Armadillos, frogs, snakes, and men
Ah, the many joys Florida life! I've written that we have a pool in our backyard. My husband loves the pool; he is in there many times a day. As an older woman, the wardrobe transition I have to make in order to get in the pool is daunting; I must REALLY want to get in the darned pool to make all of that worthwhile. My husband just takes his shirt off and dives in. Nice.
I do enjoy knowing that the pool is there in case of an emergency...maybe if the house is on fire or I'm being chased by aliens who can't swim.
Sometimes things get in the pool accidentally. This is a point on which my husband and I disagree. I believe that frogs don't know that they are hopping off the cement into the pool. My husband thinks they know what they're doing; they're trying to cool off. There are days when I rescue as many as twenty errant frogs. They seem pretty happy to be out of the water. This morning, I saw an armadillo stuck on the steps in the pool, trying desperately to get out. Of course, I rescued it. It was obviously in distress; shivering and frightened. I put it on the lawn in the sun with a blanket over it. Then, I told my next door neighbor about it. He offered to come over and smash it with a shovel and pitch it over the back fence. HORRORS!!! I said thanks, but no thanks. I left to run some errands, and when I got back the armadillo was gone. I'm hoping that it recovered enough to burrow somewhere safe and that my neighbor, the shovel, and the fence pitching didn't appear in my absence. Sigh.
The pool occupants that worry me the most: snakes!!! Yes, we've had those, too. Sometime they get stuck in the pool filter and when I open it to clean it, there they are. I refuse to kill anything, so I just scream and hope someone is in the vicinity. If not, I leave the snake and go back inside. My husband will be here eventually.
I do enjoy knowing that the pool is there in case of an emergency...maybe if the house is on fire or I'm being chased by aliens who can't swim.
Sometimes things get in the pool accidentally. This is a point on which my husband and I disagree. I believe that frogs don't know that they are hopping off the cement into the pool. My husband thinks they know what they're doing; they're trying to cool off. There are days when I rescue as many as twenty errant frogs. They seem pretty happy to be out of the water. This morning, I saw an armadillo stuck on the steps in the pool, trying desperately to get out. Of course, I rescued it. It was obviously in distress; shivering and frightened. I put it on the lawn in the sun with a blanket over it. Then, I told my next door neighbor about it. He offered to come over and smash it with a shovel and pitch it over the back fence. HORRORS!!! I said thanks, but no thanks. I left to run some errands, and when I got back the armadillo was gone. I'm hoping that it recovered enough to burrow somewhere safe and that my neighbor, the shovel, and the fence pitching didn't appear in my absence. Sigh.
The pool occupants that worry me the most: snakes!!! Yes, we've had those, too. Sometime they get stuck in the pool filter and when I open it to clean it, there they are. I refuse to kill anything, so I just scream and hope someone is in the vicinity. If not, I leave the snake and go back inside. My husband will be here eventually.
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