Rogues

Recently, SJ had a severe down pour that lasted about two and a half days of nearly constant rain. A few days ago, I was sitting in the office with the window slightly open (the office gets very warm and stuffy) and M had gone to bed.

I heard some strange sounds from outside the window. I couldn't place them, so I moved to the bathroom window to get a better look but did not see anything. Returning to my chair in the office, I heard strange sounds again. This time I moved to the larger windows on the double-doors in our kitchen and looked out. I noticed that Romy was sitting looking out the windows intently.

This is what caused me to stop looking out into the yard for whatever I heard and instead look where Romy was looking... and directly on the other side of the glass was a a large, cat-like face wearing a mask looking back first at Romy and then at me!

I flipped on the light and found three raccoons on the porch outside our kitchen doors. I would guess two of the three to be about 25 pounds and a bit bigger than Romy in both length and girth, with the third being about the equivalent size to our cat (but maybe still heavier).

The one at the door obviously was smart enough to know what it was seeing, and actually walked over to where I was standing, made eye-contact with me, and scratched on the door like a cat or dog to be let in. The other two kept curling into a ball and trying to avoid the rain.

I woke up M and asked her what, if anything, I should do about the situation. She didn't know, but I convinced her to come take a look. We stood fascinated for a short time while the three raccoons moved around, curled up together, and then slowly moved on down the stairs and off the porch into the darkness.

M could tell I was pretty amped up by the encounter. This was the closest to raccoons I've been, and I found the creatures fascinating to watch. They are very smart animals, problem solvers, but these particular 'coons looked so wet and forlorn that I almost wanted to let them in (yes, I realize that would be a horrible idea and they would never leave, let alone what sorts of potential disease and bugs they would bring with them).

Raccoons have moved up on my list of favorite animals because of the encounter. Now if I can just get them to stop knocking over our compost bin and strewing the contents over the yard.

*Not the raccoons I saw, just a generic pic off the internet of some 'coons