Indecision

On these long days of summer, afternoon stretches into evening and evening into night without changing stride, robbing hours from the dark. Raccoons around here seem to have forgotten that they are nocturnal and the adults appear at all hours of the day. This week, 2 kits showed up with their mother at twilight. They stayed close by her side until some noise or movement startled them and sent them scrambling for the nearest tree. This happened 3 times while I watched, and each time, they climbed a short distance before looking back at their mother, who was still calmly eating her breakfast.

Chagrined, they reconsidered their course of action...

...and slinked back to their mother's side.
Caution is good, but hunger rules.

Night Creatures

They come when the sun is low in the sky or under cover of darkness, feeling with their sensitive black gloves for morsels of corn, 

rolling each piece over in their hands while chewing on the last one, their hands and jaws in perpetual motion.

These raccoons are startled by any slight movement; it doesn't take much to send them fleeing to the woods or scrambling up a tree.

"No worries, Mate. It's only the gobbler. Ignore him, and he'll go away."

Evening Encounter

The last couple of evenings, Mama raccoon has brought out her kits.

 

Last night, they were minding their own business (that is, eating)...

...when two of them suddenly scrambled up a nearby tree.

Their anxiety came from the appearance of a doe, 

and they peered back timidly from the side of the tree as if to say, "Is it safe?"

Deciding to risk it, they sidled back down, but after a few tense moments, the raccoon family retreated to the woods.

"Was it something I said?"

Linking with Saturday's Critters

Ten Seconds

There will be plenty of people counting down the seconds to the new year tonight. 

Since I hope to be sound asleep by then, here's my own countdown a little early--

10 of my favorite animal sightings of 2016:

10. Fox Kit

Little Foxes

9. Wood Duck

Woody in the Tree

8. Eastern Chipmunk

Generation Z

7. White-tailed Fawn

Once in a Lifetime

6. Eastern Wild Turkey

Trapped

5. Raccoon

Co-inhabitants

4. Monarch Chrysalis

Morning Metamorphosis 

3.White-tailed Buck

Morning Fog

2. Male Cardinal

Mountain Lion Hollow

1. Golden Retriever, Barley

Co-inhabitants

Happy New Year!

Linking with Saturday's Critters

Co-inhabitants

Every once in a while, when we start thinking that this place where we live belongs to us, 

we are reminded that our opinion is not universal.

Most mornings lately, four Eastern Wild Turkey gobblers have been gathering on our back patio.

They like the convenience of fresh water (or sometimes ice) in the birdbath, a chance to admire their reflections in the window glass, and the exceptional acoustics. If volume had anything to do with ownership, when they gobble, they would have the deed to the house in their feathery back pocket. The turkeys retreat a little when we pass by the windows, but seem only mildly inconvenienced by the other occupants of this place, namely us. Their forebears, after all, were here long before ours were.
 
Before dawn yesterday morning, Don watched a skunk saunter away from the back of the house, while a fat raccoon sat in the bird feeder, eating a bedtime snack. We've been wondering why the bird feed disappeared so fast, and now we know that it's been going to two more residents.

              

In the summer, a mother raccoon and her two kits would come in the evenings to eat... 

...before climbing up to their nursery in a large oak tree behind the house. 

In the nighttime, the place belonged to them.

Deer have always been occupants of our woods. 

Of the seven we see regularly, one button buck has taken to the dog kennel, and helps himself to fallen acorns. 

We see the larger bucks less frequently, but in the shelter of the darkness, they may consider this place their own, too.

Barley is the only four-legged creature with a key to the house.

So far.

Linking with Saturday's Critters
and Wild Bird Wednesday

Swing Shift

The sun's almost up over the hill, 

and four young raccoons, their shift nearly over, forage under the bird feeder, 

their busy legs still wet from a romp in the birdbath. 

They look straight ahead, 

their small hands in constant motion as they grope for another morsel, 

a black oil sunflower seed that the birds left behind.

A slight disturbance sends them scrambling up the nearest tree, 

before they reverse their direction and run for the shelter of the woods.

The sun is up, the night crew gone, and the day crew has started their shift.

Linking with Camera Critters
and Weekly Top Shot

Breakfast Buffet

This morning as I picked raspberries, a butterfly parked on a berry and sipped raspberry juice through its long slender proboscis.  I picked about a cup and a half, which is respectable for my little patch, but I often think that the plants would rather be elsewhere.  Many of them have shriveled up in this hot, dry summer.   A good friend of mine in Oregon has a prolific patch of raspberries in her back yard, and when I visited her a few years ago, I almost foundered at breakfast on the plump juicy berries.  

The raccoons haven't discovered the raspberries yet this year, thankfully, nor have the deer, whose attention is currently diverted by ripening dogwood berries.  Don brush hogged this past weekend, and in the process, tore a small dogwood limb off a tree down the hill from our house.   By Monday, the deer had discovered that the limb had a lot of ripe berries within easy reach, and they must love them, because a line quickly formed at the breakfast buffet.  Occasionally one of the deer would stand up on its hind legs to sample some berries off the tree, then bat the tree with its forelegs, loosening more berries and showering them to the ground.

I like to think of God stretching out His hand to feed the butterflies and deer and raccoons, and with that same strong, gentle hand, reaching down to care for you and me.

These all look to You to give them their food at the proper time. 

When You give it to them, they gather it up;

When You open Your hand, they are satisfied with good things.

                                       Psalm 104:27,28

Rain, Raccoons and Raspberries

Last Sunday afternoon God tipped the water jars of the heavens and poured them down on our corner of the Ozarks. From the front porch, where I went to watch, a cascade of rain came off the roof and hammered the brick patio, gushing into the flowerbed, where plants stood up to their knees in water. Sheets of rain overhead and distant rolling thunder combined their voices with the wind into a sound like a vast roaring ocean. Frogs, in their element, lifted their voices above the roar.

By Monday morning every visible surface outside was still drenched with moisture, and any stir in the leaves showered leftover rain on whatever happened to be below. Three baby raccoons with spiky wet hair followed their mother out of the woods to eat the cracked corn Don had thrown out for the deer. When a doe appeared, they all scampered up a nearby tree. There's nothing quite as cute as those babies right now, but if last summer's memory serves, once the raspberries get ripe, those little masked robbers won't be quite as appealing. Meanwhile, with all this rain, the raspberries are growing like the national debt, and in a month or so, somebody, the raccoons or us, will be enjoying them. Stay tuned.