The Capture

Finally the conclusion of the lizard story...between frequent power outages and other busyness I am just getting to posting about what happened to our scaly visitor.

The lizard wasn't interested in the popcorn I scattered on the storage room floor in case you were wondering...in fact after I scared him by taking his picture he hid behind one of the storage bins and didn't come out again.  Around 5:00pm Chris came home and soon after our friend Dave and his son Britton arrived to nab the intruder, here's how it all went down...

As you can see Mr. Lizard was NOT excited about getting to know us up close and personal.  After he squirted out that stinky goo on the storage room floor he threw up a (barely) live toad he had obviously recently eaten.  Luckily he was outside when that happened so we didn't have to clean it up from the floor.  

After that adventure, and because we have had lots of trouble with stray cats wandering in and urinating on our things in the storage area, we decided that since we need to keep doors open to the storage area during the day to maintain good ventilation, we needed some sort of screens to keep the critters out.  The next day Chris went to work with PVC pipe, zip ties, mesh screening, and hooks and made a couple of screens strong enough to keep out unwanted guests, but easy for us to move when we need to drive our motorcycles in and out.  

The screens have been working great so far and I am thankful.  I can only imagine how terrifying it would have been to head out to the storage area to look for extra contact solution, or medicine, or decorating stuff and getting attacked or at the very least unpleasantly surprised by a lurking monitor lizard-horrible.  I don't mind looking at lizards contained in a cage, and the little geckos that climb up and down our walls and scuttle across our floors don't bother me a bit, but a critter that big and nasty is a different matter entirely!

Just another story to add to my collection of tropical animal encounters, and may I just say that I am fine if that particular volume in my series of overseas living adventures is complete.

Somehow I don't think I am that lucky.

More soon...maybe even later today...about a very sweet animal that stayed with us for a little while and Chris's first solo flight in the Caravan!

Yikes!

As I write this critter is just one room away from me...

It's a bit hard to see him in this picture, but this monitor lizard wandered into our storage area today (we keep it open to the outside during the day because it is poorly ventilated and gets damp and moldy if we don't).  I was sitting at the table working on something when I heard a scuffling noise from the side door into our storage room and I looked out just in time to see the lizard's long tail slide behind one of the stacks of plastic storage bins we have out there.  My first thought after my initial "Eeek!" was to get a picture.  This was hard to do without getting too close and I wasn't about to venture anywhere near the beastie's hiding place, no way!  I snapped this one of him peaking out from behind the boxes...you can see his eye glowing...

When he finally ventured out I got the better shot of him that I showed you first, and scared him away in the process so he is hiding again.  

It's all fine and good that I got some pictures and now have this story to tell you, but now I would like this little monster out of our storage room...I'm really not wanting him to decide he likes the place and take up residence.  I am NOT interested in a reptilian surprise next time I move around the boxes to look for more contact solution or home decorations.  I text messaged Chris at work and he promptly answered with a text asking me to trap the lizard in the storage room because one of the other MAF guys wants it, presumably to show his kids.  

So here I sit, snacking on popcorn and writing to you with a large lizard imprisoned in the room just off my kitchen waiting for the guys show up after 5pm .

Nothing like keeping life exciting.

I wonder if monitor lizards like popcorn?

I'll keep you posted.