Okay, anyone who has ever lived in Arizona understands the fight with gophers...at least out here in the country. This evening Mom yelled at me to "run quick something was after Millie" (our little dog). Well I know you ALL know I don't "run quick" anywhere anymore, but I gave it my best effort. And there it was...a pretty good sized gopher doing it's best to get up on the porch and Millie was holding it at bay. That instinctive urge to protect her loving family, I'm sure. Well I was the first one out the door and the closest thing to grab was a broom. Not my weapon of choice, but the only one handy. I'm yelling at Millie to get away and pushing the gopher back into the yard with the broom, the gopher is charging at the broom and Millie ain't having any of that nonsense. I'm yelling (yes, yelling would be a good description of what I was doing) at Nicole to get Millie in the house and get me the...this is where you more genteel, animal-right activists may want to stop reading....pellet gun. She grabs Millie, gets her back inside, puts her down to get the gun, and out the door Millie charges again!! Mom has made it out the door by now and thinks "it just isn't natural for that gopher to be biting that broom like that." Oh, the power of understatement. I'm still "sweeping" the gopher back out into the yard and Nicole gets Millie back in the house and hands me the gun....it won't shoot. She's pumped it up, pumped in the pellet, and supposedly taken the safety off...still won't shoot. I, not wanting to use the gun as a club, drop it, grab the broom and Mom goes for a bucket to throw over the gopher. We get that done and I'm checking out the gun to see if I can figure out why it's not working and Mom says to just let it wait til Greg gets home....ummm Mom, it's a gopher. It can dig. So brave thing that I am, I hand Mom the broom and get ready to take aim after she knocks the bucket off of the varmit...still won't shoot. I'm thinking "ah sh..." and what does my 77 year old mother do??? She beats the gopher to death with the broom and walks up on the porch telling me "Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do".
I thought about attaching a picture of the gopher, now deceased, but decided I would bring down the wrath of some animal protection group. And Mom declined both photo and interview...so I guess this is all you get. What a lovely way to end the day out here on the front lines of The Gopher Wars....
Quote from "O Brother, Where Art Thou" Ulysses Everett McGill: No thank you, Delmar. One third of a gopher would only arouse my appetite without bedding it down.
5 comments:
LOL. Millie and your Mom make quite a team!
I swear if you had your video camera here, you would win $10,000 or whatever they get on America's Funniest Home Videos now. It was pretty comical.
Two things:
1. Rule number one for any and all firearms - if you ain't gonna take the time to be properly trained in their safe use - stick with the broom and take your chances. Probably lucky one of you didn't shoot the other in all the excitement.
2. Did you consider the gopher might have been rabid? I've never heard of it in gophers but that kind of crazy behavior is what you look for with bobcats, foxes and skunks. You might contact the game and fish office for some insight.
Glen
Good advice, Glen. Especially the first one. I'm not too worried about it being rabid. I think it just wanted to get away from us as much as we wanted it dead.
Gopher Everett??? Sounds like the little critter really gave you guys a run for your money!!!
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