cutekitten

There’s a raccoon barking in our front yard. If you don’t live where raccoons are common—are there any houses for sale in your area?—they (the raccoons, not the houses) sound a lot like you’d imagine a tiny seal would sound. Raccoons have a lot bigger vocabulary than many people realize. They bark, growl, screech, hiss, and I’ve read they chirp at their babies. though I have not heard this and don’t know anyone who has. I can’t imagine a mama raccoon letting you get close enough to her babies for you to hear any chirping. but a number of naturalists seem to have managed it. Maybe they were hiding in blinds. The naturalists, although I suppose the raccoons could be too. I rather like the idea of the two sides hiding from each other, with someone emitting the occasional sound to enliven the game. Being a raccoon can’t be all that exciting, and being a naturalist waiting for the raccoons to do something is probably even less exciting, so if they entertain each other, good on them.

The barking has stopped and the raccoon has apparently gone on his raccoonly way. Trash night is tomorrow; maybe he got the days mixed up and was barking in disappointment about the lack of trash cans, although pickings are slim anyway. everyone on this street has been here long enough to know you have to have good tight can lids. Sonkitten, for one, would be affronted if a raccoon, or anything else, got into one of his precisely lined-up trash cans. He takes his trash seriously, does Sonkitten. He makes sure they are EXACTLY 3 feet apart, as the contractor instructs, and gets mildly annoyed if the trash-truck-picker-upper-thingy knocks one over as it sets them back down.