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I Love Animals, But ..........

I grew up with a dog, hamsters and gerbils, so I love animals just as much as anybody, but nobody told me when we moved into our house that it would become the neighborhood "zoo."  When we first moved in, we had squirrels that sounded like they were running laps around our family room rafters.  Once we managed to get them to "move out" then one day when we had our garage door open a bat decided to fly in.  My husband was chasing him/her around our house with a shoe until it flew out our front door.  Then, one day when my daughter was much younger, she was like, "mom, come down here we have snakes."  Sure enough, there were two snakes slithering around on the basement floor.  Since then, we have had field mice, a  baby frog, and most recently a family of raccoons that decided our fireplace was their new home.  Living in our front bushes we have a nest with a family of birds and in the back of our house we have a few woodpeckers having a contest to see who can drill the most holes.  A very frequent visitor is the chipmunk, affectionately called, "Chippy" that runs past our front door several times a day.  A few weeks ago I saw a black squirrel sitting on my chair I keep outside  by the front door. I think he actually looked back at me and laughed!!!  About a month ago I watched as a very large something (we think it was a woodchuck) crawl under our deck, not sure if he/she ever came out the other side.  The "parade"  of animals outside that we have seen are:  possum, deer, foxes, cats, dogs and a skunk.  About a month or so our smoke alarm actually was set off by the stink of a skunk! Good grief, that was one powerful smell.  It wouldn't have been so bad, but  it was 5 in the morning.  Not the kind of alarm I like waking up to!

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