Creature feature
I have a long and fairly antagonistic history with raccoons. A lot of it involves trying to devise some method to keep them out of garbage cans and strewing what they find unpalatable from here to Ferndale. There's not much they find unpalatable, but they can still make a royal mess. One of the things I tried to safeguard my garbage was securing the lids with very strong bungee cords. The clever little bastards actually straightened out the steel hook at the end of the cord. Did I mention they're strong?
Larger ones can easily kill a much bigger dog. Unfortunately, they are rather charming creatures in some ways and the urban variety is quite unafraid of humans. A rather large example of the species was working out in one of my cherry trees a couple nights ago and, being somewhat territorial, I nailed him a couple of times with my wrist rocket.
That, for those of you unfamiliar with armaments, is a rather powerful and accurate slingshot. Most definitely not the kind in Dennis the Menace's back pocket. He flung several choice epithets my way and retreated to the blackberry patch behind the fence.
He may have been a she because a large raccoon trailing four smaller ones appeared in the back yard about an hour ago. Now, I'm quite willing to sting the hell out of one of these bandits, but I couldn't quite bring myself to shoot Mom in front of the kids.
And the kids are damnably cute. I caught three of them on the way up the cherry tree.
I have a feeling it's going to be an interesting summer.
8:34:53 PM 
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