raccoons

attack! of the killer raccoons! ok... maybe not 'killer', but certainly 'destroyer'.

last night we were in the backyard with grandma and my family eating ice cream, when BAM! we heard this huge crashing sound! so everyone got up to check it out. this is what we saw:

yup. a hole in our softening. and yes, those are the eaves you can see inside. i was truly upset... and then curious what happened. initially, i had no idea! but dad, brans and the boys investigated. we got out flashlights and scouted out the area for the thing responsible.

then they saw something... a raccoon! running through the bushes on the side of our house and up into a big pine tree in our front yard.

we went back around back to see if there was any more damage and i noticed something...

those are the blasted little raccoon's beady little eyes! agh! freaked me out! then we noticed two others. so in all, there are three raccoons chillin' in the softening of our house. i couldn't sleep at all last night - i tossed and turned inbetween dreams of raccoons playing "trashing the camp" from tarzan in my kitchen, finding diced raccoon in my salad bowl, raccoons scratching and ruining my beloved piano, and raccoons climbing into bed with me.

poor branson... i probably kept him awake with all of my movement and probable talking in my sleep about how much i hate raccoons. poor guy. i asked him this morning how we have to fix the problem... and we have to trap the raccoons... which in my head is pretty gruesome - think mouse trap but bigger. yuck.

so untimely. i officially hate raccoons and hope they leave soon... but as filled as i am with hatred, i'm hoping we don't have to kill them. there's gotta be a peaceful solution involving peanut butter or something...