Don't Mess With the Zoo-han

Marlin Perkins died on June 14.

1986.

And that’s too bad.

Because if the host of Wild Kingdom was still with us.

I’d have the perfect location for his next show.

My backyard.

From my backyard you can hear the coyotes.

Sometimes see a deer.

A buck.

Or Elk.

(What’s the difference?)

Add our two dogs.

Loads of insects.

Plus a squirrel or four.

And you’ve got a show.

But wait there’s more.

A few days ago my wife and daughter were roaming around the backyard.

When they saw not one...

Not two...

But three..

SNAKES.

Ok, they were garter snakes.

The wuss of the snake family.

Which was perfect for me.

The wuss of my family.

The closest I ever got to a snake was when Ken Stabler was the quarterback for my Oakland Raiders.

But where I come from, a snake is a snake.

And I want no part of it.

Fortunately I wasn’t home for the first two sightings.

For snake #3, I stood by the door and watched my wife pick up the slitherer with a pair of tongs.

And fling it over the fence.

“THAT’S RIGHT... GET OUT,”  I yelled.

From behind the glass.

Unfortunately three was not enough.

A few days later snake #4 arrived.

And I was the only one home.

As my luck would have it, I had just locked myself out of the house by closing the back door.

In order to get back in, I had to walk to the front of the house.

And go through the garage.

As I took three steps toward the path to the garage.

There he was.

Staring at me.

Like the whale staring at George Costanza.

The backyard was angry that day, my friends.

Like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli.

I got about three feet out and suddenly the great beast appeared before me.

I tell you he was ten stories high if he was a foot.

Ok, maybe he was six inches.

But still.

He was blocking my path to freedom.

So I backed up.

Slowly.

Went inside.

Grabbed those same tongs.

And airlifted the big fella into the next zip code.

Or 20 feet.

Whichever came first.

Thankfully I haven’t seen him since.

Thankfully for him, that is.

But that is far from the end of our backyard zoo.

A few weeks ago my seven-year old daughter noticed a bird building a nest.

The nest kept getting bigger.

And bigger.

And before you knew it, it was the full-time home for a momma.

And her brand new chicks.

Fortunately the nest is located in an area where it provided no challenges.

For us.

Or them.

So like John & Paul, we’ve just let it be.

I must say it is pretty darn cute watching the mama dropping fresh worms into the mouth of her babies.

My daughter loves it too.

So much so that she visits her new friends several times a day.

Well today she was outside visiting when we heard a shreek.

Seconds later she was in the house.

“You gotta see this,” she said.

So we headed out back.

Expecting the worse.

And what we found was bad.

Really bad.

Another bird, building another nest.

Inside our satellite dish.

Gasp!

“OH MY GRAVY,”  I thought.

What if I can’t record Glee?

Come on, a man can only be pushed so far.

So I went inside.

Grabbed a ladder.

And those same pair of tongs.

The ones with the rubber tips.

And I got ready for surgery.

I think it was my 12th grade Physics class that taught me.

Metal tongs on metal satellite dish = KABOOM.

So I inched up the ladder, with rubber tipped tongs in hand.

Got myself in position.

And started plucking away at the nest.

Snakes, Deer, Elk, Coyotes, Insects... fine.

Birds messing with my TiVo?

I don’t think so.

We sent the seven-year old inside.

Just in case there was something in the nest that she shouldn’t see.

Good move.

I pulled piece by piece away from the dish.

Like I was Patrick Dempsey inside a fake ER.

Then finally it was time to remove the biggest chunk.

The nest.

I reached in.

Got a good grip.

And yanked the sucker out of its resting spot.

Dropping it ten feet down to the ground.


Take that!!!

As the nest landed on the pavement.

You heard my wife gasp.

Seconds after you heard three eggs crack.

Like it was happy hour at Denny’s.

(I hope my daughter doesn't read this blog.)

Now I don’t take any pride in killing animals.

But a man’s got to do.

What a man's got to do.

To protect his family.

And his Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.