Why did you name the jpg. rabies?

Mary – (singsong) I can see by that look on your face that you have taken me far too seriously. Am I hooked on bantering and farce? A bit. Smidgen. So was my Uncle Larry. Runs in the family.

Wow Mary i didn’t know that about the saliva glands. Makes sense…

Mary – I have no idea what you’re on about.
Lovely story, yours. Very good. You, watching the whole thing, playing Mother Nature. She is cruel isn’t she? More like a Wicked Step-Mother Nature. Survival of the fittest and all that. But thank you very much for using the word, “shrubbery”, twice. So, I rather think, you would be more in the area of The Queen Mother Nature, or a, Monty Python Mother Nature. Yes, yes, mmm.

awww! So cute! Haven’t seen any up here yet… we are more likely to get bears in our trash :{

oh and by the way, they aren’t exactly washing their food, they’re moistening it because they have no saliva glands. I think that’s what I read somewhere. Makes more sense than “washing” considering what they eat.

Ok Pyrit, the “That was my Uncle Larry” cracked me up..
I had raccoons in former neighborhood and one evening I was outside and there was raccoon family (mom, dad, two bebehs) in the front yard. (yard was terraced up to street and more hill upward across street) Anyway the family took off across the street and into neighbor’s shrubbery but a little one wasn’t paying attention and was left behind. (He was sniffing the roses and had his back to the others.) When he realized it, he started to cry and ran around the yard (bushes) whimpering. Suddenly he put his nose to the ground and started tracking but it led back to where they’d come from so he stopped that and came back to my yard again and kept trying to figure out where they went. He was getting pretty distressed when suddenly from across the street come the family back again. THey had missed him and were barrelling back downhill to him. WHen they met up they got up on hind legs and kind of “danced” around each other and sniffed noses and meanwhile everyone was “whuh whuh” in kind of high, soft voices. It was really touching. Once the reunion was over, all 4 headed across the street again and disappaeared into the shrubbery. I watched the whole thing, it was really sweet.
By “barrelling” I mean, they had one of the adults in front and another one on each shoulder making a triangle with them all touching. Once Junior was added back in, it was a diamond.
I do like them but I don’t feed them or encourage them to come around. I do see some in my current neighborhood too sometimes. So they do fine without me.

Eris, that is so effing funny!! LOL! I really can’t get over how smart they are (see my story way up above) so I can only imagine what that ‘coon must’ve thought of his reflection…one that they probably only see when they are looking in pools of water to wash their food!

Give me a BREAK! Little robbers!

Adorable! I want one. :]