Iowa

We are now sitting in our campsite on Coralville Lake near New Liberty, Iowa.  As noted in our previous posting we have sold our sister's house and the closing was last Thursday so we have made this outing to just sit and relax for a few days.

Another story has developed over the past few weeks beside the house sale.  We have a nice covered deck on the back of our house that JoAnn has decorated like an outdoor sitting room where we have a metal squirrel proof feeder that we load with black oil sunflower seeds.  Jo also has a couple of bird seed suit blocks out for our visiting feathered friends.  We have been blessed to have a pair of Pileated woodpeckers visit quit often.  They are the largest woodpeckers in North America.  Then we noticed that we have had some unwanted night time visitors that cause messes on our deck.  I have a live trap that I set and baited it with some of the sunflower seeds.  Over the past two weeks I have caught and relocated 5 raccoons.  The first one I believe was the mother because the next morning when I checked the trap she was in it with 2 or 3 young ones scampering around not knowing what to do next.  Up to now I believe that all three have been relocated along with another large adult.  Hopefully we now have relocated the whole family.  I take them about 17 miles from our house across both the Missouri River and the Moreau River.

Today we headed northerly to the banks of this lake near Iowa City, Iowa.  We have no plans to do much except loaf and relax but who knows. Here are a couple of pics of our campsite.