Animalia

Greg was cleaning the garage when he heard some growling from behind the fence that separates our carport from our neighbor's yard. He got a flashlight and shined it under the fence and saw a raccoon. Ellie looked too and they came and got me to look. At first I couldn't see it, so Greg got a broom and poked at it to point it out to me, making it growl. Once I heard it growl and saw its vicious, beady little eyes, I went back in the house to try to figure out how I was going to get by without ever going into the garage again. Greg went in and out of the garage cautiously for awhile. After weedwhacking the lawn, he decided to scare the raccoon away by sticking the loud, whirring weedwhacker in its face. He discovered that the raccoon was not scared of it at all, but it did reluctantly head into the neighbor's yard. Greg said it came right back after he turned off the weedwhacker. I thought that meant it was probably a mommy with babies that it's protecting (making it even scarier). Greg made some calls to animal control and when we checked again the next day, they were gone. So we'll keep an eye out and see if they come back.

In other animal news, Ellie found some snails at school the other day. They were all curled up in their shells so you could pick them up easily. The mom I was with was totally grossed out by them and told her kids to put them back but I poked them with a stick and let Ellie bring two of them home. I think I missed the mom class where they teach you to be squeamish. Ellie set up a home for them in a plastic plate with rocks and fake flowers and she said, "I guess I have snails as pets now." The poor girl is so desperate for a pet that she has to declare any living creature she finds at the side of the road as her pet. We have to get her a cat or dog. After a few hours I told Ellie to bring the snails in the backyard because I figured eventually they were going to come out of their shells and start roaming the house. So now they're in the plate in the backyard.