Silly woman you are. LOL! Here's one example of me and a Raccoon, copied from an old blog of mine...
"I was working for a dumpy little truck rental company. We had a location off Dixie Road and Hwy 401 in Mississauga. It was a large yard to park all the rental trucks, the office was an old house, and in the back where the vehicles were serviced was like an old loading dock with a small warehouse. At one part of the loading dock there was a large dumpster which happened to be level with the dock. In my travels one morning, I walked past the dumpster, and normally I never take notice to what is inside but for some reason today I stopped. From a passing view it looked empty as it was dumped the day before. When actually stopping and looking down, I could see one brown paper bag someone had tossed in being the remnants of their lunch and sitting next to it was one very large Raccoon. He sat there looking up at me and of course I could sense his concern for his current predicament.
Part of me was going to panic as I needed to save this guy, who is about 5 down in this large steel bin, and I had no idea at that moment on how to do it. Sure, I thought I could just jump in with him and lift him out, but would this wild animal in distress allow me to do such a thing? Mind you, he just sat there, looking up at me and showed no distemperment but that could change if I acted upon my initial thought.
The lot had a row of trees to the south and a field. And too often garbage was dumped in the field since it was unoccupied. None of which was done by the people of the company. We'd just come into work for 6am and find piles of crap dumped by people in the middle of the night when nobody was around. The 70+ old tires was a real nice surprise (not!). But back to my story...
I searched and scoured around in hopes of finding something to use to help this guy. But nothing was coming up (even in all the garbage). Finally I decided to try and break off a branch long enough to reach him. Now, I am not Mr. Muscle Guy, so breaking off a large sturdy branch just wasn't in the cards. I did manage to snap one off with a circumference of about 1.5 inches at it's strongest point. Now what happens as the branch nears it's end, yes, it gets thinner. I was unsure of the length as well, it seemed close enough, but how close? Well, I was going to try.
I returned to the bin and lowered the branch down, holding onto the thicker end for more support. The branch clearly wasn't long enough to hit the bottom but that Raccoon jumped up at it and grabbed hold of what he could and from that, he began his climb up. At this point I am frozen. Here I am holding this flimsy branch and a full sized adult Raccoon is climbing up it right towards me. I am kneeling on the dock since the branch wasn't long enough. I bet some people probably would have let go of the branch at this point in fear or just the shock of it; but I held on with one part frozen in shock and another part with my determination to help this animal.
I am wondering how this was going to end? Am I going to lift the branch up as he got near in order to get him back onto the dock? I mean, I am holding this end, my hands are over the dock edge. How is he going get past me? Well, he answered my question seconds later as he made a jump just before my hands and landed next to me. If I wasn't there, I don't know if I would believe what I just saw. He darted off along the dock, but did stop about 10 feet from me, turned and looked at me for a second, and then continued on, disappearing off into the field. I'd like to think that last look was a "thank you".
From that day on, I always checked the bin. And I bugged and bugged the waste company to bring us one with a lid to ensure this would not happen again... and they did change bin for us."
I didn't know about this sickness, thanks for the link. I see it's from nearly 2 years ago now so hopefully the *bug* has passed.
I live on the west Toronto/Etobicoke border, minutes from Lambton Woods. No 5 acres here. 25 ft wide lots set up nearly a century ago.
