Butterbean Runners and Lizards - August 18, 2020

 

This evening I spent about 2 hours chopping grass, fracturing crusty seed rows, and doing general maintenance in the garden.

The butterbeans have foot-long runners today.  They did not have runners yesterday.  I would have noticed.  

Now that the sweet pea rows are dry enough to walk through, I got up close and personal with the pea plants and discovered that more peas sprouted than I realized, but something has been eating them.  The suspect is the big rabbit that lives somewhere around Nanny's yard.  Remembering the last time a bunny ate my bean crop, I decided to back off and see what happens.  Mr. Bunny may have made the plants bush out more.  If he keeps this up, though, he may make a good stew.

Speaking of "offing" critters . . . . 

Yesterday afternoon, I noticed that the sticky trap I'd set on the settee was gone.  My first thought was that the lizard had gotten himself only partially stuck and had dragged the trap off with him (though that did seem a little improbable).  I looked around the settee, and found the trap underneath, near a front leg, with no lizard on it.  I asked The Husband if he had moved the trap, and he said that he had.  Today, he moved the trap to the back site of the settee, where I routinely see the lizard.  And guess what?

GOT HIM!

He was stuck fast.  The Husband and I stood over him for a minute.  His little sides were huffing in and out.  We both felt kind of sorry for him.  

But we had given the m*th*rf*ck*r a chance.  I had trapped him in a box and dumped him in the yard.  He should've stayed there.

Then the problem became what to do with the lizard.  We hated to just throw the whole trap in the garbage, lizard and all, and make him suffer for who knows how long before he gave up his ghost.  And chopping his head off - well, that's just gross. 

I bowed out of this decision.  

Lizard disposal is not my job.

After a minute of deliberation, The Husband took one of the granddaughters' BB guns from the cabinet where we keep them, and took it and the lizard trap out to the yard.  I heard the gun cock and the little "ppppttt" sound as it was fired.  Then I heard it again.  And again.  

I hollered, "Tell me you're not MISSING that lizard, and him glued to a piece of cardboard."

The Husband said, "No, I'm not MISSING it; the BBs are kind of bouncing off.  His little skull must be really hard."

I said, "Do you want a hammer?  Soften him up a little?"  

About 10 shots later, he put the BB gun back on the cabinet, and we decompressed from the trauma by talking about how we had given the lizard a fair chance.

Thirty minutes later, when I headed out the front door to go to the garden, there was an IDENTICAL lizard on the front porch.  

They'll haunt us now.