Friday, June 19, 2009

NOT so totally cool

I think it's funny that my last post was all about loving the NATURE in my backyard. Well, today I was up there pulling weeds, and I came across this little bit of nature that I didn't love quite so much.
We caught him, drove across state street, down into the undeveloped area, down a dirt road and across the railroad track, and let this little guy go in a field down there. (I don't know scorpion habits, but just in case they have big homing signals and he thinks MY backyard is HIS home, I wanted lots of deterrents to his returning.) All the way back from dropping him off in his new home, Aaron kept saying, "I miss him already." ( we only had him about 20 minutes... OR LESS) "Is he going to be okay?" "will he have food?" "What if he has a family? he'll never see them again." "I really really miss him already." etc... Funny kid!

I'm just thankful that I'm the one who found him, (not one of the kids bare feet) and that I saw him before I grabbed the weed he was hiding under. It kinda creeped me out a bit, so I was done pulling weeds for the day...

The whole experience today brought back a funny memory - when I was a teenager, my family went camping down in southern Utah. (I don't remember if I actually went with them on that trip or not, it is all a little fuzzy now) Anyway, one morning when they took the tent down, they found a scorpion. They caught it brought it home. We named it Sandy and kept it as "pet" until it died. (purely an observational pet, not holding, snuggling, or petting, in case you are wondering)
I remember being really sad when Sandy died. I buried him/her in the flower bed outside my bedroom window and carved a headstone out of a piece of broken cement from the ditch bed. I used one of my dad's flat head screwdriver and a hammer as my carving tools. Maybe I should be more patient with Aaron and his "pet requests" and his "improper use of tools." Apparently, he may have gotten them from ME!!!!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

EWWWWW! You are SO much nicer than me - I'd have chopped it in half with a shovel!!! I tend not to be too kind to things that can kill me!

Ewwwww - I've got the heebie-jeebie-buggie-itchies now!!!! yech!

Holly said...

YIKES!!! I definitely don't mind having two rows of houses above me! Your picture even creeped Aaron out!

Lisa T. said...

You found THAT in your YARD??!! Now that's a new one. I know we have mice, rattlesnakes, and terrantulas roaming the neighborhood, but scorpions? I guess I'll have to add them to the list of unwelcome creatures to look out for in my yard.

Melissa Cunningham said...

Oh my word! I totally got chills with this one and not GOOD chills either! That is a terrible thing to find in your yard! Is it poisonous? I might have killed it just for being so ugly! lol