Here, my friends, is the latest puzzle:
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| Yes, I'm showing you poop. Sorry. |
We came home mid-afternoon on Monday, one of the REALLY COLD days, to find the front steps and porch covered with the poop you see above. COVERED. I posted this photo on my personal Facebook page to see if any locals knew what animals had been trying to invade my home, but no one could figure it out. People suggested everything from bats (which I ruled out because it was midday and ohmygodjustno), geese (nope, wrong shape), squirrels (nope, wrong shape again). What struck me was the fact that I actually knew what all this different animal poop looks like. As if I were some sort of animal life expert who cares about this sort of thing.
But I'm not. The ability to identify different rodent scat at 20 paces has never been on my bucket list of skills to acquire before I die.
Anyway, I had to use a snow shovel to remove all the poop. It would have been more efficient to use the hose, only temps were below freezing and were expected to stay there for several days. So flooding the porch and steps with water would have been, in Larry's words, "incredibly stupid." Luckily, the remains (and there were plenty, because a plastic snow shovel is NOT the most efficient feces-removal method, I can tell you that right now, and that right there is something ELSE I never really needed to know) were soon frozen solid; that means people are no longer tracking fecal matter from an unknown animal into my front hall and living room. Hooray!
Silver lining: The whole scenario was so disgusting that I washed the floors for the first time in a long time. Usually I just sweep and swiffer and pretend that that is good enough. I would have done a Ma Ingalls and scrubbed the floors with lye, if I had known where to find some. But I didn't, so I just used Windex instead. Which is probably the wrong thing, but I never claimed to be an expert on housecleaning here, all right?
I may have an answer. We get poo like that all over our porch. It's from the birds building nests in the porch roof.
ReplyDeleteChipmunk?? http://waynesword.palomar.edu/scat.htm
ReplyDeleteUm..Windex? And no, I don't know what kind of poop that is, but I'll take Squirrels for $100, Alex.
ReplyDeleteCould it be a possum? Occasionally they would pop their heads out during the day just to scare the daylights out of me (they look like rodents of unusual sizes!).
ReplyDelete-Donna W.
Looks like raccoon poop to me. They're so curious that they'll come in pretty close contact if something catches their attention, especially food.
ReplyDeleteSo it's not just run of the mill mouse poop?
ReplyDeleteWhich, by the way, the banner ad at the top of my screen right now is: "GET RID OF MICE FOR GOOD."
So the BlogHer algorithm is working.
Mouse poop is way smaller. I wish I didn't know that, but I do.
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