Sparky's Coon Hunting....

A few weeks back (May 12th to be exact) I talked about getting a bigger bird feeder and attached it to the post of our deck out back. Shortly after that, Sparky started hearing something at night and would bark up a storm and would literally slam himself into the sliding glass door to get out. I had a feeling what it was, what other types of critters come out after dark....and so I did not let him out. I'm afraid of what might happen if Sparky got cornered by it. The last few weeks I've had several sleepless nights, as Sparky would go running and barking down from the bedroom and into living room wanting to so badly get out and after what was lurking in the night on the deck. It got so bad that I actually started putting his leash on at night and would strap the leash to my arm, so he wouldn't be able to cause all the ruckus and I was able to control him enough to get him back to sleep quickly....Yes even I heard the little pitter patter of the critter feet running across the deck after midnight.

So last night Sparky acted up again while we were watching TV, he went crazy and moaned and whined and shook, he did it all. He wanted out so bad he could hardly stand it. So I decided to put his leash on and put him in a down stay in my reclining chair which is positioned where he cannot see out the sliding glass door. I on the other hand sat on the floor in front of the window and waited...watching and waiting till I saw it for sure! It is a Raccoon! The cutest darn thing you've even seen. Sparky was being a good boy and stayed where I had put him so the raccoon decided I was not a threat and climbed up the post to my feeder.

Well I've been battling with the squirrels too since I put that feeder up, and so I only put a days worth of bird seed in it and I knew there wasn't that much left...so I let the raccoon scoop what he could get and eat away till there was none.....

OK, so this evening, it's not even dark outside, the sun was barely even starting to set, and I'm looking out the front window. I'm known to see animals all the time usually while we are hiking that actually turn out to be stumps or rocks in the end. So I said to Clayton, have you ever noticed on that tree at the end of the nub it sort of looks like a Raccoon. He replied, yeah I've noticed that too. I kept looking and I swore it was the tree, but something made me grab the binoculars and look a bit more closely. Oh my god! it was the raccoon, not just an design in the tree that looked like one. I grabbed my camera and stepped out the front door and snapped away. Check this series of shots out! We've got ourselves a little raccoon living in our tree. I've also decided to start taking in the bird feeders now; as we don't really want to encourage a yummy smorgasbord for this guy on a nightly basis.