It Rained Today

We have a few large globs of dough on our roof.

If tomorrow's a hot, sunny day then we'll have everyone over for fresh baked bread.

(The person who finds the most raccoon hairs wins.)

The Raccoon Capture

So my idea of flour on the roof wasn't so crazy after all. 

Look at all these tracks:

When I went on the roof, the raccoon was just staring at me.

The kids spent the morning on the roof bonding with the "cute" raccoon.

There's a picture of Rex letting it go about ten miles away from our house.  (I will upload it later).

Stay Tuned...

I don't think the story's over yet.  First of all, there were two sets of tracks leading out from the pile of flour over the porch.  And, secondly, as I was walking home in the dark after the first raccoon was captured, I shone my flashlight right into a pair of yellow shining eyes coming out of a dark shape with pointed ears sitting at the base of our tree.

Tracking the Raccoon

Due to my recent encounter with a raccoon I've decided to research about the little varmints. 

These facts stood out to me:

• Raccoon droppings may carry a parasite that can be fatal to humans.

• Raccoons make several types of noises, including hissing, growls, snarls, and snorts.
• If found in a chimney, then sprinkle coyote urine or raccoon eviction fluid on a rag and wedge it in above the damper.  (Yes, that was coyote urine.  We always keep a large quantity of that on hand, you know, just in case.) 
• Signs of raccoon predation in a chicken coop include the birds’ heads bitten off and left some distance away, only the bird’s crop being eaten, stuck birds pulled half-way through a fence, and nests in severe disarray.
• Raccoons have been known to be able to maneuver door knobs.
• Raccoons can carry rabies.

This research got me feeling a little concerned.  I asked a neighbor what she would do if she had a raccoon living in her garage.  She replied, "I think they eat fish.  So you could feed it that."

I decided to ask a different neighbor.  I wasn't really in the market for a pet raccoon.  (I won't even let my kids get a dog.) 

Rex went to town instead to buy a live trap and set it on our roof where I've been hearing creature sounds off an on over the past year.  (We thought it was mice last fall, but the traps all stayed empty.)

This morning I woke up at 4:00 to the sounds of scuffling overhead.  I decided I wanted to know what this creature had been doing and where it was staying before it was caught in Rex's trap.  So I jumped out of bed grabbed my highly technical "raccoon tracking gear" (bread flour, a measuring cup, and a flashlight) and climbed to the roof.  I got out my flashlight and looked around.

There was nothing on the roof and no animal in the trap.

I took my "gear" and started spreading flour around the roof's surface so I could see what footprints would show up.

It was cold, and deathly still as I worked.

Suddenly I heard a deep guttural growling sound behind me.  I gasped and nearly lost my footing.  Shaking, I turned around.

All I saw was a pipe.  A pipe that was sucking in air to flush the toilet.  I guess Rex was up.  He came outside and got a good laugh as he watched me shaking on the roof with my huge container of flour.

We'll just see who gets the last laugh when that scientifically spread flour turns up some interesting clues in...

...the case of the scuffling creature.

(By the way, does anyone know if it's going to rain tonight?)

The Mystery of the Scuffling Creature

We've had some sort of rustling, thumping creature disturbing the peace of our garage lately.  Megan heard it hiss one morning after she heard something out there fall.  I also heard some major scuffling in the garage when I was up late helping the Easter bunny, but when Rex and I opened the door, we couldn't see anything there. 

A few days later, the kids were home alone when they heard it again.  They did what any self-respecting kids would do: they started scaring themselves half to death...
"There's that sound again.  What is it?!"
"Jenny said she heard it the other night too."
"I heard it hiss.  Do ghosts hiss?"
"Maybe it's a person.  Maybe somebody is living in our garage!"
Just then a bird flew head on into the window right by where the girls were talking.  They ran screaming up to their bedroom and huddled on the bed until Rex and I came home.

The next night I was helping Alicia with homework at the table right by the garage when we heard it again.  We stopped talking and then she ran away.  Nice back up.  I was left alone to finally solve this plaguing mystery.  I stood by the garage and flipped on the light right before I jerked open the door.

The mystery was solved.

Just above me was a fat raccoon scurrying along the rafters.
By the time Rex and the kids got there it was gone.
Rex took care of the situation though.

 He looked at me and said, "Well, did you ask if he wanted a hug?"

Frog Prizes

I have a question-- Why is it legal to stuff living creatures into plastic bags on a roasting hot day then hand them out to small children? July 4th might as well double as National Cruelty to Animals Day. This level of cruelty doesn't seem to happen on any other holiday. Can you imagine bagged kittens left on porches for Christmas morning, or boxed puppies handed out on Halloween?

Usually the animal is a fish. This year it was frogs. At least this year they came with instructions. And I was happy to find that at least one kid--my niece--not only read them, but actually followed them too.

I was making lunch on the Fourth of July when she burst into my house in a panic saying, "Jenny, you have to save our frogs!!! They're going to die!!"

I assured her the best I could by saying, "I'm afraid that fate was decided for them when they were purchased for game prizes."

Undeterred she said, "But you have to help us! The water can't have chlorine in it or it will eat the frog's skin. We need to use some of your stored well water."

With my fingers covered in fruit juice, I took the plastic bag and set it on the counter, not realizing it was open. It immediately tipped and spilled water all over the floor, while the frogs were jumping wildly around between layers of plastic. Luckily, my sister-in-law arrived at this time and I turned the amphibious heroics over to her.

Besides the fact that the frog's life expectancy decreases tremendously by becoming a prize, the other problem is that suddenly the family has an unplanned pet. After personally resuscitating our pet cat from near death and syringe-feeding it for over a week while my cat allergies went crazy--and the kids looked on--I have forbidden future pet ownership.

But, without my knowledge, Megan had won a frog which she planned to share with a cousin. When I found out she was planning to take a turn bringing the frog home, I reminded her that she forgot to ask.

Megan: "Okay, fine. Can I have a frog?"

I decided to employ the "absolutely, but first" plan which works well in these situations. I mostly use it when the kids ask if they can play games on the computer. I'll say, "Absolutely!! But first you have to practice the piano, take a shower, cut your fingernails, get your room inspection-ready, and catch up on all your homework and thank you letters."

In reference to the frog I said, "Absolutely!! But first, you need to write an essay about the type of frog you won. Then you need to write an informational pamphlet detailing care instructions like where to buy the food--including a comparison price chart from the different pet stores."

Rex: "Yeah, and make sure you include the proper etiquette to be followed at a frog birthday party."

Me: "Right. Very important. And, finally, you'll need to earn the money yourself to buy all the food and any other necessary commodities."

Megan: "Well, the frog needs..."

Me: "Oh, no. This is not an oral report; it must be typed out."

Megan: "So are you saying I can't have the frog?"

Me: "No. I'm saying you can. Absolutely!!"

Capturing---Mouse Hunt Series #4

One tiny mouse.

Hoodwinking---Mouse Hunt Series #3

We baited the mouse traps with irresistible mousy things like cheese and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups. And we chose well. The bait wasn't resisted. The traps were. When we checked the traps yesterday, all the bait was gone and so were the mice. No sign of them.
So we tested the trap with a pencil: lightning fast. We are dealing with some pretty intelligent critters. (Oh, and one unfortunate 3-year-old, who left one sticky trap baitless on a foray into the storage room.)
Well, Rex isn't messing around anymore. He came back from the store this morning with no less than 12 traps. I was like, "Dude. You're not putting all of those up." And he was like, "Yes I am. I am at war. This is a war."
So there's a trap like every six inches. Now we'll wake up to some full traps, or we'll have serviced an all-you-can-eat mouse buffet.
(Oh yeah, and 3-year-olds aren't allowed anymore. They'll have to find snacks elsewhere.)

Ripping---Mouse Hunt Series #2

I had burrowing on my mind last night when I was getting ready for bed, which explains why every noise I heard was attributed to creatures. One particular noise really got me nervous. I kept hearing a ripping noise. When it got too obvious to ignore, I got Rex out of bed and asked him to check the traps he'd baited with Reese's.

Nothing.

"But I hear ripping noises!" I said. "Listen."
He heard them too and we both listened as every few seconds the ripping noise repeated itself.
"The creatures are probably down there ripping into our food," I lamented.
We ran back downstairs and listened. Nothing. We ran back upstairs and discovered the noise getting louder as we neared the girls' room. I barged into the room to see Megan and Alicia quietly reading. As Megan turned a page I heard, you guessed it, the ripping noise.
"Well," Rex said, "now that we know it's Megan, we can be sure we've put out the right bait."

Burrowing---Mouse Hunt Series #1

I felt so much less white trash when we built our food storage room. Until yesterday. I was walking down the concrete stairs to get something munchy, when I started noticing that I was walking through piles of dirt. Being the mother of four in a white trash house, I'm used to piles of dirt, but something made me stop and think.

The dirt must have come from the packed dirt walls of the staircase. And the dirt would only be pushed from the packed walls if someone were scraping it off, or. . . if someTHING WERE BURROWING!

I looked at the walls and, yep, an animal-sized hole right by the fresh piles of dirt.

When Rex came home from work, we had one of our catching-up-on-the-day conversations like, "So the kids were good, piano lessons went well, there's something burrowing into our storage room, I paid the heating bill..."

To Do List

This is what I really didn't want to have on my to do list yesterday:

Figure out what to do with the mouse in our laundry room
that is partially stuck to a spider trap full of hobos,
and is flopping around and squeaking.

But I did have it on my list. And to be honest, everything else on my list got completely neglected. Instead of doing the laundry like I planned, I decided to start screaming like a maniac. Then I called Rex 829 times because that's oh so very much more productive than just handling the situation. When he didn't answer either of his phones any of those 829 times, I decided to handle this myself: I called my dad. Unfortunately, he wasn't home.

So, what could I do? I'll tell you.

I just left it there.

But only after some major attempts to psych myself up to take care of it. I found some thick work gloves, rounded up no less than three possible containers to dispose of the mouse, and then totally considered doing something.

Edith was the first adult I saw after discovering the mouse. Looking for sympathy, and using my whiniest voice possible I said, "Eeedith. There's a mouse stuck to our spider trap!"

Her response was a stoic, "Yeah, that happens." She was already over it. When she says yeah, that happens does that mean that happens to her? Often?

Well, in any case I was going to act totally casual too so that I could be in the yeah, that totally happens club instead of belonging to the I'm freaking out and can't handle anything club. It just seemed like a much cooler club.

Because the mouse stayed on the trap all day, I took the necessary precautions: when Andrew's friends came over to play I said, "Andrew shut the laundry room door so that if the mouse gets off the trap, he won't bite your toes."

And then I was supportive when he said, "But there's a space under the door that the mouse can crawl through! We're just going to play upstairs."

Then Rex called and I basically told him to come home right now because I needed help! And he said, though he'd love to, he's going to have to work late tonight.

The man ended up working 14 hours! On mouse day! Really.

But, when he got home, he immediately took care of the mouse. And I finally got to do my laundry.

The Skunk

🦨

You know you're white trash when your husband wakes you up at 4:00 in the morning to give you instructions on how to kill a skunk.

It goes something like this:
"Hey, wake up. I trapped a skunk, and I need you to kill it because I'm late for river rafting."
"But I don't kill skunks."
"It's easy. Just leave it out in the sun to die, and then bury it in the back yard."
"But, I don't kill skunks."
"Well, I can't do it. I'm late already and I've got no bullets in my gun."
"But just yesterday I saved two baby birds by hand feeding them every half hour until I found their nest and put them safely back in it. I don't kill things." (This really happened the day before, but I used a little poetic license. It was mostly the girls who fed them, and it was some neighbors who helped find the nest and put them back. But I totally supervised.)
"Well, you don't have to kill it. Just leave it in the trap and the sun will kill it. I'm really late now. I've got to go."

I lay there in bed wrestling with my conscience and trying to figure out what to do. I thought about those little baby birds. And I thought about the skunk. That poor little skunk. She'll get so hungry out there. . . Maybe I could feed her those little baby birds. . .

. . . wait. . .
I digress. . .

I really didn't want to have skunk blood on my hands. Not only because I would feel terrible, but it would stink SO bad!!

No, really, I couldn't kill the skunk. I decided I would set it free. I marched straight out there and analyzed the situation. I saw a steel trap encasing a little fluffy sleeping skunk. (They're so cute when they're asleep.) And I thought I saw what needed to happen to open the cage. I got closer and started working the lever as quietly as I could, but eventually the skunk stirred and I was back in the house before I knew I had started running.

A little while later I ventured out again. This time I was sure I could open the trap, but my concentration was once again interrupted by a moving skunk tail. Finally, I gave up on the trap, and settled on protecting the skunk from the sun with a white sheet (Maybe the same sheet I would later use to fix up a nice dog house for my husband when he came home.)

My best friend, upon hearing my troubles, came right over to help me. She didn't think we should settle on protecting it, but wanted to help me on my original crusade to free it. We put plastic over the top of the cage and started working vigorously with the trap to get it open. We worked so vigorously that the skunk gave us everything she was worth.

My neighbor, 'smelling trouble', came over to see what was going on. I informed him that we were letting the skunk go. He looked at me like I was crazy (now, why would he do that?). Then he said, in his very nicest voice, "Could you please not do that?"

At this point I gave in and said he could kill it. But I asked if he could shoot it instead of letting it die slowly with the heat of the sun.

As I headed inside to take a long shower after an even longer day, I heard the gunshot and was blasted by skunk aroma. Drenched in skunk, and feeling exhausted, I showered off and planned a river rafting trip with my friends.