I guess I have to admit that spring seems to have arrived. The darn birds are trying to nest in our dryer hose as they do every year. Holes are appearing in our siding. The woodpeckers are at it again. The first year they attacked our house, I wrote a nasty poem about them: "A birdie with a long sharp bill hopped upon my window sill. Poked a hole inside my wall and so I ate him tail and all." My sister loved it so much she asked if I had any poems about squirrels or rabbits. She was having a lot of trouble with squirrels both inside the house and out. They were walking the clothes line like trapeze artists and making their way into the house somehow. The rabbits were taking bites out of her veggies and flowers. Here a bite, there a bite, everywhere a bite bite. Bats stopped by to use the bathroom whenever her husband was away on business.
She set up a live trap outside and caught so many squirrels she was beginning to feel like she was running a free taxi service for them. She finally became suspicious that she was trapping the same creatures over and over. One cheeky fellow, when let out of the cage, turned around and scolded her before he ran off. To cheer her up, I pleasured her with a few poems which, while fun to write, made me cringe. I called them "My Cruel to Furry Creatures Poems."
I once caught a chipmunk in our son's bedroom. He ( the chipmunk) sat in the middle of the floor looking at me in the doorway and then around the room for a place to hide. There was so much stuff piled everywhere that he decided to take his chances freezing right where he was. I'm sure he thought he was invisible in the middle of all the clothing and other things strewn on the floor. I sent Toshi for a fish net from the garage. He couldn't find it and came back with a huge mess of plastic netting I'd used to keep the birds from eating my seeds in the garden. Since the little fellow was still standing there when he returned with it I was able to drop it over him.
Carrying the huge mess of netting containing the chipmunk, along with some of Ricky's socks caught in the crossfire, we rushed out to an area with tall grasses far from our house and tried to let the poor thing go. The problem was that, in his attempts to escape, his head had gotten stuck in the netting. Back to the house ran Toshi to get a pair of scissors. When he tried to cut the netting around the furry neck the chipmunk's eyes and cheeks seemed to bulge. To me it looked like he was being choked to death. I started to get hysterical imagining how frightened the little thing must be, and I yelled for Toshi to stop. I gave it a try but soon gave up—afraid I'd cut the little captive while cutting the netting. Back went the scissors to Toshi who took a breath and made a cut. Out popped the chipmunk. He dashed off but suddenly stopped after he'd gotten just a few feet away. There he stood his ground, turned and stared at me as if committing my face to memory. I guess it was something he never wanted to see again.
Toshi will take part in Middlebury College's Japanese Club's Spring Festival tomorrow (Sunday). He'll be doing a display and talk about Japanese pottery.
On Sunday, there will be an open house from 12-4 at the Japan-America Society of Vermont's office with an exhibit of Japanese dolls that are displayed on Girl's Day and Boy's Day.
She set up a live trap outside and caught so many squirrels she was beginning to feel like she was running a free taxi service for them. She finally became suspicious that she was trapping the same creatures over and over. One cheeky fellow, when let out of the cage, turned around and scolded her before he ran off. To cheer her up, I pleasured her with a few poems which, while fun to write, made me cringe. I called them "My Cruel to Furry Creatures Poems."
I once caught a chipmunk in our son's bedroom. He ( the chipmunk) sat in the middle of the floor looking at me in the doorway and then around the room for a place to hide. There was so much stuff piled everywhere that he decided to take his chances freezing right where he was. I'm sure he thought he was invisible in the middle of all the clothing and other things strewn on the floor. I sent Toshi for a fish net from the garage. He couldn't find it and came back with a huge mess of plastic netting I'd used to keep the birds from eating my seeds in the garden. Since the little fellow was still standing there when he returned with it I was able to drop it over him.
Carrying the huge mess of netting containing the chipmunk, along with some of Ricky's socks caught in the crossfire, we rushed out to an area with tall grasses far from our house and tried to let the poor thing go. The problem was that, in his attempts to escape, his head had gotten stuck in the netting. Back to the house ran Toshi to get a pair of scissors. When he tried to cut the netting around the furry neck the chipmunk's eyes and cheeks seemed to bulge. To me it looked like he was being choked to death. I started to get hysterical imagining how frightened the little thing must be, and I yelled for Toshi to stop. I gave it a try but soon gave up—afraid I'd cut the little captive while cutting the netting. Back went the scissors to Toshi who took a breath and made a cut. Out popped the chipmunk. He dashed off but suddenly stopped after he'd gotten just a few feet away. There he stood his ground, turned and stared at me as if committing my face to memory. I guess it was something he never wanted to see again.
Toshi will take part in Middlebury College's Japanese Club's Spring Festival tomorrow (Sunday). He'll be doing a display and talk about Japanese pottery.
On Sunday, there will be an open house from 12-4 at the Japan-America Society of Vermont's office with an exhibit of Japanese dolls that are displayed on Girl's Day and Boy's Day.