what lurks in the shadows of the dark

This is an actual photo taken by Austin last night. The original wasn't this zoomed in, but as it made the rounds between his cell phone and Rachel's...it became this. Which is a telling sign of just how creepy it is to be in our yard after dark!!!

Any guesses?

  Austin was in the studio last night and heard some clattering noises on the patio right outside the doors. Innocently thinking it was his dad, he stepped out the doors to see what the commotion was about. As soon as he stepped out...growling from the dark corner commenced. As he explains it... he did what was probably a Norma maneuver to get back inside, standing hair on his body and all. Clatter and growling continued from the corner. He pulled up the flashlight mode on his phone and beamed it towards the ominous growling.  Which is how he spotted that large mother up in the corner! Literally a mother, because he could see babies down on the patio. That explains her territorially snarl as it was apparent he was way too close to that momma's youngins'.

Ya...look how big she is!! So, Chuck and I (inside watching t.v.) received simultaneous texts from Austin..."Raccoon staring me down and growling..."

He was trapped! Chuck did what any Reptile Raccoon Wrangler would do and grabbed the large flashlight and his trusty Red Ryder BB gun! I texted Austin and said... "Dad is on his way!" 

 Oh the comedy of all these wild animal adventures!

Here was one of the youngins' hiding out. They were making quite the clatter back there knocking things down to get away from the light. Austin made it past the momma to where Chuck was standing (safety in numbers you know) and together they clapped, hollered, and stomped their feet to scare the raccoons off. They were scared all right...so they scattered!

 After a bit of scrambling and my failed attempt to record said scrambling (I thought it was on video but not at all) and some laughing, and more hollering of such stern things as "get out of here", because we all know all these animals know we mean business when we start yelling... "get out of her raht now!!", they started to move quickly.

In fact, the boys were so successful in their tactics... lickity-split just like that... they sure as shootin'
                                                          treed themselves a coon!



                                         Yep...a palm tree climbing raccoon!

This little one went the wrong way and scooted over to the palm trees by the pool. It had a great view! The momma and other little ones were still over near the studio...(in the darkness of the night) clamoring around and knocking things over,  the mother chattering up a litany of what were probably raccoon expletives aimed right at us. Shame on us for interrupting the foraging and havoc that these messy animals wreak! It was one thing we were happy to say good riddance to in our Colorado yard. We had so many raccoons and were really tired of them. So this little visit... was not a welcome sight. Especially because it startled the puddin' out of Austin when he was confronted with the growling mother staring him down.

Soon, the mother's chatter brought the little one down and it ran off to meet the others. Some more hollering and clapping of hands helped to insure they made it up and out of our yard. We heard a dog barking and hoped that between our comical escapades and the yapping dogs, it was enough to make those critters go far far away!

Far away where all bobcats, gila monsters, tarantulas, javelinas, large rodents, (except those that drowned), king snakes, bull snakes, rattlesnakes, anysnakes should go...to someone else's yard!!






Note: no raccoons were harmed during this wrangling.