The rat in the potting shed is still there. This is undesirable, obviously. As is a pigeon in the house. I came into the living room recently and there was a pigeon strutting about as if it owned the place. I shooed it out through the baby gate which we place across the French doors to keep the evil chickens from moving in. That the chooks are quite handy for hoovering up dead flies is outweighed by the disadvantages of them pooping on the carpet. The baby gate quite obviously is not pigeon proof. The pigeons are actually white doves, or more correctly, Barbary or ring-necked doves. When my cousin saw them, she said, “What is this? Disneyland?”
A free lesson: never feed a white dove. We now have more than a dozen. Our doves are not the pure white ones people release at weddings. They started out that way, but for some reason they now look like they have had bad dye jobs. What are doves supposed to symbolise? Peace? Love? All our doves do is have sex, fight each other and poo. A quite interesting fact: pigeons are even more disease-ridden than rats, or so I have read.
They are also bold as brass. Half an hour later, I found the home-invading pigeon in the living room again.
It’s been that sort of week. The next day, Greg noticed that the bird bath under the honey locust tree had tipped over and was lying upside down on the lawn. He turned it over and said – and he can’t believe he said this – “Oh. My. God.” Fast asleep was an enormous mother possum and her single progeny. Greg backed off. The possums scampered off. How the hell they got under the bird bath is yet another animal mystery.
Last week, there were two hedgehogs in the garage. I do like a hedgehog and I may have been known to sneak them a tray of cat chips. Another quite interesting fact: their poo is indescribably disgusting.
Why do all these creatures, including the collection of formerly wild cats known in these parts as the Notorious Whiskers Gang, find their way to Lush Places?
I have a theory. They have developed a secret code of symbols which they scratch on houses to let other creatures know that at, say, Lush Places, two suckers live. During the Great Depression, hobos in the United States invented (though some dispute this) a system to let fellow hobos know what sort of reception they were likely to get from home owners.
The signs were cryptic and primitive. A “WWW” apparently signalled “barking dogs here”. A trestle table indicated a sit-down meal was on offer. There was a symbol of a gun, which indicated that if you approached you might well get buckshot in the bum of your hobo britches. A scratching of a mama cat and kittens meant “a kind woman lives here”.
I reckon the secret sign scratched on our house is of a can of Fancy Feast, a posh cat food kept in the cupboard for fussy cats. All cats, including formerly wild cats, evil chickens and hedgehogs, prefer posh food. Hopefully the possum and the rat cannot decipher signs.
I am considering a sign that says: “There is no room left at the Lush Places Inn.” We have enough creatures.
Last month, Janet, who lives right around the bend with Blokesy Stokesy, arrived at Betty’s, which is really Chan’s Restaurant where we have yum cha, with a cat carrybox. This, she announced, was a late Christmas present. A puppy.
I may have backed off as though faced with a possum. “I can’t have a puppy,” I said, in a panicked tone. I needed a puppy, she said, and handed over the cat carrier. “Ssh, he’s asleep,” she added. I gingerly opened the box. Inside was Harold – a green astro turf puppy for the lawn. He is very nice. And does not require feeding.
