Well. They’re baaaaaccckkkk.
Some of you may remember last year about this time. I reported our perils with a flourish of raccoons. Most every morning, when I let the dogs out at 4:00 a.m., there would be an incident at our bird feeders, with one of those raccoons.
It was before my coffee. This was the first stage of the hardship. I would then have to go outside, with a flashlight, some sort of make-shift-raccoon-fighting-super-hero-weapon, and two dog leashes. The scene was never pretty. Most of the time, I was falling down, tripping over my weapon, getting tangled up in a dog leash… all in my PJs and all before coffee.
Something had to be done. So we started live-trapping the raccoons. They are a big fan of the Oscar Mayer Weiner. Hold the mustard. So we loaded up the traps with those hotdogs, and like magic… we had caged raccoons.
However, this had its hurdles too. Once they were trapped…. carrying the traps up to the house, out of dogs barking terror, was always an adventure. The time that I had to lift one of the traps over my head, and the raccoon peed on my face…. was a dark, dark, day. I swear I heard it say…. “Take THAT!”
Last season’s raccoons were shipped off to Big Billy’s Magnificent Raccoon Ranch. Or something like that.
Well, apparently, they have decided that some sort of dastardly plan for revenge is necessary. The past few weeks, they have been snacking, at will, on our feeders.
I don’t mind this at all. Truly. I just wish they would pick times other than during our dogs’ peeing schedule.
At any rate, the past few days, we have started trapping again. And catching again. Oscar. Mayer. To. The. Rescue. This morning we caught baby twins. In one cage.
Here’s the thing though. It was sad and very sweet at the same time. I brought the trap up into our garage to stymie the raccoon/dog rage. But then I sat down with those two little beings and we watched each other.
I talked at great length to them, assuring them it would all be okay. But they were scared and holding one another. They had lots of room in that cage, but they stayed in one corner, hugging it out. There was so much emotion in their little eyes. So much fear.
If you don’t think animals have emotions, I encourage you to spend some more time with them. Get to know a dog, for starters.
But this deal with the raccoons? It was tearing on my heart strings.
So… I went in and fixed them a cool bowl of water. And then I made them little ham sandwiches, with mayo, on soft white bread… sliced on the diagonal. And chips. We watched reruns of Tom & Jerry all morning until the “Relocator” got here.
And that was that. I’ll most likely never see those two again…. but I’ll probably meet one of their relatives in the morning. Like maybe their Mom. And she’s probably really hacked off right now.
But I’m guessing it’s nothing a ham sandwich won’t fix.
===========
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart”
― Helen Keller
===========
“But feelings can’t be ignored, no matter how unjust or ungrateful they seem.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
============