Annie Get Your Gun!

A week from now we're moving to the middle of nowhere, pretty much. Ten miles from town and that town has 203 people, not including us. So 205. Not that they ever really update those signs. The next nearest town is 30 miles away and that's where Walmart, the bank, doctors, hairdressers and church will be. Being a city girl most of my life, Walmart being 30 miles away qualifies as 'middle of nowhere'.

Middle of nowhere, we've been told by the neighbors (we do have 120 of them) will include the following:

deer, skunks, raccoons, armadillos, possums, 300 lb feral pigs, coyotes, and snakes. Lots of snakes including water moccasins (that, BTW, do not stay in the water), rattlesnakes, coral and one other poisonous kind I can't remember, in spite of reading an entire book called "Texas Snakes". Most snakes, it ends up, aren't poisonous and if I could get good enough at identifying them, I would lean toward leaving them alone.

My husband seems to think a hoe is the perfect way to deal with a poisonous snake. Just take an Alice in Wonderland approach and yell, "Off with her head!" or maybe he won't yell it, but he'll do it. Chop their heads off with a hoe.

I'd die of a heart attack first.

So he decided we needed to buy me a gun. I rarely even kill bugs, am terrified of lizards, and struggle with the idea of hurting any animal, which includes the squirrel that had already been run over and was flopping in front of our house. It needed to be run over again and I just wasn't brave enough, and have felt bad ever since that day. 'Put it out of misery' continues to ring in my ears but I just couldn't do it.

So this will be a stretching experience for me. But, by golly, I now have a gun. After a few trips to Cabelas and such, we ended up at a gun shop and bought me a 4-10 shotgun. I now know the difference between a shotgun and a rifle, and the different sizes they come in. It was pretty important to my husband to buy one that would not shoot across the lake, but would reach the end of our property. Hmmm, I wonder why?

My Dad tells me you need to stand at least 12 feet away from a skunk before you shoot it. He learned this after pelting one with a big rock, and coming home to have his mother strip him bare naked in the front yard and put him in the horse trough before she'd let him back in the house. I'm taking his word for it when I deal with the skunk we've seen on our carport twice already.

It seems I'm to become a bit of an Annie Oakley, target practice is scheduled for me and hopefully within a short time I'll be able to put my money where my mouth is if most critters come into our yard, and I'll be able to decrease the number of poisonous snakes around our property. I told my daughter, Sarah, this morning that I think I'd be a better shot if I had a leather skirt and jacket, complete with fringe, and a cowgirl hat that had a chin strap to hold it on my head. She made me promise if I ever do get said outfit, I won't wear it when her kids are visiting. I personally think it would endear me to them forever - Granny with a gun!

Feral pigs.... I'm pretty sure if one of those comes into our yard, my Daddy will hear me yellin' my head off, 900 miles away! I don't think I've got that much stretch in me.