The moment I swung the front door open I knew something was wrong. I could feel it. As I stepped into the entry way, a chill spread across my chest. My senses became super sharp. The hair on the back of my neck tingled—and not in a good way.

I’m not alone. I know it.

Frozen in place, still clutching the door knob, my eyes dart back and forth as I quickly scan the living room. Lamps and plants and decorations have been moved around. Strangely around.   My candle lamp is on the floor, the lovely crochet doily mom made is twisted up and dangling over the edge of the sitting table. Magazines, coasters, pictures, all “rearranged”. But the TV is still there. So is the stereo.

What?

I release my death grip on the door knob and take a big breath. Crap, I can’t find my phone. I reach into my purses “special compartment” and get a hand on my “backup”.

“Hello? Who’s there?” I call out as I slowly tip toe through the living room to the dining room. My curtains are moved around, but the windows are closed. I don’t hear anything above me upstairs. Nothing seems off kilter in the dining room. Then I turn the corner and look in the kitchen.

OH MY LORD!

The dogs food bag is ripped up and empty, cooking utensils, miscellaneous dishes, and appliances are scattered on the floor. Honey is strewn from one end of the kitchen to the other from ripped up individual serving packages laying everywhere. On the counters, the window sills, the floor….and peanut butter, too. Several cupboard doors are open, and items have been knocked down onto the counters. Rice, spices, cups, drink mixes and more. Every inch of counter space is an absolute mess.

And…

There is a somewhat ‘fresh’ black bird wing on the floor in front of the fridge.

OH MY LORD WHAT IS IN MY HOUSE?

Then I spot something on the bakers rack. Black droppings. Not from a mouse, but much bigger, from something else. I’m not sure what it is. Safety on, I make a mad dash for upstairs.

OH MY LORD MY BATHROOM IS DESTROYED!

The hand-made, ceramic glass container that used to be on a shelf about 6 foot high is now busted into a million pieces on the floor. The tooth brushes and tooth paste it held, now scattered on the floor behind the toilet. Towels are pulled off of their shelfs, everything has been tossed about. Everything in the bathroom has been handled. I find a toothbrush in the guest room, by the balcony door. Clothes have been pulled off of their hangers. And oh, how about that? More honey! On the floor, next to the empty honey packs. And more droppings. But the balcony door is still closed tight.

Where is it?

I feel sick, and panicked. There’s a good chance the intruder is still inside. No doubt with the rest of that bird.

I race to the master bedroom. Nick-knacks are tipped over. More droppings. I look at my bed and feel pangs of grossed out-ness as I imagine what may have gone on, on top of my Newfoundland Caribou hide. And then there’s the guest room bed. Holy Hanna. I will have to strip down everything in my house and have it disinfected.

I rush down the stairs, through the house, and down to the basement. Another complete disaster. My super keen ears are listening hard for any sign of life besides me. As I creep through the family room back towards the stairs, thoughts race through my head. Thoughts like;

“I can’t bring the dogs into the house”.

“We can’t sleep here tonight.”

“Everything is ruined!”

And

“Where is it? What is it? How did it get in? How long has it been here?”

Suddenly loud, crashing, thrashing, scratching scrambling sounds boom out of the furnace room!

Yikes!

Instinctively I barrel up the stairs, through the house, and burst out the front door at breakneck speed, just in time to see my neighbors returning home with their RV, which I immediately chase after down the block crying out;

“Help! Help, there’s something in my house!”

They saw me.

Umm..so did a whole lot of other people…eh-hem….

Within minutes, along come the neighbors. Randy, decked out in his leather chaps, slinging a 22 long rifle over his shoulder, with June at his side.

“Let’s go see.”

We enter with caution. They are shocked at the kitchen disaster, confused at the bird wing, and relieved I still have my valuables. Rat? Raccoon? We can’t tell what would do all this damage!

We head to the basement, whispering back and forth, sneaking down the stairs. All is quiet in the furnace room. “But I know it’s down here. I just know it!” We walk through the basement, end to end, noticing things broken, knocked over and rearranged. It was even on top of my sewing machine, leaving droppings.

No sign of life.

We proceed to search the house, room by room, only to come up empty. Somehow we find humor in the midst of all the honey packets and droppings. I film the ‘walk-through’ for proof, and posterity. By now the dogs are pretty tired of sitting in the truck. It’s confirmed, we will spend the night in the toy hauler.

“You need to call the police! They’ll send someone.” June urges.

Great. Can’t wait to see sirens blaring and lights flashing.

Okay.

So I begrudgingly call 911 and sheepishly explain my situation. I beg the dispatcher to keep things quiet. No need to get the neighborhood in a bundle. Within minutes there are 2 squads in front of the house, and four Officers are at my door, ready to begin a search.   How awkward for them to see this creepy, gross mess amidst animal mounts, trophies, pictures and shooting paraphernalia displayed here and there. They were clearly entertained. I won’t go into details but,

Let’s just say it was a good tension reliever.

June, Randy, me and the four cops have finally made it to the kitchen. I get behind the biggest Officer, and we all started heading for the basement, then one of the Officers behind me stops me in my tracks.

“You should wait up here. We’ll let you know what we find.”

He steps around me, and closes the door to the basement behind him. Okay. The three of us stood at the top of the stairs and listened intently while the Officers banged on the walls, clanged the pipes, bumped and pushed and shook things throughout the basement and made enough noise and commotion to scare anything out of its wits or hiding place.

They returned up the stairs.

It was a fruitless search.

“Sorry, we can’t find anything.”

“But I KNOW it’s down there in the furnace room.”

“Look at all these trophies. You must be a good shot.”

“Please don’t leave me with this thing in my house.”

“Sorry.”

The four Officers made their way single file, past us and out the front door. We stood there, feeling abandoned and frustrated.

I looked at my friends. “I know it’s down there.”

“Of course it is. The cops made so much noise it probably went into deep hiding.” Randy replied.

“Let’s go look again.”

We crept down the stairs one more time. June and I quietly stepped into the family room, while Randy canvassed the furnace room with his heavy leather gloves on.

“June. Can you bring me something? Like a broom or something to poke in the corners with?” Randy calls out.

She was not about to get too close to that furnace room opening and I was right behind her. “Randy I’m not getting in there. Here.” She reaches out to hand him an ice pick I’d grabbed earlier.

Suddenly in an instant, all hell breaks loose—Randy cries out, June is falling backwards, screaming and I see—clearly–a great big bushy beast planted firmly on her chest, nose to nose with her, gripping her bosom tight as she screams bloody murder with arms flailing. I’m screaming, she’s screaming, and Randy is trying to gain his composure while screaming, and then it leaps off of her, onto his leather chap leg, then dives back into the depths of the furnace room!

ARGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We three clamor up the stairs in a frantic hot mess, slamming the door behind us, and make our way through the house to the front door.

“You gotta call the cops back!”

“Yes, YES!”

“Did you see that? It was a giant squirrel!”

“It was on me! It was ON me!”

“Well it bounced off my chaps!”

“Oh my gawd! Oh!”

“Hi, I called a few minutes ago about an animal break in? Can you please send the Officers back? Please? We found it! It just attacked my neighbor.”

We burst out the front door to discover the cops had never left. Pretty sure they were doing some sort of coin flip to see who would have to go back in. The very young Animal Control Officer was already getting his cage out of his vehicle. I ran to him, telling him it was a giant squirrel in the furnace room and he should bring his lasso pole thing too. Maybe a tranquilizer gun, just in case. His eyes became quite large.

The four of us went back into the house. The young Officer led the way, followed by Randy, then me, then June. She had had enough close encounters.  The Officer admitted he was new with the force. This was going to be his first “animal extraction”. June and I looked at each other. Gulp. He proceeded down the stairs, and with the wide eyed look of unabashed determination he stepped into the furnace room. Randy closed the door behind him.

“Clang! Ufff! Crash! Whattthe…. Uhh…Crash….clink…..Slap! Slam! Oh! Almost! Dang…..uhhhh! Clang!” The battle went on behind the closed door for a good 10 minutes. We had high hopes that the Officer was getting the upper hand, but truthfully it didn’t sound too good.

 

Umph…. Uhh…Crash!….Clink!…silence…….silence…….Slam!…ugh…..

 

Then came the cry of victory; “Ahhhhh!   I got it! I got it!” Music to our ears.

June and I shot to the bottom of the stairs. Randy swung the furnace room door open. There stood the young Officer, a little untidy, cage in one hand, squirrel dangling from his lasso pole thing in the other, and one giant ear to ear smile on that Officers face.

“You did it! You did it!” I cried out with glee. We were all jumping for joy and hooting and commending the cop on his bravery and capture.

The squirrel, on the other hand, hung there by its neck, swinging punches in the air, and hissing and squealing out idle threats at us. That vile creature. Likely rabid. Filthy rodent. Destructive vermin.

The Officer stood there, soaking up his proud moment of achievement, with his hands full.  

“I…I……..I need help getting him into the cage?” Randy was quick to offer up assistance. Finally, that nasty little home invader was behind bars.

Ah, all is well now. We made our way back upstairs and took a few moments to praise the young Officer further. My hero. I wanted to shower him with sweets, and wild game to bring home to express my gratitude, but of course, that would not be appropriate. Instead, he simply took the squirrel.

I hope they threw the book at that damn creature.

Needless to say, I have been cleaning and sanitizing and throwing things for days, room by room.   Well to look at the bright side of it all, I guess that’s one way to get my spring cleaning done.

 

Thank you for reading my post. Was it inspiring? Scary? Funny? Unbelievable? I’d love to hear your thoughts! All comments are greatly appreciated. Life is an adventure—and it begins today! Why wait for an invitation to live an amazing life full of great experiences? There are lots of inspirational stories under my blog category, “PRs Amazing Outdoor Adventure Update”. If you like what you see, please let me know by “liking” my website. You can even join my tribe to automatically receive new postings ‘hot off the press’.

If you find yourself spending your time not doing what you love, I invite you to contact me to create your own, amazing adventure. As always, please feel free to share with others who may find meaning and value in exploring limitless possibilities with PR Brady AdVentures. Thanks again!

 

Barely home, we’re not even unpacked, but already we are off on another adventure. We’re fortunate for the opportunity to join friends at their parents Wisconsin farm. They like the RV life as well and pull a heavy duty Fifth Wheel. We planned, packed and pushed off about dinner time on Friday, convoying down the highway, with me bringing up the rear. It was a slow go through rush hour. Getting to the Wisconsin border took forever.   When we stopped for gas, they announced we have to make a pit-stop to pick up the grandkids. It will take an hour out of our way and another hour to get back on track.

“Maybe us girls should go straight there and get set up?” June suggests.   What a grand idea. I never have a human in the passenger seat with me when I’m pulling the Toy Hauler. What a glorious treat that would be!

“And Randy can go get the kids.”

“Great idea, June, I’m game!” I reply.

Randy agrees. She jumps out of their truck and into mine. Off we go, parting ways at the next cloverleaf.

How do I describe having company on the road? Grateful, excited, comfortable, happy, entertaining, and so much more! As the sun set behind us, we talked and talked and laughed into the night.   Two hours flew by like ten minutes.  By 10:00 we arrived to the family farm exit.

June began articulating instructions about half a mile from our exit.

“Make sure you go slow. It’s the first driveway on the left. It’s really dark, and it’s tricky. There’s no light. You can look for the big sign, but it’s pretty dark. There’s the exit.”

I merged off the highway onto the simple county road and began to slow down.

“Well not that slow….” She laughed.

Within minutes I could see a large sign on the left side of the road. That must be it.

“It should be coming up….oh, there it is! Turn here!”

I slowly turned into the narrow, pitch dark, dirt driveway and inched along, noticing an open field to the left, an RV to the right, a building to the left, and one straight ahead. It was so dark!

“When you get around this building, just pull up along the garage and we’ll plug you in right there for tonight. Randy can move everything in the morning.” June had it all under control.

“Okay.” I swung wide right to avoid the building on the left. There was a huge open area between the house, and a cow barn.   It appeared to be gravel and mud. As I tried to straighten out into that open space, it became more difficult to move forward. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the dirt ground, or if I hit grass, mud, or what, but I just wasn’t going any farther forward.

“How does right here look? I asked with a weary smile.

“Perfect.” She chuckled. I shut off the engine. Dogs were anxious to get out and pee. June was anxious to get into the farm house. I was anxious to find what was keeping me from moving forward. We all bailed out of the truck.

When I reach a destination, the first thing I do is walk around the trailer and make sure everything looks good, and examine my surroundings. I did a quick check in the dark, found nothing. There was no indication of anything wrong, anything missing or concerning—as far as I could tell. I proceeded to hook up to the outlet June showed me, and took the dogs on short, adventurous, dark walks.

It was time for cocktails with June. We sat in the farm kitchen, talking, laughing and drinking wine, waiting for Randy to arrive with the grandkids. I stepped out to check on the dogs, and took another walk around the farm yard with them. Jack and I ventured up the driveway toward the road. On our way back, I noticed something strange about the Toy Hauler–something not quite right.

Oh my goodness, what the hell is that?

“June!   June!” I call out as Jack and I run up to the farm house. “June, I think we have a problem!”

She comes out and we walk to the back of my toy hauler. We stand side by side and stare blankly at the back of the trailer.

“Oh, yes. I forgot to tell you about that. We’ll have Randy help you in the morning.” She calmly says, holding back a laugh. I am speechless. It’s almost midnight. I’m feeling the effects of that glass of wine. There’s nothing I can do about anything right now. I can’t even cry. All I can think is…

Whoops.

I broke out the Wild Turkey Honey and poured myself a sipping glass, just as Randy arrived with sleepy kids. When June came back from tucking in the kids, I poured him a glass and debated if I should brake the news to him. We were all tired and tipsy. It was pointless to attempt anything in the dark, so we talked a few more minutes, then all turned in for the night.

 

It’s the dawn of a new day, and a new challenge–namely my Toy Hauler. With coffee in hand, I walked Randy around to the back of my Toy Hauler and we stood side by side, staring blankly at it.

“Oh. Yeah. That doesn’t look good. Yeah, that’s wedged pretty tight. Didn’t June warn you about that thing?”

“Nope.”

A big round boulder was wedged under the back left corner of the Toy Hauler. I heaved a heavy sigh and looked at Randy. We both shook our heads.

I know.

Whoops.

Hard as he tried, he could not push the giant boulder out. Thank the gods Randy is a creative problem solver.

 

Within minutes he had the back end jacked up to free the boulder. Still, rolling that massive rock out from under my trailer was no small job. He managed to maneuver it back to its original resting spot.

 

“What? That’s where it goes? Why in the world would someone put a giant boulder THERE?” I cried out in shock.

“Well the idea was so that no one would accidentally clip the garage coming around the corner.”

“So, they clip the boulder instead?”

“Apparently so.”

He carefully examined the undercarriage of my trailer and inspected all wiring and hoses, to find no serious damage had been done, just a couple scratches on the paint underneath. It could have been so much worse!   Randy wasted no time using the situation as an opportunity to razz me about my driving. I maintained that it was dark, I had no idea there was a boulder there, couldn’t see it, and I did swing as wide as I could to come around the building, barely clipping that darn boulder. That’s no place to put that boulder!

Later that morning, Randy tried to mow the giant farm lawn, but his dad had accidently poured the wrong thing down the wrong place on the mower and it wouldn’t start.

Whoops.

So he had to push mow almost an acre of land.

With farms come farm equipment, and with that usually comes issues. Nothing ever seems to simply work right without some sort of tinkering and intervention. I watched Randy wrestle this phenomena several times over the weekend with various pieces of farm equipment. It was ‘whoops’ after ‘whoops’, and usually the result of some cocka-mamie brainstorm his dad had tried to implement. I gained a whole new appreciation for farmers. It still didn’t stop Randy from bringing up my giant boulder blunder, though.

Then came my break. Their future son in law had the perfect mud truck on site, and wasted no time getting out into the back 40 with it in the rain. He disappeared for hours, playing in the mud. Suddenly we spotted him walking up the back trail, dirty and disgusted.

The truck was stuck.

Whoops.

Randy, in all his infinite problem solving wisdom, had the solution.   He fired up the tractor, and the two men road off somewhere behind the barn to go pull the truck out of the mud hole. It was a long time—perhaps an hour–before one of the kids cried out “Grandpa is walking back up!” So we jumped up to see what was going on.

 

Well now I may have caught a boulder under my trailer, but…….

At least……………

I didn’t do something like…….

This…………..

Whoops!

Yes, friends, that would be the tractor, upside down in the middle of the field.  Oh, to have been a mouse in the field, watching the entire situation unfold…..these two guys bring “Whoops“ to a whole new level!

 

So Eli stuck his truck.

Randy flipped the tractor that tried to pull the truck.

Eli drove the dozer that pulled out the truck and un-flipped the tractor.

And eventually, we all sat down for dinner.

Ahhhh, the farm life!

 

 

Thank you for reading my post. Was it inspiring? Scary? Funny? Unbelievable? I’d love to hear your thoughts! All comments are greatly appreciated. Life is an adventure—and it begins today! Why wait for an invitation to live an amazing life full of great experiences? There are lots of inspirational stories under my blog category, “PRs Amazing Outdoor Adventure Update”. If you like what you see, please let me know by “liking” my website. You can even join my tribe to automatically receive new postings ‘hot off the press’.

If you find yourself spending your time not doing what you love, I invite you to contact me for help to create your own, amazing adventure. As always, please feel free to share with others who may find meaning and value in exploring limitless possibilities with PR Brady AdVentures. Thanks again!