Raccoon Adventure Morning

 I didn't want an early morning adventure.  But I got one.

I'd had an odd night.  First, just after I went to bed and was reading, there was what I thought to be a cat squall, under my bed.   I yelled at the cats, as i do when that happens, "Be Nice!" turned out the light and went to sleep.

I had a weird dream.  I thought I heard a large animal in the house, maybe a bear, but it wasn't a nightmare that woke me up, just a sleepy dreamlike memory.  But I do remember it clearly.  Maybe it wasn't a dream.

This morning I woke up.  It was 7:00 and that's when I usually wake up.  I heard a wheezing squeeling noise in the hall.  I half expected to see one of my elderly cats laying flat out dying.   But my most frail cats were not dead or dying.  I quickly checked.  But one of them was up on a cat run wide eyed.  That's not the usual I see mornings.   But I let it go, thinking there'd been a tiff of some sort between cats.  It happens this time of year.  Its been freezing nights, and the cats get active in different ways when the weather changes.

I don't have that many cats anymore.  In fact yesterday I was thinking I could remove one of my large plastic storage benches that I turned into litter box hiders.  Each one holds three litter boxes.  I cut holes in the sides so they're like three seater outhouses.   I have way more litter boxes than cats now.  I can downsize, I thought, and should.

I have way more beds for cats now too than cats.  Oh well.  I'll get around to it, I thought lazily, yesterday.

So about 7:30 this morning I take out some trash and glance up into the cat run under the eaves.  And my heart stopped.  

Three raccoons, two of them young, were eyeing me as they exited the house through the cat run into the  cat yard.  

I nearly croaked!

After initial panic subsided I knew I needed a plan to get them out.  At first I thought I'll set traps.  Nope, not a good plan.  They needed out immediately.  They're nocturnal and need to get to wherever they spend the night, before traffic starts up.   I bet they live in the neighbors garage or under their shed, I theorized.  Many people have slightly open garages, so their own cats can come and go, or because their garages are so packed in junk they no longer can close them.   Or sheds, on cross beams or cement blocks, to protect from rot, but that leaves gaps beneath them that animals use as access points to great hideouts.

I'd not seen raccoons around for a long time.  Doesn't mean they're not around, just that I don't see them.

Or see their poop.  Which is what generally alerts me to them.

I closed off the cat runs to the house.   Then I took out wire cutters and cut a small hole in the side of the cat yard wire up by a run, where the young pair had been huddled.   They'd moved off down the run.  And their mom was in the pergola in the cat yard, worn out and scared.  I went back into the cat yard and herded just by my presence, the young pair on the run towards the corner  where I'd cut out a hole.  One found the hole quickly and exited, then the other followed.   Now to get mom to that corner.

I tapped on the side of the cat yard pergola and she exited through a hole near the top and quickly scrambled up to a run but she kept bypassing the hole I'd cut.  Too scared to notice it.   I got a can of cat food from the garage cat room and put some at the hole.  Then I herded her just by moving slightly this way or that.  When she went by the hole she stopped, smelling the food, then saw the hole and exited.  Yes!!!

Well I hope that's all that got in.   I zip tied shut the hole, cleaned up some raccoon poop and that was that.  I hope.   I need to reinforce the top over the cat yard.  It's age old chicken wire held together with old brittle by now zip ties.   Raccoons are heavy and the cat yard top wire was never meant to hold their weight.  I didn't envision that need, when  I made it.  But over the years, I've had to catch both possums and stray cats who have dropped in through the top.   

This is a first for raccoons coming through!  And three of them no less.  I guess my dream wasn't a dream.  I did have a wild animal in my house last night, roaming around, scared maybe and maybe thought they'd found shangri la.

So that was my early morning raccoon adventure.  By 8:15, they were out of the cat yard.  By  8:45, the hole was patched and the mess cleaned up.   

Now for my coffee.