The Visitor

A few weeks ago as I was running on the treadmill (my new favorite past-time) I saw a VERY LARGE raccoon out the basement window. He appeared to have a hurt paw. I called the kids to come and see as I can't say that we've ever had a visitor like that in our yard before.

Over the last few weeks, I've seen the raccoon several times. I'm sure they are complete pests, but I rather enjoyed watching him hobble around our yard. What a fascinating creature God made!!

On Monday morning, TRASH DAY, I noticed a considerable mess in front of our house. It appeared that something had a hey day with the one trash bag that didn't fit into the lidded trash container. A dog I thought. (I know now, clearly, it was our friend, the raccoon.)

So Wednesday night I popped into the garage to put something into a soccer backpack, and there was our friend, that raccoon, in the garage, helping himself to our trash. I surveyed the situation. Hmmmm. It's 9 pm, the garage door was still up, the light in the garage was on, and there was a bag of trash that didn't quite make it into the lidded trash container. Either this raccoon was really smart or through a comedy of errors, we actually invited the raccoon to dinner.

I was very surprised to see him, but he didn't seem very surprised to see me. He looked up at me as I opened the door. Our eyes met. I said, "get out of our garage." And he just looked at me. Kinda like my kids do sometimes like, "whatever." Then he looked away and returned to pawing through our trash.

Alright, you asked for it, raccoon!! I called the exterminator immediately! "Johnny, there is a raccoon in our garage!" "OK" came the reply (a little reluctant I might add...) So my hero chased the creature out of the garage with a broom. He did get hissed at, but all is well.

In hindsight I realized a few things. 1) We have cabin fever. The sun was out yesterday and it warmed up to somewhere in the 40's! WOW! Why close the garage door? 2) Parker needs to be talked to regarding the importance of completing a task. Placing the trash bag in the garage beside the trash can=not quite good enough....must put it ALL the way in, AND CLOSE THE LID!

My only regret? Not taking a picture of that silly thing staring me up!