One day I heard some crunching out in the kitchen. Both cats were with me so I knew it had to be a raccoon eating the cat food. Dipstick was lying on me so I put him down and walked into the kitchen. Dip following behind. I flipped on the light and sure enough, there's a raccoon munching down on 9-Lives.
Dip just sat down to observe. The raccoon looked up at me and slowly walked right past me, out into the breezeway and out the cat door into the garage. I followed him out there and he seemed confused as to how to get out. By this time he was spooked and literally started climbing the walls.
The 2 x 4's are exposed in my garage and that crazy raccoon was climbing them. I opened the back door, grabbed a broom and poked at him a few times but this just scared him even more. He jumped off the wall and waddled way back in a corner underneath a small garden tractor trailer that was built for my Dad by my ex-hubby Rocky. After poking at him some more and telling him to 'get on outta here' he finally found his way out the door.
Years ago I used to feed the birds but after getting up every morning to find my feeders on the ground, sometimes destroyed, and always empty of their contents...I gave up. I would put out a suet cake and the next morning the cage would be on the ground and the suet gone. So I bought a shepherd's hook thinking that would do the trick but the next morning the suet cage was once again lying on the ground empty. I even tried squeezing the S-hook tightly around the shepherd's hook thinking the raccoons wouldn't be able to pull if off the hook. Well, they couldn't pull if off so they slid it up and over the bend of the hook and then just let it fall to the ground.
*Sigh*
This time around I've been bringing the feeders in at night. It's a pain but at least I'm not feeding the raccoons anymore. I really would like to attract some more woodpeckers to the backyard. So, last night after work I bought a peanut feeder and some peanuts. I particularly want to get some Pileated Woodpeckers (Woody Woodpeckers) to visit.
Becky & Joe have a beautiful Red-headed Woodpecker that comes to their feeder which hangs right on the eaves of their house. I figure raccoons won't be able to get to the eaves so I hung the peanut feeder out after I got home. Here's what the feeder looks like. (It's about 11" tall.)
And this pic shows where I hung it...not on the eave but just above the kitchen window:
Around 10PM I heard some thumping and scratching outside the kitchen window. At first I was scared! Then it dawned on me...a masked bandit was after my peanuts!!!
I grabbed the flashlight, threw open the window and there he was, less than 2 feet away from me, sitting on the pump house enjoying his snack. He had ripped the top off of the feeder, dumped the peanuts out and just helped himself.
The feeder had been out there less than 3 hours.
Guess I have another feeder I have to bring in at night. :o(
1 comment:
I am laughing so HARD that there are tears rolling down my cheeks.
I LOVE IT!!
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