Remember Mr. Trouble? I promised I'd come back to him. I made this promise even before anything bad happened. Even though the country girl in me loved the idea of wildlife in the yard some how I knew it was gonna be trouble. Sure enough, about a week after the first sighting I let the dogs out to potty before leaving them in the house for the day and they made a beeline straight for the area the raccoon had been hanging out in. Right away I knew they were after the poor guy. So, I went to get them in.

Here is where I knew something was wrong. The coon was near a tree but just sitting there on the ground with the dogs harassing it. Also, it let me get pretty close while I was running the dogs off. I felt this was wrong but was running late and thought may be it was too scared to move? So, we went ahead and left for the day.

When we came home we had company coming right behind us so I told Brandon to let the dogs out to potty and get them put back up so they wouldn't bark at our expected guests. Guess what...yep, straight at the coon. This time Brandon goes to get them and came back saying the coon wasn't fighting back, just kindda laying on it's back that slapping at the dogs. So, I went over and it was sitting in almost the exact same spot that it was in before. Why wasn't it going to safety up a tree? I went and fetched the neighbor man because he is handy to have around at times like these and we get within say....3 feet of the thing and it just sits looking at us. hmm.... I called City Hall, nope, Animal Control, nope, County Sheriff's office, "Did it bite you or your pets?" Nope can't help you. (A friend pointed out I should have called Texas Department of Wildlife. Duh. I'm so rational sometimes.)

Everyone agreed that something was wrong with this animal. My fear. Rabies. So, the neighbor guy (God Bless his helpful soul) cages it. We know it is sick and want to keep it separate from our pets. We decided to quarantine it for 3 weeks. If it was well at the end of that time we'd release it. We didn't want to kill it if it was unnecessary. At first it ate and drank. We had high hopes.

Soon, though we knew it was dying. Neither of us had the means or heart to kill it. Finally, it died. We burned it's body for fear of the dogs digging it up. Meanwhile, I took all the dogs to renew their rabies shots.

The raccoon was hanging out on the empty lot next door. That is the same place the stray keeps having puppies that always all die. Plus, the lady that used to live there had 5 dogs that all died at once right before she left 5 yrs ago. My theory is that land is some how full of animal diseases. We are now keeping a very close eye on our pets.

Poor Mr. Trouble. I hope he doesn't have any relatives hangout next door. I think the thrill of wildlife in our yard has passed.

We decided to do our monthly field trip the same day as our group meeting. It was kind of a emergency worker day. I was bummed that not more people got this opportunity because it stormed pretty hard that morning and both the meeting and field trip had low turn outs as a result. Those of us that came anyway were really blessed!

First, we had a couple of EMT's come talk to the kids for our meeting. They spent about an hour telling all about their jobs, what they do, how to become a paramedic, continued education, safety, what to do in different emergency situations, what happens when you call 911 and urged every one to learn CPR. To finish it off they let us look through the truck and sounded the siren. This was a great meeting. Very informative. The kids really listened and I could tell they were taking it all in.

After the paramedics were through for our field trip we headed over to the Athens Fire Department. These guys are great! We went a couple of years ago but had another event after them and had to leave when they obviously were willing to spend a lot more time with us. This time we didn't leave until they showed us and talked to us about EVERYTHING! These men were so patient. If a child had a question or an "um, one time my Mommy..." story they listened to it and answer it. They let the kids see everything from their bedroom to every single compartment on each truck. They let them touch stuff and try stuff on. After the tour they sat the kids down and went through fire safety, how to become a fireman, what it is like to be a fireman, what happens on a call, on and on. They had gifts for the kids and took the time to pose with the kids in pictures. I've always taught my kids to respect the police, fire men, and paramedics but I think all the kids came out of this day with a new awe of respect for these heroic men and women. I know I did!