This morning there was a raccoon…

on my back porch! On my back porch!

Okay, I live in a densely populated downtown area. And it’s really a deck. But someday it will be a screened in porch with a door that squeaks when you open it and will close with a meaningful slam or smack you on the ass on your way in, but…this morning there was a raccoon on my porch.

The alarm goes off and my intention is to snooze, but my son’s dog had other plans. She’s all bouncy and practically dancing. I hear her toenails on the linoleums and her rabies tag tinkling against her collar as she paces to the back door and to my bed again. Granted, this is Gracie nearly every morning.

“The alarm went off! Get up, get up! Let’s go outside (so I can visit the pit bull puppies across the alley and not come back when you call me). Get up already!”

Emma, the ever snuggling cover hog, only gets out of bed when I do, but she is also ready to go outside.

I flip on the porch light and reach for the doorknob; the cat is already taking her place to be the first one to leave the house. The door barely opens a couple of inches and Sophie slips out with the dogs on her tail, I see this big flash of silver and gray hop up to the railing and my mind says “neighbor’s cat,” but then I see it’s tail and know immediately and right now there is a raccoon on my back porch.

The ‘coon (Hey, I live in Kentucky remember!) walks down the railing to the corner of the deck. Gracie follows the ‘coon, barking, but it’s a muffled bark and not frantic sounding, more like ”look at the raccoon on our back porch! Can you see it? Can you see it!

Hell, yeah, I could see it.

The ‘coon gets up on it’s hind quarters, her front legs just seem to hang down in front of her (I think it is a her because I did not see anything to the contrary.) Gracie is jumping at her, but not after her, she’s still just so excited. And the raccoon looks me right in the eye and hisses at me! so very quietly. She looks right at me and her eyes are pleading “make it stop.”

So I say, “come on, Gracie, leaver her alone.” And Gracie backs off!

The ‘coon paces back and forth from the corner of the deck to the where the railing meets the back of my house. She gets up on her hind legs a few times and again beseeches me to help her get away. And I’m all like calm and quiet and totally fascinated with just watching her. I was totally amazed that there was a raccoon on my back porch. A big one (Okay, I don’t really know if she was big for a raccoon, but she was way bigger than any of the biggest house cats I’d ever seen!).

She’s staring at me with her backside pressed up against my house. Then she climbs up the side of my house and disappears over the roof.

And I am amazed.

Gracie is now sniffing and jumping and putting her paws upon the porch railing and sniffing. Emma is back from her potty break in the yard and is sniffing the porch railing from one end and back.

And I am amazed.

I have only seen a raccoon once in my life and it was someone’s pet and I live in Kentucky!

I’ve lived in rural Kentucky, I’ve camped in the woods in Kentucky, I’ve had sleep over at friend’s farms in Kentucky, I’ve even had a bite of raccoon meat in Kentucky (It tasted just like chicken.) but I have never ever seen a raccoon on my back porch in Kentucky.

I was so amazed.