Saturday, March 10, 2007

Creatures in the Night


For most of this past week, the motion detector flood light has come several times each night. Usually, it's the neighborhood cats. However, the other night we had a raccoon come and visit here. While they are very common critters here, it's the first time we've seen one since we moved here in 2005.

I put several bird feeders out back and this tends to draw all manner of animals. Mostly squirrels and mice. The weird thing about this raccoon is that it didn't even look under the bird feeders. It just walked across the yard and climbed the Oak tree right outside the kitchen window. It was about zero degrees outside that night, and there's no holes big enough in that tree to hide in. We watched for awhile, as he went up and up. We never saw him (seemed like a him) come down, and we haven't seen him since. I felt bad that a creature had to be out in such freezing weather. Last night the flood light came on about 5 times, and whatever it tripped the sensor was gone by the time I got to the window. Very odd. Makes me wonder what else is creeping around outside there while I'm nice and cozy inside.

We had installed that light after several rounds of finding the Police in our yard with dogs looking for someone. We live in a very rural and safe neighborhood, but there are allot of summer houses here, and they get broken into. Last Summer we had the electrician put sensor lights around the house. I feel much better here when I can see outside. Besides, I love to watch it snow at night.

Anyway, I've been thinking about what is walking around here at night, unseen. Just out there doing their animal things, surviving. what kind of critters do you have at night near your home?

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