New Years

Our family has been hit by the sick bug, so most of our Christmas Vacation has been spent in doors trying to get everyone to quit coughing (and whining) :) New Years Eve Day Greg wanted to go for a drive to a place called White Rock to check out the area for hunting. I was all for it... anything to get us out of the house. The ride was long with narrow winding roads, I am not sure I will ever get used to the roads here. I think the only straight road here is the freeway and even then you are constantly going up and down over the hills (I call them hills, they call them mountains.) Anyway, along the drive we were pretty much out in the boonies, the scenery wasn't incredible, but we did get to see a few wild animals: a coyote, a few white tailed deer, a squirrel, two wild turkeys and an armadillo. Now, for those of us who know a few things about armadillos (and those of us who have children who enjoy watching Go Diego Go) we know that for protection the armadillo will roll up into a ball. Well, something that they don't teach you on Go Diego, is what kind of threat the armadillo has to feel like they are under. When we ran into our armadillo we had parked in an open field and the kids were going to go out exploring. We parked the car and right there in front of us was our armadillo just searching around for whatever armadillos search for (maybe I should have paid more attention to Diego). Greg got out with the video camera and I got out with the digital camera, and before I know it Greg is handing me the video camera saying "film this" I take the camera and watch him grab two sticks (he calls them sticks, I call them logs. You can choose who you think is exaggerating) and he tosses/throws/chucks them at the armadillo to get him to roll up in a ball... well the first stick/log hits his back and he must not have thought that to be a threat.... the second stick/log hits him square in the head and that thing just starts squirming around. I gasp, "Greg, what have you done?!" I think he has killed the poor thing. I even have to quit filming because I don't feel it is appropriate to film his last moments. At that moment Greg realized his dreams of us going out hunting together are shattered. He says if I can't watch an armadillo squirm there is no way I could shoot anything. Perhaps he is on to something there... After all the hoopla I made about him killing an armadillo the darn thing gets back up and starts searching around again. Maybe they are tougher than I give them credit for, and maybe I am not as tough as I once thought I was.

Don't worry, it's not a video of anything squirming.