One day last week I was out in the yard with Brinley.  She was beating the heat by lounging in the pool and I was soaking up some sun in a law chair.  It was nearly 100 degrees out and extremely humid.  At one point I went over to the garage to throw something away.  When I got back Brinley said to me, “Mom, I just saw a shadow back in the woods.  It had a black and white tail.”  Now Brinley has a very vivid imagination and often makes up stories pretends silly and unusual things happen.  Since I’m familiar with her grand imagination, I often play along.  So, I replied, “Oh really, was it a skunk?  I bet he’s trying to keep cool under the trees.”  She just looked at me and then said, “No, mom, I think it was a raccoon because it had a long, skinny tail.”  I said, “Oh yea, you’re right, it probably was a raccoon.”

She continued swimming and I continued sitting on my ass lounging in the chair.  Seconds later I heard a rustling sound coming from the woods.  When I say woods I’m referring to the tree area part of our yard that separates us from our neighbors to the back.  It’s not a deep forest or anything.  Anywho, after a minute or two of the rusting, which I assumed was just a squirrel or chipmunk, I turned to see a freaking raccoon emerging from the woods.  In shock, I stood up from my chair, but then quickly stood still afraid that it would attack me.  I mean it was during broad daylight.  The thing must have been rabid, right?  I didn’t want to scare Brinley so I didn’t tell her what I saw.  I didn’t want her to freak out and cause the raccoon to go nuts and bite us.  Ok, I guess I sound a little paranoid here.

Well, the raccoon was looking me right in the eyes and it slowly walked into our back yard, around to the side yard, continuing toward the front of the house.  When I lost sight of it, I tried to walk over to the side of the house to see where it went, but I lost it.  So I went back over to where Brinley was figuring it just went into the woods or across the street.  Just as I was sitting back down I saw something out of the corner of my eye.  It was the raccoon!!  I was now in the driveway walking by Scott’s car.  It kept going past the drive way and over the small, tree filled hilly area and into our neighbors yard where  I again lost sight of it.

I know I probably sound like a freak for being so afraid of the raccoon, but for some reason it just seemed strange to me that it would so casually walk through our yard in the middle of the day.  I’m almost 100% sure that there are other raccoons that live in our woods and it doesn’t alarm me one bit as long as I don’t see them.  I mean they’re nocturnal, right?  So why should I see them unless they’re rabid!  I should probably do some raccoon research before I keep making these claims.  Our little visitor seemed completely innocent and didn’t bother us in the least.

Related Posts with Thumbnails