Black and White Striped Mayhem

Black and White Striped Mayhem

Someone had forgotten to latch the gate leading to behind the house, the horses had (of course) found the opening and were back there causing all sorts of mischief. 

I awoke to the sound of people talking, and running around frantically, trying to herd a herd of crazy galloping horses around, back to their pen.

 I slipped into some dirty jeans and headed outside to see if I could help. By the time I made it out here, they'd gotten them out and back into their pasture. I decided since I was already up and dressed, to let out the birds. In order to go through this gate, you have to duck under a tree limb, as I did so, I glanced up into the tree above me, to see two coons curled up asleep, high in the tree.

I kept two eyes on the coons, while Mom ran back inside to inform Cim that the morning's venture wasn't finished. 

He came back out, armed with a gun, and we began throwing rocks at the coons, trying to get them to wake up and fall out of the tree. Boy, what a wake up call! I kind of felt bad for the poor critters. :(

That was an epic fail, so he climbed up into the tree with them and began shaking it. I heard two "thump" "thumps" on the ground and caught a glimpse of the chubby coons hightailing it into the horse pasture. Meanwhile, Cim is stuck up in the tree and is trying to come down as quickly as possible. 

He jumps out and takes off after them..what I heard next sounded like a movie "bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam!!!!!!" And I'm not even kidding, I thought each coon must've had at least 30 bullets apiece. Turns out, I was right, they didn't stand a chance.

The guys had to rush off to work, so I volunteered to haul them (coons) off.

Note to self: stop volunteering yourself. Bad idea..always bad idea.

Well, I got Carolina to volunteer her help, and it took some muscle, but we finally got them loaded in the bed of the pickup. We jumped in and headed out into the wild lands (a.k.a the cow pasture).

Once we're a mile or so from the house, we stopped and I shimmed into the back and was fixing to toss a coon overboard, when I heard a large creature(s) crashing through the mesquite. My first thought was "I'm in trouble!" Next, I saw a pair of long horns appear through the trees, attached to the horns was..you guessed it a Longhorn. ;) 

Had you fooled there didn't I..yeah!!

Carolina yelped and jumped into the pickup bed where I was standing, by this time we had a mob of angry (hungry) cows staring us down from all sides. Oh dear.

I finished my chore of tossings (ok, actually it was more like groaning, struggling to pick up the shovel with the dead weight coon on it..but whatever..minor details) the coons into the pasture, then turned my attention to the delima at hand, i.e. - the mob of hungry cows who thought this girl (me) had food for them. 

Carolina jumped off the other side of the pickup bed and scrambled through the driver's door. I followed her example. I thought all the fun was finished..naw..not quite. Being the genius that I am, I parked on the road, in the middle of the pasture, and didn't really have any good turning ground, so I drove backwards several hundred feet until I found a clear spot..one that had a tree right in the middle of it. After demolishing a whole grove of trees (ok, maybe I'm exaggerating..maybe), I finally got turned around we zoomed out of there like maniacs. And that's the truth, the whole truth, and nothin' but the truth! 

Later that (hot) afternoon, we're cleaning out the Call duck and Bantam pen. Guess what I found on top of their hutch? Coon poop.

I no longer have any sympathetic feelings for the critters.

And thus ends our tail...err...I mean tale.

Blessings - 

~ Aspen