Jamie has to get up at 2:30 AM to go to work. The alarm clock going off at 2:30 AM in my bedroom woke me up, so I left Lilly's bedroom to go shut it off. Jamie wasn't in bed, and he wasn't even home. I guess since he couldn't sleep, he probably decided to just go ahead and go on in to work early; that way, he could get finished sooner, and get to come home earlier.
Sometime before that, Lilly had moved from her own bed to my spot in my bed. After shutting off the alarm, I crawled into Jamie's spot in my bed, next to Lilly.
I laid there for a while, trying to get back to sleep. I don't ever sleep for long periods of time anyway, and almost every night, I will end up laying there for hours, wide awake.
Just when I was finally starting to settle down, I heard a noise outside. It was some bumping and thumping that seemed to be coming from the garage (we don't have a garage door; it's just an opening). Of course my first thought was OMG there's a burglar outside ransacking something! I laid there, frozen, and just listened. It happened again, louder. THUMP THUMP BUMP SCOOT THUMP! I thought, great, and Jamie's not home to investigate or protect us. It was then that the thought came into my mind that OMG IT HAS TO BE A BEAR. What else could bump and thump like that? We have bears around our house, but none of them have ever bothered anything. Yet.
We keep our two dogs, Maddie (a Boxer) and Lucky (a German Shepherd mix) inside the house every night. I heard one of them whine, hop down off the couch, and run to the back door. They knew something was outside too.
Finally I realized that I needed to quit being freaked out, be brave, and get up and figure out what was going on. With all the lights in the house still off, I slowly crept down the hallway and into the kitchen, where Maddie was standing at the back door, knowing that something was out there. I took a deep breath and quickly flicked on the garage light, not knowing what to expect to see (but of course expecting the worst). Nothing. I wasn't about to go outside and look (what if it was a bear, or a murderer, or a murderer-bear). So I stood there and looked out the window of the door for a while. I didn't see any kind of a creature, but I did see what was bumping and thumping. Oh, there had been some kind of animal outside all right, because laying out in the yard, just outside the back garage door, was the big plastic Rubbermaid bin with a lid that we keep the dogs' kibble in. It was upside-down.
I immediately pictured a bear angrily heaving the dog food bin around (like that old commercial where the gorilla heaves that suitcase around, to prove how strong the suitcase is):
I decided to just go on back to bed, and lay there and listen for the creature to come back to attack the dog food bin again, so I could peek out the bedroom window and see exactly what it was for myself. I texted Jamie to let him know what had happened, and he simply replied back with "coon". The dog food bin was nearly empty, after all, and therefore very light, and fairly easy for a curious and hungry critter to scoot and flip. Whatever it was apparently never came back, because I never heard anything else, and eventually finally drifted back off to sleep.
Since Lilly has been on Christmas Break from school, we have fallen into the very bad habit of sleeping/staying in the bed later and later every morning. School starts back tomorrow, and I know it's going to be harder than ever to get her up at 7:00 AM to get her to school on time, when we didn't even get out of the bed this morning until close to noon!
Anyway, when we woke up, I told Lilly all about the dog food bin incident. She got out of bed and looked out the window to see the upside-down bin. I got up and let the dogs outside, and they immediately ran over to the dog food bin and began intensely sniffing it, and sniffing the ground all around it. I followed them outside so I could feed them and finally closely investigate the bin for myself. I looked at the soft, muddy ground for any tracks, but didn't really see any (plus the dogs had already tracked it up with their own footprints anyway). I looked at the bin itself to see if it had any muddy "handprints" on it (raccoon prints look a little like human handprints because they have little fingers like this):
So whatever the critter truly was remains a mystery, but it was most likely a raccoon.
You never know what kind of critter you're gonna come across when you live in the country in the edge of the woods!
(The bin usually sits directly to the left of the bicycle tire):
(Maddie & Lucky sniffing the bin):
(The bin, returned to its rightful position, and showing how little kibble was in it):
Maddie & Lucky are still concerned for the safety of their kibble.
Gotta go for now...as you can see, I better go to the grocery store to buy more dog food! :)
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