Oh No, Here We Go Again

The three weeks before, during, and after our Chicago vacation (never got around to blogging about our fun trip to a fabulous city, so take a look at our photos that never got edited: Oct. 22-23, Oct. 24, and Oct. 25) brought the return of two very familiar and unwelcome phenomena in these parts - wildfires and fish-eating raccoons! Of course the heartbreak, loss, and danger of the former is on such a higher scale of importance - the latter doesn't compare. The media covered the horrible fires up and down SoCal extensively; I won't mention any more for now. Judging by the darkness of the sky the afternoon the Malibu fire began and the smoke in the air even the night we returned, the fires were horrible. But on a smaller scale, we seem to have lost all but one goldfish to a raccoon who seems to be ignoring our high-pressure water-shooting ScareCrow. It came back again last night - for at least the sixth time in three weeks - I thought it had eaten all the bigger fish, but I saw one survivor this morning!