First off, I will finish the story about the raccoons, although the story is not finished, and will no be until every raccoon is dead, or I am. Friday morning, I noticed evidence of cat-fighting in the living room. And when I went to the laundry room, I noticed that the bottom had been torn out of the cat food sack. Well, the last critter that came in and did that was a big ol' ugly 'possom. Coupla years ago, though, it was a 'coon. Anyways, I was thinking 'possom, and not too worried about it, opossums are not very likely to do a full-scale invasion. As we found out Friday night, though, 'coons will. Karen and I were watching the ball game, each of us with a cat on our laps, when the cats perked up their ears, and I heard a noise in the laundry room... the cat door closing. Being as sneaky as I could be, I slowly headed that direction, when they must've heard me and hit the door. I ran to the back door and turned on the light, and there were two, not one, 'coons waddling across the deck and disappearing under it. I yelled at Karen, and she watched out the door as they made their re-appearance... they weren't going to let such a healthy food source go without a fight! And there were not two, but four of the critters. One of them was up in the tree, and the others were hanging around on the edges of the deck, waiting for the light ot go off. I got a picture of the one in the tree, if I can ever find where I put it on the disk... I've got way too many places to put stuff. I've got a search going for it now, but it's indexing and spinning its wheels, and making it impossible to do anything else... Well, dammit! I had thought that I saved those pictures, so I erased the smartmedia card that they were on to take it to Lacee's skating party. I must've not saved them after all. At any rate, the cat door is now blocked off, and the cats are unhappy about it. I'd love to be able to keep them inside permanently, but Karen won't do it, so I'm not even gonna try... Karen got up early this morning to go pick up Brian in Lawrence, the she came back and helped Kim get ready for the party at the skating rink. I went over about 13:30 and sat around for an hour or so, watching the skaters and resisting the urge to try it... it's been about 40 years or so since I had on skates. It's been less time than that for Karen, only about 20 years. Of course, she had casts on both wrists for three months after that... she wasn't eager to put skates on today. Among other presents, Lacee got a hamster and a cage. I hope that it'll play well with her doggie, they're about the same size! I know that the cats here would love to have one around.... Today's picture is of Lacee just after the candles on her cake were lit, but before she blew them all out. Her birthday was actually on the 20th, eight years old, I think.
O'well, they weren't really that good, and if you've seen one 'coon in a tree there's not much use in looking at another, is there?