roadkill

From the misty mornings til dark the logging trucks blow by on two-lane Highway 99 outside my front door. They don't seem to downshift through town, despite the 40 mph speed limit.
And along the highway is evidence of their passing: squirrels, skunks, deer, snapping turtles, possums, raccoons and, especially, armadillos. My father says there is a reason for the latter: Armadillo eggs split into four and they give birth to quadruplets, thus upping the armadillo population very quickly. (I found myself surfing the web to find out whether armadillos could climb into my truck after the garbage. Answer: they can climb.)
Perhaps the saddest of the animals sharing roads with log trucks is the box turtle. In a certain month (I forget which now) they start getting frisky and crossing roads—very slowly—in search of some action. Public service advisories on the local radio stations suggest stopping, if it's safe, and placing the turtle on the roadside in the direction it's heading. Unfortunately, on these two-lane roads there usually no shoulders and no place to pull off the road without tipping over. So we slalom, and occasionally damage ourselves or other humans.