Cute little bastards

There I am, happily minding my own business composing a shit-or-get-off-the-pot email to my little friend when I hear the unmistakeable rustling of critters on my back porch. I am in the kitchen, with the door to the back porch open behind me. All the doors are open, in fact, in and out of the porch.

Now Toronto raccoons are not little cute things. They are large, fat and feisty. They thrive on garbage and like nothing better than to root through what I am too lazy to cart out to the green bin.

I get up, making a maximum amount of noise in an attempt to get them well out of the porch before I get there. Fortunately they are out of the porch, but to my surprise there is still one lingering on my (new, pristine, unsoiled by raccoon shit) deck. Not so big and menacing, though, so I'm surprised it's still there. I look out the door, intending to shoo it more forcibly away, and there is the littlest wee baby raccoon. About the size of a 2 month old kitten, I'd say.

So my tenderness knows no bounds and I attempt to shoo them away anyway, but the baby is very slow. It must be very new. Finally they manage to make it to the back foliage, mama glaring at me as she wait for the little thing to stagger to her and I go back to the kitchen. I remember my laundry and go get it to hang on the line.

As I come back out to the porch, mama is back in the garden. WTF? Finally I clue in - there's another one! Sure enough, she goes under the pool, propped against my ornamental BBQ (due to it's spectacular malfunction last night) and retrieves another slow baby. This time they are gone much more quickly.

So tiny. So cute. So not wanted in my back yard. I put the garbage in the green bin, did up the clips and shut both porch doors. Don't come-a knocking mama. You're cute but I'd rather you all got run over by a bus than came to live under my deck.