The Raccoon Saga: Part 2
Part two of the racoon story originally written and shared on Facebook by my mother-in-law, Cindy Boehler.
WHAT SHE SAID-3/21/23
Raccoon update coming…the debacle continues.
I had my day planned out when I went to bed last night, as I almost always do. Supervisors meeting in the morning, lunch with mom, pick up some windows I had purchased, then head to check traps at the kids’ house reno. My Terry called shortly before I went to the Board meeting and said he had decided to take the afternoon off so as to not lose any vacation or something like that…did I want him to meet me and check traps together? YES! I know I have to check them, I just do not know what I will do if I actually find a raccoon in a trap that needs to be dragged out and released. However, I do not want one sitting in a trap for several days, so….
Original plan was for me to find my cordless drill and charging base yesterday, which I did. Since I am still in the throws of my laundry room renovation, sometimes it’s hard for me to find tools as I would keep several of them in the cabinet in there. After finding them, I plugged them in to recharge…I would need them to patch a hole in the eave of the porch. I was planning on taking my step ladder and some plywood scraps as well. Until Terry called..then I knew he would have everything because he always does…the man has every tool Menards has ever sold and is on a first name basis with all the employees there….at least he should be. My infatuation is cowboy boots. Terry’s is Menards. I sent him a text asking if I should throw my ladder in and he reminded me that there was one in the porch at the house. Okay…
We both pull into the yard within minutes of each other and my phone rings and I have to take the call, but the big neighbor dog is walking across to us barking out the alarm that intruders have arrived, so I stay in the car as I am scared of big dogs now since they like to bite me….another story. Mr and Mrs next door neighbor walk across to retrieve big dog who is still barking at Terry. They all start talking outside while I am talking inside. Phone call ends, I shut off my car and open the door and tell them I will just stay in the car since I am scared of big dogs. They assure me he is very nice. I assure them the owner of the pit bull that attacked me about 10 years ago said his dog was nice. She says he is just the alarm for the neighborhood and barks anytime anyone comes close. I ask her if she could ask him to bark at the raccoons and get rid of them. Big dog lumbers over and starts sniffing my feet and legs looking for a place to bite me, I am assuming. However, he was an ok dog…he still barks at us, but I have sustained no injuries yet.
The neighbors gave us lots of information and told us the house has been vacant for about 7 years. They also gave a little history on who was living there and why they moved and left everything…so that was interesting. They went home with big dog, found another big dog and loaded them up and took them for a ride in a side by side.
In order to repair the hole in the eave, Terry wanted to cut away the volunteer trees that were growing up around the area, so we started clearing those on the south side of the house…he would cut and I would drag them to the back of the house and throw them over the barbed wire fence into a makeshift pen that wasn’t being used at this time. We only intended to clean up where we would be working, but it was so beautiful out, we just kept going until we had finished the whole south side and front of the house. We then knew it was time to go in and check the traps. Much to our disappointment, there had been critters in both traps, they had eaten food, but the traps had not triggered. This time, though, we found raccoon foot prints on a table, reference photo, so we know it is indeed the beady eyed little boogers. Still about a half can of food in each trap, so we decided to just leave them and I would check them again in a couple days.
I think it was at about this point that we realized that I had not brought any tools and Terry didn’t have any with him. In an attempt to keep the back porch door from blowing open, he had put a single, star bit screw into the frame on the inside of the door leading out to the porch. Well…we had no drill or screwdriver or anything, but, we had seen a few tools in one of the rooms off the kitchen. Being the fearless problem solver that I am, I reached down and pulled open the drawer of the tool cabinet and at the same instance thought that I probably shouldn’t do that so quickly in case there was a critter in there, but all was well. I found a selection of two small wrenches that I handed to Terry to take back through the kitchen to try. I’m shuffling through the drawer trying to find a more appropriate tool when he asks if there might be vice grips in there, so I pull open the second drawer, enabling the gray mouse to launch out of there and use my hand as a spring board. Another year of life expectancy down the drain. I might have screamed a bit, I don’t know, I was just proud that I had clean pants.
Back into the kitchen and Terry has managed to use one of the original tools to back out the screw and retrieve the ladder, which we take outside so he can get to the repair job up in the eave. Since this is a one person job, I decide to climb in the back pen and drag branches over to another pile of tree limbs that fell from a big tree that are on one side of a Cedar tree. As I am dragging the branches over to make one big pile, my Naked and Afraid training comes into play and I decide to see if I can build a primitive survival shelter with the materials I have at hand. I have to tell you, my PSR (Primitive Survival Rating) had to jump up to about a 7.5 by the time I was done, reference picture included. I love Terry for coming around the side of the house, asking me if I was building a survival shelter, shaking his head and smiling and going back to the real work at hand.
So, as of now, we think we have all of the holes and the couple of broken windows plugged up…there may be a good possibility that Mr. Raccoon is now trapped inside the house and can’t get out! Terry will not be able to go help check traps until the 30th at the earliest, so I am planning on making a primitive survival spear to take with me…oh wait we have the mops we found inside…that’ll do. Stay tuned…this ain’t over yet. Much love…CMB
