We used to have chickens in our yard..... our attempt to 'save money' by picking fresh eggs out of the nesting boxes every morning. (As if we spent a fortune on eggs in the first place?) We did, however, spend a small fortune on the chicken coop.... between the vintage nesting boxes that we bought at an antique store in Navasota, and the chicken wire, and the food and water dishes for the hens.... plus three weeks of my husband's time as he turned the existing dog kennel into a very safe and raccoon-proof chicken coop. My husband even bought these big wooden letters that spelled out " The Coopacabana" (an homage to Barry Manilow's song) and he hung those letters up on one wall of the coop, above the roosting bar. The letters danced along that wall, in an un-even but very planned line..... if we'd ever bought a rooster, I was going to name him Manilow. (With apologies to Barry.)
The chickens used to catch every cricket on this property and crunch them up like cornflakes. Now that we don't have chickens (because I got tired of losing the hens to the hawks and snakes).... we have some of the biggest crickets in the county. Honestly, some of these crickets are three inches long and about as wide as my pinkie. They fly and jump around the yard as if you're in their way. I used to scream out loud when they landed on me, but I've gotten over that. Now I just flick the fabric of whatever top I'm wearing and the crickets jump off and land somewhere else. These backyard crickets used to be less than an inch long...... they never grew to full size because the chickens ate them up. Now, without chickens, the crickets are growing. And growing.
This afternoon when I tried getting into my car, there was a giant cricket right near the door-handle on the driver's side. Me being the driver, there was no way for me to get into that door without the cricket either jumping on me or (worse still) jumping into my car. I did not want to drive all the way into town with a cricket in the passenger seat. I could have flicked the cricket off with a broom, but I didn't want to smash the cricket all over my clean car window. Cleaning up cricket blood is not exactly my thing. What to do.... what to do..... the cricket was not moving, except for tilting his head from side to side as he watched me watching him.
I finally decided to get into the car from the passenger side. Not an easy thing to do in a car with two bucket seats with a console in the middle, but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. And that's what I did.... all for the sake of that blasted cricket... who stayed on that car window till I got up to the main highway, and then 'gone with the cricket wind' he went.
When I got home from town, 'Wild Kingdom' was just beginning...... one of our outside cats, Mickey Kitty, had caught a small lizard. He has done this from time to time..... he chases all of the lizards, but he can only catch the smaller ones. As I walked out of the garage, Mickey was standing in the courtyard with his prize dangling from his mouth. I thought he was going to drop it at my feet as a gift, and I was prepared to run in the opposite direction, but Mickey had other plans.
I looked at Mickey and said "What have you got there, Mickey Boy?" And sweet little Mickey looked up at me with wide eyes and then let his jaws chomp down on that lizard. Most of the lizard ended up in Mickey's mouth... and he proceeded to munch and crunch it. The lizard's tail, however, fell to the ground in front of Mickey and the blessed tail continued to twitch and turn and flop over and over and over. I don't know what possesses me at times, but I just stood there, stunned and frozen in place, and I watched that tail moving on the courtyard stones. When Mickey had eaten the lizard, he calmly walked over to the twitching tail and picked that up and gobbled that down into his belly also. He meowed up at me one time, a soft meow no louder than a whisper... and then Mickey started to lick his paws.
I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried......
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