My Raccoon Family

       I was relaxing in the living room. No one was home. I glanced over to the fire place...there sat a raccoon staring at me! Oh, my goodness. What should I do? I didn't want it to get out, into my living room and the rest of my house! Thank goodness we had glass doors on the fireplace. Suddenly the raccoon turned and ran up the chimney! What a relief...
       The next day I was in the basement and heard noises. We had a wood burning stove down there. The flue went up the same chimney as the living room fireplace. Something or someone was in there!
       That sly raccoon! She simply ran up one flue and down the next! Yes, SHE. I could hear lots of tiny squeaks! She was having babies!
       Luckily, we didn't have a fire going in the wood stove!  She wasn't in the stove but was, apparently, in a crook of the stove pipe.
       Everyday I'd go downstairs and listen to those baby raccoons! Their squeaking got louder and louder, as, I'm sure they were growing bigger and bigger! We felt helpless.
       A few weeks went by. Jerry went on a missions trip to Paraguay, so only Rob and I were home. One night after I'd gone to bed I was awakened by noises and commotion. What was going on? Was someone breaking into my house? Or...could it be the raccoon and her babies? 
       I, slowly and quietly, got up and went into the bathroom to look out the window. There, by moon light, I could see on the roof of our screened-in porch, mama raccoon with a baby hanging from her mouth! She was finally moving her babies! She ran across the roof, down a trellis to the ground, deposited the baby and ran back up the trellis to the roof. Then she had to jump across a span to the living room roof, go down the chimney, and get another baby!
       I went downstairs to look out the family room window. I turned the light on and there were the darling little baby raccoons running all over! She would deposit one and run up the trellis to make her trek again, but...the playful babies started following her up the trellis. She'd turn around and go back down, they'd follow her. Then she start back up again...they 'd follow her up. She'd turn around and go back down, they'd follow down... I felt so badly for her! Where was their daddy? He needed to help out here! 
          Finally, she got five babies down. Somehow she got them to line up behind her and away they went down the driveway. I assume she had a new, roomy, home for them.
       All of a sudden I heard loud crying! It was coming from the basement! I ran down, thinking one of the babies got out of the nest in the chimney. I searched the whole basement. It was so loud. I couldn't find it and finally decided she must have missed one! The poor baby. What should I do? It was so pitiful.
       Then, just as suddenly, the crying stopped. I caught sight of mama with a baby hanging from her mouth. She had come back. 
       So...she must have known she couldn't keep control of her babies any longer and took them to their new home. She nursed them to sleep, and then sneaked back to get the last one!
       The next day Rob put a screen over the chimney so no one could go down it again. 
       Six babies in our stove pipe! Did I ever have a neat story to tell Jerry when he came home from Paraguay. He had lots of stories to tell me too...and lots of pictures. I couldn't take any that night because he had the camera with him in Paraguay! But I'll always have the picture in my mind of those baby raccoons running around and giving their mother problems!