javelina hoe down

The first few days we were camping I was very careful not to leave "smelly garbage" in the trash outside our tent...but then one day I forgot. We had friends join us for lunch at our campsite. As we combined our foods to create a yummy lunch of tuna-avocado salad sandwiches I discarded some avocado and tomatoes that had passed their expiration date. I believe the smell of these rotting veggies wafting from the plastic bag tied to a chair in our campsite was responsible for drawing the wildlife to our tent at 2 AM in the morning.

I awoke to a bump in the middle of the night. Then there was a crash. As I nudged my husband to see if he was awake and aware of the intruders, I heard the plastic container with our food stash being overturned and emptied. As my husband removed his hunting knife from the mesh shelf over our bed I began praying in tongues. I pictured a bear devouring our food and then searching the tent for desert. As we felt around in the dark trying to locate the keys to the truck we heard our visitors begin to squabble over our garbage. Their noises changed from huffing and puffing to snorting. I relaxed a bit when my husband announced that our visitors were javelina and not the bear that I thought.

Photo from Wikipedia

Once we located the truck keys we were able to startle the large rodents out of our campsite by hitting the alarm button. We exited our tent, plugged in a spotlight, and joined our tenting neighbors who had been awakened by the rumpus. The men started out on a javelina chase armed with one hunting knife, two handguns, and as many rocks as they could find. They chased the garbage thieves through the woods and away from our campsite.

After a bit my husband returned and we gratefully climbed back into the warmth of the sleeping bag to finish the rest of the night.

The next morning, in the light of day, we found our uninvited guests had not only consumed our garbage but two loaves of bread that had been in our food container.

The moral of this story: always removed the smelly garbage from your campsite before going to bed.