Monkeys, Armadillos and ants, oh my!

armadillos, monkeys, and ants, oh my!

Stock taking of the wild life has become a wonderful down-time pass time. On the way back from the beach, just steps away from our front door, Cubsay looked up and saw a little black monkey. Upon further inspection, the tree had about 7 of them, not including babies clutched to their mothers. I'm pretty sure these are not the monkeys that make the loud, haunting howl of the Howler Monkeys we hear every morning. Those are much bigger, I think. We've been told that the Howler monkeys have a territory that they protect for their family (troop? herd?) and the voices of the males and how far that howl carries, are what secure that territory. The little guys up our trees seemed timid, less brave than I imagine the creatures that belong to those voices. At 6 am, when the howling is at it's peak, the sound is akin to the howl of the coyotes by our home.

While playing 5 crowns (I think I accidentally called it 5 kings before) on the patio last night, one of the tropical plants that are planted all around the house started to rustle. We'd commented on how strange it is to see that one leaf of a plant will wiggle and waggle as if it's got it's own personal little storm happening, while the rest of the plant stays still. This was a definite rustle, tho. I watched, a little complacent, thinking it was Bianca, the white cat that mills around here, demanding chicken or tuna, or whatever her little cat brain thinks she should have. Then, POOP! out came an armadillo! It waddled rather quickly into the neighbour's driveway and thru some other bushes.

We told the neighbours upon their return that we'd seen it, so they felt it appropriate to yell out the window "WE JUST FOUND A HUGE SCORPION IN OUR BEDROOM!" ha. We looked and shook our beds out a little more carefully last night.

There are some big black birds that hang out, fanning their wings on a dead tree that sits over the house across from us. They look sort of vulture-like. They like the garbage, that seems to pile up quite high around here. I'm trying to figure out if the dump likes us to sort our garbage into categories, including vegetable scraps so that that birds eat it.

The smallest creature we've encountered is not the least. One night while playing cards on the patio, one of the kids noticed a tiny piece of sesame snap that had gotten dropped near the door. It was covered with itty bitty ants. Ick! says one kid and grabs the broom. I SAID, and grabs the broom!! to sweep them away. Later, we saw that they found another crumb and were forming a 10" line to get to it. Sweep sweep. Last night, Cubsay called me in. She was in a panic, the ants had been into her laundry and had feasted on some of it. She required my help to rinse them off and get all her laundry up, off the floor. To make matters worse, the little @#$! bite. We washed and swept until quite late.

I keep trying to instill in them that the monkeys and armadillos have a place here, and so do the ants.

Erroll wants to write a song called "Nobody Likes You When You're a Bug".