What IS a javelina, you may ask?? Well, it looks like a wild boar. Sort of like a hairy pig. They can get to be pretty big. And did I tell you that they SMELL bad? Kind of like musk - skunk - can't describe it. But you can smell them way before you see them. They travel in packs. Wild. And they can be vicious.
When we first moved to Tucson, we lived in a very nice house in a development - about 900 houses in this development. Our house backed up to a desert area. There were mesquite trees on the other side of the fence. Mesquite trees have beans. Beans attract javvies. (prounced Havvies, our pet family name for them). We used to have PACKS of them almost every night at our back fence. I should have known better, but I used to go outside with carrots and apples, and they would poke their smelly faces through the fence at me and grab - right from my fingers - their treats. My dogs would go insane, so I would leave them inside while I played with my wild pigs. Good thing I didn't get my fingers chomped off.
THEN it was halloween. Do you know what is front of many houses at Halloween time? You guessed it - PUMPKINS. Big YUMMY Pumpkins. Javvies were all over the streets, going wild with pumpkins. You haven't lived until you've seen a sight like this!! (thank you wikepedia for the picture). I've tried to take pictures of them, but they travel at night, and my pictures are BAD. So are the Javvies. :0)
