Coons Too, Pumps Zero

Those of us who are light sleepers (that'd be me) woke up around three this morning and wondered what that high-pitched wailing noise was. It seemed to be coming from inside... maybe the CPAP machine? No, it was outside... ah, the fountains must have run out of water. I stumbled into the kitchen and grabbed the remote to turn the fountains off, and the noise mercifully stopped. And that's where the matter stood until this morning when I looked out the kitchen window and discovered that the pumps from two fountains (one wine-barrel fountain, featuring a frog, and one lion's-head fountain) had been ripped from their container and were on the ground.

And on the grass was the filter material from one of the fountains, nicely shredded.

I had been thinking, up to this point, that it might have been the work of some malicious neighborhood kid, but few of the kids I know shred foam. This was most likely the work of a racoon. And not any ordinary racoon. This must have been the work of a pernicious racoon.

(Cue music)

This same racoon (or one of its ilk, I'm sure) used to torment my neighbor by rolling up the sod. Not just chewing through it or digging it up, but actually rolling it up. She sold her house and moved a year or two ago (I've lost the ability to keep track of time, a side effect, I'm sure, of the pernicious racoon) to a place that doesn't have racoons.

So this morning there is no soft tinkle of water cascading from the mouth of a lion or being spit into the air by a reclining frog. There is just the sound of a motor being gunned, of the cars going by, of the clacking keys of the... uh... keyboard. Keys of the keyboard? Isn't that like "eyes of the eye-pod?" Sorry. I got distracted by the sheer perniciousness of the coon caper.

So, in summary, and in closing, beware the racoon, the jaws that bite, the claws that catch. They'll make mincemeat out of your yard, and tear your pumps to smithereens.

But I hear they make a dandy stew. And who knew they knew how to cook?