What nature teaches you....

Things nature teaches you::

1. Mosquitos do not die in the refridgerator.

I really thought they would. Don’t they say that colder climates aren’t bothered by mosquitos because it’s cold? Yet when I open my fridge they fly out at me quite unharmed and moving as quickly as ever. It’s not like I deliberately placed the mosquito in the fridge, I do catch them regularily but then I squash them, the only reason there are so many mosquitos in the fridge is that there are so many mosquitos in my house.

Mosquitoes are more than annoying. A mosquito bite could mean weeks ill with dengue fever and possibly even death. It’s a fact of life, one of the things you live with in the tropics, one of the things you learn. It’s a wet wet season, there’s 70 cases of dengue checking in daily at the local hospital, it will be a bad year. I’ve had it once, I don’t want it again.

2. Vampire bats are cute

The first bat entered dead, and after it stopped moving my cat left it in the middle of the floor for me. It was so cute, with a little turned up nose and two canines like my kitties, it’s body about the size of a small mouse. My oldest googled it, vampire bat, carrier of rabies. Time to throw out the corpse after photos.

The second bat was alive, alive enough to escape the cat that brought it in. It was bigger, flapping around my living room. We couldn’t see what kind of bat it was, its flight path was completely eratic. The kids and I went into animal eviction proceedure, usually used for large toads, basically we all grab brooms and chase the animal out the door. It was harder with a bat, I have 16 foot ceilings with wood beams, so the bat decided to perch upside down on the highest beam. It was Julie’s idea to lob a pillow at it, and just minutes later we had it out of the house.

Since then we’ve had three more bats in the house, in case you’re wondering fruit bats are ugly, only the vampire ones are pretty.

3 Coral Snakes are less aggressive than house cats.

My little cat, 1 year old but not bigger than a large kitten (she was the runt of the litter) was playing with something right behind me. I saw it from the corner of my eye, some movement, I kept doing the dinner dishes, last thing before I could go to bed. Then a hiss, cats must be fighting over this latest prize. I turned around. Three feet in front of me three of my cats were taking turns at poking a 3 foot long coral snake. At least I thought it was a coral snake, I ran to the computer to see if it was a look alike I could let them kill. NO, no such luck, it was a real coral snake. Coral snake in the kitchen, three cats who would probably be dead by morning. Deadly poisonous snake in the kitchen, two children in bed.

I walked up to the hallway to try to get the cats away from the snake. I screamed at them, threw my shoe, the coral snake turned slowly to look at me. My daughter climbed out of bed to see what was wrong. I screamed at her to back off, she listened, the cats didn’t, they were having far too much fun with their new toy, multicolored and wiggly, so much fun.

Two kids were out to see the fun now, I ordered them to stay back and I ran outside to find a bucket. I had a 5 gallon paint bucket somewhere. There, grabbing it I ran inside and dropped it on the snake, missed the tail, lifted it and dropped it again, wiggled it a little to get the last of the snake under the plastic. The cats surrounded the bucket whacking at it with their paws, mommy had hidden their toy but they knew where it was. I grabbed a propane tank and put it on the bucket. I called the vet’s emergency number but she told me that she had no anti-venom, and it didn’t really work anyway, the cats would die. I hoped that the bucket would hold till morning, then I took my children, and went to bed, shutting my door knowing that in the morning I would not only have to deal with the snake but also three dead cats.

I woke, children in my bed, because where else would I fell they were safe and opened my door. No corpse on the other side, I walked into the kitchen, bucket still in place. I looked around, no cats. I opened a can of tuna and before I’d even done the dinner call I had three cats eating out of the can with no sign of any damage.

I called my business and asked for my handyman to come with a machete to kill a snake. He walked in took off the propane tank, lifted the bucket and dropped it back down quickly. “That’s dangerous” he spat at me.

“Yes” I said, “or I would have just let it escape.” I stepped back while he lifted the bucket again. The snake was angry this morning, a suppose a night in a bucket could do that. He used his machete to lift it and throw it out of the house, then as the snake slid back into the garden he hacked it to pieces. I was a little disappointed, it was so beautiful, but I couldn’t really take it to work for show and tell now that it had been chopped into bloody steak sized pieces.

Of course in the process nature teaches you something about yourself as well. I’m more afraid of mosquitoes than I am of venomous snakes, I judge things by appearance, and like vampire bats more than fruit bats simply because they look cuter. And that the thing that scares me most is that Costa Rica is where I will live the rest of my life because in many ways I have a dream existence, the problem is that this wasn’t my dream.