Only on a Tuesday...

Tonight I was sitting on the deck, pruning the pansies.  There had been this trilling sound coming from the cottonwood tree along the driveway since supper time -- enough to cause a stir in the house cats and to bring Hope, the barn cat over.  I had gone over to the tree once with binoculars in hand (this is one big tree) and figured it was just some baby bird making a new sound I hadn't heard before.

Anyway, as I am sitting out back, minding my own pruning business -- along drives Dave down our driveway -- and there suddenly appears to be little critters under his car.  My first thought:  kittens!!!!  I hollered for him to stop.  Well, they were kits -- but not of the barn variety...rather of the "get into the trash" variety....raccoon babies to be exact.  That was the origin of all that shrilling noise. 

I now understand why raccoons so often end up along the edge of roads -- they have a thing for cars -- and these babes were not coming out from under Dave's car.  They had run out to it and were not leaving this blue "momma".

So, Dave grabbed a long rubber hose to do "some convincing" ... and the next thing I know, he is leading one of the raccoon babies down the driveway back to the tree.  One raccoon remains behind, crying.  I grab a long grape vine I had just pruned from along the back of the house...and led the other baby down the driveway.  Literally we dragged, they followed. 

So, I am not quite as eloquent as Sterling North -- our wonderful Edgerton, Wisconsin author that wrote about a young boy's adventures with Rascal the raccoon.  But perhaps you can get the picture: Dave with a long rubber hose leading a baby raccoon, and me with a long grape vine doing the same thing.  Cross that off my Bucket List.

Kari