Now, in general, even the feral cats are pretty tidy. Even when we had to bring some of them in for neutering, they all figured out the litter box. But every once and a while there will be a big mess next to the food dish or the water bowl will be full of ambiguous floaters, which to me indicates that one of the cats is sick or has a mouth infection or something. So the past couple of days I've noticed some sloppiness around ye olde feeding trough so I was keeping my eyes open for an ailing cat. Well yesterday I figured out which one it was...
It was the fat ass raccoon. And he's doing just fine.
I wish I had gotten a picture of this bandito, as it stood frozen almost audibly debating whether to bolt or stay "incognito." (Oh, remind me that incognito rhymes with bandito next time I'm stuck for lyrics...) Anyway, that cheeky treerat-monkey thing just stared at me for about 3 seconds and then went on it's way. Apparently I wasn't much of a threat.
Chris came home right about then and said, "Hey, I saw a huge cat earlier in the evening. Turns out it wasn't a cat." "Was it the mask or the ringed tail that gave it away?" I responded. She then blurted, "That's no Coon, it's a space station!" and proceeded to giggle back into the house. Fine. You win. Nerd.
This whole episode reminded me of a time I was up in Northern Wisconsin in a cabin that actually had a raccoon feeder out back. Yeah, it was like a huge bird feeder with a ramp on either side. The folks up there would put out 5 loaves of day-old bread and watch the feeding frenzy in the evening. It was actually far more entertaining than it really should have been, but the best part was when a porcupine showed up and lumbered up one of the ramps backwards, quills at attention. Watching 20-odd raccoons (who had just established some form of pecking order) bail off the feeder like it was on fire was definitely worth the price of admission.
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3 comments:
So the feeder was kind of like a gourmet chocolate manufacturer when Captive Free shows up?
I saw the BIGGEST cat I've ever SEEN jump up the fence. Look at that bushy TAIL! Wait a minute... stinker...
Steve, I was trying to remember if you actually saw the Feeder/Frenzy. I remember it that way (you being there) but I figured if I wrote about who else was there, I'd be wrong.
The only other thing I remember about the cabin is that later in the year we found out a bear had broken in through the picture window and raided the frig.
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