I came out the door of my studio the other night, and quickly stepped back in. There was riotous leaf-disturbance going on in the bush to the left of the door. I called Mona.. she came over to me, and gestured that she wanted to play. CANT YOU HEAR? There's a monster under the bush! What animal in its right mind would concentrate so hard on getting bugs that it wouldn't hear me talking to the dog? This thing was practically under my feet! And what was with the dog! I eventually called Bud, the old black lab. He took off after it, and when it popped out of the bushes, and beat a hasty exit down the driveway, I called off the dog. He came back dejected, but the thing looked to me like a half a watermelon running down the driveway, cut the long way. Half a football. Somewhere in that range. At least I knew the monster was an armadillo.
I'd seen him 6 months before, on a night like this, balmy and nice. My husband had seen him in the driveway and called me out, to stand like a wall, while he tried to catch it. I did my job, he flushed it out of the bushes, and the darn thing ran right between my legs. It was trying to see who was chasing it, and truly, they must be not all there, cause it went slow enough for me to have grabbed it. I had no intention of picking it up, but did touch it, and what a hot little football it was. His temperature was like a dogs, must have been 102, I had expected, i don't know, maybe snake-ish, with that hard shell.
Next time I just might get the nerve to pick it up. (Just to say hi, then let it go) I might just have a formal introduction to the dogs, with firm instructions not to chase or bother. They do really well with the chickens!
