Yep, it happened again. I woke up at 3:45 AM to some rumbling outside the bedroom window. Just as I looked out, I saw a furry creature running across the street toward our house, he was moving quickly. I tried to go back to sleep, it’s not uncommon for raccoons, opossums, skunks, squirrels, and other animals to hang out in our yard in the early hours.
A short time later, there was another loud rumbling but I couldn’t tell where it came from, so I got up to look. As soon as I entered the dining room, several large furry creatures went scurrying around, it was dark, I think there were three or four, and they had torn apart the brand new bag of cat food which was everywhere! It didn’t take long for them to find the open back door from which they entered and they left.
I went to check on my cat, Shady Grove, she usually sleeps in my art studio. She came running out, all puffed up twice her size and terrified!
Sure enough, one of the raccoons had detoured into the studio and was frantically trying to get out through the closed window. When a terrified raccoon is trying to escape, they tend to climb up, so he climbed 9 feet up my art filled shelves and perched, hissing at me and showing his teeth!
This is not my first encounter with a wild animal, I know better and decided to just let him calm down and figure it out on his own, so I turned out the lights, went into the other room, and waited.
Meanwhile, his family was outside waiting for him, and at one point they tried to come back into the house! It was about 30 minutes before I heard all the crashing of boxed art supplies and other stuff falling to the ground, but that meant he was down and I just caught a glimpse of his striped tail as he ran out the door!
Needless to say, Shady is still tramatized and won’t go back in the studio, I have a big mess to clean, and yes, we will be keeping the back door shut again at night! 😉
They really are quite adorable when they are not hissing!
Tiffany Arp-Daleo Artwork 
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