OF ALL THE GIN JOINTS IN ALL THE TOWNS IN ALL THE WORLD, SHE WALKED INTO MINE

I know I have been M.I.A. and I apologize for that.  Sometimes life just gets in the way.

I wanted to mention my latest adventure.  The day before yesterday Maggie had been out in the side yard barking, something she rarely does.  She runs around and acts crazy, but seldom barks.  She started in again yesterday afternoon so I thought I would go see what she was up to.  The only thing on that side of the house is the neighbor's dog on the other side of the fence.  A little old, blind dog that is rarely out so I thought something might not be right.  Boy, was I correct!

I was under the distinct impression that the state of Colorado knew we were here and had taken care of all the wild west and wild animal "nonsense." Oh, no!!! We have basements here in Colorado.  Lovely basements with lots of potential.  That also means basement window wells such as this. We have three of them along that side of the house.  Maggie was standing by the one that closest to the front having fits.  The side fence goes over part of it so it's open to the back yard and the front.  I got this sinking feeling that a poor little bunny fell in and couldn't get out.  That would have not been too bad.  I could have figured out how to get the poor little furry thing out.

Was it a bunny?  No!!!!  Of course not!!!! That's what would have happened to anyone else but me.  Staring up at me was a rather large raccoon.  I could just hear it saying, "Get me out of here!" Now raccoons, although they look cute, can be dangerous, especially when cornered.  I figured that Maggie might have been chasing it and it fell in while it was trying to get away.  You have seen the movies.  Someone is running from the cops, they hop a fence and there is a hole on the other side.

I didn't know if it's little legs were broken from the fall and I certainly didn't want it to stay there and starve to death.  I called out local animal control and thought for sure they would come and save the day.  You have to understand that we have the occasional raccoon, rabbit, fox and coyote in our neighborhoods so I figured they were on top of things like this.  Does animal control do wild animals?  Oh, no!  I was told to call a pest control company and have them come out - and have to pay them to take care of it.  Good grief!

I went and got the neighbor and showed him my dilemma.  He's lived here for years and nothing like that had ever happened to him.  Of course not.  They were waiting for me to get here.  Anyway, he suggested that I put a large piece of wood down the well and wait for it to crawl out during the night.  About then, the hubs suggested a ladder.  I ended up putting a large dead branch and the ladder both.  After it got dark I went down in the basement to check, but it was still there.  I suppose I could have stayed down there and done some quilting while it watched, but those beady eyes were a little unnerving!

I checked again a couple hours later and it was gone.  Whew! I had a stack of old fence boards out back so I covered the other two window wells.  I covered the backyard side of the front well but don't have anything to cover the front yard part. Not attractive, but it will do the trick until I can get to Home Depot and get some window well grates to cover them all.

So, I need to go get the ladder out of the window well.  Then wait to see what happens next.  It's always something!  I guess dealing with snails in California wasn't so bad after all!!!