Animal Farm

So, Andi and I have a bit of a varmit problem at our house. I'm not sure what it is about our backyard (or roof in this particular situation) but little critters LOVE our house! Seems like we're always chasing off rabbits from eating the flowers, squirrels from teasing our little dog Chloe and raccoons from tearing into the trash.

Last fall, we had a family of raccoons living on our roof. There's a dormer on our roof and the raccoons clawed their way inside. In the process, they ripped a huge hole in the siding on our roof. Andi assures me they're not actually in our attic, just outside of it in this little encove. Not wanting to hear the animals, we hired a Enviromental Animal Removal Service that placed humane cages on our roof. The cages were set to catch the raccoons so the worker could release them free into the wild. But, we have smart raccoons and none of them took the bait. They just stopped coming by for a while ... look at the damage they created!

Well, word about our animal haven has gotten out and neighborhood pigeons started coming by this spring. More of a nuissance than anything, the pigeons were pooping all of our deck and decorative stone path in the backyard and quite loud sometimes as they'd invite their pigeon friends over to sit on our rooftop. Andi came up with the brainiac idea to shoot them - or scare them - with a BB gun (I say scare b/c his bird to BB ratio was not so hot. Only 1 or 2 pigeons ended up losing their lives).

In fact, one of them died on top of our roof last week. I imagine our neighbors sitting on their porches drinking a beer and laughing hysterically as I directed Andi on how to scrape down the bird with a rake. He couldn't see what he was doing as he reached the rake over his head. When he grabbed a hold of it, it started spinning toward his head! I was screaming; he was jumping. Finally we were able to give the pigeon (which was the size of a chicken, btw) a proper burial in the trash can. Yuck.

Well, last night while laying in bed, we heard a loud crash outside. Looking out the window, we noticed a piece of our siding on the ground in the backyard. I ran outside to grab it before it blew away and noticed a bunch of white stuff on the ground. "I think it's leaves or bird poop," I told Andi. "Little fishy," he said. He went out to investigate. Nope, it was egg shells and the body of a dead pigeon. The raccoon was back to claim his house on the roof - he'd raided the pigeon's nest and claimed her as victim! Andi tapped the dying pigeon with the end of the rake. She squirmed a little. My heart was breaking! Andi put her out of her misery. Oh poor little birdie.

So, today a roofer is coming out to fix the opening for good. Please animal community - tell you friends to leave our house alone. We're tired of having a animal farm in our backyard. And you've suffered enough. Go to a park; there's one down the street and I hear it's great.