Time for another story:
Company for Dinner
“Is your dog in the house?” It was my neighbor who had just knocked at our door. My family of wife, two small children, our dog and I had just taken our places around the dinner table. Of course, the dog was seated on the floor close to one of the children’s chairs where she felt it most advantageous to catch small scraps of food as they dropped to the floor beneath.
Four years before, Brigitte and I had tied the wedding knot. Shortly there after, I started a vegetable garden. As long as I could remember, I had worked in the family garden as a “responsibility” chore. Once I had my own little piece of property and a wife, I continued my enjoyment that was no longer a chore. When the children and a dog appeared, it became a whole lot more fun.
The only problem was RACCOONS. They were upsetting only to a point. While living on my uncle’s farm, we always had a garden. I loved helping to take care of those veggies of all descriptions. I loved, even more, the partaking of the harvest. The raccoons liked just about all the items I enjoyed, especially the corn. Those pesky little devils always knew, before us humans, exactly when the corn was ready to be eaten. We never trapped or tried to poison the animals. My cousin was a hunter, so we did, sometimes, end up with meat supplied by the raccoon family, but we never killed them unless we needed meat on the table. We did find ways to outwit the animals. We put leftover table scraps on the ground close to the crop of the day (for the raccoons). In that way, we were serving up a distraction, so hopefully, no sweetcorn would be eaten. With my own garden, I discovered watermellon rind to be a delicacy and very nourishing for those pests with the ringed tails.
Once the garden had played itself out, the raccoons would go to our garbage containers. At that time, I would bring home metal containers and put heavy rocks or concrete blocks on top of the lids for discouragement. I much preferred to “try” to outsmart the greedy little monsters.
I replied to my neighbor, “Yeah, she is right here under the table awaiting goodies to drop to the floor. Why do you ask?”
“Good. Keep her in the house because I am putting poison in my yard to get rid of the raccoons.” He left immediately.
My wife and I looked at each other, our mouths open, but speechless. Our children started to cry. I immediately, once I got my mouth to close, removed myself from the table, went outside and removed the tops from our garbage cans. I explained to the kids that raccoons like to tip over garbage cans to get into all the goodies that we throw out from our meals. “They will eat from our table the same as Buzzy (our dog at the time).”
The kids were happy. My wife was happy. I hope our neighbor was happy. I am certain the ‘coons were happy. They strewed garbage all over the area around those containers.
In a very short time, veggies in the garden started to attract the raccoons. At that time, we would put out a tray of goodies every evening right after we finished our own meal. That was even better fare for our animals. They cleaned that tray and left our garden alone. Wellll, mostly alone.
About a month later, my wife’s niece and nephew came to visit for three weeks from her native Germany. On the way home from Kennedy Airport, we got the two children all excited with our stories of feeding, not only a raccoon family, but a family of skunks, a couple of opossums and even a porcupine. We rolled into our yard in time for Brigitte to fix up some goodies for dinner while I lit the outside grill to fix up some “dog’s and burgers”.
After finishing our meal, we set out the usually expected tray of food for our wild friends. Brigitte’s niece and nephew, as our own children, were very disappointed. None of our new “pets” showed up. In fact, not one showed up for the entire three weeks of their stay. We looked for them every evening, but no luck. Not even the porcupine or skunks, which had obvious means of defense at their disposal, showed up. The evening we took the relatives back to Kennedy and waved “good bye”, the animals reappeared.
Tinker