulted every plant in the garden, as well as the ones hanging limply on the deck. I tell ya, it was just starting to look pretty out there when this mad system of rain and wind came in and made a beautiful sunny meadow with all the pretty wildflowers look like a war had taken hold. Every single flower was a brown deadhead I tell ya! And we know whose job it was to snip every single one off, don’t we? The only thing that benefited from all that water was the grass, which no lawnmower (even me souped-up super racer) could get through one foot without plugging up with wet grass. Not taking Mam’s suggestion I should invest in a scythe, I did nothing about the lawn.

That is until I had to. We have (thanks to Dragon) an above-ground pool for the kiddos. This thing is exclusively me wife’s responsibility since we know me and mechanicals don’t get on well at all. Well, the following ended up being all my fault though I didn’t make any move to get involved at first in what we will call the rescue. Yes, murder, mayhem and a rescue. And, there be a very good reason.

Tonya and her friend Carrie were having a leisurely lady's breakfast when O’Hare came romping in to ask if he could go in the pool. The answer was,  “No, let me go out and get the gunk from the storm out of it and put the chemicals in.” This Ton and Carrie preceded to do, chatting all the while. Carrie has a similar pool and offered to help as she knew the workings of such things. As Tonya skimmed the top with the long net, Carrie put her hand in the skimmer to get the chlorine tablet holder out, but suddenly she stepped back, hand dripping water as she bent over the pool rim trying to see in the skimmer. 

“Something just moved under my hand.” She said to Tonya who instantly came down and took a look. They couldn’t see anything, so Tonya got a torch and shined it into the skimmer and guess what? A snake! Yes, but not one snake TWO SNAKES! Well, from me vantage point on the deck I watched as the two ladies were squealing and dancing around holding on to each other. I thought at first they had a sudden desire to do Irish dance and was amused until I realised the looks on their faces were less than happy. 

It seemed, swimming for their long thin lives, were two ring-necked snakes, yes R. Linda, these none of us had ever seen before, so we had no clue if they were poisonous or not. Tonya ordered me down from the deck after I caught the word ‘snakes’ and was making me way hurriedly inside because no way was I going down there. But that very word brought out me apple-cheeked, grey-haired Mam it did, blocking the door so I couldn't escape. She pushed me down the deck stairs with orders to “Eradicate that creepy thing now!”

“But there are two of them!” I shouted as she pushed me.

“I don’t care if dere are a hundred, dat’s wot you get fer not mowin' da lawn!” 

So it was I ended up next to the pool, Mam watching from the deck top, safe away to make sure I did not bolt. Ugh, the woman! 

None of us had any snake wrangling equipment or training for that matter, I improvised with a long piece of plastic that probably belonged to some motorised kiddie vehicle by putting it into the skimmer and trying to hook a snake. As you can imagine that didn’t work well. Tonya was up for the challenge but Carrie was too grossed out she had touched a snake and backed away to the other side of the pool. The snakes were not cooperative, no not at all. I tried my hand at it, well not me hand, the plastic thingie but was not successful. Tonya took over from me sorry attempts and if not by luck managed to get one snake wound around the plastic and up out of the skimmer. That thing was not letting go of the plastic, as it tightened its hold and started to very slowly climb up the plastic where Tonya’s hands were holding on. Well, she dropped that sucker and ran. Yup, that’s me, wife for ya, leave me and Carrie standing there with a potentially dangerous loose critter that may be poisonous or not slithering around our ankles. 

From her perch on the porch eagle-eyed Mam had seen the snake and with presence of mind looked the species up on the Internet. 

“Dat be a ring-necked snake. It is an aggressive biter an' though it be not poisonous you will need quick care ta get the bite taken care of an' you might have some after effects fer some while if not forever.”

“Thanks, Mam!”

I watched as it uncoiled itself from the plastic and just lay there. 

“Get the other one out!” Tonya shouted from her safe haven.

“Ugh, ok ok ok,” I said as Carrie quickly picked up the piece of plastic and handed it to me. I went in for snake number two, but unfortunately for the long tall skinny guy I had to pronounce it dead on the scene, he had passed away from exhaustion. I take it they’d been in the skimmer all night. Can you imagine swimming in choppy seas all night? 

Lovely huh?

I fished him out and laid him next to the lattice. He was one giant sucker compared to his live mate still lying on the ground making no move to leave.

Ring-neck Number Two

Carrie was at first in a panic that we were both doomed because we had a live snake under our feet. What to do? Then she looked at the long tall dead guy then at the one that was alive but not moving.

“Do you give CPR to a snake?” Carrie asked to me horror.

“Uh no, I don’t but if you want to be my guest,” I said taken aback that she would even suggest such a thing.

It took me apple-cheeked little Mam to come off the porch, pick up the plastic and prod the snake like it was a cow to get it to move off which it did! Slowly of course, but off into the woods it went. 

To put the cherry on top of the cupcake, Tonya had called her mother and told her of the snake adventure. Dragon lady was adamant “There are no snakes in New Hampshire, especially venomous ones." Uh, I recall a timber rattler on a popular show up here called North Woods Law, and I remember someone running over a black water snake thinking it was a branch in the road and I remember being at my old abode, in me neighbour’s barn when I was confronted by a boa constrictor that someone either lost or let loose, as well as a myriad of garter snakes. Tonya sent Dragon the pictures to prove there is at least ONE snake in New Hampshire, I tell ya!

Who knew snake wrangling was a part of home ownership? I can only hope me snake-charming days are over. 

As it be I have a farmer from down the road coming to mow the grass with his big Kubota tractor. He should be here this afternoon. 

“Good he kin chop any more a’ dose snakes oop in da field he can,” Mam said sipping her tea (she's so cold-blooded). I just hope Mr. or Mrs Ring-neck isn’t in the meadow after all that adrenaline of fishing it out of the skimmer. Such be me life of late.

Gabe
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