Varmints In The Yard

An essay by Stephen Geez
www.StephenGeez.com
Art by D.R. Wagner

Wildlife story,

Aging relatives,

Yard story,
Word Count:847

“I’m havin’ problems out back,” Aunt Jean complained over the phone, so I figured I better stop by to see for myself.

I found her on the porch chatting with the robins that nest in a wreath she keeps up year-round so her friends have a place to raise their young. She greeted me with a smile and a hug, then ushered me straight to the kitchen like surely I’d starve if she didn’t feed me right away.

Aunt Jean’s past seventy now, with silver-white hair and a bit of a sashay in her walk—at least until she gets that new knee warmed up and pointed the right direction. She’s a feisty gal, an independent widow who still keeps house and takes care of her own garden and flowers. Don’t get too close when she fires up her riding mower, though, or she’ll run right over you.

“I saw the doctor last week,” she told me, serving up a tasty slab of angel-food cake. “He said my mind’s still quick as a lick.” It is, too, there being nothing wrong with talking to birds, or even hearing them answer back—as long as she doesn’t think the mailbox is warning her to knock off all that racket because the porchlight wants to take a nap.

She leaned close to reveal a secret: “I’ve got varmints in my yard.” She nodded to confirm the stark truth, adding, “I need you to carry me to the store for some mothballs, blood powder, and peanut pellets.” Now that our conversation had turned to her adversaries, she described how these various remedies promised to repel courting cats, hungry rabbits, and the connivingest of intruder moles. She wasn’t sure if these really would work, though, varmint eradication not being an exact science.

She grabbed a broomstick and led me out back for a look-see. Holes in the flower-beds, speed-bumps in her lawn, and half-eaten veggies strewn through her garden proved that varmints truly were getting the best of Aunt Jean. Though she’s faced bigger problems in her time, I’ve seen her blossom through the years; and like the flowers she fusses over, she seems not so much a tender morning-glory that shrinks from the night, but more like the hardy perennial that comes back stronger and more vibrant year after year. Not particularly tall, she nonetheless towers over others with her strength, her confidence and resolve.

But then . . . the varmints moved in.

They had her doing sentry duty from dusk till dawn, watching for any signs of intrusion. Clutching her monster-bashing broomstick with both hands, she looked like a great warrior geared up to joust, her kingdom transformed to a battleground scarred almost as much by her own sorties as those perpetrated by these stealth marauders.

The coming weeks did prove several of her offbeat remedies somewhat effective, except that the mole persisted in simply tunneling around her peanut pellets. Jean’s granddaughter Trisha suggested dropping smoke bombs into the mole’s holes to scare it into a trap. I’m not sure where, but somehow they got their hands on a box of colored smokers, then conspired for nearly a week until “Varmint-Day” finally arrived.

Pretending to check for leaks under Jean’s car hood, I watched those two foot soldiers fan out across the combat zone, advancers poking the grass and debating their route of attack. Finally, Trisha lit one and dropped it into a burrow. Wisps of fuchsia wafted from the ground as Jean watched from her outpost at the other end of the mole’s subterranean highway, waiting for the enemy to spring her contraption.

Mission accomplished!

You’d think they’d conquered an invading army, the way Trisha swaggered about while Jean practically danced a little jig, both beaming with pride.

The mole wound up looking rather unimpressive, a tiny thing we later released in the woods down at the metropark. The rabbits she spied turned out to be babies, too, something a brick in the narrow slot between fence posts successfully deterred; and several surprise dousings from the hose finally helped persuade even the most determined of amorous cats to find another lover’s lane.

To me those varmints seemed little more than a nuisance, but to Aunt Jean they represented one more challenge to overcome. She wanted a nice yard and pretty flower-beds and, dad-gummit, she was going to have them. She’d won too many of the bigger battles to let these little ones get the best of her.

No matter how much we let ourselves worry about her, she always proves she can take care of herself and still have time to make angel-food cake between visits with the robins who nest in her wreath.

But if you’re a varmint with mischief on your mind, you better not get in the way of Aunt Jean.

* * * END * * *