Squiddly Diddim Bop Em Diddim Plop

I have been resting today. Earlier I had a supernatural experience, and I have already written about it. Since it happened, I’ve felt much better, but I’ve also felt drained.

I finally got up and did something relatively useful. I walked to my game camera and took it down. Yesterday I put it up near a place where animals cut under my fence.

There were several videos in the camera, not including the one of me taking it down or videos that don’t show any animal life. The first two were the usual coons, but I also got a coyote and a fox.

The interesting thing to me is that these predators showed up during the day. I thought coyotes were nocturnal, but one crossed my fence between 1 and 2 p.m. I’ll post a capture.

The fox showed up at around 8:30 this morning. I had put some stuff down to attract animals, and it appears that it was gone before he arrived. He nosed around looking for it.

I’ll post a shot of the fox I filmed earlier this month. As you can see, it’s a different fox. It’s younger, and its coloring is more brilliant. It’s much smaller than today’s fox. So it looks like I have at least two foxes here, and our backward government will not let me shoot either one of them!

What do they want? Do they want foxes overrunning the place? Do they want them crowding me off the recliner and fighting over the remote?

Don’t tell me tyranny doesn’t exist.

Today’s fox seems nearly as big as today’s coyote. The coyote seems small, although I’m not equipped to judge. Maybe it’s young.

Their behaviors are different. The fox seems carefree. It’s intent on finding food. The coyote seems worried. He raises his head over and over and sniffs the air, like he knows there is a guy on a recliner, thinking of coyote pelts.

It’s as if they know the hunting laws. Coyotes are legal 24/7/365. Foxes are sacred. You can’t hunt them at all. No wonder the fox is relaxed.

The coyote video is encouraging because it shows I don’t have to be up at 4 a.m. to shoot one of these guys. It’s discouraging because the coyote is already nervous even before my arrival. I think he’ll be as wary as Donald Trump speaking at a Sierra Club dinner. Of weeds and mold and whatever it is they eat.

I’m disappointed that I haven’t filmed a bear. That would be neat. People keep expressing doubt that we have a bear, but you know what they say. Poop don’t lie.

I found some exciting new poop today. Poop is my new hobby. You could call me a poop watcher. I don’t know what it is. It’s not a coon. I don’t think it’s a bear. It’s not a bobcat or a coyote. It doesn’t look like fox poop. It’s sort of like very small, more or less rectangular cow manure.

Scanning the numerous helpful poop sites on the web, I have to conclude that it must be a bear after all. Maybe it’s a very small bear. Maybe it’s a big one that eats too much cheese.

You’re supposed to call poop “scat.” Seems pretentious. Looks like plain old poop to me. Scat is poop with a college degree.

I don’t want to think of poop when I listen to Ella Fitzgerald.

I have never seen deer poop here, and I’ve only seen a couple of things that looked like they could be turkey poop. When we bought the property, I made a big mistake. I had it surveyed. I had it inspected. I had a title search done. I did not do a poop inventory.

Live and learn.

I heard a bird of prey call while I was walking in and I saw what must have been a big hawk. It was sitting in the top of a hickory tree. It was huge. We have little hawky-looking birds here the size of crows, but this one would have fed three people.

When I got to the house, two sparrow sort of things were flapping around in the garage. They could not find the giant open door, so I opened the other one, increasing their odds of escape by 100%. They made it.

I have started putting seed in our feeder, partly to attract birds to amuse my dad (who turned out not to be interested in them), and partly to attract squirrels and get them fat and stupid for squirrel season. I’ve seen some strange birds going after the seed. I saw some that were tiny and bright yellow. I think that’s what I saw in the garage today.

It has occurred to me that I could go out and look at birds. But the only good optics I have are attached to rifles. I don’t know if I want to have a game warden spot me aiming a .308 at an eagle. There is probably a law against it, even if you take the bolt out of the gun. Wardens have heard a lot of clever excuses. “I’m just carrying my friend’s rifle.” “I’m just sitting in a covered deer blind with a Ma Deuce because it’s hot out.” As a result, the laws prevent you from doing just about anything that resembles hunting, unless you do it to animals in season. You can probably get fined for saying “BOO” to the wrong animal.

I think I’m forbidden to even walk within a certain distance of a tortoise hole. Like I know where they are.

I like the game camera. I should have bought a better one, but this one is fun. Maybe I’ll eventually see something other than a crow, coon, coyote, or fox. If I do, I will certainly let you know.