Scorpions and Starlings

This past week was filled with lots of animal oddness. It started with Roux injuring herself in a bizarre way last Saturday. She was outside to play for awhile during the afternoon, and when she came back to the house, she had two pencil-sized pieces of cedar impaled through her paw crossways. I still don't know how she managed to get the first one in, much less continue on to get the second one sideways.

I called Dad, he came down and picked us up, and we took her to the vet for emergency surgery. I stayed with her while the vet rendered her unconscious and cut the wood from her poor paw. She has stitches between most of her toes, but she, in her typical pit bull manner, doesn't seem to notice it much. She stayed at the vet for the weekend, and now I'm cleaning the sutures each day with peroxide and shoving an antibiotic down her throat twice a day, but other than that, she's doing okay.

The next fun with nature moment came Tuesday. My TA was building boxes to help pack up my classroom for my big move at the end of the year, and she suddenly stepped away and said, "I think I just saw a scorpion." My TA is an extremely level-headed and reliable individual, and if she says she saw a scorpion, I believe her. I got up and limped around to the pile of flat boxes and began to lift them gingerly to see if I could locate the insect. Sure enough, after a couple of minutes, a brown scorpion about two inches long fell out of the flat box as I tilted it.

My TA, the student taking a makeup test, and I just kind of looked at it for a minute. Scorpions just aren't common here. However, I wasn't awed enough not to know what to do with a crawling nasty. My trusty Crocs flops smashed it flat. I do have to say though, that they're not very easy to kill. I had to step on it several times before it crushed. I am also glad it was a small one. Otherwise, I'm not sure a flip-flop would have been sufficient.

Since then, I've been surreptitiously looking around on the floor for "friends" of his/hers and praying that one was both male and alone. The thought of it having laid eggs in those boxes as little "surprises" for me to find when I open all those boxes in August is just shudder-inducing. I think I'll get some Raid before then. Surely Raid works on scorpions, too?

Anyway, Friday afternoon right before the last bell, I started hearing high-pitched shrieking in the stairwell outside my room. I stepped out to see what merriment prompted this, and I saw a poor little starling just crouched in a puddle of sunlight on the landing. The kids were backing away from it like it was rabid Bengal tiger. I knew with the bell about to ring, the next thing to happen would be that someone would harm it, either accidentally or on purpose, so I grabbed the first thing that came to hand, and empty file folder box, and eased my damaged knee down the stairs.

The little bird is one of the many that nests in the nooks and crannies of our old building. Occasionally, they come inside our building when one of the upstairs doors gets left open. They flutter around in a pitiful fashion, and of course, they are terribly distressed every time the classes change because of the noise and motion of several hundred active teenagers moving around.

As I approached it, it didn't move at all. I just placed half of the empty box over it. A student brought me a file folder and I slid it under the box, and then I slid a ring binder under that allowing me to lift the box with the bird safely contained in it. I got it up the stairs and took it out on the upstairs walkway. I opened the box. I was afraid that it was injured or shocked, but when I removed the lid, it flew away straight and true. My heart lifted with it as it soared away. It was a good ending to a bad animal week.

I hope next week will have less of a menagerie in it. I think I have had enough of bird and beast to last me for awhile. If not, well, I guess I will just have to continue to be creative with my solutions....