Roadkill on the Ol' Homestead

The Schmitz' New Cat

Pete & Becky found a roadkill cat that had been knocked into their bushes near the sidewalk. The county informed them that this was too far onto their property and they would have to take care of it themselves.

The Texas Hill country north of Austin is fairly solid rock with only a few inches of soil on top of it. Even that is usually rocky and difficult to dig through. Pete buried the deceased on its back to avoid digging a huge hole. When he had replaced all the dirt, there were four paws sticking straight up out of the ground! This became a favorite spot for the gradeschool boys to hang out.

Deer John

One Sunday we were heading out somewhere, when I realized there was a dead deer by the mailbox. As it had no address label or postage affixed, I decided it was probably roadkill instead of mail. We had only recently heard about the Schmitz' cat experience, so my wife and I pulled the deer back into the ditch with its feet by the road (it was roadkill).

It had definitely been there less than 24 hours, but a fair amount of fur came off as we moved it. We called the county and got a recording to call the sherrif's office; I left a message at the beep, anyway. Good thing - the sheriff's office merely told us to call the county and leave a message.

Just think - if Pete could hardly bury a cat, how would we have buried a deer! We would have to have basically moved wheelbarrow loads of dirt (strip-mining our yard) to cover it, then built a rock cairn over that to keep the neighborhood animals (wild and domestic) from digging it right back up. Wonderful!

The county picked it up Monday.

Squirrel Story

One day we saw several dead squirrels along a one mile stretch near our house. While a couple were definitely roadkill, some were not apparently so. When we got home there was one near our driveway - from which two buzzards lauched as we drove up. We would have just tossed it out into the woods for them, but we were beginning to suspect poisoning with this many dead on one day. So we gave it a decent, modern burial - in a plastic bag in the garbage can.

Those buzzards must have been hungry to have gone after such unseasoned meat - it wasn't even stiff yet.

Last updated: 25 October 2001

Miles O'Neal <meo@rru.com>