Arizona is decidedly different than Wisconsin.'
Our home is in the Sonoran Desert--literally. During the past week, we've had encounters with scorpions, packrats and javelinas.
First, I'll show the "cute" picture of the pack of javelinas that blocked our path during our morning stroll through the nature preserve.
These javelinas were the second encounter that we had this morning. They very lazily walked across our path and into the brush. Didn't really give us even a glance.
Our first encounter about twenty minutes earlier was less fun. There were two javelinas off the trail about 10 yards. A male javelina left the female and joined us on the concrete path, staring at us from less than ten yards. Okay, no problem. We'll just back away. Nope, he started trotting towards us. Apparently they can run over 35 mph if inclined. We decided to go off trail and circle around both animals. As soon as we turned our backs, the male began to run faster at us. I turned around and started yelling loudly and waving my arm. The other arm was attached to Callie, and javelinas don't like dogs. Fortunately, the javelina was puzzled by my behavior and stopped following us. No pics of that guy; I was a little busy.
We discovered the packrats when I went to open the built-in gas grill on the back patio. The packrat was just as surprised as me, given that no one had been living in our house for six months. That resulted in another trip to Home Depot where I bought a couple of rat traps that were much, much bigger than the mouse traps that I'm used to. The first night brought success. The second night--not so much. This will likely be an ongoing battle. We covered up the grill openings as much as we could with heavy duty wire fencing, and aluminum plating, where possible.
The final matter to be addressed was with the scorpions. I bought a black light and have been venturing around the house after dark, discovering several of the little buggers each night. Those that I found "went away." I bought some spray that I will apply around the exterior foundation to discourage entry into our home.
That's all the news from this corner of the Sonoran Desert.
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