A couple of weeks ago, a fat elderly raccoon with what looked like cataracts started hanging out on our back deck. Being a non-North American, I think raccoons are exotic and awesome and, on sighting one scurrying into the garbage, get as excited as an American spotting their very first free-range haggis.
“A raccoon!” I exclaimed to Adrian, who, despite being a North American, was also quite excited about our visitor, “I shall call him Friedrich.” (Our shared raccoon appreciation is one of the reasons we like each other.) “Okay, you weirdo,” said Adrian, sneaking the fat beast a few Temptations cat snacks, and “Friedrich” it was.
Two days later, it turned out that Friedrich was not quite as elderly… or fat… or male as I had thought, and was overheard giving birth to five tiny raccoon kits on our back deck. This was possibly the most North American thing that had happened to me in my years on this side of the Atlantic (other than being forced to sit through several inexplicable, interminable baseball games and a first unfortunate encounter with “aerosol cheese“…)
Friedrich recently relocated her wee ones to literally two inches away from the back door, so now, instead of finishing up the final few chapters of my book, I spend substantial portions of each day peeking out to see what she’s up to.
The babies are three weeks old now and squeak like rusty bike brakes whenever they are awake. Despite being woken up by this approximately 83 times a night, I still find them overwhelmingly cute.
Here’s four minutes of them being cute this morning. North America wins this round. Free-range haggis, you got nothing on this.
Raccoon baby video ! Click here!
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