Poking dead things with a stick

[ppfuf]

There was a dead hawk in the backyard, caught between the fence and the wisteria, when I got home from Thanksgiving weekend. I found it last night and did what any grown-up would do; called my mom. Call animal control, she said. Sadly, budget cuts in my county mean that animal control doesn’t deal with dead things in your backyard. If I wanted to put the body in a bag and leave it on the street, they’d be happy to pick it up. I asked a few questions and they weren’t going to get all CSI on it, so I decided against leaving it out for the school children who walk past my house to find this morning. Some teacher at the local middle school probably had a much duller Show And Tell today. Pity. It was a large and beautiful hawk and would have been quite educational.

I put on work gloves and lined the trash can with the biggest bag I had. GM was dispatched to the shed to get shovels and rakes and implements of destruction. I bravely got close enough to place the trash bin directly under the hawk. In the moment my back was turned to pick up the rake, GM poked the dead thing with the shovel and dropped it directly into the bag.

Being both a boY and a knight, I should have known he’d fix any problem that could be solved with a stick.

Comments

Dead small animal disposal with minimal intruments

[hunrvogt.livejournal.com]

1) Look at dead animal and determine how big it is.
2) Fetch bag that is larger than dead animal.
3) Turn bag inside out around your dominate hand.
4) Grasp dead animal with dominate hand.
5) Turn bag right side out.
6) Knot and dispose.

Re: Dead small animal disposal with minimal intruments

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

That's the method I use for the occasional half-a-squirrel I find in the yard. In this case the poor hawk looked so tangled up in the wisteria, the bin-and-stick options seemed to be the right one.

Thanks again for the interesting class at Collegium!

Re: Dead small animal disposal with minimal intruments

[hunrvogt.livejournal.com]

I've finally gotten some down time at work. I should have resources out to folks this week