I was getting ready to clean the leaves and winter grunges out of the front window well. I got to remembering all the adventures of 'the window well'. Mainly I was thinking, "What am I going to find down there this time?" Many years ago we had a muskrat in there! Tara was maybe 12 years old, she was babysitting the Betensen (Jeff & Deann) kids. They were at our house and everyone was so excited and could not wait for their dads to get home so Darwin and Jeff could get this little muskrat out for them to 'play' with ! Well, the Dads did get home and the planning of how to get this critter out was on....No one was going to fit in the window well to grab the animal. So they came up with making a little lasso to get around the muskrat's head and then haul him up and put him in a box. Ya right. The lasso worked but it was like getting a cat into a box! After much wrestling with this scared to death rodent, they got him in the box. The guys took him down by the river and let him loose. Much talk went on after words, was It really a muskrat??? Or was it just a big RAT!
We also had countless toads in the well! Lyndsey Ingram would come to my aid and climb down and rescue the cute little darlings. Then Lyndsey grew-up and she went off to college. Most of the time we just left them in the window well to eat the bugs. One summer I remember I was trying to show Darwin where the little toad was. It looked like the gravel we had put in the bottom and he could not see it. I took a stone and was going to drop it near the toad (which was the size of a 1 1/2 inch ball) to show him where it was. I lined up the stone with my left eye to get it on target and let it drop !!! BAMMM ---right on the toad's little noggin!! Put him out cold, he stretched out on his belly and laid there for a minute. I thought I had killed him, but he started to come around and got back up on his little webbed feet. I swear he was shaking his head to clear it. Darwin laughed his head off and bet I couldn't do that again! He did see the toad!
We have had snakes and black widow spiders, who knows what else. Now we have Talula, who sleeps down in there on the leaves and junk sometimes. I think she keeps it pretty cleaned out for us.
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8 comments:
great story. we don't have window wells...I don't think I'd do very well with a muskrat, but we did have a dead rat in the Westons yard once when we lived there. And someone left a dead cat on our driveway here one night. And then there was that bird that got its foot caught in the spring of the trampoline...I don't do well with animals.
Ya, me either! I can chop a snake's head off with a shovel now because I WANT to know where it will be going! Talula has taken to eating gophers and leaving body parts all over. Then there are the giant hairballs she coughs up! She is no longer welcome in the house, Clark will like that!! LOL
I was always afraid to open the window in the basement bedroom because I didn't know what was in there.
I thought gophers were as big as the cat. I guess not. It's useful to have a cat around.
I don't hate Talula, I just hate that she makes me sneeze.-Clark.
These stories are giving me the creepy crawlies.- tori
I know, she makes me sneeze too sometimes....
Those are great window well stories. I'm glad we don't have window wells. I think I'd put traps and lots of bug killer down there. You really are a danger to animals. It reminds me of all the cats you've killed. Talula better keep her eyes open! ha ha!
I hate Talula. Just out of pure spite. I want Darwin to lasso her out of the window well and send her down the river, because she makes Clark sneeze, and I don't like the way she looks at me.--Jake
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