Blinkin' Raccoons!

Trip Start Jan 30, 2011

166

262

Trip End Nov 16, 2011

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Flag of Canada Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
Tuesday, July 26, 2011

I put the bins out last night, which, apart from slaying the Japanese beetles, watering the garden, and feeding Pumpkin, was one of my only major tasks; I'd been assured that racoons had only knocked over the bins once and not to worry too much. So I put the bins out and checked they were secure, but low and behold when I looked out this morning there was a trail of ripped bags and mango stones across the lawn. Typical.

I cleared it up before heading off on a run, well a jog, and continued to get a whiff of the mango every few hundred metres, reminding me that I really should have washed my hands rather than heading straight out, but considering it took me an hour from dressing to actually summoning the energy to step out of the front door I didn’t want to give myself any more excuses to back out. I arrived back at the house to hear a high-pitched sound that completely baffled me; I checked the fridge, the freezer, the cooker, even the washing machine and toaster, but nothing seemed to reveal where the unknown sound was slowly torturing me from. I had a poached egg and some bargain peaches, just $0.99 for six from the grocery store yesterday, granted they were a little weepy but a bargain’s a bargain, and then went for the leaf-blower to tackle the mass of tree bark that had fallen in just a few days.

Unfortunately the wind kept on bringing more down as the battery charged, so I’m not entirely sure it was the best time to do it, but with the possibility of the gardener dropping by at any time I couldn’t afford to have bad reports going back to head office. Whilst I waited for said battery to charge the gardener did indeed turn up, leading me to apologise for the bark build-up, but as I explained my dilemma and helped her change hose connections I think she let me off.

The day of mishaps didn’t stop there, as the high-pitched sound emitting from somewhere in the house, I eventually narrowed it down to the kitchen, was causing me to go slowly mad; as I stuck my head near every possible outlet of the sound I eventually found it got louder when I opened the drawers beneath the hob, but there were no switches or dials to help me stop the dreaded sound.

After hours of sitting on Skype with the noise in the background I eventually went in search of the switch box in the hope that turning the hob off and on again would eradicate the noise, no such luck. I eventually found it after wandering around thinking 'if I was a switchbox, where would I be’ and did just as I’d planned to find the noise was still blasting in the kitchen. I popped my earphones in and hoped the high-pitch wouldn’t get past my own barrier of noise; I was wrong.

I headed back down to the switchbox and turned the cooktop off again, this time leaving it off and listening out for the piercing noise, it had finally gone! In the absence of any solution it seemed better to just turn the whole thing off and figure it out tomorrow. I’d managed to cook, or at least attempt, some gnocchi with a couple of potatoes, and they even tasted edible when teamed with five-day-old soup and leftover chard, although they had no taste apart from the mass amount of pepper I’d ground in when they were at the mashing stage.