Wild Animals

It's a wild, wild place up here in Oregon. Allllll sorts of animal encounters. Lovely for the most part, but occasionally sinister.

Our last day at the cabin my dad and I went for a short little ride before finishing packing, cleaning and departing. On our way up to East Lake we rounded a bend and saw up ahead a coyote crossing the road. It stopped in the middle, looked at us for a moment - as if assessing what manner of creature we were on our bikes - and then loped across the road and up into the woods to our right. I've never seen a coyote before and it was rather on the large side, even for a coyote, but I wasn't scared. It was more just... lovely.

That same day, as we were just about ready to leave the cabin, a pine martin was spotted running around out front the cabin. Again, a creature I've never seen before. They make me think of a cross between a fox, a ferret and a gopher. They are actually very cute, in a sorta goofy way, but are also extremely vicious, so I stayed inside to watch it.

Then there were also the frogs, fish, deer and so on. Lovely critters in their own ways, but not quite as exciting as the predators noted above.

Even in the domesticated greater-Portland-area critters abound. If I were to tell you about a spider and a bat, which would you consider the sinister creature? People have very strong emotions about each but they are both actually "good" creatures that eat up lots of bugs. I, however, defy this rational and can't stand spiders. A touch of irritating girliness, but an aspect of my character never-the-less.

I was about to go to sleep earlier this week and as I turned on the bedside lamp I encountered the dastardly creature hovering in a web in the corner right above the lamp. The spiders in this neck of the woods tend to be rather large with brownish tones, and of a particularly malevolent aspect. I stared at it for quite a while trying to assess the situation. There was no way that it could stay where it was. Sure it looked stationary at the time, but there weren't that many bugs about the room and if it WERE to move in the middle of the night it seems more than probable that any movement would be directed toward the warm, blood-filled being sleeping just a few feet away. And even if it didn't, knowing it was right next to me would drive me to distraction and there would be no way for me to sleep.

So it had to go.

But in getting rid of it I couldn't allow even the possibility that it might come close to touching me in some way. And I also couldn't kill it. This definitely rules out swatting it. Not only would that be killing it, but in the swatting process it might drop down to safety somewhere I can't reach or - even worse - somehow land on a foot or arm or hand or something. So I looked at it some more.

After ten or twenty minutes of hedging around trying to figure out what to do, coming up with a plan, discarding it, coming up with another plan, discarding it, leaving the room, coming back, leaving, sitting on the bed looking at the spider and so on I was ready for action. I took a long spear-like thingy made up of rolled up newspaper and sorta poked the edge of the web from a safe distance to see what would happen. I then used it to fan a breeze on the spider to see what would happen. These were both parts of further "assessment" to see if the spider was alive and what sort of reflexes and reactions it had. A bit more of this prodding of the edge of the web lead to the spider running up to where its egg sac was (ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh - spiders nesting in my bedroom) attached to the wall. Perfect. The time was now ripe to trap the sider, and its icky spawn, beneath a see-through plastic cup. A tall, thick one, to insulate me from the spider and its spider-ness. I took a deep breath here and then slid a thick piece of cardboard between the cup and the wall. I then marched downstairs and outside and sorta flung the whole contraption away from me. I relaize this meant the abandonment of the cup and cardboard outside, but I was willing to do that (and I did retrieve them in the morning.)

At last I could go to sleep. My adrenaline was going and my skin was still rather crawling from the ordeal, but I was able to go to sleep at last.

What about the bat you mentioned before??

Ah yes, the bat-ling. I have no trouble with bats - I think they are sorta cute and interesting. Not that I would like to have one as a pet or anything, but they are fun little things. I got home late-ish Wednesday night and discovered a bat upstairs. I guess this has been a problem before, bats in the belfy - so to speak. This one was very tame, however. It was curled up for a little nappy, hanging inverted from the ceiling. Lovely as it was, though, it had to go. And we employed a similar catching method to that used with the spider (which has its origins in how I trap moths.) Taking the waste basket from the bathroom my dad crept up on the bat and trapped it against the wall. Then, after sliding a flattened shirt box between the waste basket and the wall, we were able to carry it outside. The bat was somewhat disoriented, however and after the garbage bin was placed outside it didn't flutter away immediately. (How would you respond if someone trapped you in a plastic container while you were sleeping then hurled you outside?) Our black cat, Kokanee, however was much more vigigilant - and hiding in the darkness. As we went back inside she stalked up to the bin and nearly got herself a bat sandwhich but my dad stopped her and tossed the bat off the deck into the darkness. Hopefully the little guy recovered.

Never a dull moment here in the wilds of Oregon territory.