The Blight Of The Iguana

Well it seems that Britney and Lindsey, the back yard cats, have settled in nicely. They come when I call them, and Britney will actually sit on my lap. One thing about them however, is that they have yet to show any inclination towards hunting the various vermin that visit our yard. Just yesterday they sat sunning themselves next to the pool, while just three feet away a pigeon strutted back and forth, picking up the crumbs of leftover cat food. I guess they really are like Britney and Lindsey, and thought the pigeon was just there to clean up after them.

One of the critters I expected the cats to help control were the iguanas. This past summer the yard was infested with them, and while they do look exotic and add to the tropical ambience, they eat the flowers and other plants. Luckily nature sometimes takes care of things. The first two weeks of January took us through the longest cold spell that I can ever remember in the twenty one years I have lived here. Iguanas cannot take more than two days of below forty degree temperatures, and after the first day of such cold they were dropping out of the trees in a semi-conscious state. By the second day of frigid temperatures they were starting to die, and now I am coming across dead iguanas everywhere. Actually I am not finding them on my own, Chandler is finding them in among the bushes, and dragging them out to where I can get them. I don't think Chandler is actually pulling them out for me, as much as he is trying to get them out to where he can munch on them more easily. I just have to be alert, because he can swallow the small ones faster than I can suck down a vodka cocktail.