More encounters with wildlife --

I am going to have to seriously alter some of my habits, down here on the Farm. You see, I have a window I leave open, without a screen, so the cats can jump in and out during the night without waking me up. And I've been in the habit of leaving my back door open to let fresh air in, up until I go to bed.

That has to change as of NOW.

I got off to a bad start when my neutered male, Bubba, woke me up a few minutes after six this morning with that funny little whirring meow that tells me... "Bubba, what have you done NOW?" Yesterday he'd brought me two little lizards, still living, and as soon as he dropped them on the floor they'd scurried under a cat food bag or behind the dryer (they're still around here somewhere -- too fast for me to catch! and of course, once he gave them to me, Bubba lost interest)... this morning it was a dead bird. A brown thrasher. I picked up the bird and tossed it out the front door.

A few minutes ago, I heard a cat munching cat food in the automatic feeder just inside the back door. Glanced up... RACCOON! a bright-eyed, half-grown raccoon, standing INSIDE MY HOUSE in my back hallway! I think I gasped. He looked up and seemed as startled to see me as I had been to see him.

"Excuse me -- WHAT are you doing in MY HOUSE? Don't you think you belong OUTSIDE?" Don't ask me why I was speaking to a wild raccoon. I also talk occasionally to inanimate objects.

He stared at me for a moment then turned around and waddled out the back door. I grabbed my battery-operated sweeper and headed for the back door. He was standing just off the deck, and when I appeared in the back doorway, he peered at me again.

I knew we had raccoons out here. I regularly see tracks around the back dirt roads. But I've never even seen one waddling down the road at night. So this was quite a treat.

Still, it is not a good thing for wild animals to come meandering into one's back door. From now on... the door remains shut and locked. Otherwise, I might step out of the front bathroom to find a deer in the living room, next!