Little Thief

Last night, in the middle of an Ice Crown raid (I play World of Warcraft. I think this fact is established somewhere) my mom came into the office and told me in a very excited whisper that there was a raccoon in our garden.

Now, I'm sure there some folks that live in the mountains or out in the country that are snorting and rolling your eyes, and saying "a raccoon? Big whoop-di-doo. The only good 'coon is a dead 'coon." Well, guess what. It's the first raccoon I've ever seen that's not roadkill. And it was a little one, too. Not a baby, but still really small. He was about the size of a 8 weeks old lab puppy.

So, without further ado, our little visiting thief!

He's a cute little bugger ain't he? I took this photos from about four feet away, and he was totally unperturbed by my mom and I stand right there chattering away. She walked within two feet of his little hiding spot beneath the rose bush to get to the car (she'd been leaving to run errands when she spotted him.) The slamming of the car door didn't bother him, and the roar of the Skylark's engine was barely cause to lift his head.

He was down right cozy in that flowerbed. It's our smallest, with a giant rock by the corner of the porch (just a cement strip really, not much of a porch at all) with a rock boarder. The rose bush is to the left (in the photo) and the things growing up on the right are snapdragons. It made the perfect little raccoon nest.

He was munching on something. I suspect he enjoyed some of our escargot.