Our wildlife

So I thought I would make a little running list of the various wildlife that now frequents our deck. The cats have been enjoying it as much as we have.

Ruby Throated Humming Birds
Golden Finches
Carolina Chickadee
Cardinals
Squirrels (who raid my humming bird feeder)
Four or Five Juvenile Raccoons (who raid my humming bird feeder, finch feeder and my tomatoes)
Bumble Bees (who raid my humming bird feeder)
Various Giant Ants(who raid my humming bird feeder)
Stink Bugs
Various types of moths and butterflys


Ps. I know that the pic's stink but, I took them through glass, far away, and with a bad camera.

When it rains, it pours.

Why is it that when it rains, it seems to pour? I understand that God never gives us more than we can bear but, I don't have to like it.

Let me explain. I thought that dealing with my health, all of the bills associated with it (for labs, scripts, and the MRI) and lack of driving was quite enough for me to deal with for the summer. This on top of not being able to find a job AGAIN and having to come to grips with it. The random tutoring schedule has been eating at me but, I have been able to come to grips with it too. I thought that would be it but, no.

On the way to tutoring this past week, hubby's car started making crazy noises. He spent half a day working on it, changing the transmission oil, etc. He finally realized we needed to take it in to a shop. They told us it is the transmission. Great. Now we have to pay a couple thousand dollars to pay for a new transmission, and are without his car for a couple/few weeks. Since I am not driving, we even had to pay for a rental car for a day just to get home from the shop. Talk about depressing. The shop is only like 10 min. from our house but, I couldn't even get it together enough to drive that far.

Then, add the canoe trip to the Boundary Water Canoe Area in MN that hubby has been planning for awhile and has been looking forward to (he even managed to get off 11 days straight, of summer none the less, so we could go). It has taken GOBS of planning, researching, talking to people in MN, buying of permits, and sending of non-refundable deposits to arrange. Now we have canceled it. One, because of my health, and two because of the bills we were not expecting.

Now, here is the biggie. We are currently starting the process of buying a house that we like. Even with my health, bills from my health, lack of job, loss of monies from the canceled trip, and exploded car, we are crazy enough to try to get the money together for a down payment, closing costs, application fees, etc.

I am currently overwhelmed with my lack of understanding of the entire home buying process and feel as though I am about 10 steps behind trying desperately to get caught up. Unless you just want to be led around by the hand, the house buying process is daunting. I mean, who really knows off hand if its better to use a realtor as a dual agent or to bring in a buyers agent after the sellers agent has already shown you the house twice? I didn't (until I spent the day going back and forth between a total of three agents and my dad).

It's pouring. Can you see it?

Ok, now that I have complained here is the good part about today.

Hubby and I just put up a hummingbird feeder yesterday. Today I was overjoyed as I was given the blessing of watching a humming bird come to and from my feeder all morning. At one point, as it was feeding, a golden finch was feeding from the thistle feeder right next to it. The two just eyeballed each other and kept on eating. Couple that with the pretty white moths in my flowers and a big orange butterfly and it was a picture that melted my stress away. Even if just for a moment.

I suppose it could always be worse.

When animals strike back...

These pictures hardly do this justice. There were many more wounds than pictured and this was after some of the blood was cleaned. He ended up having cuts on both hands, legs, and one foot. I would estimate that there were around 50 cuts and deep punctures that were still bleeding when hubby left for work.

So, here is the scoop. I slept terribly all night last night and after hours of tossing and turning I went to sleep on the couch downstairs. I thought this was for the best.

Well, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning to loud banging and terrible cat noises coming from upstairs. The noises continued until I heard Hubby sized thudding and then him yelling. All fell fairly quiet and then I heard, "Shit I have blood all over me." So, I ran upstairs to see what the crap happened. There were cats flying every where, urine all over the hall way carpet and walls, and Craig standing in the bath room covered in blood. I yelled as I was heading up the stairs, "Is it your blood or a cats?!" Craig said in a confused voice, "I don't know!" So, when I got upstairs and saw him I realized it was his. He then told me he was going to faint. He quickly laid down in the bathroom while I got him a glass of water and tried to keep myself from fainting. Lots of calming down of hubby, and the cats, and blood and urine clean up happened after that. Finally, sometime during all of that, hubby me what happened.

As far as we could figure, mama cat got spooked or caught in something at the foot of the bed (we think the cloth hamper because it was ripped and had some of hubbies blood on it). She then proceeded to freak out, involving Theta in the whole mess, and freaking out the rest of the cats who came running to see what all of the cat fight noises were about (they were so spooked that they urinated everywhere). Well hubby, in all of his still sleeping glory, tried to free mama cat from whatever had her and break up the invisible fight he couldn't see because it was pitch black. Mama then decided that hubby was the cause of all of her trouble. The rest, as they say, is history.

Ouch.