Of creepy, crawly things and coyote urine

I am massaging a bag of coyote urine and wondering what series of events had brought me to this moment. The small green bag, ordered online from Amazon, emitted a faint, not unpleasant minty smell. I gave my little dog a whiff and he was verrrrrry interested.

Guess there’s more going on in that little bag than I can sense.

This is good, because it has a job to do: scare off the varmint that has called our backyard home.

The long warm days of summer and mild winters of California do more than draw people from around the country. Critters large and small creep and crawl around my home, wanting to move in with us.

So far, I have battled multiple incursions of ants, pantry moths and spiders. I relocated a little gopher that burrowed in our front lawn and peeked out at me curiously as I turned the hose on his cozy home. I’ve faced a horror story of maggots that spilled from our outdoors garbage bin one day.

And there’s a war going on in my garden between aphids and ladybugs that’s advancing to a critical point.

This is not to say that other places don’t have invasions of wildlife. I’ve heard of a bear break-in in Alaska, we suffered skunks and raccoons in Idaho, and there was that sleepless summer of house crickets when we lived in Las Vegas.

Those were rarities. In my new home, every season unleashes its own flurry of species and I’ve learned to welcome some -- such as lizards, hummingbirds and doves -- even as I repel others.

I draw the line at possums. For weeks, we’ve been stumped in how to get rid of it. It ignores my dog’s frantic barking, my thumps on the fence where he hides, and whatever we can (softly) rain down on it to encourage it to move on. It just doesn’t care. Just over the fence, in our yard, is water and a smorgasbord of garden vegetables.

Thus, the urine, which I’ve been assured will do the trick, making it believe a more serious predator is lurking.

We'll see. I sure hope coyote urine doesn't attract a whole new slew of critters to my door.