Heigh-ho, the Derry-o

Remember when we were little kids and sang the song The Farmer In The Dell? We have our own version of that and it's a call to action.

Our house is built into a hill and our office is mostly under ground. To bring in light we have two windows with large window wells dug into the ground similar to this. The wells are about five feet deep.

On occasion we've had little animals fall into the well and because of the depth, they can't get out again. There have been a couple of baby birds. One afternoon I was working at my computer and heard something hitting the window. When I opened the blinds and looked into the well, there was a fat toad sitting there looking back at me. He jumped at the window and the new alarm was sounded, "Critter in the well". Rob and I headed out with a ladder and one of us went into the well to rescue the toad.

A few months ago  Rob and I heard a racket outside. When we stepped outside we saw a very upset cat. She was yowling and hissing and racing back and forth. We discovered that her kitten was in the well and she couldn't get her out. Rob donned heavy gloves and a jacket and climbed down to rescue the kitten who tried tried to bite and scratch him. Once Rob set the frightened kitten on the ground, it immediately ran and fell into the other well. Rob moved the ladder and repeated the rescue, this time placing the kitten far from the house. Mother cat and baby took off at top speed.

Last night I was watching TV about 9:30 when Rob shouted "critter in the well".  He said he heard squeaking and scratching at the window. I grabbed a flashlight and we opened the blinds. Looking back at us was a very frightened opossum. Rob found a jacket, hat and gloves and this time he took a long board out and set in the well so the little guy could climb out. When we went to bed the opossum was still sitting in the well, but this morning he was gone. We left the board there in case he comes back tonight.

We were both pretty thankful that our visitor wasn't this guy.