The Critters Raised a Ruckus!

I moved houses with my Dad most of my life starting in about 1954. After he passed away in 1975, I continued with my three brothers George Jr., John and my youngest brother Dennis.

In all of my experiences of crawling under old buildings, I often am asked if we ever encountered any snakes or other critters under theses buildings as they were raised up from the ground. As a matter fact there have been numerous times that critters came running out from under there and some even remained stubborn and had to be physically removed! Here is just one example:

This one old barn located in the community of Gonzales was to be raised and moved to a location on the same property but closer to the main road. This structure had a wooden floor but the foundation had rotted to the point where it was sitting almost flat on the ground. The barn was sitting there in the middle of nowhere with nothing but mesquite trees all around as far as the we could see. Naturally we figured there had to be critters under there, so we were ever watchful for snakes as we set our jacks around the perimeter of the building. Of the four brothers, I suppose I was the slimmest one. So it was usually me that crawled under the structures to set a hydraulic jack under the center of the floor to keep it from sagging while the crew walked around and around the building pumping the railroad track jacks a notch or two at a time to start raising the building. On this occasion the barn was too low to crawl under so we just pulled up a board or two in the center of the building and inserted a few jacks easily enough. As we raised this building about six inches, we heard a commotion under there! All of a sudden two large raccoons and four smaller ones scurried out from under there and scared the heck out of brother Dennis as they all ran around and between his legs as he was operating one of the jacks. After we watched them disappear in the mesquite, we continued to raise this barn higher so we could put our wheels under it. There was a lot of accumulated debris and old hay under there. We were on our knees trying to push the dollies under the barn when we noticed the ground starting to literaly move under us. Not knowing what to expect, we paused for a moment and I prodded that part of the ground with a jack bar. All of a sudden four large armadillos sprang up and started running in all directions. We got startled but knowing they couldn’t do us any harm, we let them run off and proceeded to load the barn.

Whenever we were about to pull out of the location, I always cleared the path of the dollies with a 2x4 board or a shovel to make sure there wasn’t broken glass or maybe a board with a nail sticking up that might cause a flat tire. As I was clearing this path further under the barn, I noticed an indention in the ground with a lot of hay and fuzzy material covering it. After clearing off this material, I uncovered a mamma possum with babies latching on to her. I tried to shoo it away but she wouldn’t bulge. Knowing she was in the wheels path and would get squashed once we got moving, I picked her up by the tail and carried her to safety. The babies had all retreated into her pouch on her belly and were safely tucked away as I released her unharmed into the grass. We relocated the barn that day and I guess all the critters had to relocate also. But with all that acreage around, I’m sure they all found a new home.

To be continued....