Okay,it's not 'I Dreamed of Africa' and I'm not Kim Bassinger, but it's close.
There's a scene in 'I Dreamed of Africa' where Kim chases a bull elephant out of her garden. This morning I chased a bull 'bull' out of my grove. Reckon that counts? Kim got an Oscar. What do I get?
The dogs were sleeping on the job. Not the first bark at this intruder. What possessed me to look out my bedroom window to begin with was the wind. It sounded like it was trying to take the roof off, so there is the very real possibility that the dogs simply did not hear this massive creature stumbling around out there. Too much banging and wailing going on.
For a long while, looking out my bedroom window was a waste of time, as my window treatment on that side of the house was tin foil taped inside the glass to knock out the afternoon sun.
Before you go passing judgment, it was the deluxe heavy duty kind. Cheap I am not. But tin foil curtains are still not conducive to external viewing. You look out, you see a blurry vision of yourself looking back in.
One day I pecked a little porthole in it for convenience sake and the hole grew until it was all hole and no tinfoil. It was a sad waste of quality drape material, but that's the way it goes. Anyway, now that looking out is once again a possibility I have almost abused the privilege and look to my heart's content. Which is how I spotted this bull.
Why he was over here, instead of where he belonged, in the next pasture, was obvious. He was eating oranges off my trees. They are just beginning to turn yellowish orange and I guess to him, the grove kind of looked like the witch's place in Hansel and Gretel. To good to pass up.
Events like this always have a bad effect on me. I tend to act first and think later, or more accurately, 'regret' later. I raced across the room, grabbed the hot shot and flung open the door. Then I thought better of my hasty barefooted departure, and stopped to put on Fred's boots. I was bent over pulling on the last boot, when the wind caught the door and beaned me with it.
I brushed that off as payment for stupidity, rubbed my head briskly, muttered a few choice words and tripped down the steps and out into the yard. The wind made coveralls out of the housedress I was wearing, so when I wasn't tripping over my big feet I was being 'legged' by my own clothing.
I started yelling first, hoping that that would be enough, but the wind merely snatched my words out of the air and flung them back at me. I made it to the fence that separates the grove from the pasture and stepped daintily over it, at which point the wind caught my lovely housedress once again and blindfolded me. There are definite advantages to living on thirty acres out of view of laughing neighbors.
By this time the bull had noticed me, and having the advantage of a closer view, I couldn't help but notice him in more alarming detail. He was huge, solid black, with horns that ran at least three feet tip to tip and was clearly not the slightest bit concerned about me.
I played my trump card, brandishing the hot shot over my head menacingly. The thing about hot shots, is if an animal has never experienced one, to them they just look like a shiny stick much too small to do any real damage. Dang it.
Finally the dogs caught on and began to raise holy heck.
"'Bout time!" I admonished them.
The dogs seemed to get the bull's attention, so I added my own din to that of the dog's, and between the three of us noisy critters the bull seemed to get the impression that he might not be welcome here.
After one last juicy orange he began a slow trek to the fenceline stopping occasionally to munch on the stray bit of grass here or there. That made me mad. He was leaving, but he was acting like it was all his idea. So I picked up whatever I could put my hands on, sticks, dirt clods, whatever was handy and began flinging them at them. I was hit as often as he was due to the wind, but I chose to ignore that fact and rejoice in the ones that made contact.
He kicked it up to a lazy trot just before the three foot piece of one by six bounced of his rear end causing him to kick up his hells in a more satisfactory manner. I didn't just want him to leave. I wanted him to not come back. The one by six settled it. He took off at a lumbering gallop and after running up and down the fenceline for a few minutes, he found the low spot that he had come over and exited my property.
It is my hope that he will think twice about coming back, at least until we can add another strand or two of barbed wire to the fence. I know I probably didn't look as fetching or sexy as Kim while chasing this bull out of my grove but I got the job done, however clumsily, and I think I deserve a reward too. Not necessarily an Oscar. Maybe a Larry or a Howard. Whatever. I'm a woman with tin foil window treatments. I'm clearly not picky.
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