Rascally Randy Raccoon

The kids Easter Baskets ready, sitting on the kitchen table, awaiting deleivry was too much temptation for Meeka... she LOVES chocolate... so as I headed out Sunday morning to Sunrise Service I left her outside in the dark early morning spring air.

After a lovely service at church and picking up and delivering the kids back home with their bounty I sat down at my desk for a relaxing time at the computer. Glancing out my window by the desk I noticed a dark fluffy glob high atop a small tree out back. Grabbing my camera I headed out for a closer inspection.

Its black & brown ringed striped tail was a giveaway. Rascally Randy raccoon was taking refuge in the top crook of the tree. How did he end up there?

Of course my digital camera wouldn't permit me to get a close enough picture of him sleeping curled up high above me.

A couple of years ago my son, Dion, had taken the time to nail wood strips up to the rafters of the pole barn over huge strips of plastic sheets to try to hold in as much heat of his big torpedo heater when he was working there. This provided a gap of 6" between the tin roof and the plastic. A family of raccoons decided this was an ideal home for the winter, high enough the dog could not reach them and a measure of heat provided by the tin/plastic vacuum and the occasional added heat of when D was running his heater.

Meeka soon learned they had taken up residency there. Every time she entered the barn she would try to climb onto the cars, tool boxes or whatever else might provide some height to possibly reach them. No amount of coxing from me would deter her from her quest and the fact that she slid off the cars (much to Dion's unhappiness, as he was doing body work on them) and failed to reach enough height slowed her determination.

This winter D managed to force the raccoons to relocate to another home. But I knew it would not be far.

The Saturday before last Devon was here without his sister for the weekend as Heaven spent the weekend with a friend. Devon loves to putter with machinery or pilfer in the barn so he was out being his usual adventurous self when my phone rang.

It was Devon calling me on his cell. (Amazing how when I was a kid we had one phone and it was tethered to the wall, now everyone has a phone in their pocket... but that's another story.) Devon asked me to come to the garage.

When I got to the garage he wanted to go to the loft. He had never been up there and was uncertain if it was safe... OK it is an old building. I told him to be careful but he should be OK. Never the less I stayed below waiting for him to return. All at once I saw something brown and fluffy slip down through a hole in the floor into a side room. Then I got a glimpse of its tail... ringed!

"Whoa!.... I'm coming down!" Devon had walked past a piece of plastic tile lying up on the floor and the raccoon had darted out. It didn't take him long to emerge and climb back down the ladder. He didn't want to encounter the mate.

The coon stayed in the little room for the rest of the afternoon, much to Devon's dismay because he was in a adventurous mood and had not explored that room yet. Although his adventurousness did not extend to matching wits with a raccoon. LOL!




Apparently Meeka had encountered Rascally Raccoon Sunday morning before he had the chance to return to the loft and had chased him across the barnyard and the back yard to the tree where he managed to escape her chase, but was destined to cling there until deep night when he felt safe to come down and return to his nighttime meanderings.

I was reminded of when the boys were little and we had moved back to the farm from living in the city. They loved to play in the barns, but the big old barn I had loved to play in as a child was falling in on one side and had become very dangerous. I had contracted with a man to tear it down for the timbers. He had done a lot of work on it... then did not return to finish it, leaving the barn to be much more dangerous that it had been before he began.

Much to my dismay the only alternative was to torch the barn. There was still a bit of old hay inside and I knew there was a family of raccoons living there. So when we lit it up and the heat started to mount we saw them. There must have been 50-60 of them scurrying out of the rubble and across the field. They looked like a herd of strange rippling balls of fur rolling across the open fields. A neighbor encountered them as they crossed the road in front of him and thought he was about to be attacked by rabid raccoons, only to watch them scamper across the road, the field and head to the woods beyond.

Hope everyone had a very Happy Easter.

He is Risen! He is risen indeed!