Our new home is fully protected: Jessy, the dog we got last year, moved in with us, though she’s confined by fences to the back end of the house. Casey, the Christ School security system, sleeps on the front porch and patrols the entire grounds regularly. Though he has bitten unexpectedly at times (never a good thing) overall he is extremely well behaved and easy to manage. He never tries to leave (as would Jessy) because he sees the school and us as his work. He is the main deterrent to rabbit thieves and others who might try to climb in and steal from us and the school.
Jessy, in the back, does her fair share of protecting. Within our first few days here, as all of us were at a meeting, Jessy barked long and loud at a huge bird-eating spider (as big as an adult hand), until the person providing child care came out and killed the spider (at which point hundreds of baby spiders came running out of the grown up spider, always pleasant.)
A few nights ago, Jessy fought an epic battle. I was sleeping in bed around 11 pm when I was woken by Jessy’s fierce barking just outside my window. We built a house/bed for her right between our bedroom window and the kids, since both face the back. As I quickly woke up (Jessy rarely barks) I could hear a lot of noise under the window, noise of movement and then strange hissing cries. I called for David who couldn’t find our best flashlight so went out armed with one of the hand-cranked varieties. I was convinced that Jessy had cornered a snake. The sound was somewhere between a hiss and a cry, the thrashing sounded very much like a snake might, and after a minute or two I could smell a strong and unusual smell being given off by the animal. Oh great, I thought, as I moved away from the window. The best guess I had for a smell like that was a snake that spits venom. I sat away from the window and prayed for David not to die behind the house. (drama!)
After a few minutes of intense battle between Jessy and this animal, we could tell that it had gotten hold of Jessy. She started crying and running and struggling across the backyard. I was afraid. Visually I saw a three foot long snake, it’s venom injecting into her, it’s body wrestling hers. But within a few minutes all was quiet. David made his way back and when I heard Jessy’s low protective growl, I knew all was alright. She refused for David to come close, but in the morning we discovered the animal. A small squirrel-like animal but in color much like a skunk. Jessy had given it a good chewing up but it was generally still whole.
We brought over Master F, who teaches biology and was very excited to get a new specimen to work with. One of our tupperware was sacrificed to be used for it’s time in formeldahyde. RMS students (our mission kids) came over to see the specimen before it was carted off to the CSB lab. Myhre kids went home and read their mammal books where we finally discovered what this critter was: the white-naped weasel, which cries when attacked and gives off a strong odor.
Never a dull moment!