Cute lil beasts aren't they?......... Well, they're cute until they rip your garbage open, eat your cats, eat your suet in bird feeders, kill the koi in your pond and try to attack you for chasing them off with a broom... (true story)
I'm sure I'll get alot of hate mail from some of you after this blog so feel free.... send away... (Somehow the raccoons bother me a lil more than typed words) :P
These lil boogers have INVADED my property...... I'm not talking 1-2 but 10-15 (and that's on a slow night) I live in the "boonies" have my own garden (GOD FORBID!) and every night these lil suckers start parading across my yard around 10:30 or so...... Mother's with babies included....
I have one that I have dubbed (Sir TubsAlot) simply because he is the BIGGEST "thing" I have ever seen..... He can't run he wobbles..... and he's actually quite "friendly" I don't mind him at all, he will sit at my door and wait for a "hand out"
THAT is probably the whole problem with this situation.... I have SUCKER written on my head and when we first moved here 2 years ago I had NO clue that "Country" raccoons were slightly different than "City" raccoons...
The difference? There's HUNDREDS..... In the city I had one lil guy that would come visit me on a nightly basis..... He'd sit on my front porch and wait for me to put food out....... He fell out of a tree about a year before we moved and the park rangers had to euthanize him.... :(
Sooooo when we moved here I was *thrilled* to see a mama coon and her babies go scurring across my back yard..... I decided to put some food out for the "poor lil things".... Never in a million years did I imagine that this beelzebub and her demon seed would summon the legions to my 4 acres.....
I quickly learned that I could not pretend to be Snow White any longer and haulted the "hand outs" EXCEPT to Sir Tubsalot..... (I can't resist him he's just to damn cute)
By the end of last summer I had lowered myself to sitting on the back porch at night with the water hose in hand and firing.... (it doesn't work so don't waste your time) The lil devils love water....
So I then switched to my mode of transportation AKA the "broom" :) I'd wait quietly until they got close enough and whack em in the rear.... That seemed to work until I whacked a "mama" who promptly turned on me stood on her back legs and made this gawd awful sound reminding me of the movie "Invasion of the body snatchers" NOT a good idea (unless ofcourse you have a gun in hand) and the babies that were with her? O good lord! Those lil things are VICIOUS...... cute..... but vicious......
Fast forward to this year...... I'm sitting here earlier tonight looking out my back patio doors and what do I see.... Another "Mama" and her 4 lil demon seed marching across my yard....... followed by another..... and another...... and another.... by 12 AM I had about 15 out back walking around my yard "picketing" for food....
Sooooooo I did what any "sane" person would do and let off a string of firecrackers..... (Yes my neighbors hate me already so it didn't matter) :)
THAT seemed to do the trick..... All of them scurried faster than Bill Clinton chasing a skirt.....
My "good" neighbors have told me to just shoot them..... I can't bring myself to do that.... I simply could not harm an animal unless it posed a threat to my family...
I'd love to set traps down (and relocate them) but I am afraid of trapping a "baby" and seperating it from it's mother....
I do know enough about these creatures that I realize if they are smarter than I am....... I think tho I may have solved my problem by writing this blog...... It occured to me that I can bait them away from my house by throwing "scraps" behind my neighbors garage :) (Yeah the neighor I "love") His garage is a good 2 acres away and I'm sure these nosely lil boogers will find there way to HIS house :)
Ahhhhh and I did it all without ambien! :)
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