No raccoons are being harmed in the crafting of this weeklong drama. We turn them loose in the state park, where they can torment campers. We wouldn't even bother doing that if they'd learn some restraint: they could wait until the fruit trees get fairly large, for instance, and then take some of the fruit, instead of climbing in the little saplings and breaking of all their branches, if not outright killing the trees. They're cold, fish-eyed chicken murderers, too, showing no moderation in their destruction of the entire flock.
Raccoons are fiendishly smart. Tonight we'll find out if Big-Butt Mama can say, "Hey, you hold the door open while I grab the apples." Clever girl.
We're also ramping up into hummingbird season, with eight feeders that have to be changed more than once a day. Soon we'll have 24 feeders up and still have to change them every few hours. See, you can safely feed hummingbirds without their destroying anything. They've got this human-interaction thing down.
8 comments:
Is it possible that the raccoons dumped in the state park will find their way back to your land?
I don't know about raccoons, but dogs have a very good homing sense, based on dogs I have known.
... the mother-ship raccoon is big and smart enough to leave her butt in the door while grabbing the apples at the far end....
An heroic assumption. Here's another: she's not that big, but she is using a stick to prop the door open and going all the way in, thereby enjoying a frisson of danger as well as the bait--and no small amount of schadenfreude at having bested you.
Then, on the way away, she takes the evidence of her technique with her.
Or it's not a raccoon at all, but a small monkey enjoying his Republic of Texas freedom.
Eric Hines.
Raccoons are tremendously smart animals. I wouldn't be surprised if it were the stick trick.
I've bought the last couple of catch em alive traps from Tractor Supply. Good value.
Raccoons... Sheesh. The stories I could tell. I'll just say a man has to know his limitations.
I'll also admit that feeding the rabble feed corn via a 4"x6' corrugated plastic pipe bungied to a tree is the armistice W.B. and I signed off on.
The wild things get fed. W.B. and I manage to harvest most of our kitchen garden and the deer are looking mighty plump right about now...
I never had any problems with raccoons, but we used to have bear who would walk up on the front porch when we lived on Burnt Mountain. Actually, truth be told, I never had a problem with that either.
Gringo, we're dropping them off a couple of miles away. I'd be surprised if they didn't get distracted by another food source before they made their way back here. Or even more likely, they'll run into someone who will just shoot them. I see a lot of vultures going after raccoon carcasses out on the beach road. Anyway, there are so many raccoons around here that we'll probably be overrun by other, nearer coon families before these relocated ones make their way back.
I really like raccoons. If there were some way to strike a treaty with them, I'd feed them, but they respect no limits.
TINS. We had a huge raised deck on our house in Nebraska that (among other things) offered a perfect view of the park where the town set off fireworks on July 4. The property backed up to a gully.
One July 4, after the main courses had finished and just as the fireworks began, the Red parents and some guests took all the fried chicken and other scraps down to the garbage cans beside the porch, about 20 feet below the top of the porch. Just as things really got going, as the "1812 Overture" reached its peak, "CRASH!" something exploded beside the porch. Adults jump, kids shriek, people are shooing small children under cover, and someone turned on the yard light, revealing four enormous raccoons that had just tumped over three 55 Gal garbage cans. Dad swore that the raccoons grinned as he looked at them.
Second raccoon story: I'd flown a charter (cow-in-a-can) into a small town in eastern Iowa. The airport loafers, including semi-retired farmers,were talking about the drought (summer of 2000).
One gent began, "well, you know, the other night I heard a lot of rustling out in the field behind the house."
Second gent: "Oh?"
First gent: "Ay. I turned on a flashlight and the raccoons had formed a bucket line and were watering the sweet corn."
LittleRed1
As for the hummingbirds, I guess you're getting ours. They're feeding up fat to make the trip even now. We've been feeding them all summer, but we know they'll soon be gone.
Funny little birds. Periodically they'll get their beaks stuck in one of the window screens.
One time I was standing outside and one of them landed on my head. It immediately popped back into the air, and hovered down in front of my face, eye to eye. It was kind of like this.
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