As we all know by now, I love to spend time outside in the yard these days. Hell, even before these Covid-times I could often be found staring at something discriminately out in the back of the house. This tale is only a few days old and not of the avian variety that I have been sharing of late.
Kris and I live in a fairly typical suburban home on a quiet street and have a small water easement behind our fence in the backyard. Our location near a constant water source and fairly wooded area offer a pretty wide variety of wildlife. Sometimes the wildlife is a bit slithery, but more often than not, we see a variety of birds and small furry mammals. In fact, I’m currently doing battle with a Nutria who enjoys eating the buds off of the roses and depositing them several hours later under a Mountain Laurel. I suppose that is a tale for another time.
Anyway, I was in the yard this past weekend with a Corona (would you believe there is a wiki on how to drink a Corona Beer?) in hand firing up the grill when I thought, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted that same Nutria. Knowing that this may be an opportunity to eliminate that fertilizer spreading rodent, I grabbed my tongs firmly in hand and began to turn in the small hairy mammals direction.
Forgetting there is about an eight inch drop-off from the patio to the ground, I capsized. Beer spilling and lime wedge half out of the bottle, I staggered off the back patio in what probably looked like a drunken stupor to anyone fortunate enough to witness it. I don’t know what it is about me, but I am always tripping, falling or otherwise defying gravity in comical ways. I often wonder if I have always been like this and am only realizing it now…
Having become heavily grass-stained, losing a flip-flop and becoming curiously heaped into a small middle-aged ball; I looked up to find that at least Kris wasn’t present to have witnessed my “excursion.”
With the necessity to concoct a story about how I wound up in my current state upon Kris’ return, I once again caught a glance of that nutria in the bushes. Back on my feet and crouching to see beneath the thorny depths, I caught more than a glimpse of the furry brown mammal. Tongs held high and charging into the verge like something out of Brave-Heart (I’m pretty sure I screamed, “FREEDOM!”), I reared back to take a swing at the nutria and at that moment realized it was just a small bunny.
The bunny, just as disheveled as I, stared at me with a blank look. As my gaze met his beady black eyes, I lowered my tongs, backed away slowly and scooped up my camera.
I named him Everett and he pretty much just eats weeds and lives under the shed in the backyard. I’m cool with that. Oh and Tide to Go Pens are awesome and work really well on grass stains, or so Kris says.
vestigial-tales.com 