All this talk of capturing critters reminds me of another incident. But, I am not the only one who is a disposer of unwanted and damaging wildlife. Now don't get me wrong, wildlife in the right places is fine with me - indeed I love nothing better than watching an abundance of nature's activity in the fields and bush around the house and outbuildings.

Buster the Beast - What is one to do when, lying on a Friday rainy evening by the fire, one hears a bang and then a crashhhh coming from some undisclosed location in the silent house? It sounds like a picture falling off the wall or perhaps the wind knocking the swing against the front porch wall. Then another bang more resonant than the first!... Perhaps the ironing board falling from it's reluctant perch on the basement stair wall.
Rising from my reclining position I make a hasty tour of the house, room by room, floor by floor and not a thing seems amiss. Then back to the couch - had I dropped off, was I dreaming.... Craaaashhhhhhhh! The Garden Cottage!
What burglar had entered while I dozed? Why are the cat and dog so somnolent? I enter the adjacent wing timidly. Sooty footprints are everywhere as are little black droppings of apparent excrement. The clock has been knocked off the desk and is lying in the middle of the floor. A crystal is lying next to the lamp from which it once hung .... the dried hydrangea has crumbled... a sterling inlaid glass dish is lying in a thousand pieces like tiny diamonds next to the fire place. The fireplace door is ajar.
Suddenly, taking me aback with a silently uttered scream, a small, black, furry creature flies around the corner and tears by a cowering me into the bedroom where it tries to climb the newly painted wall and pass through the closed window. Slam! I close it in the bedroom, fearing that it might jump up into the loft to escape further detection.
"Buster!", I call.
"Where are you when I need you? And Charlie, where is your feline hunter instinct? Are you too well fed? Buster, come here, Buster, come..."
I hear the click, click of his long nails against the wooden floor in the room next door... Once in the bedroom, Buster's hair bristles. No more the domestic, sleepy dog. No more sloppy, playful pup. Frozen, he stands - Majestic! The Beast emerges! I quickly close the bedroom door again. I leave the two black creatures to face each other as if the room were a primaeval forest. I go in search of a broom. Yes, a broom!
Returning not more than a minute later, I hear.... nothing... -- no thing.... -- nought! I slowly open the barrier between cottage and woods, and there stands the black brute, squirrel clutched in his mighty jaws, hair bristling on his noble back, shaking it viciously from side to side to side. He bounds past me, lest I scold him or worse - take his toy, out of the bedroom he races with his catch. He bounds further, out of the Garden Cottage and into the main house. I bound after him , much less gracefully, and head directly to the back porch door. I open it quickly and he runs out before I can catch my breathe - black with black disappearing in the black rainy night...
Time passes. I hear the rain on the roof. Later, I wonder where is my dog? I peer out through the rain drenched window across the drive to the distant lawn... There lies the shadow of a dog, who does not like the rain, just a dark shape in the dreary night, soaked, proud, stretched full out, playing gently with his prize, now presumed long dead.
Still later, I go out to see if I can coax him inside so that I can go to bed... He stands. He nuzzles the ground. He holds his head high. I hear the crunching of tiny bones... crunch, crunch, crunch. He stops. I hear the smack of contently licked lips. He looks at me not knowing if he has been bad or good. Buster wags his tale and gives a frisky wiggle of his whole body and comes obediently into the house. A very exhausted hunter is soon snoring.
Next morning I returned to the scene and found only a very wet and motley tail.