I used to think raccoons were cute. They were the funniest part of Great Outdoors, and their little black and white faces are just adorable. Sure, sure, I’d heard that they’re mean animals, dirty and sneaky. But I didn’t believe it.
And then, just like this guy with the squirrels, I changed my mind.
Sixteen days after she was born, we brought Annalyn home from the hospital. I was so scared – what did I know about taking care of a baby? Especially one so small and fragile? Were they certain she didn’t need the monitors and 24-hour nurses anymore?
Little did I know that would not be the scariest thing I faced that day.
After Mark went to work that night and Annalyn was safe and sound in her crib, I went to bed. And woke up to a horrible, terrifying sound – something was climbing through the walls of our house!
Well, not quite. It turns out that on the same day Annalyn came to live at our house, so did a raccoon. As my baby lay in her crib, all bundled up and supposedly safe, a sneaky and possibly vicious raccoon climbed into our attic through a hole in our siding.
The resulting drama was at times amusing and at times frustrating. And it lasted much too long for anyone’s taste. It drove me to call a company called Critter Killer or something like that, and it motivated Mark to finish repairing the siding on our porch. It also explained the hole in the bag of cat food I’d had in the garage, and then prompted me to carry a baseball bat each time I ventured into the garage for the next several nights.
I never saw the raccoon, though I heard her, off and on, for several nights. And we didn’t use any company with the words, “critter” or “killer,” in its name. We didn’t even trap her in the cage we borrowed from my father-in-law. Somehow, though, our furry upstairs neighbor realized she was not welcome and left our attic and our lives for good.
Your turn: What’s the scariest – or funniest – encounter you’ve had with wildlife, or as my brother calls them, woodland creatures?
oh, scary!!!! you are so brave for having survived that!!! (and i really do mean it)
my story – not exactly a woodland creature. when the girls were pretty young, i very, very reluctantly let in and let them get hamsters. i am terrified of rodents of any kind, and really preferred that they get fish. but i was outvoted.
the lady at the pet store insisted that the two critters could share a cage. they were sisters, after all, and lived in a same cage at the store.
wrong advice. we got the hamsters home, all settled in their cage, and enrique went off to work. shortly thereafter, scout’s hamster (cera, short for ceremony, because scout thought that was a pretty word) decided to kill erma’s hamster (goldilocks). i didn’t know what to do. i was SO scared, but there was no way i could let goldilocks die.
so i found enrique’s work gloves and very courageously managed to pick up goldilocks (much harder than it sounds!) and put her in an ice cream bucket.
i put the bucket in the bathtub so that if she escaped she wouldn’t come chasing me.
then i spent the rest of the evening on the phone with mel, griping because there was no way to rig up a water bottle in the bathroom and so i therefore had to bottle feed this stupid hamster that i hadn’t wanted in the first place.
and no, that bonding time didn’t increase my affection for the little rat.
Wow – that’s awful! I don’t like rodents, either – even when they’re called hamsters. :) It’s good that you saved Goldilocks. Did you keep them after that??
yes, we did. and we had to shell out more money to buy another cage with all the fixings.
cera was the escape queen, though. there were quite a few mornings where enrique would awake to find me standing on the bed loudly whispering “honey, wake up!!! there’s a loose hamster in the house!!!”
That’s a very appropriate [i.e. scary!] raccoon picture, Photo. And I probably would’ve carried a bat for a while too! (or something like that — I don’t actually own a bat;) But I wonder if we’d actually be able to use it if faced with such a situation… I do not like critters or woodland creatures outside of their natural homes! Or insects or arachnids — they should all stay far away from me, imo!
Oh, sure, I would have used the bat – to poke it and shoo it away. I couldn’t actually hit a raccoon, I don’t think. And hobsis, I’m sorry to hear that. :)
you are all very brave.
well, hobbitsister might not be as brave as she sounds. she once put her not even two year old daughter in between her and a squirrel because she was convinced the sqirrel was chattering at (read ‘going to get’) her, not erma.
lol