The Armadillo Hunt

The last few weeks we have had a family of armadillos try to over take our backyard.I first noticed a big hole dug next to the side of our house and going under the fence. Not being from around here, I thought the Ryan had tried to fix some pipe and didn't finish yet. I didn't say anything to him for a few days, but noticed that the hole was getting bigger and deeper. So I decided to ask him what the heck he was doing. He had no idea what I was talking about so I went out and showed him. Then the next few days we started noticing that there were chunks of grass pulled out around where the hole was. After asking around, we found out that we had an armadillo problem.They come out at night and stick their freaky looking nose down into the grass trying to find bugs to eat and destroy your lawn while doing so. Ryan looked online to see how to get ride of them- shoot 'em or trap 'em in a cage and have animal control come get them. Ryan also found Bob "The Critter Getter" in the phone book. Bob charges 50 bucks everytime he comes out and catches one. Bob said that when they find a yard to attack, they usually are there for good and will keep coming back. So my husband decided to take care of them himself. From that point we were on the armadillo watch. At night we constantly would check out the window to see if we could see them. After a few nights of the "watch" we finally saw the creature. Everyone had just gone to bed and I was up watching TV. I decided to check out the window and there he was. I ran into our room and woke up Ryan. He ran to his waiting pile of clothes and "weapons" and got prepped. He handed me the golf club and he took the shovel-yup, those were the weapons. He told me to go get my brother next door to come help. Oh so quietly, we went into the backyard. We got the thing surrounded and he had no where to go except under the deck. The nasty creature wouldn't come out because he knew he was looking at death. So I grab our hose, turned it on, and sprayed the thing until it came out. He ran right to Jason, my bother, and he whacked that thing like there was no tomorrow. The nasty creature jumped straight up into the air and when he was back on all fours he got whacked again. By this time Ryan had come over and helped in the whacking. After a few more hits the thing finally gave up. I don't think I have ever laughed so hard in my life-watching to grown men beating an armadillo to death.
.......The next night more returned.............the watch started again............Ryan woke up every hour for several nights trying to get the thing..........didn't happen...........Ryan got very tired.........Ryan doesn't do well without his beauty sleep............Ryan bought an armadillo trap sold at Lowe's............Ryan put a fence screen along our backyard that lines the woods which funnels to the trap...........haven't seen any armadillos since...........but our neighbor a few doors down has seen them!










































Our friends next door didn't think that we would be able to ever catch and kill an armadillo. Little did they know that you never tell Ryan he can't do something. So after the killing took place, we kindly put the creature on the driveway for them to see when they got home from a movie. The next morning the armadillo was on top of our mailbox. Ryan then decided a proper burial place would be our garbage can. In Alabama, if you have a dead animal in your garbage can mixed with humidity and garbage day 3 days away-------It STINKS really really bad.