Raccoons

Chicken Massacre

Leave a comment

Cleaning up 17 dead chickens was not on my list of things to do today, but guess what? Last night a raccoon killed my chickens, almost all of them too. I’ve got four left and I’m not sure one will make it to tomorrow morning.  Needless to say, I’m ticked. I raised these chickens from chicks and they had just started to lay eggs! They weren’t a year old yet, and here I am, just about back where I started from.

I talked to a couple of my neighbors earlier and I guess they’ve been having similar problems, only it’s not just raccoons, skunks have been out and about too.  Over the last five years I have lost roughly 30+ chickens to a combination of raccoons, weasels, dogs, bird flu, and even cars, but usually it’s a few here and there.  This is the first time that I have had nearly ALL of my chickens massacred and killed at one time and I don’t plan to let it happen again.

A close friend of mine had a problem with raccoons killing his chickens a few years ago, so I asked him for advice.  Since I’m not willing to sit up all night to try and shoot the coon, he recommended trapping it. He gave me the number for a guy that considers it his ‘specialty’.  Well, I’ll let you know how special he and his traps are after they catch thing(s).  All I know is I’m going to deal with my problem my way, and hopefully help my neighbors in the process.

Skunks

Snug as a Skunk in a Rug

Leave a comment

I never thought I would hear the words “don’t panic” coupled with “there’s a skunk in the house”. I could make a list of things I never thought my mom would say to me, and this is so far out there that I don’t think I could have even made it up; but guess what? Not ten minutes ago my mom came into my room and said, and I quote, “Kelsey, now don’t panic, but I thought you should know that there’s a skunk in the house.” How does that not immediately ensue panic! Obviously this was something I’d have to see to believe so I snuck my way downstairs to get a glimpse of the already unbelievable situation (and honestly, I still didn’t quite believe what I saw).  The skunk wasn’t just hiding in a corner – no, that would be too easy – he had crawled underneath the ottoman and wasn’t coming out! I watched in shock as my dad slowly slid a broom under the couch, trying to usher the thing out the front door, but the skunk would run towards it and make a hissing noise! I 100% thought it was going to spray my dad right in the mouth, no questions asked but something must have been watching over him because that never happened.

After about an hour of the back and forth with the broom, it was clear that we needed a new plan of attack.  If the skunk wanted to stay in the dark, then we would have to make it dark.  Memories of pillow forts that covered the entire room flooded into my mind, and call me crazy, but I knew exactly what we had to do.  We gathered together some large, old boxes from both our garage and the neighbors’ and laid them together like a tunnel, then we covered the tops with old sheets and table cloths so that there was no light shining in at all and there it was: our home made skunk tunnel. If this bad boy wouldn’t get the skunk out of our house, then that was it, I was moving.

We all stood by, waiting anxiously to see if it would work. After a few seconds of silent anticipation, my dad nodded to my little brother to open the front door before he slowly bent down and prodded at the skunk with the broom.  This time, instead of running at my dad, we saw the skunk crawl out from the couch, run through our makeshift tunnel, and down the front steps.  We all cheered and I have to admit, it was pretty cool.  I don’t know how I managed to stay calm and not panic, especially when there was a skunk in my house, but I guess I’m good at keeping my cool?

Raccoons

Boo!

Leave a comment

Having raccoons living in your chimney is no walk in the park, especially when you don’t know about it.  I honestly can’t tell you how long they have even lived in there, and yes there are more than one.  A mother and four babies, to be exact.  It might seem crazy to you that I didn’t realize there was something unusual living in my chimney, but my mind has been on other things lately, and since the weather has just started to cool down for the year, I haven’t had much reason to be around the chimney now have I?

So there I was, on a chilly mid-October’s night, and I decided that nothing but a warm fire could make my night more perfect.  I collected the firewood and arranged it carefully in the fireplace, then I opened the damper.  I heard loud scratching as (what I assumed to be) the mother scurried out of the chimney, then two small raccoons rolled out from the open damper, hissing and running frantically for some sort of cover; I was right behind them. Cowering behind my kitchen counter, I watched two more raccoons crawl out of the damper into my house, I couldn’t believe it I had been sharing my house with 5 raccoons for who knows how long!  I probably sat there for a good ten minutes before I could really wrap my head around the fact that there were raccoons living in my chimney.

With my husband overseas in Turkey, there was no way I was going to be dealing with this problem on my own.  After about an hour of research and deliberation (noted I did this at my mother-in-law’s house), I was able to find a company online that specialized in wildlife removal. Luckily, they had a 2 o’clock appointment available that day to come out and find the little suckers.  In the end, it took about an hour and a half to find and capture all four babies but we did it.  I’m still stressed that the mother raccoon will come back and chew her way through my front door to get her babies back, but the trapper assured me that that wasn’t exactly how it worked.  They set a trap near the chimney entrance and hopefully she’ll be trapped and gone in the next couple of days.  It has been a week and the whole thing still seems surreal to me, but here’s my advice: before you go starting a fire, listen carefully for any sounds coming from above the damper.  You never know if you’ll have raccoons living in your chimney, too.

Squirrels

That’s Just Peachy

Leave a comment

I didn’t realize that I had a squirrel problem, at first.  It actually took about a month and a half and an actual squirrel sighting for me to really wrap my head around it, which seems silly now.  All the signs were there, the chewing on siding, the pit-less peaches, and the burrows.  Actually, I think all of those reasons were why I was so confused! When I picture squirrels, I think of them living in trees, collecting pinecones and acorns, I guess peaches didn’t seem like their food choice? Also, the fact that they were burrowing underground, making a hole right off the edge of my concrete patio.  Plus the chewed fencing and siding? I guess I really had connected it to rats.

I noticed the siding first, but honestly on first glance I thought that my son had just chipped some away with his soccer ball on accident so I didn’t think twice about it.  I knew that squirrels chewed on things to help keep their teeth at a reasonable length, but I never connected that to this.  Then, I noticed the burrow.  That made me think that I had gophers or moles or something, I didn’t realize that squirrels burrowed underground? But I totally thought that I had rats or gophers living at my house, I even set up rat traps hoping to catch it/them.  The thing that finally got me to realize that it was in fact a squirrel problem and not some other animal, was the peach pits.

This was really odd to me; every year peaches fall on the ground and sometimes animals like raccoons or even my dog will eat them.  This year was different though, all of the peaches on the ground were intact for the most part, the only thing different was that the pits were missing and nothing else! After a little bit of research I found out that squirrels sometimes chew on the peach pits to grind down their teeth, and that’s when I connected the chewed siding and the peach mystery.  After finally getting to the bottom of it, I called in a professional to remove the squirrel(s) from my yard.  After only a week, we had caught 3 squirrels and were able to seal off their nest under my porch and call it a day!  I’m lucky that it wasn’t more of a hassle, and that the trapper had an easier time identifying the squirrel problem than I did.

Bats

Ghost in the Wall

Leave a comment

We have recently discovered bats roosting in our walls.  Actually, they’ve been there for about two months now, only my husband and I are just realizing it.  My four year old daughter, Gracie, on the other hand, has known about it the whole time.  My sweet Gracie could hear the bats in the walls before my husband and I could even comprehend what was happening, of course she was too young to understand exactly what it was.  The worst part was that we had let her watch the new Ghost Busters about two weeks before, so once noises started in her bedroom walls, she was convinced there was a ghost living in the walls.  Knowing there was no such thing in the wall, I dismissed her claim as wind or noises from the furnace.  Now that I know what it is, I feel very guilty about the whole thing.

If it wasn’t for Grace, I don’t know that we would have ever noticed the bats in the wall until it had gotten way out of hand. She woke me up about once a week, crying about the ghost haunting her room, (I feel terrible) but I continually told her that there was no such thing as ghosts and ushered her back to bed.  After two months of this, I finally gave in and let her drag me into her bedroom to hear the ghost noises.  The surprising thing was that I actually heard them.  That’s when I made Rob (my husband), investigate the sounds.

It turns out that we had bats in the wall, I couldn’t believe it because it didn’t look like there was any way for a bat to access the inside of the wall anywhere!  Well about a year ago, we had some small problems with a woodpecker that would occasionally wake us up by drilling at the east wall of the house, the same wall where Gracie’s room is now located.   After the woodpecker had left our house, we thought nothing of it OR the holes that it had made.  Now, a year later, the bats had used those holes to get inside of the walls! That’s the bad news, though.  The good news is that I have a company coming out to inspect the house and hopefully will be able to get rid of the ‘ghost’ that has been haunting our house!

Bats

Big Bad Bat

Leave a comment

I haven’t had to see a doctor for anything more than a check-up since I was 12 and had the flu; but this morning, I was bitten by a bat.  I have never once in the 13 years that I have lived here, seen a bat any closer to my house than flying over it at night.  I’ve never had one on my porch, in my attic, or even in the trees so I cannot imagine why this one ended up in my front yard today.  What I do know, is that I am not very happy about this.

So here’s what happened: it was about 6:30 am and I was getting ready to take my daughter to early morning choir practice.  Of course it was too early to put on tennis shoes so I had slipped on some $2 Walmart flip flops to go out and start the car.  Walking across the lawn, I suddenly stepped on something soft, I quickly retracted my foot and turned on my phone’s flashlight.  I couldn’t quite tell what it was so I lightly turned it over with my foot.  That’s when it happened.  The nasty little thing reached out and bit my toe.  I yelled out in pain, shook my foot free, and drove myself to the hospital – don’t worry I dropped my daughter off at school on the way.

Now here I am, sitting in a hospital bed waiting for test results that I don’t know if I want to see.  The chances are definitely slim of me having rabies, but I’m getting treatments any way.  I’ve called a professional to go and find the bat.  It may sound impossible but it flew into the tree in my front yard after I shook it free, so hopefully it isn’t too hard.  I would like to have the bat tested also.  I’m still in disbelief that this all happened, I mean how many people do you know that can say they were bitten by a bat? If nothing else, it makes for a good story.

Skunks

Parfum Puant

Leave a comment

I have gotten myself into the worst possible situation.  I have a skunk on my porch.  And he’s not just visiting occasionally, he’s practically living there! I am not even kidding when I say he’s been spraying EVERYONE that comes to my front door.  He’s the doorbell I never asked for; I quite prefer knocking.  He’s like one of those perfume salesmen that spray you as you walk down the street, as though it will convince you to buy the nasty bottle instead of pissing you off.

I guess technically the skunk isn’t living ON my porch exactly. My house was built on piece of slanted ground, meaning that part of the porch is on stilts and part of it is flush with the ground.  The skunk has made himself a small burrow in that corner that lays with the ground.  Whenever, and I mean whenever, someone walks across the deck.  In the last six days, four people have been sprayed.  The worst part is that one of them was my mother-in-law; yeah, I know.  Luckily, it’s never a direct spray; he more just sprays from his corner and it mists whatever visitor I have.  While it still stinks, it doesn’t stink nearly as long or nearly as bad.

No matter what the case is, I NEED someone to come get this skunk off of my porch.  The mailman (another of the skunk spray victims) won’t even deliver my mail until he knows for a fact that it’s gone.  Not to mention the fact that my house smells like Pepé Le Pew 24/7. The sooner he’s gone the happier I will be; I really don’t care what it costs because what I can’t afford is to have ANOTHER family member sprayed by this thing; or anyone else.  Please tell me someone can help with this, because if you don’t, my only other option is to sell my house and move far away.

Birds

A Bird’s Barrage

Leave a comment

I have never had a mortal enemy before, I have never truly hated anyone or anything.  Until now; now I know what it is to loathe.  This will sound crazy, but there’s a bird that lives in a tree on campus that has it out for me.  Don’t laugh and don’t stop reading, give me a chance to explain what has been happening.  I’m not the only student that feels this way, and it’s not just students, either!  I’ve seen teachers attacked before, too.  This is the Freddy Krueger of birds.

She moved onto campus about two weeks ago.  It could have been sooner but that was when I noticed her.  She didn’t start terrorizing anyone until last week.  I think that she moved in, build a nest, laid eggs, and is now on constant alert.  I don’t really blame her for that because I would protect my kids from crazy high school students, too, but she really takes it a step too far.  From the second I step off the bus, I have to keep my eyes peeled.  There hasn’t been a morning yet when she hasn’t dived at someone that was trying to get into the school, and she hits with full force.  It’s not like it’s a scare tactic, she doesn’t just swoop down and fly away.  She comes down, talons bared, and will literally grab you by the hair.  It’s a nightmare.

Whenever we take it to the administration, they tell us that the school board is handling it, but I think that they like it.  They give us tests right after holiday breaks, why not release a demon bird on the student body? All I know is that I am just about ready to catch this bird myself.  Now that I think about it, I could relocate it to the principal’s office. Senior Prank anyone?

Skunks

House Guest

Leave a comment

Chasing a skunk out of my house was NOT what I wanted to do today.  They say the universe sends you what you need to grow and be the better you, but I think this was stretching it. The all-knowing universe couldn’t have picked a bunny or a cat or something? Apparently I needed the world’s smelliest creature to help me achieve my ‘destiny’.  Enough complaining about the universe, let me tell you what happened.

As the sun went down last night, I sat out in the lawn enjoying the cool air and the smell of the incoming rainstorm while reading the classic tale of love, loss, and sacrifice.  Okay, it was Twilight, but don’t judge.  As I sat there believing with all of my soul that the day was going to end as perfectly as it had started, I heard a noise on the deck behind me.  I turned around and screamed at the skunk that stood by my open door.  A mistake on my part, I guess, because that scream chased the skunk into my house. This, obviously only made me scream louder.

Well, being the hardcore woman that I am, I called my brother to come help me get the skunk out of my house- mostly just to do it himself, but I figured I could stand outside and shout encouragement or shine a flashlight or something.  Once he arrived and I had pinpointed the skunk’s location (from outside the window in my living room), we planned our attack.  I had to offer up my VCR copies of Singing in the Rain and White Christmas to get him to go in alone, but eventually we agreed that I would stand outside an open window with a flashlight while he chased the skunk out of my house with a modified broom.

Going full Tom Cruise in his Mission Impossible, my brother crept across the living room with his new skunk removal stick.  I pointed to the corner where the animal was huddled and he began to make noise behind the skunk.  After what seemed like hours of slowly herding the skunk towards the door, he finally ran back out the door that he came in through.  I let out a whoop of excitement as my brother collapsed onto the couch.  We had done it, we had gotten the skunk out of my house.  After handing over the movies and sending my brother off, I laid happily in bed.  I guess the universe didn’t really curse me after all, but don’t tell it that or it might send a badger or something next week.

Raccoons

Hot Pursuit

Leave a comment

When I woke up this morning, the last thing I expected to find were raccoons in my yard. I guess I wasn’t expecting to lose my dogs leash either, but you know what I’m talking about.  You have certain guidelines and expectations of how that day’s events will go; and my day did NOT follow my guidelines.  I mean, it started off just as I’d pictured it.  I woke up late because I’d hit snooze on my alarm too many times, I couldn’t find anything for breakfast because I hadn’t been shopping in two weeks, and it took three tries to get my car to start because I need to buy a new battery but I keep shrugging it off.  They were the kinds of things that you knew were going to happen because of your lack of responsibility, but hoped wouldn’t.

My morning went exactly as I had hoped it wouldn’t but had expected it to anyway, so it was no surprise.  It was the evening, when I came home from work, when my day suddenly did a 180 on me.  As the sun started to set I got ready to take my dog, Mitsy, on a walk; the problem was that I couldn’t find her leash; and I know you shouldn’t walk your dog without a leash but since my morning went the way it went, I really didn’t care.  Or at least I didn’t care until I opened my back door to leave and stood face to face with a giant raccoon. As I stood there, mouth gaping wide open like an imbecile, Mitsy took off.  It took me a second to recognize that my dog had just leapt off the porch, barking like a mad-man, in hot pursuit of the raccoon and so I just stood still for a moment longer trying to process what had just happened before I, too ran down the porch after my dog.  The second my foot touched the grass, however, it was met by loud hissing.  I jumped backwards and turned to see three more raccoons in my yard! I wasted no time in running as fast as I could the opposite direction; which, luckily, was the direction I needed to go.

I followed the barking of my courageous pooch across the street into the neighbor’s yard but then lost the sound.  I stopped and listened but Mitsy was not barking anymore.  Having just lost my sense of direction I wandered aimlessly around the lawn, looking for the missing animals.  I breathed a sigh of relief as I came around to the back side of the home and found my little Mitsy sniffing and scratching at the baseboards of their wraparound deck. To make a long story short, the raccoon had wriggled its way past a loose board and was now hiding beneath the deck, and while I was relieved that the raccoon was no longer in my yard, I knew that it was only a matter of time before he came back and joined the other three.  So now I’m here, searching the internet trying to find someone that can get the raccoons out of my yard and put my day back on the path it’s supposed to take.