Raccoon!

I've never cared much for raccoons... they can be such nuisances... My earliest experiences with them included coons that would rip open my rabbit hutch in the night and eat my furry pets. I was only 8, and an animal lover, so this was traumatic for me. They did the same things with my ducklings, and I was the one to discover the massacre in the pole barn one morning. They would go down into the root cellar and eat everything in sight, including the contents of canning jars after they pushed them on the floor and broke them open.

Dad started livetrapping them and giving them to a crazy old guy down the road who ate them. "Them coons is gooood eatin'!" he would say. After 9 or so, he got his fill and refused to "dispose" of any more coons for us.

In later years, they were well known around our house for cleaning out the plum trees and blueberry bushes by night, as well as stealing chickens.

No, I've never cared much for raccoons.

When we were on our honeymoon, we camped somewhere on the Olympic Penninsula of Washington and we had coons visiting our campsite. I was throwing rocks and them up in the trees trying to get them to find someone else to bug. It didn't work and I seem to recall something about a bag of bread flying into the lake, but I had nothing to do with that.

I have a great aunt and uncle who has had many pet raccoons and Aunt C. insists that they make great pets! Nathan and I stayed with them shortly after we were married and on our way to the Midwest and we did enjoy watching the pet raccoons, but I remain skeptical. Uncle C. would laugh and affectionately call them "WAAAAAAAAAAAcoon!"

So now that's what we say when we talk about raccoons: "WAAAAAAAAAAcoon!"

But I still don't like them much.

Today, however, I found a waccoon that I can get along with a little better:







He came home from Story Time with me and I think I'll keep him.