Critter Update

Well, 7 days later I caught another one! I went across the street to my neighbor Brian's house to see if he would take me and the Opossum for a drive. Brian has a truck and I don't. I considered for one brief moment putting the thing in my trunk and quickly vetoed that idea. What if it pees in there? Plus, it smells like a dead animal!

Well, Brian agreed to drive us as long as he didn't have to touch it. :) Like I was going to touch that gnarly thing!

Any ways he drove us up the road a bit to a clearing and I got the cage out and opened it up. With me standing there, the critter just kept hissing and climbing further up the back wall of the cage. So, I sat it down and took two steps away. Just like that, the critter scampered right out of the cage and into the trees. At least it's gone now.

My neighbor who is apparently scared to death of my Opossum remarked that I must be some "country girl" I assured him most women from TN (he's from CA) had a little country in them. Especially when a family of opossum's moves in under your house!

Now the trap is reset again to see if there are any more critters under the house.

Daddy, plan your trip and get down here. You need to help me close up this hole!!!!

I caught the Opossum!!

Last night during the thunderstorm I caught the Opossum! I had reset the trap around 5pm and by 10pm I had him! Now I just have to figure out how to get rid of him. Cristi and I may borrow her husbands truck to drive him down the road a bit. I'm sure that will require an update on the blog. :)

The last time I caught one I called animal control to come get it. They did come remove the critter, but they took my trap with them. They also seemed a bit peeved when I wanted my trap back too. Obviously, I need my traps as I've continuously used them to catch the critters getting under my house. Just call me Cheryl, the Animal Catcher. :)

Buffett

Yesterday, September 14th, the McDaniels sweet Cocker Spaniel Buffett went to heaven to be with Beth's brother Christopher. Buffett had been struggling with Lymphoma cancer for the past 3-4 weeks and now has beat it by leaving it behind. Please keep them McDaniels in your thoughts and prayers as they get through this tough time. Buffett had been with Beth and Charlie since before they got married 11 years ago and he will be greatly missed by us all.

We love you Buffett!!

Critters!

As some of you know, I had a opossum under my house several months ago that I caught and had disposed of. Well, I never got the hole under the house sealed off and now I have another one.

I set my traps to try and catch the opossum over the weekend. Sadly, I haven’t caught a possum yet, but I did catch somebody’s pet this morning. I let her go and I guess I will be resetting the trap this evening.

Bristol was Awesome!!!

If you have never been to a Nascar race, you should definitely give it a try. I never dreamed in the spring that I would love it this much, but now I’m hooked.

Cristi and I drove up on Thursday night so we could beat some of the traffic and then spent the night at my parents house.

Friday we headed toward the track about 10am, stopped for Subway sandwiches and headed to my aunt’s campsite. We hung out there a while and then headed out for the track to site see a bit.

We spent part of the day shopping through all the vendors that come to the races. It’s amazing all the things you can see. There are trucks with strictly driver paraphernalia, general Nascar merchandise, Bristol raceway merchandise, radio and headset vendors, and then your random advertisers. We got freebies from Old Spice, Armour (beanie weenies), Duke’s mayonnaise, Sharpie, Heineken, M&M’s, and so many more I can’t even remember. Cristi, momma, and I all got matching Dale Jr. shirts with glitter.

The Nationwide (formerly Busch) race was Friday night. We went over at about 3pm to watch the drivers qualify and practice for both races. This was a bit long and boring, but worth going to at least one time. The most exciting part of this race was the Grand Marshall. It was none other than Paula Dean! She spoke for a bit and then got the race started with a super cute “Gentleman, Ya’ll start your engines!!!”” Then they were off! The “little boy” race is 250 laps. The winner was Brad Keselowski driving Dale Jr’s Navy car! Even more exciting was that he started 18th and then finished first.

Saturday we started out about the same time. Headed to pick up some lunch and then over to the campsite. We did even more shopping and then headed our separate ways. Cristi and I had seats in turn 4 that night and so we hiked to our seats. It seemed like a lost cause pretty early on as Kyle Busch took the lead for most of the race. However, Carl Edwards managed to get by him after the last caution and pulled it out.

The only downside of the whole weekend was that my big cooler got stolen. It seems there was a major underage drinking problem that weekend and some punks thought they had hit the morther load when they stumbled upon our camper. The cooler had been filled with ice and many beverages on Friday morning and then we just kept adding ice and drinks to it. When the thieves took it (during the cup race) I’m sure they thought they had found a cooler full of beer. In all actuality. It might have had 10 beers, 10 soft drinks, and two days worth of ice water. J

Smoke Alarm Update

After doing some research on the Internet I discovered several interesting facts.

1. Smoke alarms can malfunction in the presence of a bug infestation and where there are high levels of dust.

2. Smoke alarms that are wired into your home are linked together. This is a safety feature that causes your other smoke alarms to go off if one is triggered. Hence, my deafening noise. I will say however, that I know I won't sleep through a real fire. There is no way to sleep through that noise.

After examining my detectors for signs of problems, I noticed that the 2nd floor alarms was full of dust. So, I ran over to the trusty Home Depot and bought a two pack ($25) of smoke detectors and went home to install them. Installation went by without a hitch and now I am scheduling a vacuum of my detectors once a year. I sure don't want to go through this again. :)