Tuesday, April 28, 2009

The Secret Life Of Raccoons

Last night Marty and I were enjoying a nice relaxing evening. The kiddos were in bed, we were watching the Biggest Loser and I was trying to figure out Photoshop. I really thought I would be better at Photoshop, I used to be the Director of Marketing for a graphic design company and I used Photoshop a lot. But that was twelve years ago.

Yikes.

Photoshop has changed, and I have forgotten a lot. I have to basically start from scratch. It's going to be a while till I figure out what I am doing.

Anywhoo.

So there we were, Marty on the couch and I on the computer. Suddenly we heard this strange, loud sound. Kind of a screeching, chirping, screaming, thumping noise that left us looking at each other in wide eyed disbelief. Always up for witnessing a good animal fight, we bolted for the door.

We stood on the porch, trying to figure out the source of the rather obnoxious, yet somewhat intriguing noise. Almost like cats fighting, but more screechy and loud and less meow-ey. Was the cat being attacked by a screech owl? Did the eagle suddenly become a nocturnal hunter?

We decided the noise was coming from high in the trees, and thought it must be raccoons. Suddenly, there was a loud screech, rustling and a crack. More cracking, cracking, still more cracking as we heard the branches breaking from high up, down, down, down, and then a very large raccoon fell to the ground and loped through the yard, out the gate and away. His racconey friend (or not) soon climbed down himself, and started to follow across the yard till he saw us and went another direction.

We heard them fighting three more times before we went to bed. I would think that after the fall out of the tree, the one would head off to lick his wounds, but no. He was a tough little raccoon, probably trying to defend his turf which is constantly being replenished with cheerios and crackers, like "manna from heaven." This must be a great yard for raccoons to live in.

"Seriously, you guys, Phil's place, you know the one that had the great cat food? Now they have snacks that appear every day! If we could only get inside that van in the driveway, we'd be stuffed for life!" "Oh, yeah, I know the place! It's the one with that guy who keeps throwing cereal out of the van onto the ground, thinking he is feeding the birds!" "Yeah, the birds, hahahahahahahahahaha!" (Insert rounds of raccoon laughter here.) "We gotta take Phil out. Vinny, I know he's your cousin, but we've gotta get rid of him and get a hold of those snacks!" (Why did these raccoons have New Jersey accents as I was writing this?)

5 comments:

Natalie said...

HAHAHAHA! Your "talking" raccoons makes me think about the movie The Great Outdoors. I used to love that movie with the talking raccoons and the bear with the bare butt!

Anonymous said...

STOP IT STOP IT! I'm laughing so hard I'm tearing up. ;) LOL!!!
We had a raccoon drop by last summer too - my hubby was mesmerized - I wanted to shoot it as I have a dog that may be wiped out by it and a cat. :(
Well - now were they FIGHTING? :) hahahahahahaa!
I feed the squirrels - just sometimes the rats and the raccoon come by for a nip.
But I think the rats are gone as the neighbor took care of them - and maybe they caught the raccoony too? Who knows! :) Thanks for the laugh! God bless you.

Tracie said...

You need more sleep!!! You are starting to sound a little wacky. If the raccoons are from Whatcom County, they would have a dutch accent, not New Jersey!!! Silly girl!

Snow Mommy said...

Lol, no Tracie, she's closer to Canada they would be saying "Ae".

Carmen O. said...

i once saw squirrels fighting, then one of them fell out of the tree, with the other watching in disbelief from above. I almost peed my pants I laughed so hard!