Next I'll be hunting with Cheney

One of the first words Lil'T ever said was "bird." Okay, it sounds more like, "bee," but you get it. She loves birds. This has caused me to increase my bird feeders from just two up to 6. I have 4 different kinds of seed, a suet cake feeder and a hummingbird feeder. At breakfast, I am treated to Lil'T's squeals of delight when birds come to eat their meals. The different seeds have encouraged a bunch of different species of bird to visit. It's been really fun. I've got to invest in one of those bird identification books because the only one I know for sure is the red breasted nuthatch, which my hubby loves to call the nutscratch. Seriously. It's like living with Beavis.

So this morning I was making breakfast and looked out my window to see that one of my bird feeders was lying broken on the deck. It had been pulled down off of the hook by some masked robbers -- raccoons. Those little jerks! It was my black oil sunflower seed feeder. It is the most popular feeder on the deck being the most frequented by the widest variety of birds.

I picked up the feeder and although it was grievously cracked on the bottom, it was still usable so I rehung it. I knew that this was the first volley in a war. It was a war that I didn't want to get drawn into, but taking away the feeders from Lil'T's favorite breakfast companions is just mean. And I won't stand for it.

I talked things over with my husband and we agreed that we'd have to use That's bb gun to frighten the raccoons off. A little background on the bb gun.

Months before Christmas, my husband said that it would be great fun to have a bb gun for That. I said no. So he asked again -- repeatedly -- after he thought that I might have changed my mind. I kept saying no. I know my son. One year in school, he lost 5 jackets. Five. One he had so briefly in his possession, that when we looked for it in the school's lost and found, he asked me what it looked like. I think he wore it for one day and promptly lost it. Five. So this same child, I'm supposed to believe he's going to remember never to point that bb gun at another child? That he's going to remember to always point it towards the ground with the safety on? That he's going to remember to wear his safety goggles and that all the people with him should be wearing their safety goggles? Consider that every day for his entire life, I've had to remind him to take his dishes from the dining table to the kitchen sink. He's 10 years old. He's had to bus his dishes since he was maybe 4. That's 6 years of 2-3 meals a day -- it's over 4000 times. And at the end of each of those meals, I have to remind him to bus his dishes. One wonders how I would have such little faith in my son's memory. No gun.

So on Christmas morning, my husband brought out a long, poorly wrapped cardboard box. When That opened it, it was like he was just given a puppy. He was so happy. Who am I? The Grinch? So no, I didn't take it away from him. Especially since my husband handed me a box with safety goggles and the keys to the gun lock.

Now I don't know. Maybe it is a guy thing. Hubby went on and on about how people in the store kept talking about what a great time it was for their boys when they were little. To hear him say it, those other customers were practically weeping tears of joy at the thought of him buying his son his first bb gun. Shooting targets and small helpless creatures: it is a rite of passage. When asked how he could possibly go and get the gun after all my objections, Hubby said, "I had to do it over your objections. You weren't budging." That's verbatim, folks.

To his credit, he did get the weakest bb gun on the market. He said that it was only good for shooting pop cans, because tin cans are too heavy. He says you could get better acceleration on the bb if you just took one in your hand and threw it really hard.

But, that bb gun was our only tool to combat the raccoons this evening.

We were eating dinner and I noticed that the bird feeders were swaying wildly out on the deck. I also noticed that the wind chimes weren't making any noise. So I knew that we had those darned raccoons ruining my bird feeders again. They were after the already damaged sunflower seed feeder.

Hubby came to the dining room with the gun in hand amidst protestations from both of the older children. They were worried that Dad would shoot one of the raccoon's eyes out. After all, that's all they hear me worry over when we talk about the bb gun. Hubby soothed their fears by saying, "What do you think I'm aiming at? Of course I'm trying to put out one of their eyes. That'll teach 'um."

We turned off all the lights in the house so Hubby could see his quarry better. He aimed and shot. The raccoon let go of the bird feeder instantly. But it stayed right there on the deck.

My husband continued his rapid bb gun assault. Eventually the raccoons left the deck. My husband triumphantly cried out (imagine the voice of He-Man), "I am powerful. I can touch you all the way from here. Buahahahaha!"

But when he did come back into the house, he said that the raccoons kind of looked at him like one would look at a little brother throwing popcorn on you. Kind of annoying but it doesn't hurt. Heck, he hit them every time, but it still took several shots to get them convinced that the bb onslaught would not end until they left. Let's say this. They walked off the deck. No scamper. No run. Walked.

I went out and took down the remaining bird feeders. I'll hang them up tomorrow morning before Lil'T wakes up. Hopefully the birds will come by again. But those darned raccoons... Hubby was making a hard play for more power to his bb. He said the next model up listed raccoon deterrence as a feature.

Can I still be a Democrat and be a member of the N.R.A? Or will those guys shoot me on sight? Maybe I shouldn't wear my, "I miss Bill," t-shirt to the meeting.