joyful2beeblogs

We had had some heavy rains, which inundated my porch floor. After the water receded, I heard there was going to be more heavy rains. My porch, as well as my neighbor’s porch above me, have a right angle gutter that drains down a pipe beside our porches. The water goes down a drainage pipe until the rain gets so heavy and fast that the gutter overflows and seeps onto my porch from the side first and then around to the front. The last big rain caused two inches of rainwater on my porch, and more was coming soon.

A neighbor gave me three bags of sand to protect my porch door from getting flooded. I managed to use half of the big bag for two large cloth bags, which hold up a tarp-wrapped, old shelf in front of my back door, and they block water from coming in on the sides. That left me with two big sandbags.

I was in a hurry and wanted to line up some protection from the overflow of the drainage from the gutter. I used up two of the full, big sand bags by filling twenty-one gallon plastic storage bags with sand and lined them up in front of the side screen and part way across the front screen.

Then I had a problem. I had a 50-inch hole in the front of my barrier that water could get through. I went into the kitchen and found two canisters; one with flour and one with sugar. So I filled up five or six more bags and placed them along the rest of the front of the screen. If water were to come in, it wouldn’t be from the side but from the front edge, where there was about a 30-inch span with no sand bags.

The rains came, and the bags served their purpose. Little to no water came in from the side or front. I was insufferably pleased with myself. The next day, the water receded, and the floor was still damp and dirty. So I tried to sweep some of the water and dirt off and went back inside.

A few hours later, I went out to check on the porch. I was quite surprised to see a young squirrel racing back and forth across the waist high metal bar that supports the screen halfway up the opening and all over both screens. He was terrified!

Luckily, I had closed the door behind me to keep Norie inside, but I heard her scratching on the door, trying to come out and catch the squirrel.

After trying to lure him to eat something and capture him, I failed. He was too nervous but did get a pecan and a small slice of apple I put out for him. My neighbor came over from the other side of our condo and spotted how the squirrel got in. The first words out of her mouth were, “Why did you use flour? Squirrels will eat anything.”

I replied, weakly, ” I didn’t think the flour would have a strong enough smell to attract a squirrel.”

He had gnawed a hole through the bottom of the screen; then gnawed through the storage bag with the flour in it; and ate some of the flour before I came out.

After trying to catch him in a plastic cloth shopping bag, feed him something in case he was hungry, and even try to direct him to wide open spot in the screen, I placed a small bowl with more apple in it outside the screen hole, to hopefully lure him outside again! But that didn’t work. So I gave up and went inside to see if he would calm down.

When I checked again, he was still walking or running across the top of the screen, back and forth. I would have been exhausted if I had run so much! Poor little thing ended up in the top left corner of the screen. I watched as he started gnawing on the corner there. Quickly, he gnawed through the screen and escaped. Whew!