Exceedingly Mundane

We got up early this morning, to go walking, and saw that we had yet another coon in our live animal trap. So, instead of walking, we had to go relocate him, as we have the other animals we’ve caught. I blogged about this earlier (here about the coons and also here about the possum), and wanted to report on our “critter count”.

First, here’s the big coon we had to go relocate this morning… Tim says he is the largest one yet. He called him “big guy” all while we were moving him 🙂

So, here’s the official count so far:

Coons – 3 (caught and released in a wooded area miles from our house)
Possum – 1 (caught and released in same area)
Rats – 4 (dead as a doorknob, not moving those suckers)

I shudder to think how many more critters are out there, waiting to be caught or walk into the rat trap. Ewww! But, at least they are not eating as much of the squirrel’s corn (I actually had squirrels yesterday, for the first time in a couple of weeks), and are not pushing down the bird feeders every night. I have a lot of grass that is dug up from my back yard. Each time we put down the trap, the critters all try to dig their way out, so we are having large sections of grass being dug up all over the yard. 🙂

Not only did I attend my first ever NFL preseason game on Saturday, but I also went to my first ever “Friends of the Library” book sale. I had seen them mentioned before in the paper, but had just never tried to go. Since Tim had gone early to play golf with Don, and Gail was running some errands, I went up to my local library to check out the book sale.

Let me just say, for a bookworm like myself, I was in heaven. I was surprised at how many books they had, how many of them were fairly new, and what good prices they had on them. I asked a lady at the desk, and she said they had them twice a year, but I honestly thought I saw them in the paper more often (maybe 4-5 times a year). Then again, maybe different branches have them at different times of the year (I have 2 branches fairly close to my house). All I can say is that I am definitely going to go again. It doesn’t bother me to read a used book if it’s in good shape. As much as I like buying new books, I like buying books for a very cheap price even better!

The hardbacks were $2, the large paperbacks and softbacks were $1 and the small paperbacks were 50 cents. I got 7 books for 7 dollars – one hardback, 4 large paperbacks and 2 small paperbacks. I went ahead and loaned one to Gail to read, since I have plenty to keep me busy for a while. In fact, after the sale, I wandered back out into the library to check out books, then berated myself for the number of books I have purchased, that are sitting at home waiting to be read. Plus, I had more in hand, so I decided to leave without checking out any regular library books. It was hard, believe me, really hard! 😆

Here’s what I got (I’m also going to add them to my sidebar):

Hardback of “King of Torts” by John Grisham (we only lack 2 in our collection)
Large Paperback of “Confessions of a Shopaholic” by Sophie Kinsella (loaned this one to Gail)
Large Paperback of “Sullivan’s Island” by Dorothea Benton Frank
Large Paperback of “The Sunday Philosophy Club” by Alexander McCall Smith
Large Paperback of “The Preacher’s Daughter” by Beverly Lewis
Small Paperback of “The Devil Wears Prada” by Lauren Weisberger (saw movie but never read book)
Small Paperback of “Ten Big Ones” by Janet Evanovich (bought hardback of “To the Nines” but it’s still waiting to be read)

Sigh – I loved it, and ended up taking Gail back up there with me again later. I do love the library and now there’s something new to love – library book sales!

Tim and I went to our first NFL preseason game last night, the Saints vs the Colts. I had wanted to leave a couple of hours before the game, but Tim had played golf with Don, and we all went to eat a late lunch/early supper after the guys finished. By the time we got home and changed, it was much later than I wanted to leave. Tim thought we would be fine, after all, it’s just 15 or 20 minutes to the stadium from our house. WRONG.

Our little city’s highways are apparently not equipped to handle the traffic for a game like that, nor was the stadium and personnel equipped to handle that many people converging on one small space in a short time frame. The traffic on the interstate was a nightmare. People were backed up for miles on the two main exits to the stadium. Luckily, the stadium is near where I went to college and I had Tim go to a further exit, then we backtracked through some back streets and a neighborhood near my alma mater. As we neared my old stomping grounds, I said “gee, they must be having a game or event too, look at all the people”. Tim smiled patiently at me and said “no, sweetheart, these people are going to the Saints game too”. “NO! I said, the stadium is a mile or two from here!”. Wrong I was. People were parking miles away and walking in. We did the same, and before we were a few blocks from the car, the rain started. We had brought some light ponchos, but got soaked nonetheless trying to get them on. Our clothes were soaked, and the stadium seats we had brought to sit on. I had left my camera behind, as well as our umbrellas, after I reviewed a list of “prohibited” items on a local website. Apparently, not everyone read this same list.

We hiked in, and then soon realized that people were massed in two large groups at the stadium, one on the east side and one on the west side. We found out later that only TWO gates were open to handle the 60,000 people. What a nightmare. We were in a massive throng of miserable people. There were lots of reports of Security patting people down, but we didn’t see any of that. What we did see were huge piles of bottles and cans near the entrance that the Security people made people throw down. The same with umbrellas. I probably saw 150-200 umbrellas in piles strewn all over the entrance. I didn’t see any cameras confiscated, but then again, I didn’t see them confiscating backpacks and other things that the paper had said was prohibited. Anyway, it took us a long time to get in. We were some of the lucky ones, we got in before the first quarter was half over. The rest of the unlucky ones were still streaming in all the way to half time.

We found our seats, and realized some nice guys had taken them. Once we covered that we had tickets for that section and those seats, they sort of moved down. Not two full spaces, but they moved a little. Not enough room for us to set up our stadium seats. We barely squeezed in and Tim was half hanging out over the steps (he was in seat 1 on our row, I was in seat 2). We spent the entire time shifting – if he leaned forward, I had to lean backwards. If he sat back, I had to lean forwards. There wasn’t enough room for us to sit shoulder to shoulder.

It didn’t rain again, and thankfully stayed overcast and it was actually almost pleasant. We were up high enough that we got a bit of a cool breeze and it was not that hot – especially not compared to the 98º heat we endured when we went to training camp. We didn’t have great seats and we didn’t see a lot of what was going on. We had a guy who kept jumping up in front of us and we missed a bunch of the plays.

All in all, Tim said he had fun, so that’s all that counts. Me, I think I’m much happier at home on the couch, in front of our new big screen. I don’t have people sitting in my seat, sloshing beer around and blocking my view. But that’s just me and I did have a good time. Mostly, we wanted to support the team. So we did. And I’m glad we went. I asked him if he would want to go in the future and he said probably; he wants to support them. After what we endured though, and the backlash I read in today’s paper, I seriously doubt if our little city will ever host another preseason game again. It was all poorly handled and I don’t imagine the NFL or the Saints would want to risk that happening again. Which is a shame, really.

I didn’t take my camera because it was on the prohibited list. I probably could have; I saw other people with them, and a lot of other things that they said were prohibited. But, it would have gotten in the deluge when we first arrived, and I’m really glad I didn’t take it and chance getting it wet. I tried to take a few pictures with Tim’s cameraphone, but with the lights and distance, they didn’t come out that great (as I expected). I’ll post them below though, just to show them 🙂

Today is going to be an action-packed kind of day for us 😆 Don and Gail are coming down so the guys can go play golf this morning. I think Gail and I will hang out and maybe go shopping or run errands. Then, this afternoon late, we’re headed to the stadium for the Saints-Colts preseason game. Hopefully, I will get a chance to blog some tomorrow – hope everyone has a great day!

UPDATE – I just looked at the list of prohibited items for the NFL preseason game tonight. It listed camera – darn it. Is that standard at all pro sporting events now? I know the last time we went to a game at the Superdome I took my camera, and I had intended to take it tonight to get pictures of Brees, McAllister, Bush and Manning. Dang, I’m pretty upset now. 👿

I blogged a couple of days ago about the 2 coons (raccoons) that we have caught in our live animal trap (read about it here). We still load the trap every evening, thinking we might have more coons that are knocking over things and eating all the bird’s and squirrel’s food.

Last night, it was not a coon that got caught in the trap. It was a possum. What a hideous little creature (I’ll only post one picture here because the thing is so nasty and ugly; more on the extended page). The coons were rather cute in comparison and not nearly so disgusting. Ick.

I also failed to mention earlier that even though we’re glad to catch these things (and release them in woods several miles away), they are still doing their best to tear up my yard. Isn’t there something in Murphy’s law about “if it ain’t one thing, it’s another”?!!

They are digging up all the grass underneath the cage, trying to get out:

We learned after the first coon not to position the cage near the fence – they claw and scrap and chew on the fence boards, trying to get out:

If you can stand to look at the butt-ugly thing, there’s a couple more possum pictures on the extended page. It really grossed me out early this morning to see this thing and it was hissing at me too (oh, and in one picture, you can see the blood on the cage where the thing was gnawing, trying to get free)….
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Tim has a new love – his new big screen plasma TV. It still pales in comparison to his golf addiction – he is more than willing to leave his new TV sitting at home all alone and go play golf (he’s done that twice, and we’ve had the TV 5 days), but he does love his new TV. It’s definitely the object of his affection right now. 😆

Click on the extended entry for some pictures of the old and new …

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I blogged over the weekend about our coon trap, and how we were trying to catch the little buggers.

See – the coons are tearing up our backyard. They climb up in the tree and break the branches, trying to get to the bird feeder. We find the bird feeder on the ground (along with broken branches), sometimes the feeder is broken and all the suet is gone. The other bird feeder that is on a shepherd’s hook will be pushed to the ground, and all the bird seed scattered all over the ground. And the big thing is that they LOVE the squirrel’s corn. The coons either eat the entire cob or simply take it with them. So, we bought a “HavAHeart” large animal cage at Lowe’s and put it out. Saturday morning, we got up and found this:

He was “playing possum” I guess 🙂 He turned around when I came up with the camera:

He was a pretty large little guy. Here he is up close:

I came inside and called the Animal Control number for our local police. I was politely informed that they only dealt with domesticated animals and he gave me the phone number for the Wildlife and Fisheries, or some state dept. I called that number and was told they don’t do that either, and he gave me another number to call. Basically, we played “pass the buck”. I called 4 or 5 places and never got any help, so we gave up on that. Tim, the consummate country boy, said “we’ll just take him up towards the Trace, in some woods, and drop him off”. Hence, we basically just catch and release them.

We caught another one Sunday night and released him Monday morning in the same spot. If they are related, then hopefully they found each other and can go rob someone else’s yard of all their food. Click on the extended page for pictures of the second coon, he was a bit smaller.

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Friday was a very busy day for us – we bought a new entertainment center and a big screen TV (plasma, high definition)!!! We’ve been busy trying to get all the old stuff moved out, and all the new stuff setup and working. It’s a lot of work and is going to take us a few days to get it all done. Our old entertainment center was very heavy and I think the new one is even worse! Poor Tim only has me as a helper and I cannot lift and move 200 lbs very easily 🙂

Last night, Tim reloaded the coon trap and caught our first coon. We have to figure out how to get rid of him now. We called Animal Control and they said they only deal with domesticated animals. HUH? They referred us to Wildlife & Fisheries, where we left a message on the answering machine and have yet to hear back.

Today, we’re headed over to Tim’s family for the day. We’re going to celebrate his mom’s birthday which is coming up next week. I’ll try to post some more news and hopefully pictures on either Sunday or Monday. Have a great day!

Tim checking out the hammock at Lowe’s:

We ended up eating out last night (I know, getting off track on my menu plan here, bad girl) at my favorite Chinese place, then running some errands. Tim offered to take me to eat Chinese, even though I had food defrosted for supper. I do not EVER turn down Chinese. He’s starting to get on a “I’ll go if we order from the menu and not eat a buffet” kick for Chinese, and I’m more than a little grateful. He’s been so burned out on Chinese food and me, well, I could eat it 3 times a week. He’s happy with once every 3 months. So, this compromise is working out well. We each had a huge bowl of egg drop soup, then split some chicken tempura, and ordered some shrimp fried rice. It was all yummy.

We needed to run errands last night because the seal on our shower door broke yesterday, and we wanted to replace it before we took a shower and leaked water on the floor. So, after dinner, we headed to Lowe’s. We couldn’t find the seal there, but we found some other things we were looking for. Namely, critter catchers. Yes, we have critters, and a lot of them, in our back yard. I’ve been losing food left and right to some unseen critter that Tim thinks is a coon (raccoon for any of you not from the Deep South!). The coon keeps knocking over my bird feeders and eating the food and suet. He takes the corn cobs from the squirrel feeder if I leave it out there overnight. I’ve started bringing stuff in at night, which is a pain. He’s climbing my tree branches, and breaking them, to knock down the bird feeders to the ground so he can eat all the food. It’s either one really hungry coon or an entire family. Anyway, Tim has decided to play Daniel Boone and catch the coon and then take him somewhere and release him. We found this critter cage for 36 bucks at Lowe’s and he had to have it. We also were looking for rat traps. Not mice traps, we tried those and the suckers are too big. It’s only catching a bit of them (a piece of tail here, a foot there, EWWW!). There seems to be a family of very large rats living under our deck in the backyard. Between the rats and the coon, I’m not a happy camper. So, Tim decided to finally do something about it so I would stop complaining. 🙄

Anyway, we got the seal at Home Depot, and a lot of critter traps at Lowe’s. We also picked up a few groceries while we were out. We were tired by the time we got in, and then Tim had to work late again last night. Poor Tim, he’s been working on this project non-stop since last Friday and he’s getting fairly tired and grumpy. And he has to listen to his wife complain about the critters living outside in the back yard.

We got two movies in the mail today, both totally free!

One was way overdue, from way back in May (I blogged about it here), from the Reward TV website. It’s a free copy of “The Wedding Date” with Debra Messing and Dermot Mulroney. I cashed in all of my “points” on their auction site, and even though it took 3 months, I’m glad to get the movie for free. We actually rented it after it came out on DVD, and even though it wasn’t the best movie ever, it was cute. And, like I said, it was basically free to me. 🙂

The other is a free movie from the Kellogg’s cereal offers, an old movie called “Catch That Kid”. Neither of us have seen it, but it was free, and it looked fairly clean and cute from the blurb I read at IMDB. Has anyone seen it? Again, it’s probably not a great movie, but it was free. Are you getting the point that I love free stuff?!! 🙂

OK, back to your regularly scheduled programming. I was just really excited – it’s so nice to go get the mail and have two free movies sitting in my mailbox!

This is an odd weekend for us – we’re actually staying around the house. Which is something we rarely do. Tim gets cabin fever after hanging around the house for a couple of hours on the weekends, so we inevitably end up going, going, going all weekend, every weekend. This weekend, though, he is working on a project at work and working at night, and on call for the rest of the time, so he’s rather forced into staying here. Me, I love it! It’s something we never do and something I wish we could do more.

Anyway, it makes for even more boring blogging than usual. 😛 We’re just hanging out, watching TV and movies, reading (me), hitting golf balls (Tim) and …. he cut the grass Friday PM. Nothing unusual about that, he cuts the grass once a week in the summer. However, this time was a bit different. One of our neighbors has a riding lawn mower and wanted Tim to borrow it and test it out. Now, if you’re familiar with our house, it’s small and our yard is even smaller. I bought this house expressly for those reasons – less to clean and heat/cool on the inside and less yard work to do on the outside. I used to cut the grass and weed-eat before I met Tim and the yard was a manageable size for me. Which means it’s a snap for Tim to keep up. Which also means, a riding mower is overkill.

If you want to see pictures of Tim on the riding mower, and also the hummingbirds that are swarming our feeder this afternoon, click on the extended entry. Hope everyone is having a great weekend! 🙂

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There’s a country song whose chorus goes “like two sparrows in a hurricane, trying to find their way” or something like that. I took this picture earlier today and it made me think of that song.

We finally got some much-needed rain around lunchtime today. As I was walking by one of my breakfast room windows while it was raining pretty hard, I saw these 2 sparrows (or are they finches, I can never tell the difference!) huddled up on the back side of my hummingbird feeder. This feeder hangs from the eave, so they were effectively under shelter and out of the rain. They were so puffy and wet and all huddled up. I went and grabbed my camera and got 3 pictures before they saw me and flew away. Needless to say, 2 of them came out blurry (argh, must learn to use my camera soon) and then this one:

It’s still really hot and dry here. We haven’t had rain in over a week, and today it got so hot. I was inside, working on the computer, and noticed that my little weather icon on my computer was blinking red for a heat advisory – it was 100º with a heat index of 108º. Sheesh, I sure wish summer would wind down and we could get a break from this heat.

Anyway, it clouded up around 6:30 PM and started lightening and thundering. I got my hopes up that it might rain, and it sprinkled – for all of about 20 seconds. It barely dampened the pavement.

But, it was still cloudy and unsettled towards sunset and I got some decent pictures. I discovered, quite by accident, that I have a “sunset” mode on my camera!

Nada, nothing. Got nothing blog-worthy today

We were gone all day yesterday, helping my dad. We also got to stop and see Tim’s brother Mark, Amanda, Ethan and Abby and go out to eat dinner with them before heading home. Which is always nice 😀 Today, we’re going to go run a bunch of errands, maybe watch a movie, and then settle in tonight to watch the first NFL preseason game on TV. We’ll have to tape The 4400 and watch it later in the week.

We’re headed out again today, out of town for a short trip. We had wanted to go to more of the Saints training camps, but alas, all of their practices this weekend are closed to the public. They’re getting ready for their first preseason game next weekend, which we were very glad to see, will be shown on one of our local TV stations. 🙂

My dad called and needs some help moving his computer, so we’re headed south to his house to help out. He had a toilet overflow and soak a couple of rooms worth of carpet and padding. The service people are coming to start drying the padding and carpet, and he wants to move his computer out of the way and set it up in another part of the house for a while. So, since we’re the computer experts in the family, we are needed elsewhere today. 😆

Hope everyone has a great day!