Irksome local fauna

I'm blaming it on the heat. Our local critters are seriously starting to aggravate me lately. Let's kick off my gripe fest with the less lethal of the two. Deer are a Texas hill country staple. They can be found in the city as well as countryside. While driving out of our neighborhood recently, I spied several nonnative axis in a neighbor's yard. Thankfully they all stayed put instead of hopping the fence to dash in front of my SUV.

When I exited the garage to haul in our empty trash bins the next day, I saw these two whitetail bucks in our yard. One of them had the nerve to stomp his foot at me when he's the one trespassing. Really, dude?! I opened the front gate so they could exit. It's a funny thing about their travels across our property, which probably speaks to a deer's general intelligence. The fence at the back of our five acres can be jumped by the deer. But they can't clear our iron fence across the front. Instead of backtracking to the place they CAN exit, I've noticed they linger in the front until somebody opens the gate.

I must say I don't appreciate it when our local trespassing Bambis flop down to flatten my young Bermuda sod. And then there is the deer's doo-doo calling card they leave behind for us. Our puppy Finn likes to snuffle through the grass when I have him out on leash practice in the front yard, and he invariably runs across their droppings. I've taken to calling it deer candy since Finn seems to think it's a tasty treat. Wrestling it out of his mouth isn't exactly my idea of a good time.

However, the deer are the least of my worries lately. A couple weeks ago I spied a coral snake in the fenced area immediately behind our house which the dogs access. Red and yellow, kill a fellow, y'all! By the time I corralled the dogs inside, he had slithered off out of the fence into the part of our property we let grow wild. After that, the husband and I became much more watchful every time we take the dogs out. I went so far as to ask the husband to bring an old shovel from the barn and leave it behind the outdoor pavilion in case I ran across another snake. 

Sure enough, I took the dogs out close to sunrise late last week and spied a coral snake slowly making its way along the edge of the pavilion. I'm seriously hoping it was the same one I saw a couple weeks ago rather than another member of the family. After getting the dogs back in the house, I grabbed the rather dull edged shovel and a stronger flashlight to give him a good whack. Or fifty. I wanted to make sure he was a goner before I bagged him up for disposal. Though only about sixteen inches long, my belief is that the best kind of snake in our dog yard is a dead one.