raccoons

This weekend my sister visited us and stayed in the local Holiday Inn Express. In the evening our two youngest kids wanted to swim in the hotel pool, so we went after it turned dark. As they were jumping around in the pool and having a good time under the glow of a big flood light, we noticed under the chairs at the opposite end of the pool there were three raccoons entering through the fence. For a couple of minutes they huddled in the darkness, but they got brave and came out in the light. When they saw our kids, who were playing at that end of the pool about ten feet from them, they quickly went back under the lawn chairs. After a couple of minutes, they all went back through the fence, but that was not the end of them. One was the mother as she was larger in size and the two kits were about half her size. We did not see the mother any more on the cement area around the pool as she stayed on the other side of the fence. The two kits then came out to eat bugs that were flying around or crawling on the floor due to the flood light. They saw our children, but ignored them as they played with the bugs with their paws just like cats do. We watched in amazement for about 10-15 minutes as they were intent on bug feeding no matter who was taking over their normal space. After they got their fill in bugs they left through the fence and we left soon after that. That was kind of fun watching them, but it reminds me of another encounter we had with raccoons.

While living in San Antonio, we had a pool in our backyard. There was a huge farm behind us, so we often had wild animals come drink our crystal clear pool water. I often wondered if the animals liked the chlorine taste! We frequently had opossums come, which I learned really smell quite horrible. Sometimes we forgot and left our cat food plates right outside the back door, which was right next to the pool. The wild animals would come to clean the plates of left overs. One time we had an armadillo fall into our pool and could not get out. I got a call a work on that day as some days I would not check out the pool before going to work if it was still dark outside. One time we had a white stray cat come into the back yard and it started fighting with our cats and somehow fell into the pool. I had to fish it out the angry feline and then escort it out of the backyard without getting scratched. The most exciting event of all was one evening when we looked out towards the pool and saw a mother raccoon with three small baby kits. What was so amusing about it was that they were in the hot tub peaking out over the edge at us! I guess they needed a bath, so at least they did not know how to turn on the hot tube bubbles or they might have gotten over heated. I wish we had a camera to take a photo of what we saw as three little raccoon heads staring at us from inside the hot tub was so cute. Those were the days...