Stalked by Night

There’s something slightly unnerving about a pair of widely spaced eyes, set high off the ground, following you around at night. But like so many things, it just takes a little getting used to. Ironically I was just listening an old “This American Life” from 2003, with the theme “Cat & Mouse” earlier in the evening, and here I was getting approached from behind by a rather ballsy elk, probably the buck that was following me around two days ago when I opened and baited my plots. It’d run off every time I turned around or move to my next trap. The game continued for about an hour before I suppose I bored it and it moved on. Just one hour…must be losing my touch out here in the boonies. Maybe an hour is equivalent to seven elk years or something.

It’s been a whole five days since my last fatality, so it looks like half-night trapping is here to stay. It hasn’t been too hard a transition, and working with live animals has the tendency to keep my spirits up. Although my chocolate intake hasn’t eased one bit. I just baked a couple of chocolate cakes, been cooking for three days, 200 crunches last night, and am about to head out for a run. It appears I’m still stressing about something, or everything.

My volunteer arrives tomorrow. I wonder what she’ll think about a freezer partially filled with dead critters, about getting stalked at night, about having to chase off the great horned owl that’s messing with traps, about starting work at midnight and wrapping up whenever we get done, about the photo of a ferret over a dead (and tagged!) juvie PD that I have tacked on the fridge. I know what she’ll say … I’ve asked. But just in case she’s being polite, I cooked a stew and baked a cake. And I’m keeping my fingers crossed that she’s not vegetarian.

She’s bringing a portable grill. Surely that isn’t for grilled veggies, right? Don’t they throw you out of Texas for being a vegetarian?

It’s time for my run…