The un-invited guest...

Last fall my husband and my dog were gone for the weekend so I had the house all to myself, glorious! When I got home Friday night after Tom and Dad had been working on replacing the front door all (still no trim the house was thicker than the new door frame) I thought to myself, thats an odd spot for there to be insulation on the floor. I woke up bright eye-d and bushy tailed the next morning, as I was walking out the bedroom I heard loud birds chirping and thought, "My goodness those are some loud birds"  I made a cup of coffee and sat down on the couch to read the paper. That's when I heard nails on the kitchen floor and freaked out cause my dog was not home which could only mean A WILD ANIMAL WAS IN MY KITCHEN! 

After the initial shock of the whole there is something potentially wild and crazy in my kitchen, I grabbed a broom and tip-toed around the corner to see a chipmunk eating from my dogs food bowl! so I chased him toward the laundry room (there was still a 1" gap under the door from the missing threshold) I lost him (those suckers are fast), I wasn't naive enough to think I got him out on my first try so I went and got any traps I could find. A HUGE live trap (like fit a raccoon huge) and a rat trap, screwed to a 2x4 (Racoons kept getting caught in it and walking off with it). I opened the back patio door just wide enough to fit the live trap opening and put Lucy's food in the live trap. I then set the rat trap (wearing Tom's big bulky gloves cause I thought for sure I was going to snap it on myself) in the laundry room near the back door. I sat on the couch and waited. And drank coffee, cause coffee is important at times like these. And waited. 10 minutes and nothing happened. Back to the paper. As soon as I opened the paper I heard the nails on the floor. I was still armed with my broom in case he came near me. I was also of course armed with my camera. So he hung out in the kitchen for a little bit (hopefully cleaning my floor) and then as I was watching my live trap he ran in, but he wasn't heavy enough to trip the door closed!  I got off the couch, ran over in my slippers and kicked the whole live trap out on the deck and slammed the door.

I then left the little guy outside for Tom to handle when he got home. I also put a towel under the back door gap and a gallon of water in front of the little hole and pile of insulation by the front door. This was a very eventful Saturday morning.  When Tom got home, the very next day we had the door insulated and trim back up and a threshold under the back door!!