Maverick has reached 100 Posts!

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Wow, didn't know I hit a milestone, thanks guys for the comments.

I guess I don't "jump in" to many threads unless they really hit me in some way, or I feel I can offer something of value. But when I have the chance, I try to read and stay current.

As far as the raccoon goes, one of my fondest childhood memories was the year we had a pet raccoon. Since I had one as a pet, I will forever look at them in a different light. However, I do know "normally" they can cause a lot of ruckus and damage. The parallel, we both have a instigator personalities, lol.

When I was 14 I ended up with 2 pet baby raccoons.... after the mother found her way into my parents 2 story house through an attic vent then tunneled all the way down through the walls to the 1st floor bathroom I used to make a nest under the bath tub..... That was a multi-thousand dollar repair. LOL. As pets they were interesting because they were sooooooooo damned smart and funny and just WEIRD. When they were tiny and I kept them in a cage with a water bowl they started using it for their toilet!!!! I wrapped heavy rope on the handlebars of my bike so they could stand on my knees with their hands on the handlebars and ride with me. It didn't take them long to figure out that my legs moving up and down = faster. Once that happened they'd stomp on me if I slowed down. We built a 7 ft cage in my room for them big enough for me to walk in. They had their own little gymnasium with a hanging house made out of a 5 gallon plastic bucket that we cut a hole in one side. I'd let them out to play with the dogs in my room just about everyday but I had to never take my eyes off them. ANYTHING that went missing... socks, underwear, shirts, gloves, anything.... always got stashed in their nest. The next year they came into heat... and NO ONE could sleep cuz of all the racket they made and the dogs barking at buck raccoons trying to get in the house. That was when we gave them to a zoo.

Since I bought a house in the flat treeless plains .... that's about 30 miles from the nearest woodlands... you'd think there'd be no raccoons, right? WRONG! They're not picky about where they nest and smart about finding places. Two years ago I was on the riding mower out back and looked up at my front end loader as I came close to it. There they were in the cab staring out at me wondering what the hell all the noise was about. I've got an apple tree that puts on a few hundred pounds of apples every year that attracted them in dozens the first year I was here. Also deer leap the fence to get to the apples. My dogs will sit and watch it all like it's a circus. So on the advice of a wise old lady I got 2 ENORMOUS 28 pound Maine Coon Cats who scare anything that comes on the property..... even Jehovah's Witnesses.

Neighbors had a car sitting in their driveway under a tarp for a year... Raccoons made a condo out of it. They busted in to one end of my solar panels. They'll break into Any outbuilding or workshop anywhere. They've even come in MY HOUSE through the dog door!!! Talk about a mess!!!! As soon as the cats heard them it was a bar brawl that tore up everything in the kitchen! Imagine waking up to the noise of two big cats howling, 2 dogs barking and a couple of screaming raccoons, with dishes flying at 3 in the morning! Both me and my room mate went running with guns in both hands!!!!!

Raccoons deserve every bit of the bad rep they have and are real fun to look at behind bars.