Texas is trying to kill us.

The last 24 hours have been weird and so I don’t have time to write a full post because I’m too busy building a basement to hide in so instead I’ll just share my tweets from last night:

Not sure if that was a mountain lion or an enormous yellow lab chasing that deer but we’ll be discontinuing our twilight dog walks for now.

Related: Screaming “RUN TO THE HOUSE” at your kid while waving your arms to appear larger will make your neighbors run in their houses too.

Texas wildlife is unsettling. 2 months ago Dorothy Barker and I were out at night & a howler monkey screamed at me & I almost shit myself.

…And Victor was all “THERE ARE NO HOWLER MONKEYS IN TEXAS” and I was like “I KNOW WHAT A HOWLER MONKEY SOUNDS LIKE, VICTOR.”

But apparently I don’t because later I found out it was a fox screaming.

But there’s a primate sanctuary for retired entertainment monkeys close to our house so it wasn’t ENTIRELY unlikely that I was wrong.

Or maybe it was a fox screaming because she saw a howler monkey. I don’t know. I’m not a nature expert.

Then last night we had bad storms come through and kept losing power but this morning it looked fine except for a few downed limbs but I was still freaked out about the possible cougar that might just be a dog/monkey/large squirrel so Hailey and I decided to take Dorothy Barker to the park to run around, but on the way we ran into this:

"So, we'll just turn around, huh?"
Worst. Waterslide. Ever.

First cougars.  Now floods.  I can only assume the plague of locusts are on their way.  Possibly they’re swimming.  Hard to tell with locusts.

UPDATED: I’ve just been informed that raining frogs comes before the plague of locusts.  Then the squirrelpocolypse.  Then zombies.  Then zombie squirrels riding mountain lions covered in locusts.

Be careful out there, y’all.

UPDATED AGAIN:  Apparently I’m the second person in my subdivision to see a mountain lion this week.  Fuck this.  I’m just going to make a dog park in the living room.

**********

And now, our weekly wrap-up.  Buckle-up, Buttercup.

sid

Shit I made in my shop (Named “EIGHT POUNDS OF UNCUT COCAINE” so that your credit card bill will be more interesting.):

Shit-you-may-or-may-not-want-to-see:

Shit you should buy or steal because it’s awesome:  

This week’s wrap-up is brought to you by the lovely folks at Blue Lizard.  Blue Lizard originated in Australia, where standards for sunscreen are the highest in the world. Using only the highest quality ingredients, Blue Lizard delivers clinically proven, broad-spectrum UVA and UVB protection in a SPF 30+ formulation and is is ranked as one of the top sunscreens by the Environmental Working Group.  Blue Lizard offers an array of products for every skin type and outdoor need and is highly recommended by dermatologists and moms everywhere.  You can use P20BLOGG for 20% off all orders over $35 at www.bluelizard.net.

124 thoughts on “Texas is trying to kill us.

Read comments below or add one.

  1. Yeah perhaps you want to move when the frogs rain down. I saw something on Facebook that said human excrement rained down and ruined a little girl’s birthday party. I just couldn’t bring myself to click the link. Don’t want to live with that kind of fear!

  2. I’m saving turtles left and right around Dallas!! Water….from the sky…….hold off a bit and visit someone else. T:)

  3. You have mountain lions, my neighborhood has coyotes grabbing little dogs and running off with them. Nature is seriously after us in Texas. At least the tornadoes that were supposed to be around here last night didn’t manifest. Yeehaw, y’all!

  4. Everything is bigger in Texas. Go big, or go home.

    I’m currently home because I highly doubt I can make myself bigger than a cougar. (Excluding my 5’2″ 42 year old mother, with her 24 year old boyfriend.)

  5. A guy that I know who is a meteorologist in Wichita Falls posted a photo to Twitter showing a giant snake swimming in the flood waters, so you’ve got that to potentially deal with too.

  6. Snakes. Snakes are what come next. I read an article this week that said all the rain here in Texas is bringing snakes out.

  7. Please be very careful about being outside. It sounds like you’ve got a mountain lion in your neighborhood. I definitely wouldn’t leave any of your animals outside unattended.

  8. Even in the Austin burbs Texas is trying to kill us. Got attacked by a mountain of fire ants yesterday while trying to mow the grass at the kids’ school so it would look nice the last week of school. Sorry kids, you’re going to have to fend for yourselves!

  9. We’re a few hour east of you all and we use Waze to find out if roads are closed due to flooding every time we go out. So. Much. Rain. The mosquitoes are getting to the point where a swarm of them might carry that mountain lion away.

    On the plus side, it’s much, much cooler than usual for this time of year.

    And to think, in 2011 there were state sponsored prayers for rain.

  10. Stay high and dry. Us northerners thought there was a drought down there — NOT ANYMORE! Just sending a note because I love the pop-ups the result from your weekly post! xo

  11. I would worry more about the cougar then a squirrelpocolypse. As frightening as squirrels can be, we have been up to our ankles in the little bastards, but a cougar is truly threatening. I love the piggy banks too…. 🙂

  12. Can you gather up the extra water and mail it to California? (BTW, if you make a basement, it won’t do you any good to hide in, because it will get flooded first.)

  13. The storms hit us about 6:30amish this morning. The husband knew we were under a tornado warning but didn’t say anything to the rest of us. I guess since we didn’t hear a freight train, he didn’t want to alarm us. All is okay though.

  14. With the flooding, it would be more prudent to finish the attic rather than a basement. Just sayin.

  15. Squirrelpocolypse???? I knew those spider-squirrels crawling over my apartment building were up to no good. Someone needs to teach them to use their power responsible. Did they not see what happened to Spiderman? Or maybe it’s retaliation because someone hit one with their car. Either way, we are doomed.

  16. My first reaction to “Texas is trying to kill us” was “Must be (insert day of week here).” If it’s not the flooding, tornadoes, cougars, and explosions, it’s the howler monkeys, summer temperatures, and barbecue. The latter is a slow, silent, delicious killer.

  17. Gee and people complain Australia is full of dangerous animals. Texas must be the Australia of the USA.

  18. After all of your exposure to the foxen over the years and you STILL don’t know the sound of the foxen? Tsk tsk stk. <3

  19. We have mountain lions, too here in DFW, but I think the rabbits that won’t stop eating my freaking flowers are possibly worse, although they do entertain the dog. And did you see that the rain is forcing the fire ants out of their usual places? Someone saw a flotilla of fire ants on the lake in Ft Worth earlier this week. FIRE ANTS. SWIMMING.

    I’ll take a mountain lion any day.

  20. So…. was that a fox screaming like a fox, or a fox imitating a howler monkey scream?

  21. Well that’s not at all freaky!

    STAY SAFE AND WATCH WALKING DEAD.
    I don’t know how to get through the squirrelpocolypse (lots of acorns perhaps) but The Walking Dead will definitely get you through those zombies! x

  22. Then zombie squirrels riding mountain lions covered in locusts. – This part confuses me. Are the zombie squirrels covered in locusts? Or it is the mountain lions? Cause it totally makes a difference.

  23. Jenny, sounds like the perfect time to come spend a week in DC and then attend AwesomeCon this weekend with us. I can even make up the guest room with the Disney Animated Movie of the 80’s or 90’s sheet set of your choice (except for the Hunchback of Notre Dame because no.)

  24. It’s not just Texas. In the park in Oregon’s state Capitol, we have signs warning people of the Attack Owl. Truth.

  25. A howler fox, maybe? Beware of dog-eating wildlife. We have coyotes in my small town neighborhood. When I asked a policeman if my schnauzer and beagle were too big for a coyote to challenge, he replied, “Don’t let them go outside alone.” WeeeeeEEEEEoooooo.

  26. Hope your flooding is all over. Maybe the mountain lion got swept to another town so he can send everyone RUNNING TO THE HOUSE! I was walking our dog the other night and was sure I heard an enormous swarm of bats descending. I soon realized it was one of those tacky spinny flower things hanging from my neighbor’s tree. Crisis averted.

  27. I need a mountain lion to eat the asshole raccoon that keeps making a giant mess out of my driveway/garbage can. I actually parked next to him the other night, made eye contact, and yelled at him. I think he flipped me off before he sauntered away. The little bastard is all swagger. Urban wildlife, these days. No respect.

  28. Oh, lawsey. The first time I ever heard a fox scream, I was chasing a (completely black) dog through the woods in the middle of the night because she was just a puppy and hadn’t learned that “Come here, dammit” was more than just a suggestion. I had never heard a fox before, and when it screamed from somewhere out in the darkness I was suddenly completely convinced of the existence of fiends. I don’t think I touched the ground more than twice the entire way back to the house.

  29. Please please please make another calendar. You could add important almanacky information about weather, frogs, howler monkeys, etc, but I LOVED my calendar and miss it (and YOU) so much!

  30. Isn’t Dorothy Barker TEENSY? Your living room is totally good enough. You can make her equally teensy agility equipment out of like, paper towel rolls or something.

    Our random screaming wildlife includes what I swear to God is a peacock one of our neighbors owns. Foxes have been sighted in my area, but I’ve never seen one. Oh, and we discovered that Elka the Doberman does not know the difference between cats and skunks. It’s a good thing she actually LISTENED when my fiancé called her back. And the skunk didn’t get alarmed.

  31. That screaming fox sounds WAY scarier than howler monkeys. Howler monkeys just sound like really big dogs. So… not particularly scary, except they sound like very large dogs, coming at you fast, from up in the trees. Pretty sure I’m not helping you. Stay safe there, OK?

  32. I haven’t heard a fox scream, but we’ve had a bear and deer in the yard.

    Deer are no sweet Bambi either. Disney lied. When the have a new fawn, they ATTACK. Dogs, people, whatever. Deer toe jam.

  33. Dogs are a tad big but a frog park would be awesome! They could eat the locusts and then the zombie squirrels could eat them while you run for it.

  34. I wish I was a little more talented with video editing. Because that fox video desperately needs to be patched into What Does The Fox Say. The question has been definitively answered.

  35. Fox screams are the worst. We hear them across the street every summer and I always have to run inside and put a pillow or something over my ears. Ugh. It makes my skin crawl just thinking about it!

  36. Texas needs to pull itself together goddamnit. I live in north tx (the town famous for recycling sewage water…yes that one) and the amount of rain we’ve gotten recently is equal to three fucking years of rainfall. THREE FUCKING YEARS IN A MATTER OF WEEKS. The whole damn town is basically flooded. Sooo should I start building an Ark now or just invest in a stand up paddle board for the time being?
    Get your shit together, Texas.

  37. Cashew butter. That’s your best weapon against the squirrelpocalypse. They are powerless against it. Just don’t let them know that you have any. Set it out somewhere where they will get taken out by the flood waters. Maybe the mountain lion will drown trying to get at the swarm of them also. Win win.

  38. I’m not even joking when I say that right now there is a locust emerging from its shell three feet from me on my patio.

  39. I’m fairly certain the plague of mosquitoes has already hit Texas. And my blood is mosquito crack, apparently.

  40. Did I just see a video of a cougar taking a selfie?

    And it seems that Texas has something to take its mind off the Army invasion. Good.

  41. Move to Manchester UK the worst we have to deal with is knife wielding teenagers in tracksuits but they run away if you offer them a cuddle.

  42. I once had a dream that a series of plagues was unleashed and the last, the most terrible and fearsome plague was of flying, butt-hole seeking bananas.

  43. I said the same thing in Oklahoma a couple weeks ago. Tigers, bears, tornadoes, and flooding. WHY THE FUCK AM I LIVING WHERE THE WEATHER WANTS TO KILL ME!?!? Oh yeah…the Air Force hates us. >.<

  44. The artwork was.. interesting? I was really going.. “WTF?” on most of them in my mind.. however, I got near the bottom to the turtle, and LOVE. <3 I kinda want it…

  45. Don’t forget River of blood. And that’ll bring out the vampires.

  46. You should see what’s left of the bridge on Fisher Road…. the flood even tore up the asphalt. Be careful!

  47. Photos like that are public service announcements to people who learned to drive during a drought — never drive into a puddle if you can’t see the bottom. There might not be a roadbed anymore….and even if there is, you really don’t want floodwaters in your engine & oilpan.

  48. I want to know more about the retired entertainment monkeys, actually. I keep picturing like a retirement home and monkeys trying to jump through hoops but failing. 😛

  49. I wish my life was half as interesting as yours. You already make my fucked up book feel inadequate, and I love you for it! Haha. Stay saff Bloggess, and remember, monkeys are always patient zero for plagues!

  50. Yowza did you know mountain lions will often find a place to pounce on you from above? Move to Toronto, the scariest things we have are fat raccoons and the occasional power outage.

  51. We’re in Leander and freaking out! This is my first Texas spring. Did we have to have the apocalypse this year? Stay safe!

  52. Holy shitballs, those plantimals are AMAZING.

    Also, please don’t die in a Texas rapture. We’re not prepared for that yet.

  53. I rarely miss living in Texas for all of the above reasons, LOL! On another note, I just finished reading “Let’s Pretend This Never Happened” and thoroughly enjoyed it! Than you for continuing to make me laugh, even when I really want to cry!

  54. Don’t forget the rain of blood. Just sayin’.

    Oklahoma is trying to kill us, too.

  55. Okay, go back to that kitty bank listing and click on all the other animal options. When you find the mouse one, the box says, “LITTLE MOUSE CHEES… good to eat!!… HEALTHY AND DELICIOUS… Green and safe” Make of that what you will.

  56. So I was sipping my Lime Ricky (#3) and my hubby was in the other room watching some sort of fox news mess. I cheked my favorite blogess and was rewarded with a terrifying fox call. My first thought was ” Hahaha, how are my cats reacting to this, hahahaha.” Then my husband came out of the bedroom saying ” Is that you? Are you okay? Did you hear that?” So he is pretty sure I made that noise, he’s not sure if i’m in distress or not and follows up with, am I ok. Nice. Thanks Honey.

  57. I live in mountain lion territory, and really they are not that scary. They are beautiful, in fact. But yes, keep Dorothy Barker with you at all times, no off leash running around. Also – foxes screaming? Scariest f-ing noise in the world.

  58. I know what you mean. It’s been lightning here for hours and my family in Austin – and San Marcos – had one frightening evening hiding in their closets due to tornadoes. My heart goes out to all those people – and animals – affected by all the floods and creeks rising. It’s really, really bad.

    As for snakes and all the critters… we get those where I live all the time. Copperheads (ALL the time)… scorpions… spiders (even recluse)… cougar (aka mountain lions)… and tons of grasshoppers and deer that love to eat everything we’re trying to plant. I live in Warda, by the way. (Texas; between La Grange and Giddings).

    You and Dorothy Barker stay dry!

  59. Oh! And a rabid skunk. We had one of those around here last summer. It was on our neighbor’s property about an acre over. For weeks I was terrified! Actually, there were two rabid skunks that we heard about, but that one was the closest to us.

    And then there’s the hawks, but… they’re always around. I’m just extra careful about them when my smallest dogs are out with me. One of them tried getting my pommie once… and she isn’t THAT little.

  60. I heard a bunch of space aliens in the woods behind my house one night. I knew they were space aliens because they sounded just like the ones from The Muppet Show (“Wah, wah, wah, wah, wahwahwahwahWAHWAHWAHWAH”), but with some really creepy high pitched shit at the end that I can’t figure out how to spell.

    Much later, I found out it was actually yearling male white tail deer, bleating because their mothers had kicked them out to make room for the new fawns. SO sad. I much preferred imagining Muppet space aliens dangling from trees and popping out of hollow logs, instead of the reality of homesick adolescent deer crying for their mommies.

  61. We called them cougars in NW Oregon where I grew up. One crossed the county road very near our house, so my cousin Steve and I snuck out that night to see if we could spot it. We saw something cat-like in the moonlight, got scared and climbed a tree. Some time later it dawned on us that cats of all sizes climb trees way better than small humans do, so we leapt down and ran back to the house. God, I felt brave up til then. Still do, actually.

  62. Squirrelpocolypse has started at my house! They have gotten in the eves and in the walls. I hear them scratching around trying to get in. They run along the windowsills and look in. They have no fear!!! I hear them plotting. The herd keeps growing. They are on the porch when we go out. I am scared! …Jen

  63. I heard fox-screams in the night a lot as a kid. Didn’t know what it was at the time and never thought to ask- apparently I just accepted that damned souls roamed our neighbourhood, seeking to drown their misery in human blood.

  64. If the scream of the fox made you shit yourself then the call of a screech owl will keep you up all night. Yeah, I don’t think the next plague will be locusts. I think it will be screech owls.

  65. Only YOU would live next to a sanctuary for retired entertainment monkeys.

  66. The comments are making me snort-laugh, too.

    You really having heard blood curdling screams until you hear a fisher cat under your window at 5AM . And you cat looks all, “Holy motherfuckingshitballs, what IS that?”

    Link to narrated fisher cat screams: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HrvdzCGjbzw Now imagine that (just the fisher, not the human) screaming about 6 feet away. Sounds like a murderer getting down to business on your doorstep.

    And be careful with DB; she has “snack” written all over her in invisible animal ink. xo

  67. Jenny– I love the kitty-cat bank. By chance did you click on the other banks for sale? I’m a bit concerned about the mouse one. It has an image of a mouse on it and words that say, “Little Mouse Chees” (not a typo), “Good to eat!” “Healthy and Delicious”, “Green and Safe”. All of those words are next to the adorable cartoon mouse. I’m not sure what this bank is supposed to be telling children. “Save your money kids!” or “Eat all your mice on your plate — it’s good for you!”.

  68. Jenny, please keep an eye out now for snakes because all that rain drives them out and to higher ground. We lost our beloved Chihuahua, Pepe, to a rattlesnake many years ago after a big storm just like the one we’ve experienced this week. The rattler was right up on our back porch. We live in the Hill Country like you do and had to make it a habit of doing a visual sweep of the ground when we went outside in the spring and summer. Dorothy Barker is so precious, a dog park in the house sounds perfect!

  69. Please know that my Totes Ma Goats tote bag came in and we used it this Sunday – any time someone would get a little cranky one of us would yell out Totes Ma Goats and we’d all start to laugh. It is the BEST THING EVER. Thank you!

  70. Reading about the weather in Texas makes me hope you and yours are safe and stay that way. I got the kitty bank for Christmas several years ago and still love it except when we hit it accidentally and it makes me and our cats jump 3 feet in the air. We love you here in Baja Arizona!

  71. Can’t you make a new rule as president: “No floods or plagues allowed!”? also, something like “All mountain lions must be on their best behavior when interacting with humans and dogs; especially at dog parks”? All this thinking is making me hungry… please pass the back bacon!

    (On a serious note, stay safe please!)

  72. i have that same bank. my brother and sis-in-law gave it to me as a holiday gift. i love making the kitty steal the coins, but i struggle with using it because my other bank is a copper colored flying pig. i mean, how am i supposed to choose?

    also, please be careful out there. between the floods and the mountain lions and potential squirrel-riding-zombies, i’m happy i don’t live in texas.

  73. This: “Texas wildlife is unsettling. 2 months ago Dorothy Barker and I were out at night & a howler monkey screamed at me & I almost shit myself.” made me laugh so hard I literally almost peed on my office chair. I don’t think my officemate would be pleased with me.

  74. Damn auto correct. Haven’t heard; or you ain’t heard nothin’ until a fisher screams under your window just as the day is brimming. Or the sun is beginning. And I need more caffeine.

    Oh, I forgot to say how much I love the sculptures. OMG full of gorgeous and so inspiring.

    Please post soon so we know you and your loved ones aren’t swept away by floods. Or lost to other general horribleness.

  75. ummm news fash… the SQUIRREL-POCOLYPSE is already happening…. At least i think so. My BF claimed to have been VICIOUSLY attacked by squirell last year, then we moved (about 10 blocks away) and we keep getting ZOMBIE squirrels trying to break into our apt…. smh at first i thought he might be a DISNEY PRINCESS, since it seems that they are only after him… but then they attacked… so…. see… SQUIRREL-POCOLYPSE in full effect ya’ll!!!

  76. We have coyotes and Mexican wolves here. That and the fact that we live 1 mile from The Columbus Zoo. I’m tellin’ ya, some of those critters are escape artists. Like the giraffe. Who knew? The roaring of the big cats can be heard early every morning…which is why I sleep until late afternoon. Sometimes.

  77. Thinking of you Jenny and hoping that you’re safe. Please put water wings on Hunter.

  78. Hey, could you post a “we are alive” post so that those of us who know you are in Texas but don’t know where (and tend toward worry) can stop worrying?

    (I’m ALIVE! ~ Jenny)

  79. Just came here to check in to see if you were OK only to see I wasn’t the only one. Hope you stay high and dry! Not “high” but “high”. You know what I mean.

  80. Ok, totally weird and crazy random happenstance – Sunday evening my husband and I were sitting out on our back deck w/ some friends and heard what can only be described as a pterodactyl screech. We thought maybe it was an owl, although we couldn’t find an owl call on youtube (because, youtube, repository of all owl calls, doncha know) that sounded like what we’d heard. We heard it a couple more times before it fell silent, and finally decided it was either some weird-ass owl with laryngitis, or one of the neighbors getting freaky – then I saw your fox video today and that is the EXACT sound that we heard! (I live in Ohio, we have plenty of foxes roaming these parts…) So thanks! You were educational today! Go you!

  81. That bank is ridiculously cute, but I might be offended by the description on Amazon. Haven’t decided yet.

  82. Oh my goodness, my kids LOOVE that kitty bank. It entertains my 2 and 5 year old for hours. Be warned for your Canadian occupation that the poor kitty can’t swallow loonies or twonies (we had some rogue Canadian coins kicking around the house.

  83. We were driving across country and made it to New Mexico when we heard about the floods. I hope everything is calming down there now. I’ve heard the screams of a fox in the woods and it’s quite chilling. My nephew in college who designs video games did this game where you are lost in the woods and will die if you don’t find fire, shelter and food by nightfall. That game scared the hell out of me and he used the sound of a screaming fox on the soundtrack. It’s surprisingly effective at being scary. I’ve never heard a howler monkey but when we lived in South Africa the Vervet monkeys would scream like nobody’s business. It wasn’t a scary scream though, just loud.

  84. Mountain Lions are so beautiful – ON TV!! AACK! What an ordeal all y’all have been going through. I have been checking up on friends and so far, so good, but what a BIG mess. (Everything’s bigger in Texas, after all.) (Why can’t that just apply to cookies or tacos?)

    I am so glad you are safe.

  85. Most common capacities are 5000 litres, 10000 litres,
    and 20000 litres. In other words, structures would be designed or modified to collect the natural
    rainfall that falls onto the property, purify it and then store it in cisterns until the water
    is needed by the occupants of the building. The most popular types and styles of these include the following:.

Leave a Reply

Discover more from The Bloggess

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading