We were visiting with friends in our living room last night when I felt something watching me. So I turned towards the window and saw this.
Well, his eyes weren’t glowing from a camera flash when I first saw him, but I did turn to see a face staring at me through the glass wall in our living room. I gasped as it took me by surprise, and the kids were delighted. So onto the upper deck we all went, about eye level, and 6 or so feet away from a raccoon.
Upon being discovered, it started climbing down the tree.
And I followed him down (figuratively) with my camera until I gasped again, when through my camera, I saw this.
There were four for sure, possibly five smallish raccoons on my lower deck, and the trees growing out of it. They scurried down the smaller tree, and climbed around on the railings before deciding to go back up the bigger trunk of the maple.
I know that picture is blurry, but it was so cute seeing the two of them cheek to cheek, staring in at us.
I would never have guessed we had ‘coons. They were small, and all exactly the same size, so I’m guessing it was an adolescent litter or something. Not being a raccoon expert, it’s just a guess. I hope they’re just passing through. I have a goldfish pond back there, and I don’t want them getting any ideas.
We went yarn shopping on Tuesday and didn’t come up with much. Except, some of the yarn at the second store we hit that I had admired this past winter was on sale. So I bought it.
Along with something that may or may not work for my friend’s chemo cap…
…which was also on sale, and either way, it was a good buy.
Thank you for the yarn suggestions. I’m going to go back through the comments and write them down for when I go into Seattle, which it looks like I’m going to need to do, to find yarn.
As for the stockings… I couldn’t find anything I liked, with the possible exception of Silky Tweed. It comes in the color diversity I’m looking for, but silk Christmas stockings????
I don’t know.
I have some in the stash already, I could start working on a mockup to see how it goes. But I’m going to continue looking.
Yays! to those of you who are having your family knit their stockings! I think it’s great! If this actually pans out in my family, I’m going to take a picture of each of them as they’re knitting it to keep in the stocking year after year, so as they grow up, they (in truth, I) can enjoy looking back and seeing how little they were when they made it. Fun, no?
June 29th, 2006 at 12:59 am
Laura,
We had a raccoon living in our chimney for a year and didn’t know it. He would sleep in there all day and come out at night. We had to put a safety cap on the top of the chimney to keep them out. This is common in our area because my friends were not surprised at our discovery.
Judy
Salt Lake City
June 29th, 2006 at 1:20 am
Hi. Cute pictures of the racoons.
Hey with the idea of the stockings have you considered getting the girls a knifty knitter loom set. You can make all kinds of things on them including a Christmas Stocking. Thought I would mention this incase the girls have trouble knitting.
I bought a set of these looms and they are easy to use. Jean
June 29th, 2006 at 1:25 am
We have a racoon family that lives in our backyard under our blackberry bushes – but then again we live in the country and don’t have to worry about the little fish.
Two years ago on Christmas my mom discovered that she had a beaver that lived nearby (yes, a beaver) because it cornered her in her house while it ate all the fish in her front yard pond… quite the ordeal for her…
As for the family stockings… Grace’s stocking is going well. She can knit about 2 rounds before getting tired – and then I go back through and pick up the stitch or two that she dropped. The first time we had to rip it out and start over because she had never used the circular needles and I was trying to use needles that were too long – so off to the LYS to get the right length and now I think it will go swimmingly! Thankfully it is a while until Christmas! I decided to let her have full artistic control over the color of her yarn and the style of the yarn for the toe & heel (I will do those for her). We chose Encore for the stocking because she’s used it before and it was very easy for her hands to handle. She chose a bright rainbow color (not too bad) but for the toe/heel she chose this interesting boucle yarn in a soft butter yellow – I think it will look rather funny – but she was IN LOVE, and I took a picture of that in the yarn store and I do think it will say a lot about the little girl she was at 5. And that was what I wanted. So here’s to fingers crossed that we have stockings at Christmas! Now I just have to choose the pattern for mine!
Christall
June 29th, 2006 at 1:25 am
Great idea about the picture!
June 29th, 2006 at 3:05 am
Hmmm… raccoons. They sure are cute, but I do distinctly remember my grandpa going to great lengths to keep some of them off of his roof for some reason. I think I remember him wrapping some metal sheeting around the trees closest to his house just below roof height which he claimed they couldn’t climb because their claws couldn’t dig into it. I don’t know if he was just trying to keep them from getting in the chimney or to keep them out of the atrium. (They had cool house – sort of an octagon surrounding sliding glass doors that opened to an outside area in the middle with trees and everything.) Keep your trash covered – I do remember they were notorious for getting in there looking for food. 🙂
July 1st, 2006 at 4:42 am
Ugh… Raccoons. They are the reason I had to keep patching my lawn in our last house. I also had to keep the grates at the base of my house in good repair or they would climb under the house.
July 1st, 2006 at 7:10 am
what about knitpicks wool of the andes, held double, on size 10.5 needles, using a toe-up pattern? no need to pick up stitches around the heels, they’ll go fast because of the big gauge, & they won’t be expensive because knitpicks is cheap.
July 1st, 2006 at 8:57 am
oohhhh….raccoons! They sure are cute, but boy are they trouble. Hope your goldfish are safe. I used worsted Lamb’s Pride on all of my stockings because of the color choices and the larger gauge.