The Deer: Nature 1, Pam 1

Melody was taking a summer camp program at her Elementary School.  I parked the car between two other cars in the parking lot and got the kids out.  Tori was an infant and being carried, and Melody was holding my hand.  We stopped between the parked cars while I looked for driving cars.  There were none, so I started us walking into the parking lot when a deer ran one foot in front of us at full speed.  Melody screamed and jumped back, I contorted my body to shield Tori, and all of our hearts were pounding.  Yes indeed, we almost got run over by a deer.  As our fright settled down, I had a few bars of "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" running through my head.  I tried to imagine how I would try to explain that to the paramedics had I been about one second faster and we were nailed by nature.  "No sir, the deer hit us.  No, there was no car, we were walking.  I don't know why the deer was hauling ass through a parking lot!"   At least I won this round since we did not get hit!

The Raccoon: Nature 1, Pam 0

I was over 8 months pregnant with Melody, lying on the couch with my feet up as far as they could go to try and get my ankles to reappear.  For those that saw my feet then, it was scary, but nothing seemed to help.  So I'm lying there, enjoying a warm spring day with the screen door open on the front door.  I see something run past the door, and look to see which neighborhood cat has decided to hang out and bother Slim Kitty.  I turn my head to look closer, and I see a cute little raccoon face look at me.  I sit up on the couch to call Rob into the room, when the raccoon breaks through the bottom of our screen door and walks in the house.  I now leap up on the couch, and start jumping around with arms flailing screaming, "Raccoon!  Raccoon!"  Rob comes running down the hall to see what the crazy pregnant lady is screaming about, and he comes face to face with the thing and he screams, "Aahh!  A raccoon!"  OK, so he may have used a few more colorful words, but you get the idea.  As luck would have it, the basement door was open, so as Rob came flying down the hallway, the raccoon ran through the kitchen and into the basement.  Great.  Rob goes down to try and chase him out, and in those few minutes the raccoon had found a bag of garbage we had brought down a little bit before to put in the can.  So our friendly raccoon is munching on a meatball and Rob goes down tot get him out of the house.  Apparently raccoons do not take kindly to people getting too close to them while they are eating meatballs and the thing starts growling at Rob.  He backs up while I start screaming something about rabies and get that thing out of the house.  So, Rob goes back upstairs, out the front door to open the garage and starts throwing cookies at the raccoon to lure him through the garage and again out of the house.  It's a very good thing that raccoons like cookies more than meatballs because he fell for Rob's trap.  The raccoon hung around for a bit more that day.  He climbed up on the roof at one point, ran around the back yard some.  Then finally found a home in the dead tree behind our house.  The tree was deck level, and every now and then if we were grilling something, we would see that little face peek out of the tree hole and watch to see if we were sharing with him.  Not likely!

The little kayaker

Melody all ready to go kayaking!

I can't believe she sits still on the boat the whole time.

Have you ever seen a little kid so happy?

Summertime Tea Party

Melody enjoyed setting up her tea party for Dino and Tiger. Tori was not invited. Even after Rob took them to the park to play some, you would figure she might be inclined to give her sister a seat at her picnic. But no, not yet. That day will come.

Tori was happy to go to the park in the wagon.

Pam vs. Nature

I was recently at a family gathering, and as usual, many stories came out of our mouths and drinks came out of our noses.  A good time!  I did start to notice a theme with my stories.  It seems nature has a special place in it's heart for me and loves to mess with me.  I do my part.  I recycle, put my veggie remains in the compost pile, turn out lights and save water.  Still, with all of these Earth friendly steps I take, Mother Nature is always there laughing at me.  The next few posts will re-tell  a few of these tales.