On a day when anxiety is high, I thought I'd keep things light today and tell you about the Orange Armadillo.
If you're not from Texas or the South and haven't personally been acquainted with an armadillo, no, they aren't normally orange.
Or tail-less.
But this one was, orange and without her tail, that is. It started back in 2006 one wild Friday night. See, living out in the country, there's not a lot to do on the weekends except shoot stuff, set off firecrackers, joy ride through the countryside, or cow-tipping. (I'm exaggerating alittle bit here, but not much). In our case, we were watching a rented movie in the living room when hubby took a phonecall and stepped outside the house to talk (and smoke, which is a gross habit of his, but I digress)...
While he was outside in the dark, he saw a large armadillo resting beneath one of the large oak trees. He quickly got off the phone and grabbed the trap. The elusive armadillo had been gorging herself on the roots of our pretty front lawn for the past few nights and had torn up our manicured grass (think zillions of moles, everywhere... the damage they can do is spectacular). She sensed him coming and ran into a drain pipe under our circular driveway.
I decided to go outside and check on Hubby because he had been outside for a long time and I was wondering if he was even still at the house, or if he had headed up to the barn. When I opened the front door, I saw him flat on his stomach, peering into the end of the large PVC drain pipe under one side of the drive. "What the hell are you doing?", I yelled. "I finally trapped the armadillo! She's in the pipe! Quick go get a flashlight!" -he was excited and pumped up to be 'on the hunt'.
Do you think I could find a flashlight under pressure? Negative. In my quick thinking, I grabbed his truck keys and turned his truck around in the yard to face the drive and shine its lights on the pipe. Meanwhile, he grabbed a broomstick and proceeded to shove it into the pipe. No luck. Of course not! The armadillo just went deeper into the pipe, we're talking a length of about 40 feet across because the other end of the pipe is on the far end of the circular driveway. The broomstick was definitely NOT going to do the trick.
So what did Hubby do? Grabbed another broomstick, and then another... and then another... and then one more. And a whole lot of duct tape.
He sat for 10 minutes and constructed a flaccid javelin of broomsticks about 35 ft long that he thought was going to push the armadillo out the other end of the pipe into the waiting trap.
He instructed me to go move my truck to face the other end of the pipe and shine my lights on it. So imagine this sight... two crazy adults flat on their stomachs staring into a dark hole, with their vehicles facing each other with the brights lighting up the otherwise dark countryside...
The broomstick trick didn't work and after about 15 minutes of waiting, we went inside to finish them movie, chuckling about how dumb we looked and the 'excitement' of our Friday night.
During the next pause in the movie, Hubby went outside to check, and there sat the armadillo in the trap. It was that easy!
Strangely enough, this female armadillo had no tail. She obviously had lost it in an accident or something because there was a jagged stump where a tail had once been. I instantly loved her, she was so ugly she was cute. Hubby gave her some water and she spent the night in the trap. Morning came and he relocated her to the city dump, where he went to take garbage. We knew that armadillos have about a 3 mile territory that they call home, so he had taken her far enough away that she might not make it back to our green front grass.
Fast forward to the next spring...
Spring 2007, we were outside one evening entertaining friends. We had grilled steaks and after dinner had been sitting outside well beyond dusk talking and sharing stories, when we saw something move across the lawn. In the dark it was hard to tell what it was, a squirrel? No, too big. A wild pig? Nope, too small. We grabbed the huge dome light and shone it on the intruder. It was the tail-less female armadillo from the fall before!
Hubby spent the next 30 minutes trapping her, which he did without too much fanfare. I like to think that she was starting to know the routine and ran in it on purpose, knowing we'd feed and water her and do her no harm. Hubby and I told our guests the incredible story about this armadillo from the year before and how we had relocated her about 5 miles away. "No way, can't be the same armadillo", they said. Surely she couldn't have walked 5 whole miles on those little stubby legs, back to my front yard?
This time, just to make sure that there weren't any others like her, Hubby and I spray-painted her neon orange. Next morning, Hubby had to take his truck in for service at the dealership in the next town, 26 miles south of the ranch. The orange, tail-less armadillo went with him and was released outside the service station. She scurried off into the brush and was never seen again...
Until just recently.
Summer 2008 we were outside one evening playing catch in the yard with our little TBaller when the sun started to go down. We put the baseball plunder into the garage and sat down at the table and chairs outside and fired up the grill. Dusk had fallen and after awhile, we heard some grunting and digging around from the other side of the house. As we turned the corner of the house to see what was causing the commotion, we were shocked to come face to face with a neon orange, tail-less armadillo!
She had traveled 26 long miles but had made it home.
After a marathon trip like that one, we decided to let her gorge herself on our lawn. Her perseverance had paid off and she had found her way home! AGAIN! Needless to say, we didn't relocate her this time and allowed her to tear up the grass with gusto. After a day or so, she moved on from her and we haven't seen her since!
That, my friends, is the story of the Orange Armadillo.
If you're not from Texas or the South and haven't personally been acquainted with an armadillo, no, they aren't normally orange.
Or tail-less.
But this one was, orange and without her tail, that is. It started back in 2006 one wild Friday night. See, living out in the country, there's not a lot to do on the weekends except shoot stuff, set off firecrackers, joy ride through the countryside, or cow-tipping. (I'm exaggerating alittle bit here, but not much). In our case, we were watching a rented movie in the living room when hubby took a phonecall and stepped outside the house to talk (and smoke, which is a gross habit of his, but I digress)...
While he was outside in the dark, he saw a large armadillo resting beneath one of the large oak trees. He quickly got off the phone and grabbed the trap. The elusive armadillo had been gorging herself on the roots of our pretty front lawn for the past few nights and had torn up our manicured grass (think zillions of moles, everywhere... the damage they can do is spectacular). She sensed him coming and ran into a drain pipe under our circular driveway.
I decided to go outside and check on Hubby because he had been outside for a long time and I was wondering if he was even still at the house, or if he had headed up to the barn. When I opened the front door, I saw him flat on his stomach, peering into the end of the large PVC drain pipe under one side of the drive. "What the hell are you doing?", I yelled. "I finally trapped the armadillo! She's in the pipe! Quick go get a flashlight!" -he was excited and pumped up to be 'on the hunt'.
Do you think I could find a flashlight under pressure? Negative. In my quick thinking, I grabbed his truck keys and turned his truck around in the yard to face the drive and shine its lights on the pipe. Meanwhile, he grabbed a broomstick and proceeded to shove it into the pipe. No luck. Of course not! The armadillo just went deeper into the pipe, we're talking a length of about 40 feet across because the other end of the pipe is on the far end of the circular driveway. The broomstick was definitely NOT going to do the trick.
So what did Hubby do? Grabbed another broomstick, and then another... and then another... and then one more. And a whole lot of duct tape.
He sat for 10 minutes and constructed a flaccid javelin of broomsticks about 35 ft long that he thought was going to push the armadillo out the other end of the pipe into the waiting trap.
He instructed me to go move my truck to face the other end of the pipe and shine my lights on it. So imagine this sight... two crazy adults flat on their stomachs staring into a dark hole, with their vehicles facing each other with the brights lighting up the otherwise dark countryside...
The broomstick trick didn't work and after about 15 minutes of waiting, we went inside to finish them movie, chuckling about how dumb we looked and the 'excitement' of our Friday night.
During the next pause in the movie, Hubby went outside to check, and there sat the armadillo in the trap. It was that easy!
Strangely enough, this female armadillo had no tail. She obviously had lost it in an accident or something because there was a jagged stump where a tail had once been. I instantly loved her, she was so ugly she was cute. Hubby gave her some water and she spent the night in the trap. Morning came and he relocated her to the city dump, where he went to take garbage. We knew that armadillos have about a 3 mile territory that they call home, so he had taken her far enough away that she might not make it back to our green front grass.
Fast forward to the next spring...
Spring 2007, we were outside one evening entertaining friends. We had grilled steaks and after dinner had been sitting outside well beyond dusk talking and sharing stories, when we saw something move across the lawn. In the dark it was hard to tell what it was, a squirrel? No, too big. A wild pig? Nope, too small. We grabbed the huge dome light and shone it on the intruder. It was the tail-less female armadillo from the fall before!
Hubby spent the next 30 minutes trapping her, which he did without too much fanfare. I like to think that she was starting to know the routine and ran in it on purpose, knowing we'd feed and water her and do her no harm. Hubby and I told our guests the incredible story about this armadillo from the year before and how we had relocated her about 5 miles away. "No way, can't be the same armadillo", they said. Surely she couldn't have walked 5 whole miles on those little stubby legs, back to my front yard?
This time, just to make sure that there weren't any others like her, Hubby and I spray-painted her neon orange. Next morning, Hubby had to take his truck in for service at the dealership in the next town, 26 miles south of the ranch. The orange, tail-less armadillo went with him and was released outside the service station. She scurried off into the brush and was never seen again...
Until just recently.
Summer 2008 we were outside one evening playing catch in the yard with our little TBaller when the sun started to go down. We put the baseball plunder into the garage and sat down at the table and chairs outside and fired up the grill. Dusk had fallen and after awhile, we heard some grunting and digging around from the other side of the house. As we turned the corner of the house to see what was causing the commotion, we were shocked to come face to face with a neon orange, tail-less armadillo!
She had traveled 26 long miles but had made it home.
After a marathon trip like that one, we decided to let her gorge herself on our lawn. Her perseverance had paid off and she had found her way home! AGAIN! Needless to say, we didn't relocate her this time and allowed her to tear up the grass with gusto. After a day or so, she moved on from her and we haven't seen her since!
That, my friends, is the story of the Orange Armadillo.