Armadillo Encounter!

It’s been a good couple of days in the Austin neighborhood. The weather is so nice that we’re able to be out a bit more. So, we see things. On top of that, we meet people. Here’s what and who I have seen and met in the last 24 hours.

I met a charming pre-teen youth yesterday who was running sprints back and forth between two mailboxes, and doing push-ups in between. I was trying to leave him alone, but Vlassic loved him, so we chatted. I asked him what he was training for, and he puffed himself up to full height (shorter than me, I think), and informed me he was the starting quarterback at his middle school team, and he had to keep in shape to keep his position. “We play tackle!” he happily informed me. I told him he was showing all the signs of someone who has sports success, and he just beamed at me.

This morning, I took Vlassic out for his morning nature call, and as soon as we stepped off the deck we heard rustling noises from a plant.

It kept up, so we checked it out. I saw a familiar-looking tail.

Once it noticed us, it moved to the grass, and just looked at us for a while. Vlassic looked at the armadillo and it looked at him.

At last, Vlassic just HAD to bark, so that was the end of the armadillo encounter.

What I found interesting about this was that neither of them seemed particularly surprised to see each other. My thoughts are that they were already familiar with each other’s smells. That armadillo, or its relatives (we know they’ve been reproducing!) spend a lot of time poking holes in the grass on Bob Cat Run, so I know Vlassic has their smell down!

Since I’ve always been a big fan of these cool animals, and THEN I saw the mushrooms that looked like breasts, my day has already been made.