Critters Building That City

This was a very rough week, which I won't detail here...but am thanking God that He held off the real estate demons for a few days. It seemed like my work was suspended in time, just when it needed to be. My house was quiet, the weather was rainy and cool. Hard decisions had to be made, so we did some praying, some crying and some laughing. Then the squirrels started up...

I noticed that we've actually got some pecans this year. We put a new roof on a few weeks ago, and I figured it might shake those critters up a little, but naw. It was all peaceful-like one morning...everybody gone to work except me. I heard what sounded like gnawing up in the dining room ceiling. Then scampering. Then nuts being dropped. I told my husband, our sons, a few neighbors, and God about it. Nobody seems to want to deal with this problem. There ain't no way I'm going up in that attic. We have 12-foot ceilings in this old Victorian house, and our attic ladder doesn't even reach the ground. You have to put a bench on the floor, then pull the ladder down to it. It's very sketchy. Even my limber, athletic offspring take issue with climbing up it. The only ghost that lives here is the Holy Ghost, but there might be a few that try to flit through that attic once in awhile. I hear strange noises emanating and smell an occasional whiff of tobacco. They're all up there, dressed up with party hats and cute little tails, rodents masquerading as squirrels. But nobody's fooling me. I used to like those types of animals. I would even swerve my car to avoid them in the street, but no more. They're chewing up my house and eating our pecans. It's on.

Did you know that the law doesn't allow you to trap and re-home squirrels? We're also not allowed to shoot 22s in town, but we can shoot with a pellet gun. Two of my dear neighbors also like to keep their pecans, so we form a trifecta of squirrel hunters between our houses. You might see us all stalking about our yards trying to round them up. The hawks are waiting with bated breath, way up in the trees. I don't understand why they don't come on down here and do it themselves, circle of life and all that. But they get their share after the sun goes down. I never see any leftovers in the morning. And there's still plenty of them dang squirrels running around, at any given time. They must breed like rabbits. Apparently, cats breed like rabbits too, but we get ours fixed so they can't. I have a story about that for another day...

I hope all this helps reduce the attic residents. I'm sure not going up there with a pellet gun and Papa apparently isn't either. They say that they'll chew up your wiring and make beds in the insulation. Somebody's definitely working on a mansion up there and we can only hope it's squirrels and not the possums that keep coming after the cat food on the front porch. We used to have these problems when we lived in the country. I never imagined us making possum stew after we moved to town, and I'm not planning on it any time soon. But we sure could, if we wanted to...