Okay I'm dead beat- 4000 and a few words today, and not much sleep last night - I worked late, dogs woke me at 2 AM. peering out the window I saw either 1)a cat 2)a possum 3)a small wallaby.
Now unless it's our cat, none of the above are welcome at all in the garden. It had been warmish, and I had gone to bed as nature intended. We have no visitors, and the nearest other human is way more than a mile away. Even the road is 200 yards away, and miss prude who can look at my naked bod from 200 yards and claim to see anything flatters me beyond all possibility. I took the four-ten and went to have a look, on the dubious logic that it's quieter than the 12 gauge, and whatever it was would b... off, probably before I got there. I'm not going to shoot something to find its our cat, so I need to see it well. So grab torch, and I'm off. Bare toes real stupid, but I was pretty dopey after about 2 hour's kip. I'm out there playing catch as can for about five minutes in the misty dark before it gets to me that 1)I'm cold. 2)I'm wandering around my garden naked with a torch and shotgun. 3)there are thistles. 4 It's a wallaby. And it seems to have the brains to be where I would shoot the house if I shot at it, or the sheep inthe next paddock. The sheep do not seem perturbed by my state of undress, although the wallaby is less trustful. We play a sort of dodge-ems around the bushes. If I'd let the dogs out they could have dealt with it not me.
Needless to say Barbs slept through the whole expotition. Even the shotgun blast.
Note to self.
Wear shorts to bed while we have visitors. Besides shorts have pockets for spare rounds.
And boots outside. Because thistle thorns are a PITT (pain in the toes. I did not sit down to make them a PITA)
Dave, you remind me so strongly of my own father from time to time - wandering about and shooting a wallaby in the dark garden is definitely something I can see him doing. I chronicled his close encounter with a bear here, http://cedarwrites.com/2012/12/13/bear-kicker/
ReplyDeleteSo, did you hit the Wallaby?
I try not to waste ammunition :-). Wallaby around the garden is one thing possums around the kitchen another! (a lot scarier for both of us - I had nothing but hands and feet, and possums are known to scratch and bite. And it wanted out of there, and I wanted to deal with it. In the end discretion won...
DeleteHope your toes feel better today!
ReplyDeleteActually muttery about it - I have been excavating butthey're such little thorns.
DeleteI promise Jody and Tripp will be wearing their shorts for any midnight hunting excursions while we are there. We are enjoying the time at my sister's, but looking forward to our time with you.
ReplyDeletegrin. They can wear what they like. Wouldn't worry me, and I hope it worries the wallaby! I always wear shorts when we've got visitors or my daughter-in-laws. I just hope you can have lots of fun here, am frantically trying to finish the book. Tell Jody to think about pyrotechnics - while common in China, well spread to India, gunpowder weapons had got to Europe by the period I'm writing about, but multicolored pyrotechnics and rockets not, and I want to pick his brains.
DeleteHe's already muttering about some German dude in the 1500s who wrote about adding colours to gunpowder.
Deleteexcellent i know he knows far more than i do. I need to pick his brains on congreve and hale too
ReplyDelete