Animals found in and around the pool:
-Grass and other snakes, usually quite small
-Frogs and toads
-Water skaters
-JUNE BUGS, Japanese beetles, ants, wasps, bees, rollie-pollies, etc. etc. etc.
-Possums
-Raccoons
-Armadillo
-Neighbors' pet cats
-Tarantulas, daddy-long-legs, etc.
-Rats
-Squirrels
Yesterday we discovered a new addition!
Please welcome...the baby-bobcat-sized-SKUNK!
My mom almost cried when I told her that I'd discovered what'd eaten her garden...
We've had armadillos eat the bulbs before, so that's what she though it was. Nope. Skunk.
And he's BIG. Maybe it's just the fur, but I don't savor the thought of catching that bid guy, which is apparently what we have to do. What? There's Animal Control for a reason!
He was just waddling along the fence when me and my friends stuck our heads out. I thought they were kidding at first.
Nope.
SKUNK.
We've had interesting things happen cleaning out the pool, though. The steps are too high for anything to get out once it's fallen in, so from time to time we must rid it of a bevy of corpses.
We'll start with one of my first memories, taking a tarantula from the pool to school in a peanut butter jar. Interestingly, I used to be terrified of spiders and perfectly at home in the dark. Now I'm mostly okay with spiders, and terrified of the dark. or course, my horrendous vision probably has something to do with that.
Anyway, I carried Peter Parker around the school for the day, creeping out my female classmates and some of the guys. Then we let him go behind the bridge near my house. Not too eventful.
Next, we have the day mom needed my help.
I tried using two grocery bags and doubling them, then making them like a glove and grabbing it, but I couldn't get up the nerve. In the end, mom picked up the dead rat with the metal spoons and dropped it in the bags.
I had to help dad similarly, but with a dead squirrel. For some reason mom couldn't deal with it (and of course I had fun after, making her squirm >>). Unlike the floppy, sodden rat, the squirrel's fur had flattened with damp and then its body had gone into rigor, with its tail stuck out. For some reason all I could do was laugh.
Lastly:
My dad was about to go to bed. He went out and checked the pool.
There was a dead baby possum in it.
He fished the possum out, and, wary of it reviving and tearing up the garbage, he left it on the side of the pool and went back in for a few minutes.
Upon his return, not only was the possum pretty dead, but a second possum had fallen in...after passing by the corpse of its brother.
Now, dad was pretty tired; he wanted to go to bed, not wait for another freaking possum to possibly revive, so when he pulled this one out, he tried to devise a way to tell if it was dead.
He picked up a stick and poked it in the eye.
We're pretty sure it was dead.
