Trust me, it could be worse. I have elk coming through my yard. I always
wondered what would happen if one wandered into my shop and got scared.
1200 pounds of berserk, antlered behemoth.
A good friend of mine supplanted his meager college allowance by
poaching deer with his three housemates when he was a student long ago
in Eastern Oregon. They would go out into the Wallowa mountains in a car
and shoot the first deer they came to, which happens pretty quickly in
eastern Oregon if you don't care whether or not the deer is legal. Then
they'd stuff it quickly into the trunk, guts, feathers and all, and
carry it to their garage to butcher their ill gotten venison. One night
these miscreants were headed back from a successful evening hunt when a
good sized doe came to in the trunk. Seems they had just grazed her head
and knocked her out.
So they backed the car into the garage, closed the door so the deer
couldn't get out, and opened the trunk, expecting to dispatch the doe.
The doe had other ideas, and pretty much ran them over numerous times
and trashed the garage while three of them tried to tackle it and the
goofier of the four tried to shoot it. The single shot managed to hit my
friend's relatively new outboard motor and inspired a neighbor to call
the police. The doe got away (they opened the door after the shot,
correctly assuming that the police might respond to gunfire in downtown
LaGrand).
-----Original Message-----
From: Malaboge@aol.com [mailto:Malaboge@aol.com]
Sent: Monday, December 21, 1998 10:36 PM
To: shop-talk@autox.team.net; TVR@autox.team.net; fot@autox.team.net
Subject: I couldn't make this stuff up...
Folks-
I notice the ole mailing list is a little slow these days, so...
Those of you looking for meaningful automotive dialogue...hit the delete
button now.
The other day I needed what little shop space that isn't filled with
that "too
good to throw away" stuff, so I pushed the GT6 outside. No problem, what
could
happen!
I hadn't quite finished my project when the hot tub timer went off, so I
cleaned up, grabbed a bottle of a Hungarian distilled product, my rubber
ducky, and hit the tub.
So, I'm relaxing and sipping when I notice that some sort of weird
flakiness
is descending from the heavens...good grief...SNOW. My first thought
was, hey,
finally a rationalization for that gas-sucking 4 wheeler I bought. On
further
reflection upon the amounts of the aforementioned Hungarian distilled
product,
I demurred, but first thing in the morning...
Logic tells anyone who has seen where I live, that it was not built for
a
snowy clime. My driveway has about a 30 degree rise for the first 20
feet.
Interesting in most vehicles, scary in some, and impossible for the most
interesting. Now picture that little bit of blacktop covered with a few
inches
of snow...Chrysler's best couldn't make the grade. OK, so I had to leave
the
chagrined 4 wheeler at the bottom of the drive.
I spent the rest of the day licking my "virtual" macho wounds and
finishing my
project. At the end of the day, I had to finally open the door to push
the GT
back inside (I was a little reluctant as it took all day to get the temp
up to
"cool," but I went for it.) After I used the air compressor to blow the
evil
flakes from it's crevices, the GT went back inside. As I shut the door I
noticed that a bird, maybe a Scissor-tail Flycatcher, or an immature
Whooping
Crane, or maybe... a Sparrow, had flown into the garage. The poor thing
is
freaking out and slamming into the walls (ok, maybe it WAS a punk bird).
I
grab my fishing net and chase that poor sucker around the garage. Did
you ever
do something that you saw happen in slow motion? When you knock the
toe-in
gauge of the wall, it could possibly hit the aluminum baking pan that
you use
to hold all those carb parts, flipping them into the air where a
metering
needle could fly across the garage and stick into a new anniversary
Landrover
poster. The gauge could then possibly continue down to knock over a door
onto
the floor jack where it could get 4 nifty dents in it, and the bird
could
still be loose....but I doubt it.
Now that I had the aforementioned Albatross, I decided to let it out the
front
door as opposed to opening the garage door where it could fly back in.
So, I
opened the door, shook the bird out of the net...and it flew directly
over my
head back into the house. Now I have a bird in the house. The bird is
freaked.
I'm chasin it. Bill, the dog, is beside himself. There's barkin, net
wavin,
and bird do-do' in. That bird was really loaded, there was bird "stuff"
all
over the place. The bird finally found refuge in the Christmas
tree...Bill was
not pleased. A little fancy "net" work got the bird out the door.
OK, Enough drama...but no. Not an hour later a "woods pussy" trundled
onto the
front deck and decided that the Welcome mat would make a nice place to
bed
down. I don't know about you, but I don't know how to deal with a
resident
skunk nestled outside your door! Bill is beside himself, the woodpile is
outside, and it's gettin cold in here. I can't open the door to try to
scare
this olfactory unit away, it has got its head ON the glass of the door.
OK, I
can slide out the bathroom window and grab some wood so I don't freeze
to
death, however, the skunk it still out there, Bill is crossing his legs
so he
doesn't have to go out, and I'm a little tired of squeezin out the
bathroom
window.
So, does anyone have a good de-skunking technique?
Fat tires, stiff springs, and fat bars do not make for good handeling in
the
snow...
Nick in Nor Cal
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