Forget everything you've ever learned from Ricky, Pocahontas, or any of the children's literature offerings that glorify the cute little raccoon. This is public enemy number one.
Need a closer look? There you go. Okay, so I can understand how he might be called cute. In a "not in my backyard" kind of way.
Steve chased him up the birch tree this morning as he was sauntering casually down the driveway. Steve was really hoping he'd run into the street and get hit, I think.
He got nervous from all the camera activity and climbed higher. If I had had a pellet gun I would have tried it on him. Anybody who lives near us and wants to try for a coonskin cap, be our guest.
Establishing shot with his approximate location outlined in red. I guesstimate about 35 feet high. The Japanese Cedar where he hangs out most of the time is about twice as tall as this birch.
He's not stupid. He apparently knew my threats to chop down the tree with him in it were not sincere. I sawed off a large dead branch from a rhododendron this week and that pretty much exhausted my woodcutting muscles for the next month. He settled down to wait until things got quiet, and he wasn't there when I checked later on in the morning. We've been vigilant about taking in the cat food after feeding Smudge so I don't think he'll get fat from that source, but he still has the compost pile to dig through.
Muffball was oblivious. The warmer weather is making her frisky and she's starting her shedding season. This morning she ran off with a ball of yarn.
I've been addressing the organization of scraps this week. Here are some of the strip bins, and in front is the bin of larger small scraps.
I just finished organizing all the scraps Grandma gave us over the last several weeks. Some of them get put in the crumbs bin for use in a future crumbs quilt.
Most of them I have been cutting into squares...
... or bricks, to be used in future "planned scrappy" quilts. My arm and wrists are sore from all the cutting (plus the rhododendron cutting), but it's kind of fun to have it completed this far. I'll dig from the two messy bins pictured above to create more squares and bricks until I just can't stand it anymore, and then put away the bins for awhile to work on other projects. But I'm enjoying the organization aspect of it. It's time for spring cleaning!
I have plans to share some of the bounty of my scrap bins as a giveaway next week. Check back Monday!
1 comment:
When we lived in Texas, we had a raccoon that had a litter of babies in the roof of the walkway between our house and garage. Every day we put out clean food and water for the cat and for the raccoon. (We didn't want any babies dying up there.) After a few weeks she took her babies and went elsewhere.
Eva in AZ
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