Imagine my surprise when I woke up one morning to this sight in our back yard:
The funny thing is that I thought it was human vandalism. What animal could possible be capable of such a thing? Raccoons is the answer. Lovely. Did I mention that this was just PART of the damage? Of course (as it seems to be the case when anything goes wrong) Mark was out of town so I got to put it back all by myself. Well, it didn't just happen once. After about the third time we decided to get creative so my little helpers went to Home Depot and bought chicken wire and some stakes. We raided the croquet set for the wickets and tried to stake the lawn down. To no avail...they came back again, and again, and again. The worst part is that I didn't even want to go outside, even in the day. I had visions of the raccoons sliding down Wyatt's slide. Ugh. Nature.
We finally resorted to hiring a man to trap them. You pay an initial set-up fee and then a fee per "critter". Lucky us! We caught two opossums. This was becoming one expensive wildlife lesson for Wyatt. He became very well versed in the whole situation. He will happily tell people about "those naughty raccoons". The neighbor kids got to see the opossum up close. Funny, they seem so friendly in storybooks.
Finally, as my dad would say we "Got eem." One on Tuesday night and one on Wednesday night. The "raccoon man" (as Wyatt calls him) said that they were two of the biggest raccoons he has seen all summer. I think I know why. The underside of our lawn has never been cleaner. Let's hope we're done with this saga now. I'm so glad I had a zoom lens for these photos.
Did I mention that we are fighting a major ant infestation inside our house as well? Who knew that that pretty lookin' house I showed in those photos would come with so many treasures? We do like it though. I promise.
2 comments:
Sounds like fun - not !!
Need to see some pictures of your house, now that your settled.
Hope your all well.
Possums are so much cuter in a cartoon version!
Post a Comment