seeing is believing...

We've gone festive for the fall season and gussied up the porch with pumpkins and mums and two tall corn stalk bunches. I had no idea the fun this would bring.

At first it wasn't fun...it was sheer terror. One night last week, I walked down the stairs after a candy corn gorge left me with night sweats and the need to drink a gallon of water at 3am.

When I caught sight of something rather large crawling around on the porch, my heart stopped, I ducked for cover and pondered a way to get to the phone and report the potential intruder. I shimmied a little closer to the window and saw the bandit...a very well fed and girthy raccoon. I stood up and watched that fella attacking the corn stalks. He even tried to climb them, but apparently forgot how mammouth he was.

I reported this sighting to Jeff, who thought it was a well-exaggerated story. Until he met our overgrown visitor a couple nights later. So, we thought how nice it was of us to feed this poor starving raccoon, just trying to bulk up before winter. Until...

I stayed up late a couple nights ago, finishing the last of 2,800 pages of vampire lore (the Twilight series is good, by the way). I heard a rustling on the porch and figured the masked bandit was back. Before going upstairs, I peeked in on him.

Now, either he divided his mass into many parts, or he went and reported his find to every raccoon he could find. I picked my jaw up, went upstairs and dragged a very sleeping Jeff down the stairs to see a family of FIVE raccoons having a feast on our front porch.

They were undisturbed by me flipping on the light and only momentarily distracted by knocks on the window to shoo them away. I grabbed the camera and took some proof to share with the kids (who obviously want to keep them as pets now). Without further ado...Enjoy...
These were tiny little ones. If it weren't for the rabies thing, I wanted to pick one up.
So, there you have it.