Wildlife

Lately my children have switched roles. Eli is the wild one - see picture of legs below. Each day Eli comes home from school (where he spends 3 of 4 hours outdoors) with brand new colorful and bleeding injuries on his arms, legs or face. He doesn't seem to notice or care very much so I guess he's a regular boy. Mary has been risk averse but she is starting to walk a little each day, however reluctantly. Wildlife in Germany consists mostly of animals small enough to step on, though there are deer crossing signs on the autobahn.

The wildlife of interest at my house includes huge, black, furry bee-like creatures that can be as big as the bouncy balls you get from those 25 cent supermarket machines. I have no idea if they sting but I don't like them and tend to swat erratically at them while panicking when they try to fly through my open front door.

But most commonly sighted are what I affectionately refer to as crunchy spiders. They come in 3 sizes: squishably-small, scary, and terrifying. And yes, they have a lot of exoskeleton which makes audible crunching sounds during the process of elimination. I have kleenexed many small ones, vacuumed up many scary ones (about an inch across), and faced down only one (prayer of thanks) terrifyingly massive arachnid. I took a picture - sorry, my hands were shaking - before getting out the dustbuster and i'm telling you, this thing was so strong, it would not go into that suction tube for several long seconds. It measured at least 2.5 inches across. Kevin was on a trip to the states when this happened last fall. I had flashbacks for days.
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As my primary weapon, the Black-&-Decker handyvac the company gave us is one of my most prized posessions. It is also old. I have looked in store after store for a filter replacement with no luck. But my desperation knows no bounds so I hand-clean the filter and carefully dry it every few months so I will not lose this valuable tool. Maybe i'll bring a suspicious looking filter along to the states... Oh and don't be afraid to visit, now. I am skilled and will defend you.

And, finally, it appears we have some wilder teenagers somewhere on our hill. A few weeks back we woke up to an entire TP-ed neighborhood. All the garden walls and bushes and utility poles. It was a mess since it had also rained. A few days later someone shot fireworks directly over our house.... found the launchers in the front yard and the paper remains in the back. Ooooookaaay. And our friend Gabe - lives next door - has an 8-year old Audi that someone apparently wants for their own since they tried to break into two different windows on two nights in a row, unsuccessfully (though the windows are trashed). Such is life in the wild town of Einod.