Saturday, March 14, 2009

Gentle, woodland creatures.

  Game on.

  Professional at work.

  Dogwood in the treeline.

  I'm a busy man.  Busy, busy, busy!  So I roused myself from the couch and went out to replace the beavercam and entice Dutch web surfers to bite on keywords like: Wet, Hot, Young, Hairy, Beavers, and run up my hit count.  While I was out there I shot some pixels in color using my Nikon D300, not just the Deardorff 5X7, (a manly camera!).  Up near some dogwoods I was channelling Eliot Porter when I realized.....I wasn't alone.
  Coons.  Not like I don't deserve them.  He walked up from nowhere and tried to join in.  Now, I work alone.  I GOT this.  Thanks, but check next door.  I gave at the office.  All that.  This coon seemed to want to climb into my pocket.  Followed me like a bad reputation.
  Somebody, (and thank God for 12 year olds with small arms) had zapped him with a kill shot using an insufficient caliber.  He had a scratched-out wound high behind the shoulder on one side.  You would think that would make him LESS likely to seek out human company, not more but there he was.  Bugging me.  He didn't seem to be in distress from the wound, walked OK, but now and then would suffer a neurological...event.  Teeth clenching, shaking, eye rolling, drooling.
  I started to apply a little John Browning with the truck pistol but then thought:  This is a job for PROFESSIONALS!  I'll call the police!  So I did.  By then the coon had me walking in 30 foot circles next to the highway.  After 10 minutes I called 911 back and added "Help!  Help!" just to get their blood up.  A minute later an officer drove up- a tall blonde woman officer who pulled her asp and called Animal Control.  I let the coon follow her for a while and went back to my camera.
  Animal control sent another woman, (where are men on the weekends?), who caged up the animal in nothing flat.  
  Each day in life is a thrilling adventure....or nothing at all.  Or coons.
  Thank goodness for professionals!

Update:  Beavercam up and rolling tonight on the Beaver dam.  They ought to be ready to start fixing holes.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's the look of intent. It's as if it was thinking, 'If I go, I am taking someone with me.'

Robert Langham said...

Yep, but instead a woman from Animal Control rolled him like a cheap carpet.

Intent is one thing. Ability another. I bet he is a frozen coon carcass with his brain on the way to College Station right now.

Old NFO said...

Making friends and influencing people again huh? :-)

Anonymous said...

A coon out in broad daylight? Dude, find out if that coon had rabies. Rabies can cause localized numbness and probably the reason it wasn't bothered by the open wound on its shoulder.

Also, having no fear of you and following you around is a classic symptom of rabies - the rabies parasite controlled their victim's behavior and suppresses their natural instincts to run away. It was following you so it can bite you and pass on the rabies parasite.

Get yourself checked out if you'd been exposed to the coon's saliva or blood.