Raccoon Raid and Fish Fatalities
This afternoon I noticed that the fountain ball was knocked over in our fountain in the side yard. I righted it, and refilled the water. Only one goldfish was still there, and it was dead. I strongly suspect a racoon. Poor fish. I guess I'll buy some new ones in a few days. it's been a long time since this happened.
I'm doing most of my blogging as a guest author in Donita's blog while she and Paige are on tour, as you can read in the entry below this one.
I'm doing most of my blogging as a guest author in Donita's blog while she and Paige are on tour, as you can read in the entry below this one.
posted by Jim at 4:12 PM
7 Comments:
I'd much rather have a racoon than the rats we see on a regular basis.
Not that I'm inviting racoons, we've had them before, and usually go on their merry way because of the dogs. The rats however, don't care that the dogs can catch them. They can breed extra fast.
Although I've seen rats and all sorts of other rodents up here (there's a squirrel that's been hanging around our backyard for the last few weeks), overall, I'd prefer raccoons over rats. We've really only seen rats here right after Timio and his family moved away a couple of months ago.
Raccoons are very confident; when the dogs notice something making noise in the backyard, I look out the backdoor window, and often a raccoon will just stand up and stare at me. There was a big one around here a year ago, and I'd bet that if Boz had tried to "get" it, it might have killed Boz. But that didn't happen; the main thing is that they plunder our fountain for fish, and the fish are there to keep the mosquitoes down. Even though they're just fish, I always feel a little sad that they get wiped out.
Squirrels I like the best.
Shiva treed a mama racoon and her teenage racoon one day a few yrs ago. Shiva and the racoon were fighting and it made the most gawdawful racket you've ever heard. I thought Shiva would be killed but it was the mama racoon that hightailed into the tree (after the teen got up there). Scared me to death.
Shiva wouldn't leave the tree, so the racoons were there when I got home at 6 pm. Sometime during the night they left...never to be seen in our yard again.
I'm ok with day dwelling animals, it's the night prowlers that make me get the heebie jeebies cuz I can hear them in the bushes. Ick. iixe
iiixe: multiple icks.
Yeah, we don't have rats scurrying around making noise at night here; sometimes possums, though, who could be characterized as big, ugly rats I suppose.
My brother Ken has rats walking along the power lines behind their backyard. He lives over by the Plaza, not too far from youse guyz. The rats are kinda fun to watch, but sort of creepy.
Oh yeah, out in this neighborhood, they are running rampant. Our friends Kim and Joe pulled out their pool and it was eaten by rats and they had to kill a nest of baby rats: the mama rat got away. I suppose by now she's pregnant again. Did you know rats can get pregnant 10 mins after they deliver a litter?
Oh btw, Bill saw a squirrel in our front yard the other day.
Yesterday, Lindsay and I went to an aquarium store and bought ten replacement "feeder" fish. I don't see any in there today, but the fountain seems otherwise undisturbed, so I'm hoping that they're hiding under the rocks at the bottom (which they do).
Lindsay and I went out, lifted up some rocks in the fountain, and found four of the fish. The rest are probably just hiding better.
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