Troublemakers

I was out chatting with my neighbor the other day, and she told me a lady dog walker said our raccoons jumped from our hedge and tried to attack her little dog in broad daylight. Oh my gosh! "Our" raccoons? "Our" hedge? Is our liability coverage up to date?

Well, no one was hurt-- just scared. I don't blame them. I give raccoons a wide berth and other than a growl haven't had a hostile encounter. Of course if they jump out of bushes, what are you going to do?

It's hard to sort the myth from the truth with urban raccoons. People are frightened for their pets, and if cats and dogs get too close the coons will "go after" them. But I don't think they prowl around looking for pets to bite. They want to be left alone. Now I have to wonder?

They can be pests. When I sit blogging in the early morning I sometimes see them squeezing under our front porch and hear weird scratching around. What are they doing? Three guesses. Lately we've been wondering what is that bad smell in the basement? So, I bought a big cannister of Critter-B-Gone at Home Depot and John threw it all around. So far, so good. Hopefully they took their personal business elsewhere.

While we were away in Twisp last weekend they knocked down the birdbath and turned my water plant over. Probably just a temper tantrum because it went dry. That's the sort of garden variety hooliganism we get around here.

(And we don't know nothin' bout' no attack coons in dat' hedge)