The Field Comes to the Deck

There may be a special place in my heart for groundhogs, since my father had one as a pet when he was a boy,
and I may believe a groundhog took up residence in our backyard just as I was starting to rewrite the story of my father's life,
BUT

when I was nine years old, my favourite book was "Frosty: A Raccoon to Remember" by Harriet Weaver (1973) so there is a very special place in my heart for raccoons.
I know they are large rodents who make noise and mess and carry potentially dog-harming bacteria. I know they are scroungers who knock over compost containers --

Did I ever tell you that's what I was doing behind the old shed at our summer house on Pugwash Point when Dwayne phoned to ask me out on a date? I was reinforcing the compost bin, trying to keep the raccoons out of it.



BUT

look at that face
look at that nose and those whiskers
look at those fingers

Raccoons are such clever little buggers.
I loved that book about the family who adopted an orphaned raccoon baby and raised it as a pet. Was that another early non-fiction influence?







Poor Mama, she came looking for whatever peanuts and sunflower seeds the squirrels had left behind. I know she has babies, at least four, because the dog and I saw them across the road the other day.
She came early last night, before dark but after it had started to rain -- again -- but she hit the jackpot: When I pointed her out to my husband, he stood at the sliding glass door and watched her for awhile. The cats crouched around his ankles, watching too, and I kept the dog quiet.
Poor dog, she is no longer allowed to chase squirrels off the railing or bark at the raccoon on the deck.
Then he cracked the door open and I was about to object to him scaring her away -- there wasn't much for her to scrounge so she'd leave soon anyway -- when he tossed a handful of peanuts out the door.

My Nova Scotia country boy fed the raccoon.
He's gone soft, this boy has.
An old porcupine gets safe passage through the front yard at supper time.
A groundhog is allowed to live under the garage and sit at its leisure on the laundry deck.
Squirrels get fed peanuts and sunflower seeds while Dwayne tries to get them to take from his fingers.
And a raccoon gets an extra snack on the front deck.

"We're not supposed to feed the wild animals, you know," I told him.
"She'll bring the babies here soon," he replied.
Baby raccoons! I think it's time I track down a long-lost copy of that 1973 book. It might be a reality check -- but somehow I think we've moved past reality now...