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Porcupine in Playhouse

Porcupine        Our new neighbors are moving in today, finally!  The old neighbors were nice enough, but they moved away over a month ago, and it took a while to get their house under contract.  The new family looks nice enough, two daughters probably between 9 and 11 years old and their parents look a bit frazzled from moving but also a little relieved.  They have movers helping them, so I’m chilling some cold drinks for them all and making cookies.  Nice to have a bit of a warm welcome, right?

I see the girls are exploring around the back yard, and are especially drawn to the playhouse the previous owners included in the sale of the home.  That’s nice.  It makes me happy to know someone will enjoy that home and breathe some new life into this part of the street.

After a couple of hours of work, Mom’s going out back to check on the girls.  She seems like an excellent mother.  I bet they’re a happy family.

What’s that screaming?!  I can’t hardly see much from my back window, but I hope no one’s hurt!  Maybe if I put down this plate of cookies, and go to the upstairs window, I could see better.

A porcupine?!  They have a porcupine in the playhouse!  I see the girls aren’t hurt.  How long were they in the playhouse with the porcupine?  I hope they didn’t get too close to it.  I know that porcupines can’t throw their quills, but they can release them into whatever or whoever is trying to hold them.  I guess the girls weren’t too scared by the porcupine in the playhouse, but their mother is sure upset.  No, it doesn’t look like she was hurt, either.

A porcupine in that wooden playhouse would explain the hole in the door that looks like it’s been chewed up a bit.  I know porcupines like to chew on wood and other things.  I wonder if it destroyed anything inside.  Probably so.  The porcupine probably soiled the playhouse, too.  I’m certainly glad I don’t have to clean that up.

I can see Dad trying to get the movers to help him get the porcupine out of the playhouse, but they don’t look too eager to help out.  I even think they’re moving boxes and furniture in faster than before.  Maybe they want to finish up and get out of here quickly.

Well, the first batch of cookies are cooled.  Maybe I’ll take them over and bring the phone number for Allstate Animal Control.  That company helped me out when I had a raccoon problem, so they’ll be good to get that porcupine out of the playhouse.  Poor dears.  What a terrible shock to move in and find a wild animal problem right away.

Porcupine Problem

Porcupine

My grandpa tells the best stories, and I’ve loved listening to him ever since I was tiny.  I thought I’d heard them all, but I overheard him telling my four year-old daughter a story about a porcupine problem the other day.  She’d learned about porcupines in preschool and I’d shown her videos online, but I’m sure she’ll always remember my grandfather telling her all about the porcupine problem.

My grandfather’s a good ol’ boy from Georgia.  He ends most sentences with “Dontcha Know” or “Dontcha See.”  He says it as if it’s all one word, and sometimes says both of them one right after the other.  It’s frustrating to some, annoying to others, but it’s endearing to me.

“Oh, why we had a problem with a porcupine once when I was a little ‘un, Dontcha Know Dontcha See.”  My daughter was tucked up on his knee, listening with sparkling eyes, just as I used to when I was a child.  “It just come right outta the woods n’ wandered all over the place, mostly at night, and every once in a while, we’d see it shufflin’ around out there, Dontcha See.  I threw a few rocks at it, hopin’ to scare it off, but it never did pay me no mind, it just always come back, Dontcha Know.”

I smiled, thrilled to be hearing a new story.

“Well, this porcupine, he chewed a hole right into Daddy’s work shed, clean through the wood walls, Dontcha See.  And, I take it that’s where it lived for a while, especially since my Daddy didn’t do a whole lotta work out in that shed during the cold months, as it didn’t have no heat in there, Dontcha See.   But, that porcupine didn’t pay no heed to heat or no, it just up and moved right on in and started chewing on my Daddy’s tools, Dontcha Know.  Well, my brother and I, we never did think about telling Daddy about the porcupine problem, we just liked to watch it when we could and we thought it was something fun, knowing we had a porcupine in the shed, Dontcha See.  So, spring come, and Mommy had some project or other for my Daddy to do, and out he goes to the shed, fixin’ to get the job done, Dontcha Know.  ‘Fore we know it, he comes a hollerin’ outta that shed, mad as heck, yellin’ for us boys to come on out, Dontcha Know.  We ran out, fast as we could, and he started hollerin’ as how we oughtn’t to touch his tools and break the handles off, and didn’t we know it’d cost good money to replace all the wood that we’d broken, Dontcha See.  Well, he didn’t calm down for a long time, but once he did, we convinced him as how we had a porcupine problem and that porcupine done chewed up all the wood handles on his favorite tools, Dontcha See.  It took some quick explainin’ but he finally saw as how we was probably right, we had a porcupine problem, and we didn’t get skinned that day for getting’ into his tools, since it was the porcupine, Dontcha Know.”

Admittedly, a story about a porcupine problem wasn’t his best story ever, but it was the last one he got to tell my daughter before he passed, and I’ll always cherish it.  Dontcha Know.

Porcupine Removal

My son called the incident many things, including porcupine removal, a science experiment, a learning experience, and doing me a favor.  I called it “being stupid.”  I love my son.  He’s fourteen, adventurous, intelligent (usually), outgoing, and . . . did I mention adventurous?

It started when my husband and I noticed some of our wooden-handled tools had been chewed, along with some other items we keep in our storage shed.  In fact, one of the walls of the shed had been chewed down.  We also found some shallow holes dug throughout our back yard, and one of our trees had claw marks on the trunk and some of the bark had been pulled away.  We didn’t know what to think, until my husband heard something in the middle of the night, and walked outside to find a large porcupine waddling around.  He told us about the culprit over breakfast the next morning.

My son was thrilled.  My husband was not.  My husband called a porcupine removal service, which promised to send out a technician later that afternoon.  I looked at my son’s face and realized he was sorely disappointed he wouldn’t get a chance to see this porcupine up close.

But, when he and his friend got home from school that day, they hunted around the backyard looking for any signs of the animal while I was still at work.  They not only found signs, they found the animal itself.  The porcupine was resting in a shallow hole underneath the wooden deck stairs, and it was not happy to be disturbed by a couple of overanxious teenage boys.

My son and his friend decided to “do me a favor” and do “porcupine removal” themselves.  In truth, they really wanted to watch the animal in action and see what it would do.  So, they scared it up out of its hiding place and followed its wobbly walk all over the yard, preventing its escape when it headed for the back fence.  Finally, the boys got to see what they really wanted to see.  The porcupine quills all stuck out, and the animal turned around so its hind quarters were facing its predators, almost daring them to attack.

My son reached out his tennis-shoe clad foot and prodded at the porcupine’s tail.  The tail twitched out of the way, but the animal stood its ground.  My son got a little braver, and his foot actually touched the porcupine’s rump.  Sure enough, a few quills stuck into the rubber sole, much to my son’s delight!  Now, he could study these quills up close.

The boys retreated slightly to look closer at the quills embedded in the shoe, and the porcupine turned its head around to check to see if they were still there.  Sure enough, my son and his friend were still there, but they were so intent on pulling the quills out of the shoe that they didn’t see the porcupine run towards the fence until it was too late.  It was gone.  Technically, porcupine removal and my son’s science experience had been successful, but I was just grateful there was no damage to the boys other than to the shoe.