Norman’s Nonsense 24 – Raccoon

This is what it takes to make the Farm Manager hang around with us these days. At first she didn’t even notice the raccoon.

You might think she would chase it away, but all she did was start taking photos. To be fair, she did take a look at the top netting- wire actually- to check for holes. The entire top of the aviary is enclosed with chickenwire, but nothing is ever perfectly secure.  Especially where the trees poke through.

It was raining and she thinks it’s so cute the way the hens crowd under this play structure. It was supposed to be a fancy step for Dobby’s swimming pool, but it didn’t work out the way she hoped it would. The step, the pool, all major fails. But the hens love it. The upside-down wading pool roof was a major improvement.

Nice step. It was supposed to replace the straw bale steps. So how do you get up to this step? Straw bales.

This pool lasted almost a week. Sure, metal walls, but a gossamer plastic liner. One nip and all the water gushed out, hahaha!

But I digress. The Farm Manager took a step back to get a better photo. We were waiting for her to notice. [play dramatic music]

One more step back, please.

Now we’re talking! Rascal himself, prancing along the tree branches, pacing, calculating, investigating. Whew, now that she has noticed we can go back to our daily business of looking for bugs and checking the treat dishes one more time.

Kind of a smaller scrappy fella, he got way out on a limb before he turned around. It was raining hard, and he was wet, but he had the look of a desperado. The Farm Manager grabbed the hose, like he wasn’t wet enough. Her calculated soaking forced him up, but not away.

If you click on this photo and zoom in to the hacked off tree trunk (it was diseased) center of the photo, you can see the masked face peering down. He was so scared of the Farm Manager that he fell asleep up there. To her credit she kept checking on him and when he eventually came down for lunch she hit him with some more water and he skedaddled away. We haven’t seen him since.

She also found a desiccated rat in the barn that day. Thought that was worth a mention.

Respectfully submitted, Norman