John Harrington's Sunday Column

Right next to the "tufted titmice" article that I read on Sunday in the New Hampshire Sunday News, was John Harrigan's column. I don't read his column very often (I'm not much of a hunter/fisherwoman), although when I do read it, I usually enjoy it.

In this column, entitled "Night tracks and day thoughts", John asks where do we get off judging one species as "good" and another as "bad"..? You might have to read his article to understand my post, but in a nutshell, he defends the fisher cat and fox and wants to know why people want to feed the cute deer (although that is never recommended) but not the other animals that work so hard to stay alive (like the fischer and fox).

Well I think I can answer that one...It's really quite simple....the "bad" ones are the ones we fear. I've never heard of a rabid deer biting some unsuspecting person, while I have heard of rabid foxes sneaking up on someone and biting them. It seems we hear about that just about every year. A deer has never woken me up in the middle of the night either, even though they walk right up to my bedroom window to nibble on my evergreen bushes. I wish they would stop nibbling and eat them; I'm looking for a reason to pull them out. However, a fisher cat (at least I think it was a fisher cat) was outside in my yard last year in the middle of the night. It made enough noise that I thought I was at a football game. I can't even explain the sound I heard. The next day, I looked up information, on the Internet of course, and was surprised when I saw their teeth! I would not want to meet one of these in the middle of the night (or daytime for that matter). I think we dub the good species the ones we are not afraid of and the bad ones are the ones we fear.

Which brings me to bees....I personally think we should annihilate all bees. Well, maybe not honey bees or bumble bees. Okay, maybe only yellow jackets. Do yellow jackets really have a purpose? I'm hoping someone out there can tell me what might have dug up this yellow jacket nest in my yard...


We discovered this hole on October 26, 2008. The weather had been a little cold and there were yellow jackets crawling around the bottom. It seemed they were "sleepy" from the cool temperatures. The hole was quite large; maybe 12 inches wide and 8 to 10 inches deep.

I'd like to personally thank whatever creature dug this up. Well maybe I could just leave a thank you note in the area in case it was a bear or a skunk... I'm very glad that I, or another member of my family, did not happen to find it last summer. If one of us had stepped on it, I think the consequences could have been quite severe.

And by the way, I do not have a fear of bees. I only have a fear of being stung by bees.