The ranch we caretake is 320 acres in the middle of a National Forest. You would think that with all that open space, the wildlife would be content to concede our happy little barndominium, plus its yard. Really, it only encompasses maybe 900 square feet total! But, no, our little compound acts as a magnet instead.
Barely three weeks after we moved in, we started discovering bees in the house. A queen had set up quick residence in the bedroom wall, and the drones found their way between the wall and the floorboards, where they would crash against the window until they died. One evening I came home from work to find more than 40 carcasses on the floor in front of the window. Just recently, they came back to roost in the water heater closet, and I am considering harvesting the honey to pay for the damage they are causing.
This is in addition to the various beetles, crickets, and spiders I constantly chase back outside. Not to mention the ants – there is a constant stream across the kitchen counters. I’ve tried everything to get rid of them, and once even thought I’d succeeded. Until I realized they’d gone “underground” into the cabinets. By finding them floating in the bottom of my bowl of Cheerios…
Even the posse wreaks havoc. One night, I suddenly smelled the overwhelming musk of a skunk. As I ran to shut the door, the dog came running at me. Thinking to keep her from getting sprayed, I pulled her into the house, only to realize fairly quickly that she had already been hit, and now the skunk oil was in the house too. Everyone recommended a local product for the walls, the dog bed, and the dog. Unfortunately, all it did was make it smell like the skunk had been eating peppermint candies.
The mules, too, are constantly pushing the boundaries, reaching over the fence to grab roses, raspberries, and as much of the lawn as possible. The other huge frustration I have with them is that, despite having all this acreage in which to choose a litter box, they have decided that just outside the kitchen window is the perfect place to deposit their “road apples.”
Now I recognize that we have chosen to live in a wilderness, and that good comes with the bad. I accept that in order to see a doe and her two fawns, a bear in the avocados, or a bobcat hunting ducks in the pond, I have to put up with the ants, mosquitoes and flies. And any one of these things is tolerable when it stands alone. But sometimes, enough is too much.
I came home exhausted from a long day at work, and Blue-dog is dancing for her dinner, Big Max is meowing for non-attention, there is honey pouring out of the hot water heater, but I just need a couple minutes for myself first. I walk in to the smell of peppermint skunk, look out the kitchen window and sure enough there are piles of road apples everywhere, start to clean the line of ants off the counter yet again, and crack! – there goes the fence as the mules rush the lush, green lawn …
I just lost it, running out of the house shrieking at all of them.
I can’t take it anymore! The animals are winning!
