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villanelle
Sunday, May 17th, 2020 02:17 amYesterday I found our little dog Serena in the back yard chewing on a bird. Not enough of it left to tell, but probably a fledgling.
While carrying the remainder on a shovel to the front yard for burial, I found a dead frog by the gate, its skin dried out. The dogs probably killed it too.
Per my notes, the last bird killed was actually 2 weeks ago, not a month as I had previously guessed. The squirrel was this Wednesday.
Me: She's turned into a murder machine.
Qiao, later: I have a new nickname for her: Villanelle.
.
I will get a bell to put on her collar.
I'm also considering one of these bright-colored collar attachments, though I'm not sure it will help: https://www.birdsbesafe.com/
In the meantime, she's on restriction. She gets hooked up to the tie-out cable when the doggy door is open.
.
Last week I cut down some of the saplings growing in the dry lakebed by the pier. Today I cut down a bunch more. They were turning into a thicket.
If I think about it, it seems like a useless endeavor. Unless the dam gets fixed and the lake becomes a lake again, they'll keep growing back. It seems even less likely now that the dam will get fixed anytime soon.
Three years ago when it was still a lake, there were a bunch of tall plants growing near our edge of it, growing high out of the water. When the lake level was lowered, I endeavored to pull a bunch of them out, thinking they would keep taking over otherwise. I suppose that ended up being useless, what with the lake being mostly gone now, and those plants as well as others still trying to take over.
If I let myself think about it, I feel bad for cutting down saplings, pulling out plants, killing things. But if I don't do it, the area will turn into a dense shaded wilderness.
If I don't let myself think about it, it is just another task to be done. Maybe that is what it is like for people who work in slaughterhouses.
.
It's probably not safe what I was doing, traipsing through the undergrowth. It seems a likely place for poisonous snakes to live. I only saw a snake skin though, nothing more. And I startled a cat, black and white.
.
This evening, Serena started barking at something from inside, so I hooked her up and opened the doggy door. A while later, Zorro started barking at something outside in her excited voice. I went to look. There was an opossum on the other side of the fence on the lake side, scared and unmoving.
I coaxed the dogs back inside and shut the door.
While carrying the remainder on a shovel to the front yard for burial, I found a dead frog by the gate, its skin dried out. The dogs probably killed it too.
Per my notes, the last bird killed was actually 2 weeks ago, not a month as I had previously guessed. The squirrel was this Wednesday.
Me: She's turned into a murder machine.
Qiao, later: I have a new nickname for her: Villanelle.
.
I will get a bell to put on her collar.
I'm also considering one of these bright-colored collar attachments, though I'm not sure it will help: https://www.birdsbesafe.com/
In the meantime, she's on restriction. She gets hooked up to the tie-out cable when the doggy door is open.
.
Last week I cut down some of the saplings growing in the dry lakebed by the pier. Today I cut down a bunch more. They were turning into a thicket.
If I think about it, it seems like a useless endeavor. Unless the dam gets fixed and the lake becomes a lake again, they'll keep growing back. It seems even less likely now that the dam will get fixed anytime soon.
Three years ago when it was still a lake, there were a bunch of tall plants growing near our edge of it, growing high out of the water. When the lake level was lowered, I endeavored to pull a bunch of them out, thinking they would keep taking over otherwise. I suppose that ended up being useless, what with the lake being mostly gone now, and those plants as well as others still trying to take over.
If I let myself think about it, I feel bad for cutting down saplings, pulling out plants, killing things. But if I don't do it, the area will turn into a dense shaded wilderness.
If I don't let myself think about it, it is just another task to be done. Maybe that is what it is like for people who work in slaughterhouses.
.
It's probably not safe what I was doing, traipsing through the undergrowth. It seems a likely place for poisonous snakes to live. I only saw a snake skin though, nothing more. And I startled a cat, black and white.
.
This evening, Serena started barking at something from inside, so I hooked her up and opened the doggy door. A while later, Zorro started barking at something outside in her excited voice. I went to look. There was an opossum on the other side of the fence on the lake side, scared and unmoving.
I coaxed the dogs back inside and shut the door.