A Tale of Two Raccoons

Feb 20 - We were sitting at our desks when I noticed something moving outside my window. Yep, raccoons exploring the remnants of the wood pile in the middle of the afternoon. Then they were off to run around the porch. Maybe they were thrilled to find something that wasn’t snow to walk on.

In case you are concerned, they were not rabid. I think they were young and out for a stroll without Mom.

All four of us went to the window for a closer look. Mistake! The raccoons saw us and headed up the rain spout to safety. 

Once we had two raccoons on the downspout, the one farther out, who I will call Leader, eventually decide he wanted down but was blocked by the second, who I will call Follower. Follower wanted to go up on the roof. After a few miss-starts they managed to change places. 

At this point I went out to check the trash can. It was safely locked in our bear-proof can.  That is unless raccoons know how to open carabiners.

There were more attempts to switch place using the canine stealth strategy. In case you are not familiar with that, dogs, and apparently raccoons, believe that if they move slowly enough no one will notice. As you can see, there isn’t much space for them to maneuver. The only way to change places it to go over or under each other. Since they were both using the stealth strategy, progress was slow.

One would think raccoons would have no problem backing down 8-9 feet of corner on a wood sided house. If they are young, they would be one year old, as kits are born in March or April. Apparently these haven’t passed the backing part of their raccoon climbing test.

Eventually they called a conference to discuss their predicament but unfortunately raccoon language seems to be limited to a few action verbs such as: Walk and Up but not Pass or Down. 

Leader and Follower Discussing Strategy

While I’m certain they will figure it out I hate to miss a second of their antics because they are hilarious.

I’m sure at some point, after they rip something up and make a mess, they will stop being funny. At least we have raccoons on the gutter and not a bear on the roof.

What do you think we should do?

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