This is WAR!!!!

Whoever recognized that "History repeats itself." was a genius.  Wars have been carried on between races of people for generations.  Sometimes I wonder if the current generation even knows or understands what caused the original conflict. 

Our family is clueless about what instigated the Great Groundhog Wars.  What we do know is that our first knowledge of them started with Grammy.  She saw them everywhere in the yard.  Their presence disturbed her greatly.  We often had to make trips to her house to pretend to battle them for her honor.  Most of these battles took place when Doc was absent, which I find interesting. The kids, were brave warriors who would travel down the driveway by foot or by "Gator" to battle the beasts.  They went with pitchforks and flashlights and guns..... or were those the villagers from Frankenstein?  At any rate, Grammy built traps for them that never seemed to work.  At least we don't think they did, because she continued to see groundhogs everywhere.  The final battle was staged with spiked spears that she whittled herself and stuck in the hole that the devils had dug in the yard! Not her best effort though because the spears were at least a foot above ground level.  The ground hogs would have had to leap into the air to land on them.

I refused to get involved.  I saw nothing good coming from this, but I did allow the children to defend the homestead in their father's absence.  I think the groundhogs finally got the best of Grammy, because she left and they stayed.  Pook and his wife, the Princess now live in that same home.  A new generation of groundhogs has carried on the siege.  Pook now battles this next battalion on his own....and he is failing.  They continue to lurk around the house and travel in and out of the cellar via the same hole that Grammy booby-trapped.  Maybe it is time to resurrect the spears!

And alas, the war has expanded even further.  The groundhogs have formed an apparent alliance with raccoons.  These new enlistees are even more devilishly clever than the groundhogs.  They have expanded the battle zone to include our house and yard, where Doc has numerous bird feeders filled with seed and suet.  If you sit on the patio after dusk, you can hear them lurking in the woods.  Branches snap under the weight of their steps.  Because they are well fed by Doc, they weigh anywhere from fifty pounds on up so believe me they snap a lot of branches!  They wait in the shadows until we have gone into the house to go to bed or at least escape the mosquitos.  And then they attack.  We often wake up to find that a suet hanger or an entire bird feeder has been pulled off and has been emptied and is resting at the bottom of the Hill of Death in the ravine. 

Doc has declared war!!!  They are stealing food out of the mouths of the very birds he loves to observe.  (Keep in mind these are the some of the same birds that have nested in our porch and leave droppings on my patio furniture and that he has built a device to keep them away.)  He is creative in designing all kinds of ways to deter them.  We now have the remains of a satellite dish encircling the bird feeder pole.  We are considering security cameras and air raid sirens.  The other morning, or should I say in the middle of the night, I woke up as Doc popped out of bed and went outside.  When he returned, I asked if he was alright.  He simply replied that he just had a "feeling" that the raccoons were attacking.  I sighed and fell asleep.  The man also gets up in the middle of the night to sit outside.  He is losing it.  This insanity of his mother's has infected him.  I am concerned about just how far this will go.  I am concerned about Pook and the Princess.  Will Pook be effected by this insanity too?  And what about our grandchildren?!  How many other animals will join in on the attacks?!  When will it all end?!!!! 

I still refuse to get involved.  I will do everything I can to protect my children from being dragged into this generational war.  I think it might be a genetic problem, and there is only so much that I can do to override the genetics causing this issue.  God help us all!!!!
Have a blessed week!  Keep smiling at life and all of the adventures that come your way!!!!!