Moving forward...: La Jungla y Yo (The Jungle 'n Me)

The subject pretty much explains what this update is all about...

As you are aware, I was somewhat down before and immediately after I went to the states for a vacation. I'm much better now. How do I know this? Because since I've been back, I've had a multitude of fun guests in my house. And when I say "guests", I mean fun friends from nature.

You all know about the frog and scorpion experiences. The frogs haven't come back even though I made no attempt to get rid of them. I guess there are not enough bugs in the house to keep them attracted. Darn. But, a couple of new guests arrived during my trip. See below.

VISITA 1 - SLITH
But, a few days after arriving at my house from the stateside trip, I was sitting on my bench in my living room reading. And I finished a chapter and closed my book. Of course, just as I closed it, my eyes wandered to the floor where I found a snake slithering right past my right foot and I jumped up and screamed, "AHHHH!!" And of course, this snake just slithered right past into the space between the wall and the floor. Now, don't get me wrong. The snake wasn't huge. But it was a SNAKE. I mean, come on. I draw the line there. I can't STAND snakes! UGH! And I can't stand killing things so I was wondering, "WHAT am I going to do about THIS??" Since it was so slender (but REALLY fast), there was no way I was going to be able to kill it with a shoe. And I think it knew I wanted it OUT. So it just stopped moving. And stayed there. So, I thought, "Well, I have some Raid that is able to kill scorpions. I'll just try that." So I got the Raid from the kitchen, walked back into the living room, and sprayed the snake. Uh huh. If I ever thought I hated snakes BEFORE this incident, I know now that it was nothing compared with how I feel now. The snake started SPASMING like mad! I'm talking wriggling, squirming, trying to flee with its body convulsing in a manner that was making it bounce off the floor, while squirming and doing its s-moves. I was like, "AHHHHH!" Finally, I managed to get a broom to try to sweep it out only to find that it was getting stuck IN the broom wriggling all about. I RAN outside and started banging the broom against the fence and watched it fall into the trenches below. Ugh. That's all I have to say about THAT visit.

VISITA 2 - THE GRAY FURBALL
A mouse. There was a mouse in my house. I realized it quickly after returning by the chewed into bag of rice that I had, along with all of its droppings scattered around the bag. Nice. Again. Don't like to kill animals. And don't like to live with them. Such a dilemma. All of the people in my site told me I had to catch it in this mouse trap, and then drop it into a bucket of water because if I let it go somewhere, it would just come back. Great. What to do. I thought, "Maybe I can just move everything and it will leave." So I moved ALL of my stuff away from the walls and floor. And it moved out. But, it moved close so it could still ENTER my house and eat stuff in my kitchen. No good for me. I finally broke down and bought mouse poison. I bought the most humane thing I could find...poison that killed in a week and made the mouse think it was dying of old age. That's ok, right? Anyway, the mouse is gone. I removed it's dead body last week. Again, not my favorite thing to do! And, FYI, mice can CLIMB walls! Just random good-to-know info for ya. :)

VISITA 3 - THE SLUGS
I know slugs are plentiful in Washington where it rains all the time, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that they exist here too during the rainy season. But, nonetheless, I was. There was only 1 inside the house, but 3 outside. They were promptly killed. I was over it. :)

VISITAS 4-5 - THE PEOPLE
I was surprised to see that within 2 weeks (during the beginning of the rainy season, mind you), the plants in front of my house blossomed to unbelievable levels. I'm talking 9 feet high sunflower plants, weeds, bushes, grass up to my calves, etc. My landlord told me that she was going to come to my house to cut things down, but couldn't find her key to get past the gate. I told her to call me when she wanted to come over so I could let her in and we could do it together. I also told my friend Adolfo that I needed to get rid of some stuff and asked about the possibility of just burning away the weeds and grass. He suggested that I use a big clipper to clip away problem areas.

So, one Saturday, he drove in to lend me this stuff and said upon arrival, "THIS is what you're talking about?? You have a freaking JUNGLE in front of your house! I'm surprised you don't have more animals inside! GEEZ!" And then he walked inside and somehow managed to get covered in this green natural velcro ballI stuff. It was ALL over his pants and I said, "What's all that?" And he was like, "I don't know!!! It's from your jungle!!" was laughing SO hard. Because it was raining, he left the clippers.

The next day, I woke up all ready to go at it and cut away. And on the first sunflower branch, the clippers BREAK. Unbelievable! So I tell Adolfo. And listen to him laugh. And laugh. And laugh. And finally, he says, "Ok. I'll bring a machete and we'll get it done." FINE.

Another day passes and I'm sitting in my house preparing to make some lunch when I hear slashing outside my door. So I walk outside, and there is my landlord chopping away at stuff with a machete. And I said, "I thought you were going to CALL me!" And she said, "Ah...I decided not to." I guess she found the key. :) So she chopped and I hauled all the big plants to a corner of the area. With the weeds and grass, we had to PULL THEM OUT. Did you hear that? Imagine going to your front lawn and pulling out all of your grass! That's what I did. Granted, it was only about a 15' x 15' area, but still. It's IRRITATING and hard. When I was growing up, my dad made my brother and I do crazy things. Things like clean the FOREST. You know, anal retentive crazy things that no one else in the world does. His reason? To "prepare us for life". Yeah, nice prep work. I never practiced pulling grass out of the ground! :) But...I found out during this experience that my landlord is JUST as crazy and anal about the landscape as my dad. Great. What luck. 3 hours later, when we had finished chopping and yanking, she decided we needed to clean the ditch with all the plants. What? I said, "Why?" And she said, "Because God says we have to." I helped for about 5 minutes and then was like, "Ok...I have some stuff to do." Seriously. No way.

So, that is my fun life update for the moment. Lots of fun encounters about wildlife. And I've lived through all of them...and even laughed a bit about them. :)