Saturday night visitor

It was hot - smokin' hot! Most of Saturday was spent inside with the windows and curtains closed to keep the heat out. I did go out once and saw my next door neighbor with a crowbar, pulling the wooden edges off of the columns outside his front door. He looked busy, so I didn't ask. Later in the evening, J & I were watching a movie and by then, had opened all the windows as things were cooling off. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and when I looked, I saw the neighbors striped cat outside the window, about 3-4 feet away. When I sat up to get a better view, since we never see him anymore, he stopped and looked at me and that's when I realized it... that masked face was not the neighbors cat, but a raccoon! J & I looked at him for a split second, then he ducked and headed for the front lawn. Unfortunately, that was right by the garage where the door was cracked to let the heat out. We went outside, couldn't find the raccoon anywhere. Our neighbors were still out so we went to ask if they had seen anything. They calmly said yes, the mother raccoon had had her babies in their front column and with the record heat, they had heard them crying in there. Hence, them pulling it apart with the crowbar. They were able to capture all the babies but not the mother. Our raccoon was most likely a she, and she had run across our lawn and then across the street to the neighbors house. Raccoons in residential areas are not unheard of, but we haven't seen any in the 2.5 years we'd been there and she was so close, it was surprisingly. I was so glad that the neighbors were able to free all of the babies.





Garden pictures! Including..... ta da! our first zuchhini of the year!! Hurray! Note: Object in picture may be smaller than it appears... this zuke is only about 2 inches long. ;) I don't plan on eating it until Wednesday. The full garden picture shows the teepee's I put up this weekend to go along with the 12 cucumber plants that I put in the ground. Beyond the cukes is a row of roughly 8+ basil plants. Beyond the basil, across the sidewalk, I planted 2 Bloody Butchers and 2 Akers West Virginia in the bed up against the house. Tomatoes seem to do well there. Also planted in that bed are 2 sunflowers, 6 spinach, a rosebush, some calendula, and a few cabbage plants. Oh, btw, I used my first cabbage in cole slaw over the weekend. Can you say delicious? I knew you could....