Never a dull moment...

A couple of concerns I had about starting the blog back up again was time and material.  As long as I'm in the work force, time will probably always be a limited commodity for me.  Now that I'm not on vacation anymore, I will likely drop back into a routine of posting once a week or when something interesting happens; which is my other  concern of having enough material to write about.  Most of us go through our daily lives with the same routine and often feel that nothing "interesting" or out of the ordinary occurs.  Perhaps it's because blogging has caused me to look at daily sites and events as potential stories to be told, but it's not often that I don't look at something around me and think "there's a story to tell there."  This morning I looked out my window and felt like this may be a story to start off your morning with a chuckle...

For some reason, the rental house I live in is a magnet for wildlife.  The house is older and has old screens over openings to ventilate the crawl space beneath the house.  It appears that the screens have been replaced several times throughout the years, but the ones on the house now are metal and are attached with glue and screws.  A couple of months ago, I was awakened in the early morning hours to what sounded like someone in my house.  It took me all of about one second to retrieve my 40 caliber Springfield and prepare myself mentally for engagement with a potential  intruder.  In a few more seconds, I realized that the sound was coming through the air conditioning ducting in the floor and echoing throughout the house from every vent.  After setting a trap provided by my landlord, we caught an adolescent raccoon.  My landlord had the screens reinstalled and all was well for a while.

One unhappy possum!

Fast forward to yesterday morning, I again was awakened by what sounded like someone moving about in my house.  Armed and ready, it didn't take me long to figure out I had another critter living beneath my house.  So yesterday,  I reset the trap with the only food I was willing to sacrifice to the cause; frozen blackberries.  This morning I woke up and realized that I hadn't heard any shuffling around beneath the house and figured the trap may contain the culprit.  Sure enough, this time it is a possum!  As you can see by the double screening it worked its way through to get under the house, this is one determined animal.  I don't know what it is about the space under my house, but it appears to be very appealing to neighborhood wildlife.  I'm just hoping that there aren't any youngsters down there!  The morning scares have given me pretty good practice for a home invasion response, but I could certainly live without the early morning adrenalin rush they bring!