Texas Gardening: Look what was on my doorstep this morning!, 1 by crowellli

crowellli wrote:
My dear Scottish husband has been in the U.S. for 10 years now, but is still getting used to the different plants and critters we have here. This afternoon he went to the front door to get the mail. When he opened the door, he called for me and said we had a "dead critter of some sort" at the front door. I went to see, thinking it was a large bug of some sort that he didn't recognize. Imagine my surprise when I realized what he was seeing was a Nutria. I told him "It's not dead". He said "Of course it is, we're standing here over it talking and it hasn't moved". About that time, it sat up and hissed at him and he decided maybe I knew what I was talking about. I told him it was a nutria. He'd never even heard of them. My lovely stepdaughter came to take a look and said "That's the biggest rat I've ever seen". I tried to shoosh it away with the broom (everyone else was too chicken to try). DH said he'd move it, but he's on chemo, so I didn't want to risk him getting bit or falling over something while "tangling with the Texas wildlife". Evidently, it was quite happy where it was and had no intention of moving anywhere else. A few weeks ago a guy we had working on the house told me I had a giant rat in the garage. I told him it was likely a squirrel picking up spilled bird seed. He didn't seem convinced, but I didn't think anything more about it until I found the nutria. I've never heard of them being this far from a creek, pond or stream. I guess he's been holeing up in my garage during the day and doing the backstroke in the pool every night. I'm just glad I haven't tripped over him one night while stumbling around outside. That could have made an even funnier story than the grasshopper up the nightgown though. Animal control came out and picked him up. The lady said at first when she got the call, she assumed I was a city person who had a possum and didn't know what it was. I told her I grew up in East Texas so I knew what it was as soon as I saw it. I'm not out in the country, I'm two blocks north of Westheimer at Wilcrest. I can't imagine how he wound up here. Made an interesting day though.