We got up and had coffee this morning. I needed it. I was groggy (and probably Mary was too) from a visit by a raccoon in the wee hours.
Around 1:10 this morning, Peaches ran down the bedroom and office stairs alerting us to the critter’s presence. I had closed the basement door around 7 or 8PM so. The basement is where the cats hang out and eat their cat food. How he got in is a mystery.
But in he was. I turned on the office’s light, went partway down stairs, and opened the basement door. He scrabbled in the opposite direction for the porch’s screen door and bounced back like a vertical trampoline. That flummoxed him. Next, he tried to climb up the office bookcase or perhaps he was looking for a book on how to escape by opening doors; Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer didn’t do it for him.
Despite the adorable little mask, raccoons are not cute, especially when they’re scared. They are wild animals, with sharp teeth and claws to match and will use them if cornered.
And this fellow felt cornered (well, not this fellow, he’s from the Wikipedia page on raccoons).
I grabbed Peaches’ blanket to use as a matador’s cape and try and finagle the little beast out of the house.
Around 1:10 this morning, Peaches ran down the bedroom and office stairs alerting us to the critter’s presence. I had closed the basement door around 7 or 8PM so. The basement is where the cats hang out and eat their cat food. How he got in is a mystery.
But in he was. I turned on the office’s light, went partway down stairs, and opened the basement door. He scrabbled in the opposite direction for the porch’s screen door and bounced back like a vertical trampoline. That flummoxed him. Next, he tried to climb up the office bookcase or perhaps he was looking for a book on how to escape by opening doors; Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer didn’t do it for him.
Mary held the barking Peaches. She’s eleven and shouldn’t bound down stairs recklessly. She probably knows this too, but now that she was restrained, she told us she wanted a piece of him.
Despite the adorable little mask, raccoons are not cute, especially when they’re scared. They are wild animals, with sharp teeth and claws to match and will use them if cornered.
And this fellow felt cornered (well, not this fellow, he’s from the Wikipedia page on raccoons).
I grabbed Peaches’ blanket to use as a matador’s cape and try and finagle the little beast out of the house.
He scurried clockwise around the perimeter of the office, past Mary’s desk into the office closet area and finally out the open door to the basement and door the stairs and presumably out the cat’s opening back to the lake’s shore where he belongs.
Nullius in Verba 
Raccoons – how exotic. Will he be back?
We have foxes and your grey squirrels, but they don’t come inside.
And London has a plague of mice, maybe because of the recent warm winters.
He, or a stunt-double (it’s hard to tell…they all wear masks to hide their identities), will be back. A few months ago, I had to coax him from behind our sofa with a broom. He scampered surprisingly fast.
We have ground and tree squirrels, eagles, heron, foxes and bobcats, and mountain lions that break down wooden fences to prey on deer.
And mice too.
Um…we have pigeons…
Can you tame a raccoon? I guess not, as you never hear of pet raccoons.