LOONY COONS

FORGET THE LUNATIC SQUIRRELS, we are now dealing with some very naughty raccoons - very naughty! Yes, we have moved from destructive squirrels to destructive raccoons. My guess is we have a hungry mother, and in her haste to find food, she is just tearing up everything in sight. She seems especially fond of fresh potting soil and has made a mess of everything she can get her paws into. I think this Bleeding Heart will survive, but I am not so sure about the 10 tuberous begonias planted in these boxes. I have waited several weeks for them to sprout, and just as they finally had recognizable begonias leaves, the coon dug them out and broke the leaves off the bulbs. She also dug holes all thru the 4x4 garden, so today will be spent building a wire cage around – and over this fence to protect it until the tomatoes and watermelon get a good start. She even dug up some flowers that I thought would be better established by now. This was a pansy bed... torn apart... I had to search for the little plants...Last night, she got into a bag of kitty litter! Fortunately she didn’t like it so clean up was minimal!
I had to put a “door” on the shelves on the carport where I keep “stuff” for the yard, including cat food when we go away and have someone come to feed Spook and Punkin. Even though that food is in cans when it is out there, the coons knock the stuff off the shelves and roll things around on the carport. As I said, naughty, naughty! They knocked the marble off the old birdbath base. I usually keep a plant on it, but it only had potting things on it last night. The other night, they took the double sided cat food dish all the way out to the edge of the woods. I have no idea how far they would have taken it, but I chased them and found it about a hundred feet from the carport. Dumb part is – it was empty when they took it!
On the bright side, the strawberries have been making good progress. I was surprised to see a hint of red, then a lot more red, and finally enough to be able to share. How do you know when you have enough to share? You have enough when there are berries left over after you eat them as you pick them… that is an advantage of not using any pesticides or herbicides. Pick ‘em and eat ‘em! They were not as sweet as I expected, but someone told me that is because it has been so cool. Maybe the next picking will be sweeter, but today is another cool one, and they have said we might get down to 39 tonight! That is cold for us for this time of year, but I have friends in NY and Ontario who are getting snow today! Imagine, snow for mother’s day! there are FREEZE warnings for my place up in the Poconos!