June 15, 2012 - Raccoon and Cub Camp

You will notice that there is no photo of the Baby today.  Today started with a little excitement.  I went to fix the Boy's lunch and noticed a critter in our yard.  He was eating eggs from the carton that he had in our yard.  He would grab and egg and proceed to the shed, where I assume he ate it and then he would reappear and repeat the process again.  So I sent the Boy for the camera and snapped a couple of shots of him.  The Husband was upstairs sleeping with the Baby, I showed him our new friend when he woke up.  The Husband went outside with a pot and spoon and attempted to scare the raccoon away.  Have you ever tried to scare a raccoon when there is food around?  It is not easy, they don't run far.  He ran all the way to one of our basement window wells and stayed there for a while.  Mostly, I wanted to get the shed closed so that he wouldn't decide to move in permanently.  I didn't notice the band around his middle until one of my friends commented on a photo that I posted on facebook.  If I had noticed I wouldn't have scared him away, I would have called animal control so they could remove the band.  I just hope the little guy is alright and has found some food to eat elsewhere. 

Now to the reason there was a carton of eggs in our backyard (actually 2 cartons of eggs and three rolls of toilet paper).  My guess is the high school kids (we live next to a high school), were up to no good and were close to getting caught, so they ditched the evidence in the nearest yard, ours.  This caused the raccoon to find the eggs and temporaily call our shed home.  I'm just glad he didn't decide to go for a swim in the pool too!

So that was the first part of the day (all before 9am).  The rest of the day we spent packing up for cub camp and installing gates to prevent our now mobile Baby from getting into dangerous places.   I couldn't help but take a photo of my front lawn, if you look closely you will see the little grasslings growing.  Yeah for grass.  Until this year, I wasn't crazy about gardening, but after working on the lawn (with lots of help) I feel a little better about it, and I have a small sense of accomplishment for turning my brown dead front lawn into something pretty and hopefully lush.  We'll just see if I can maintain it.  Next task: vegetable garden in the back yard with the kids!