I am NOT my happiest right now! I made a discovery that has upset my whole set of plans for this week. Backtracking, I had good intentions of having the house fully decorated for Halloween plus taking advantage of our cool weather to do some yard work. Well, a big kink has been thrown in that well-laid plan. There is another major chore that demands attention. This one will have to be left up to me since Son is still repairing the water damage around the fireplace in the dining room. I may as well push up the shirt sleeves and get to work come morning light.
This morning, I was going to make space in the greenhouse for two of the porch rockers. Stuff has been shoved in there while Son is (was before the water damage) remodeling the shed. Everything from the shed was jammed in my greenhouse. There is not a lot of space in there for anything but I really need to store the two chairs for a couple of months. While there, I noticed that my seed packets were on the floor. Well now! I imagined that the squirrels had somehow made their way into the greenhouse and decided to steal a few seeds. No problem. I went to pick up the packets and saw it....IT!!! There was a huge rat nest in the corner behind the gardening tools. My couple of months of recuperating from illness left the greenhouse up for grabs obviously! "Well, I guess I would get rid of a rat nest before clearing a spot for the chairs." Then...another nest! Oh, geez! It seemed as if a whole colony of critters was in the greenhouse!
While battling rats, I noticed that the weather packing around the eaves was sagging. I gave it a gentle poke with an old flounder gig thinking perhaps this roof had also developed a leak. Oof! THAT was heavy! I poked harder and heard a squeak and some rustling. Geez! Those rats are huge!!! I poked harder! The critter rummaged around to the north side of the eaves and then half fell through! A fluffy, striped tail and one dark foot dangled precariously through the vent. Raccoon! Yep, I now had to battle raccoons! So...poke again! Squeal, rummage and into the greenhouse, went the coon. I raced around the side and into the door only to find several coons up in the rafters. They were frightened and a bit confused as to why their daytime snooze had been interrupted. Suddenly, one coon fell (or dove) from the rafter and started scurrying around the greenhouse floor in search of a new hiding place. Well, with that much stuff packed in the small space, hiding was relatively easy. Then, plop! Another coon and another. Three, madly-racing, juvenile raccoons , a crazy, old lady with a flounder gig and a mountain of junk suddenly became like a huge pinball machine. It was crazy!
Needless to say, I gave up. I was exhausted from this fracas! I will attempt again in the morning. Hopefully by then, the coons and the rats will have had enough of the gig-wielding monster and will have vacated my greenhouse! Otherwise, the battle will continue! I sure need to find me a big, ole rat snake to inhabit the space. By now, it would resemble an anaconda in size with the ample supply of prey hiding in the greenhouse. So much for decorating the house. It is already Halloween in the greenhouse! Monsters!
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