The Raccoon Force is expanding!

When Mama Raccoon (one of the six raccoons we've seen frequenting the yard) isn't stuffing her face with gourmet bird seed...



... she's looking after her FOUR ADORABLE BABIES!!!



They are probably about two months old and painfully adorable, and they have already developed a refined palate. Only gourmet birdseed mix will do for this quartet of cuties!



It was hard to get a decent picture of them for various reasons, including the fact that I was shooting our our bedroom window and they wouldn't all come around to the right side of the birdfeeder pole! But you can still see how fluffy and ADORABLE they are. But...



Mama would NOT let them up into the birdfeeder. One baby made it all the way up the pole, whereupon Mama growled and baby slid back down the pole faster than you can say "gourmet birdseed mix."

However, this is how Mama gets up the pole...


She is amazingly agile.

Last night Mama and babies were outside the window again, and she was telling them not to climb the pole (grunting and growling.) I got our crappy flashlight out and saw five pair of eyes shining back at me.

And here is our newest resident:

Graziella Groundhog!

Well, for all I know it's a he, and his name is Greg, but anyway. Very cute. She sits in the long grass at the edge of our septic field, surveying her domain, then comes out to eat leafy weeds. If she starts eating my tomatoes, I'm getting out the .22. KIDDING!! I don't own a gun and anyone who knows me knows I can barely kill a mosquito.

I have also tamed a chipmunk to eat out of my hand. Well, there's more than one chipmunk doing this, but the tamest has a bald spot on the middle of his head, a short tail and a split ear. He's a survivor! I named him "Jim" after my Dad, who loved feeding squirrels and chipmunks. Jim comes a-running when I go out and call "Nuts! Nuts!" No doubt the neighbours think I merely walking around describing myself. "Nuts! Nuts!" Oh yes, I am.

Thus ends today's nature update.