Coons in them there parts!

It's contagious! Sure- I felt awful during Marie's awful encounter with racoons over at her house. But also relieved because it wasn't happening to me. Now it is. Over the past week, there have been strange things happening in our (new mind you) garage. We found two bags of bird seed that were never there before. Good timing though cuz Maya picked out a cute little bird house at Hobby Lobby and we put some in it to attract some birdies. Anyway- this morning I go to back out of my garage and I run over something. So I pull back up, look and our whole pile of lawn chairs was on the floor. Chalking it up to them just sliding down, I picked them up and put them back against the wall. When I looked up I saw some other mysterious things. Maya's little tykes basketball hoop fell over(we put it in the garage because it started SNOWING!). More birdseed on the floor, knocked over things....So I told Ben this afternoon when he got home from work. At around 4pm we all go into the garage(all meaning the three of us), Ben loads up my trunk with some newly delivered UPS boxes of dance costumes. I show him all the messed up things that have happened. As we are talking, I look up into the rafters- totally doing that not expecting to see anything- and there he is. THE RACOON! After Ben put the gutters on the garage last summer, he got black coiled piping to hook to the ends that runs the water down to the street. So he bought too much and threw the rest up into the rafters. Hence the racoon's nest. It wouldn't look at us. We quick put Maya in the car and just stared at it. Making loud noises to get its attention. It never looked up. So now- we are putting a trap in the garage tomorrow. I guess they like bacon. We have some bacon. Right this minute both cars are parked in the driveway, the garage light is on and the radio is blaring. Two things that racoons hate. Maybe this will cause it to leave on its own. Which would be great except, maybe it's a girl racoon and maybe there are baby racoons up there. lovely. one. big. happy. family. Stay tuned for part two of the saga-"coons in them there parts".