Coonie Bears!!!!!

What? You have never heard of Coonie Bears? Well, long, long ago, and probably far away, I learned that raccoons were members of the bear family. Well, sorta... cousins, like. Anyway, in order to remember this, my juvenile brain changed their name to coonie bear so I could keep all this zoological information straight. Anyway, I mention this since we have been having regular visits from several misc. coonie bears, probably because the picky eaters out on the car port (Pumpkin and Spook) sometimes do not eat all their dinner. And maybe because we have a compost pile out back... ya think? Perhaps even the bird feeders might contribute to the problem, tho I have started taking the feeders down and locking them in the furnace room at night. I do that only because the coonie bears are so distructive. Most of my feeders are now made out of metal or have metal wire cages around them so chewing is not very effective. However, they dump the contents and that gets expensive. Then they go after the non-metal feeders. More expensive.

I keep bungee cords on the garbage cans and stash the metal cans with bird seed under a picnic table AND bungee them to boot, so that keeps me from having to clean up the trash on the carport every morning, but the little buggers get into everything anyway. A few minutes ago there was a loud crash and I looked and looked, but could find no evidence of their misdeeds.

Two nights ago they destroyed a big begonia I wintered over in the house and had just taken out with most of the rest of the house plants. There is a mama coonie bear and two little ones who have to investigate everything. They got into the greenhouse (since the door has been removed for the summer) and pulled the Christmas cactus out of their pots, knocked over a few other things, and totally wrecked the begonis. Their stems are so fragile, ya know?

Anyway, there was this crash, and I guess I will find out what they broke tomorrow as I sure didn't see it tonight. What I did see, however, and wish I could have recorded was a big pink cloud in the eastern sky (the sun had set) and there was lightning inside the cloud. It was not coming down to earth nor was it coming up from earth. It was completely confined to the cloud. It was having its own internal storm! I have never seen that before. But I believe I have felt that way once or twice. Maybe it is common and I just have managed all these years without seeing it. Maybe not. I heard no thunder. I came in and checked the radar and saw a storm cloud off shore - maybe 20 miles. I wish I could have gotten a pic of it. Anyway, I didn't, but here are a couple coonie bears...

and Punkie and Spook. I guess you can figure out which one is the Pumpkin. And Spook is Spook because he was so spooky - everything spooked him. His first month here he never even got within 20 feet of me. I won him over with some Turkey leftovers at Christmas, tossing him pieces, each one a little bit closer until after a couple of days of this, he got brave enough to take a piece from my hand. He is still shy of strangers, and runs at the least unusual noise. Punk, however, would roll over at the devil's feet and meow to have his belly rubbed. He follows me all around the yard. No, that is not quuite true. He runs ahead of where he thinks I am heading, throwing himself down in my path so I have to step over him - or give in and bend over and do the tummy rub routine. Did I mentiion Punk never shuts up? He yows and yows constantly or at least as soon as he has me in sight. sigh. Someday I will tell you his story... or at least what I believe is his story. But, for now, I am tired and it is past my bedtime. Till then......