So, we’ve been working on laying our sump-pump line underground and well away from the house. Pause a minute here– for you Westerners– there’s a lot of groundwater in the Midwest. So much so that it literally seeps from the ground into your basement, if you have one, which we do. So most people with dry basements have what’s called a sump pump which sucks the water out of the ground and pumps it out and away from the house. When we first bought our house it was discharging right at the foundation, which, as you can imagine, didn’t help much. We still had a wet basement much of the time. So we took a line above ground, to temporarily (um, about a year) at least get the water on a downward run away from the house. Unfortunately this meant we had a muddy backyard pretty much all the time, and the roots were continually being washed bare from our favorite big tree. With salt water. Yikes. Not a good plan for long-term. So in the process of digging a trench, laying the pipe underground, etc, we had to remove the board that was closing off the area where the pipe came out of the house to make things easier. Unfortunately, we kinda forgot to put it back on. Consequently we had this visitor…

He (or she?) was so very curious, and smart, too. Kept wanting to come upstairs… "I came in from up, so I must need to go up to get out!" Or maybe she just wanted to move in with us. She waited at the top of those stairs for hours. Neils wanted to keep her as a pet (of course!) but we decided to let the poor thing go. Conan built a ramp of sorts back up to the window, hoping she would be able to climb out on her own while we went to church, but no such luck. Finally he caught her between two apple crates and carried her out. Unfortunately she left behind a racoonish mess, including several piles of droppings for us to clean up. Awesome. I didn’t get a "Born Free" kind of shot, but she certainly made a run for it once we got her outside. The little boys kept shouting "ca’coon! ca’coon!" and chased after her with the intent to make her stay and be their pet. Alas, she was a little (okay WAY) too quick for them. Poor thing! She’d had one rough night!