Country Critters-Oh My!!!

I'm an early riser, and this morning as I made my sleepy way to the sink to rinse my coffee pot before making my morning coffee, I happened to notice a pair of tiny eyes peering up at me from the bottom of the sink. Eek!

"Little froggie, how did you get into the kitchen sink? I almost turned the faucet on, and flushed you down the drain," I said, reaching down and capturing the tiny jumper from his sink prison. Then I placed him in a jar, until daylight broke, and traipsed down to the pond to release him.

How did he get in my sink? A good guess might be that he was carried into the house by one of the cats, the night before, and somehow managed to escape from said cat's mouth and hopped away and hid until he somehow landed in my sink. Many a times out in the yard, I have rescued little frogs from a cat's mouth, and carried them back to the safety of the pond.

But little frogs in the sink do not cause a big problem. Of course, I didn't appreciate the tiny critter wetting himself right in my hand, but I figured he must have been pretty scared and couldn't help himself!

On the other hand, critters under the hood of ones car can cause big problems! Especially, when it's hotter than heck, and one suddenly finds the fan of the car's
air conditioner clanking like heck, and not cooling things off too well. That's what happened to me, heading to town one scorching hot day, recently, and heading home was even worse, so I called the garage and asked them if they could check things out as soon as possible.

"Sure, bring it in tomorrow morning, and we'll look at it," some guy informed me. And the following morning, bright and early, I was in there waiting to hear what the mechanic had to tell me, fearing a major repair possibility. After an hour or so, my mechanic at the garage came in and told me my car's air conditioner fan was working just fine again, and I would be as cool as a cucumber on my way home.

"What was the problem?" I asked.

"A chipmunk, Ma'am. He made himself a home under your hood, and discarded all the shells of his lunches in your air conditioner's fan." He showed me a pile of hickory nut shells, and half eaten acorns that they had cleaned out of it.

" I went ahead and sprayed real good under the hood with pepper spray. I don't think that critter will be back there anytime soon."

"He wasn't under there when you sprayed that pepper spray, was he?" I asked a bit anxiously. Although I didn't want a cute little chipmunk under my hood, I didn't want him hurt, either.

"No, Ma'am. He wasn't there," the guy said, giving me the bill and walking away, shaking his head. I wonder why?

And, would you believe just a week or so later, another critter decided that my car was a good place to live in? Suddenly, mouse droppings were evident in several areas, and when I opened my glove compartment, I found the chewed up remains of my car insurance papers that a mouse must have deemed tasty! My son suggested mouse traps, but I nixed the idea.

"I don't want to have to be removing dead mice. Isn't there a more humane way of getting rid of them?" I asked.

So he sprinkled generous amounts of moth ball powder throughout the interior of the car and trunk. I don't know if the powerful smell got rid of the mouse or not, but it almost got rid of me! Well, at least it felt like it would. Phew!

Oh, I do have one more story, a big blacksnake in the bathroom, but since I consider snakes varmints, I'll save that for another time.