In Which We Free The Bunnies and Are Invaded By Raccoons

After caring diligently for the baby bunnies, my daughter decided it was time to free them. They hip-hopped happily into the grass and disappeared very quickly. We freed them a good distance from our house, so hopefully they would stay out of reach of our cats. They were very cute little things, but I think they are probably glad to be free and on their own. They had grown quite a bit from when we first found them.

Since the bunnies were gone, apparently the raccoons thought we were most likely lonely and needed some company. So, they started making themselves at home in our lean-to, eating the corn and feed stored in it for feeding the calves. My husband wasn’t real keen on their company, so he borrowed a box trap from a friend. When my husband went to check it, the first morning after he set it, there, looking out at him, was mama racoon. And close by the trap were baby #1 and baby #2. He took mama coon to the friend’s pasture and reset the trap. Morning #2 had baby #1 or baby #2 in the trap. Morning #3 my farmer went to check the trap fully expecting it to have the other baby in it.

But it didn’t.

Instead, it held mama racoon #2 and she hadn’t shown up alone. She was a good mama and had all five of her babies in tow, who were now hanging out in the lean-to close to their poor mama in the cage. We were left shaking our heads and laughing, saying, “Wait a minute. This isn’t how we had it planned out. We were wanting to reduce the number of coons in the lean-to. Help!! They’re multiplying.”

I think we’ve caught three more babies-not sure-have lost count….  Then, this morning we had another mama coon. Her babies weren’t hanging out by the trap, so who knows how many are hiding close by. And who knows how long we may be trapping coons!! We had no plans whatsoever to go into the trapping business. In the wise words of Forrest Gump, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.”

 Having my girlie-o taking care of various animals and then freeing the bunnies and having  raccoons invading our farm, made me think of the Sam Campbell books. We really like these books!

 I was introduced to them by Timberdoodle, a great place to shop for homeschool resources! They are true-life nature tales and will make any animal lover want to go visit Sam and Giny on their island. They’ll even make you want to visit if you’re not an animal lover! The stories are told in a way that captures your attention and they are certainly unique in their happenings and experiences! The series has twelve books in it and they are full of racoons, squirrels, porcupines, moose, deer, bear, beaver, and birds to name a few! There’s Inky and Loony Coon and Salt and Pepper and Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo and Still Mo! There’s Bobette the deer and Sausage the woodchuck and the racoons, Rack and Ruin. There’s Hi-Bub and Duke and Sonya. They are great books!

Warning:they might make your child want to adopt a porcupine or some such critter! My daughter loves Inky!

Have a happy weekend!

 

 

 

 

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