Beauty Wasp

Coon Butts in for Dinner

I used to have a colony of chickens and have been colonized by cats that were not invited, but their occupation of Dogs Plot has been unstable :particularly since the awful waif I call Roody arrived: a little bully who had obviously been much abused and..worse than that, was not discouraged by a mother from shitting in bed or biting when excited by newly learned, affectionate head-bumping, and generally taking over the deck area. But now comes one of the coon twins, Trudy and Teddy, whom I can't tell apart and who usually don't appear before dusk... shows up this afternoon during a pause between courses. She does not much like the smell of me sitting there minding my own business, but manages to get past me; then that brat Roody gives her some serious crap. And Trudy knows exactly how to deal with it. You and I have seen the very same thing happen in offices, on boats, and aboard trains. Hickory, whom you see there at the rail and mostly unconcerned about the Coon who came to dinner, is more concerned with Tramp, the cat whom, for some reason, he hates and doesn't just drive away, but attacks viciously, face on. It's a full time thing when he is not asleep, and he no longer sleeps in the loft with me, doesn't even come inside. I need to get a cat. When I had chickens I had to shoot a Coon that was attacking a hen and a chick then roosting in the dog house. And I once watched another Coon carry a screaming juvenile Possum in its teeth through the crown of the Cottonwood tree over the deck, and I had to step on the head of a coon that had a hold of our cat Stormy. I had a pet coon for a while when I was a kid. It never learned the difference between my ear and a peanut butter sandwich. It had to go. Coons are related to Bears, but are weirder than Weasels. They are said to be dainty because they often "wash" their food; but they wet it only because they lack saliva enough. for swallowing..it maybe just evaporates because they chew with their mouths open. Maybe you think that's cute.

Dog Bee