The Raccoon

Last week we were sitting in the house when there started a great ruckus on the porch.  Shovels were falling everywhere and the dogs began barking like mad.  One look out the window and it wasn't hard to tell what we had on hand.  A rabid raccoon.  There he was in the middle of the afternoon wreaking havoc on the porch.  The barking dogs didn't seem to phase him one bit, so while Eric was getting the gun, the raccoon was taking laps around the cars in the driveway. 

Teresa would have been content to allow him to continue on in this mad manner, but he decided to head down the only open grass towards the barn!  It didn't take long for Teresa to go running down the path after him, with a broom in hand (at the time this seemed like a fine choice of a weapon).  Upon entering the barn, the raccoon was nowhere in sight but the goats were crying and chickens clucking.  Then Teresa saw him, sitting in Oscar's pen (thankfully Oscar was in with the girls).  It was a show down: hissing raccoon vs. angry protective farm woman.  This wasn't the first time she'd been face-to-face with a hissing raccoon.  The raccoon went dashing out the barn door and back down the path towards the house.

It would be a great story if Eric had been ready with the gun and "POW!" gone goes the raccoon, but no, Eric is STILL inside the house unlocking the gun and ammunition.  He came out of the house just in time to see the raccoon running down the road and seemed content to let him run.  Teresa, however, yells, "Kill him, he was in Oscar's pen!" and Eric takes off in mad dash down the road, gun in hand, after the raccoon.  Needless to say, the raccoon managed to escape under the neighbor's porch.  That evening, we set a trap, but before bedtime came, Eric was removing the trap due to Teresa's fear of catching a perfectly healthy, hungry, nocturnal raccoon.  A week passed with no signs of the crazy raccoon.

Until....

Last night, Teresa let the dogs out to potty before bed.  Teresa thought she heard a noise under the porch, but then silence.  Teresa ran to the other side of the porch to yell for Piper and there was again, an odd squeaking and loud rustling under the porch.  YIKES!  Teresa dashed into the house and yelled,  "Eric, the raccoon is under the porch."  Eric, having learned a lesson from the previous week, only had the gun locked, so within seconds he was loading ammunition.  Teresa lit the porch light to get a better view and there he was...

 a mouse, running across the snow as fast as his little legs would carry him!!!

(Apparently raccoons don't squeak!)