It's sunny but hazy from poor air quality, a little more humid but not oppressive, in the low 80s. My sister sold her old unneeded van today.

Last night while she was taking her things out of the van in the driveway we saw one of the pesty juvenile racoons climb the maple tree where the birds nests were. It attacked the nests and we could hear the panicked birds. We threw empty flower pots at the tree, banged on it with a rake and a plastic bottle to try to scare the raccoon away, but it was high in the tree and there was nothing we could do. I had seen both sparrows and a mourning dove going into that tree yesterday afternoon, so there were at least two bird nests there where the raccoon ate the baby birds. It's just silence from that tree today. They're all gone. When I see that racoon around I'll have to chase it off. It sounds like there are baby birds in the evergreen tree outside of the dining room windows. That is not a tall tree at all. Hopefully it won't be raided. With the school in the neighborhood plus the main street with retail shops and restaurants nearby their dumpsters attract the racoons to the area so they can be a real problem. In the past we've seen them attack opossums who were just merely walking around, not even in the raccoons way. They've been an issue for the past twenty years. Before that not so much. The local population is higher now and more aggressive.

The schools are out for the day and everyone is gone, it's quiet again. The neighborhood school, which is down the street from us, is a former Catholic grammar school turned school for gifted and talented kids, but academic brightness and emotional maturity are two very different things. There are a handful of young teen boys who cause problems on our block after school some days while they are waiting to be picked up by their parents. Instead of staying by the school they walk up the street and get into trouble. I've called the school to complain several times but the principal is a jerk who just doesn't care. They trespass in our yard and several neighbors' yards. They knock over the next door neighbors garbage pails in their driveway. They snapped off the top two thirds of the chestnut tree sapling on our front lawn. It's skinny and used to be nearly seven feet tall. Now it's a little under three feet tall. They broke off one of the branches from our butterfly bush. They wander into yards. They dare each other to run up the driveways. A couple of months after we had the new storm door installed on our front porch one of them ran up onto the porch and started loudly banging on the storm door. Fortunately they didn't crack or dent anything. They go crazy when packages are delivered into porches. I had to call the school because I overheard them daring each other to steal an Amazon package off our front porch. They go crazy if there are porch packages. They seem to be trying to psych themselves up into stealing them. I'm keeping my fingers crossed these kids are all eighth graders who will be up at the high school next year. Only a couple more weeks to go until school is out for the summer. It's bad parenting. Parents aren't teaching their kids social skills and to respect other people and their personal property. The school is no better because they enable it. The kids are as badly behaved as the neighborhood racoons.

Now that everyone is gone I can run to the supermarket before I make dinner.