Bandits in the Night

At 4:00 a.m. I awoke with a cramp in my leg and got up to walk it out. As I passed through the kitchen I heard chittering noises through the open window, letting me know that our nightly visitors were out on the porch. I grabbed the camera and cracked open the door to catch them in their act of burglarizing! (Pardon the bad pictures--it was dark and I was still half-asleep!)

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Years ago this racoon family discovered we kept bins of cat and dog food on our porch, and we soon became their nightly fast food fix.

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We fought it for a long time, purchasing more secure bins and allowing the dog to chase them up the trees. However, when the racoons could no longer open the bins, they found they could knock the lids off and spill the contents by pushing the bins over, leaving us a nice mess to clean up the next day. As for the dog, they just had to wait to do their marauding when we were all safely in bed.

Eventually we accepted that feeding this family of four as well as our own pets was going to be a part of our rural life.

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I think the parents escaped when they heard me open the door, and these two are their current youngsters. While I snapped pictures, Diego slipped past my legs to bark at the intruders (here they are watching him curiously from their perch on the gas grill). After he growled menacingly at them for a few minutes, he returned to the house, his job done. I feel safer already!

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I just love the challenges of country living!