Your Big Backyard

[naomikritzer]

It's not that I object to sharing my back yard with the local wildlife.

But when a pair of raccoons wander into my yard while I'm eating dinner, I would appreciate it if they'd at least skedaddle when I stand up, yell, and wave my arms at them threateningly. Rather than giving me a look like they're kind of embarrassed for me, and then going back to digging for goodies in my yard.

There are cats in this neighborhood who are more skittish than these raccoons. I took some pictures of them; they were perfectly comfortable letting me get within six feet of them, and they were obviously aware that any yelling was just a bluff. Ed warned them that we actually have recipes for raccoon (we really do, and so do you if you have the old version of Joy of Cooking -- it also has cooking instructions for bear) but they weren't impressed.

Comments

[cmpriest.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHAHA!
I love it. :)

[naomikritzer]

Well, I don't actually have the new version, but I've heard rumors it doesn't include the squirrel, possom, bear, and raccoon recipes.

[davidlevine]

Joy also tells you how to skin a squirrel. Best. Book. Evar.

[devonbree.livejournal.com]

On forthright raccoons...

In Ithaca, the house we rented had a fireplace that we hardly ever used. One year, we forgot to close the flue, because the glass doors that closed off the fireplace were so effective at keeping out the chill.

During that winter a pair of raccoons decided to nest of the bend in the fireplace. We'd occasionally come home to find they'd climbed down into the fireplace and were sitting there starting through the glass doors at us. They'd only climb back up when we turned the lights on.

[naomikritzer]

Wow.

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

Someone in your neighborhood is feeding them. It's going to be interesting to see if you tell us about trashcans being ripped apart, local cats & small dogs terrorized or killed. 'Coon is much less greasy than possum though I like squirrel better than both.

[naomikritzer]

It might actually be us who is feeding them. We've been eating dinner outside and haven't been careful about sweeping the patio afterwards.

Our trash cans are provided by the city and are both dog-proof and raccoon-proof. In eleven years I have yet to see one tipped over or pulled open.

[naomikritzer]

You know, it also occurs to me that our next-door neighbors feed the squirrels, so the raccoons probably are eating the stuff they leave out, as well.

Our squirrels are also extremely fat and unintimidated by humans, but they're at least smaller.

[redbird]

Recipes are not enough. A large dog might be a deterrent.

I don't know whether there's rabies in raccoons on that side of the Appalachians; there didn't used to be this far north but some idiot imported it from Virginia, so we have to be more careful about the local raccoons than we did when I moved to this neighborhood in the Eighties.

[naomikritzer]

There used to be a large dog two doors down. That dog's disappearance might be why we're suddenly seeing more raccoons this summer.

Frankly, I'll take the raccoons over Morris. (He was huge, aggressive, and territorial, and he thought his territory included my yard, and he occasionally got off his leash.)

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

I know I shouldn't laugh at other people's misfortune, but ... HAHAHAHAHA! XD

I confess to a certain fondness for raccoons, which I think can be traced to a wonderful picture-book I had as a kid called Raccoons Are for Loving and to my cousin E's childhood raccoon obsession; I know all about how destructive and pestiferous they are, how they tip over trash cans and claw open Green Bins and have rabies and so on, but when I see one scuttling across the road at dusk what I'm always really thinking is "Aaaawwww!"

Around here we have groundhogs, and let me tell you, there are few things funnier than a groundhog attempting to achieve a high rate of speed. Except, of course, a groundhog getting slightly shikker on overripe mulberries (there are maybe half a dozen mulberry trees in front of the building where I work) and falling out of a tree.

[naomikritzer]

They are kind of cute. Dirty, disease-ridden, and all sorts of trouble, but cute.

Raccoons are what would happen if cats managed to evolve themselves opposable thumbs.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Raccoons are what would happen if cats managed to evolve themselves opposable thumbs.

Yes, now that you mention it ...

[naomikritzer]

When we lived in an apartment complex years ago, there was an entire family of raccoons that moved into our garbage dumpster. The apartment manager mentioned this in the newsletter and said that we should stop feeding them because "RACCOONS ARE NOT CUTE. THEY ARE FILTHY NASTY VERMIN."

Where exactly we were supposed to put our garbage, if we weren't supposed to toss it into the dumpster with the raccoons, was not specified. Ed and I speculated that maybe we were supposed to aim for them when we threw heavy bags of trash into the dumpster, instead of gently depositing the bag nearby and mentioning that there were some tasty corncobs inside if they cared to rip it open.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

There's always someone like that in an apartment complex. The first year we lived in our last place (on the eighteenth floor of a high-rise) our downstairs neighbour (I called her Mrs Nosy Parker) kept putting scathing, accusatory anonymous notes through our mail slot -- with copies to Management -- accusing us of endangering everybody's health and destroying her "beautifully-kept" balcony by raising pigeons on our balcony. Why? Well, we were stupid enough to leave a couple of cardboard boxes out there after we unpacked, and we were insufficiently tenacious (being out of the flat all day at our jobs) in shooing the pigeons away, and one of them laid an egg in one of the boxes...

[squigsoup.livejournal.com]

Broomstick...duct tape...knife....(you know I'm kidding, of course).

[naomikritzer]

I was thinking last night about starting a topic with the title, "OK, who can loan me a harpoon?" And then I forgot.

[imponderabilias.livejournal.com]

And you didn't call the police? You know if they look you in the eyes, they might be rabid. :lol

You did see that thread, didn't you? (Search Anastasia and hedgehog, if not ;-) )

[naomikritzer]

If I had a raccoon that was actually tearing around blindly while foaming at the mouth, it is within the distant realm of possibility that I could get a cop to show up and shoot it for me, assuming nothing more pressing was happening in my neighborhood at that moment in time.

[maevele.livejournal.com]

I will see your raccoons, and raise you one skunk, who will stand in my yard looking at me as if to say "so, you weren't planning on stepping OFF that porch, were ya?"

[naomikritzer]

Thanks, but if you're offering to trade, I would take the seven-raccoon family unit we saw skittering through our yard and then the neighbors' one night last week over even a single skunk.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

The raccoon recipe is on page 515 of my Joy of Cooking, which was a gift from my mother-in-law in 1995.

Just in case anyone's wondering.