Digging to..... where?

It's always something, honestly.  And since there's no way to put a huge bubble over our property, it's just easier to watch carefully, walk slowly, listen, and learn. (And if all else fails, get the gun.)

There was a huge pile of dirt near the front steps last week. I have no idea how long it's been there because the dirt pile was hidden behind the bushes in front of the house. Now that the weather has turned very warm and very Texas-like, I've been using the garden hose near the front steps on a regular basis..... and that's how I discovered the dirt pile.

At first glance, I thought it was a massive ant hill. But fire ants tend to build their mounds neatly, and they're more of a round and wide shape, not a blessed hill that's nearly 18 inches high. Plus, the dirt on top of that pile was tossed on top, not pushed up from underneath the ground.  Looking closely at that dirt pile, I could see that a tunnel had been dug near the pile, right under the paving stones surrounding the front steps.  Clearly, some wildlife critter had been digging himself a very nice (and deep) tunnel under the steps.

We set out the trap one night, and baited it with a hard-boiled egg. Surely a raccoon or an armadillo would have feasted on that egg had it come out of its hiding place after dark.... and my husband made sure to set the catch/release trap right at the entrance to that hole... no way could anything have gotten out of there and not ended up in the trap.

The next morning, the trap was empty and the egg was still there. Fine. We came to the conclusion that both the dirt pile and the tunnel had been there a while and was now abandoned.  Out came the shovel and the rake, and I got most of the dirt back into that hole, and we put the trap back into the garage. The egg, needless to say, went into the trash.

And what did I find this afternoon when I turned on that garden hose by the front steps?  All of that dirt that I had pushed back into that hole was now piled up in a careless mountain right by the water faucet. Give me a blessed break.  I am not going to boil another egg and put it out there in that stupid trap. Every time I touch that blasted trap, I leave a broken fingernail inside of it, and I just put on a fresh coat of nail polish this morning.

Instead of going into the garage and getting the trap, I got the rake and the shovel.  Back into that hole went the dirt. Not all of it, because part of that dirt pile is now behind one of the sago palms and those branches aren't exactly soft when they brush against your skin.  I didn't pack the dirt down very tightly because if there is an animal in that tunnel right now, I don't want to trap him under there for the rest of his sorry life.  If anything is hiding in there as I type, it will dig itself out of the hole tonight, and then tomorrow morning I will find another dirt pile by the steps.

And then what?  Fill up the hole with the dirt again?  Or just get the garden hose, push it into that tunnel as far as I can, and then turn on the water and create an indoor swimming pool for whatever blessed creature is underneath those paving stones.

I repeat: It's always something.