The Raccoon

We have been painting the outside of our house (pictures to come), so Jesse went around tearing pieces of our house off that he thought were rotten, and then talking of plans to replace and fix it all...we'll see. Anyways, he tore a piece of the surrounding off our hot tub off , and since it made no difference to the hot tub, he said he would replace later. A couple days later, we were out in the backyard - still painting - and I saw Tommy walk over to a very small grey fluffy thing. Then I saw him reach down to pick it up. I watched him put his had right on it to pick it up, and meanwhile my brain was trying to figure out what the little fuzz ball was that wasn't running or hopping away from my 4-year-old boy. Just as my brain registered the coloring we all heard a hissing coming from the bushes by Tommy, and then the Mama raccoon came out just as I started yelling for Tommy to come back into the house. We all got in the house behind the sliding door just in time to watch the mommy coon pick up the baby coon and jump into the hole by our hot tub left there after Jesse tore that piece of wood off. seriously?!!

So long story short, we have mama and baby raccoon living in the dark warm area around our hot tub, and we keep a shovel by the back door - to protect us in case the mama comes out. Of course it costs minimum $245 to get someone to catch the raccoons, so Jesse is planning his own Raccoon Catching Mission, we'll see. We'll see.