There’s no such thing as an ordinary day in Alaska…when my first husband returned from the mechanic’s garage, I was expecting to hear a report of the mysterious beeping minivan…instead, it was a report on the latest kill.
In our defense, we did not seek a lethal hunter to patrol our compound, it found us. A sad crying sound in the darkness…an injured animal, our imagination or something sinister? It sounded like a cat, but that just isn’t possible at twenty degrees below zero in the middle of nowhere. Still…Something had been bothering our trash stored safely on a second story landing.
Long story short, we now have a merciless fiend of a cat and he has struck again despite a full food dish! Dead white animals do not just appear in the driveway…and it was not smashed by our car.
Me, “What is it?”
Husband, “I think it’s a mink.”
Me, “What are you going to do with it?”
Husband, “I was thinking of giving it to the “trapper“.”
(Husband loads mystery animal in the family car, drives away and returns a few minutes later)
Me, “Did the “trapper” want it? “
Husband, “I don’t know, he wasn’t there.”
Me, “What did you do with it?”
Husband, “There was smoke coming out of his stovepipe, so just I left it on the woodpile.”
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What more could a person ask for than to return home, find a fresh kill neatly bagged in a Hefty right where he would look when he needed to stoke the fire? In some parts of the world, a scene like this would have yellow crime tape and detectives profiling some sort of psychotic killer…here, it’s just called being neighborly….