Why I'm So Tired Today

I heard it just as I was preparing to go to bed.  An odd sound.  One I couldn't place.

Of course, I had to go investigating to find the source.

It was outside on the back porch.  A raccoon.  Helping himself (or herself) to one of my bird feeders.

And this little bandit was not willing to easily walk away from that free buffet I had left out for it.  I turned a light on it.  It sat there looking right at me while munching on a handful of suet.  (not really, as I was inside the sliding door and it probably couldn't even see me).  I knocked on the door, and I think I actually saw it shrug at that.  As if to say "whatever".  I even cracked the door open and tried playing the alarm from my phone to scare him off.  The raccoon apparently just considered it dinner music.  

This continued for a good 10 to 15 minutes until the Man of the House came out and opened the sliding door, at which point the raccoon finally waddled over and climbed down the side of the porch.  Although he must have come back at some point, because this morning my suet feeder was empty and the bell feeder was torn apart with seed all over the porch.  What a mess!!

I was all kinds of ready to go to sleep after that.  Unfortunately, that's when the male offspring experienced his second nose bleed of the night.  He had one a very short time before which had stopped - until he sneezed. 

(WARNING - if you are squeamish, you may want to stop reading now...)

When he sneezed, blood went spraying everywhere and his nose started gushing.  With some nasty little clots.  I helped him pinch his nose, lean forward so the blood wouldn't flow down the back of his throat and get the flow mostly stopped.  Then I had him hold an ice pack on his face for a few minutes before using some saline nasal spray. This all seemed to do the trick, as he had no more incidents during the night.

Between the raccoon caper and the bleeding nose incident - I didn't sleep very well.  Every little noise would wake me up.  And I think I had a few crazy dreams throughout the night.

And that's why I'm so tired.

By the way, if anyone has any great tips for getting rid of raccoons - or nose bleeds - PLEASE leave me a note in the comments!