Oops

Our local newspaper was punked last week. Someone turned in a photograph of a mountain lion taken with a game camera, stating it was in the eastern part of the county.

After the newspaper was published and the picture was put on their facebook page, someone from Mo. saw it and sent them the same picture shown in a newspaper there two years ago.

Of course, the editor has apologized, and talked about how many folks responded to the facebook post, claiming when and where they, themselves, had seen a mountain lion in this area. One of the people who runs a rescue wildlife center, who has actual, rescued mountain lions behind a fence, stated she knew for sure we still had mountain lions around here because the wild ones had come around when one of her female captive mountain lions was in heat.

Well, goodness, if that didn't bring one out of the woods, what would?

A person working for Department of something or other stated in all his decade of working here, he'd never seen proof /evidence of one in this area, but would certainly not tell people they didn't know what they were talking about. You see, the mountain lion has been considered no longer in residence in the North Georgia mountains for several years.

All this took me back to two incidents in my own life.

One, when I was a small child, occurred when I was with my parents coming home from their friends house. It was summer time, and our car windows were down. Daddy had just pulled out into the highway, when he suddenly pulled over on the side of the road and said, "Listen."

A hair raising scream came from across a field, somewhere around the edge of the woods. And again. After about the third time, Daddy explained it was a mountain lion.

The other incident was a few years ago at dusk. Daughter and I were headed to town for some reason. Suddenly, leaping off the bank in front of us was a mountain lion! I slammed on my brakes and watched him touch the middle of the road on his first jump, then bound off down the ravine with one more leap. His tail was as long as his body.

Daughter turned to me and said, "Wow. Big kitty."

I told her she had just seen something many people doubt still in existence here.

Well, one is, for sure.

Make fun of me if you will. Doubt me if you want.

I don't care.

It's not like I claimed to see Bigfoot or something.

Although, I do have a friend who is very tall, pretty hairy, and wears a size 22 shoe....

Hmmmm.

Panic and Solution to Problems

Last evening when I 'went to blog' I found out I couldn't.

As far as I know, there are no medications for this. I wasn't 'blogged up' or anything.

There just weren't any little doo-hickey places to click on to get me to a place for a new post.

I wondered if someone was trying to tell me something.

Had I blogged the highest number I was allowed to blog? Had I used up all my cyberspace? Can one use up cyberspace?

Perhaps a disgruntled reader had come in and sabotaged the doo-hickey so I couldn't blog anymore.

What did I ever say?

Maybe some neighbor nearby got wind of my plans.

What are your plans, you ask with eager anticipation (after all you didn't have the opportunity to read my golden words yesterday).

Hold on. I just threw up in my mouth a little.

Anyway, my plans are to go door to door all up and down this here road and ask people to leave.

Why, you ask?

Well, before there was anybody living up on this mountain with the exception of my little family of three, we were never bothered by wildlife.

In fact, we seldom even saw wildlife. Only squirrels. A random bunny late at night. Maybe a deer on occasion.

But now that there are  houses everywhere, we have seen bears (as you  may have noticed), our fox,George Clooney,  turkey, quail, mountain lion, deer, raccoon, and even one bobcat.

I wouldn't mind seeing them. It's the actual up close, too close for comfort, and destruction of my property that bothers me.

So, don't you think it's reasonable to ask everyone else to leave?

I mean, we were here first.

Us and the wildlife.