{"id":243,"date":"2010-06-07T02:56:15","date_gmt":"2010-06-07T02:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/buckroth.wordpress.com\/?p=243"},"modified":"2010-06-07T02:56:15","modified_gmt":"2010-06-07T02:56:15","slug":"the-illusive-conclusive-raccoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/?p=243","title":{"rendered":"The Illusive Conclusive Raccoon"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0http:\/\/buckroth.wordpress.com\/2010\/05\/03\/a-raccoon-in-the-attic\/<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the conclusive follow-up to a story written in May, 2010, entitled “A Raccoon In the Attic” by A. K. Buckroth – me!<\/p>\n

To refresh your memories, a soft spot in the ceiling of my husband’s wood shop had given way.\u00a0 Black mold\u00a0due to extended and ignored moisture caused part of the ceiling to cave in.\u00a0\u00a0 The\u00a0resultant hole in the ceiling became a hole in the roof that granted\u00a0easy\u00a0access for any type of rascal to gain comfortable\u00a0entry.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Our particular\u00a0rascal happened to be a raccoon.\u00a0<\/div>\n
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As the story went, a trap was set: a\u00a0specific type of metal \u2018racoon trap\u2019 with dog food and peanut butter in it because that is what his brother told him to use, and then he ingeniously\u00a0rigged\u00a0the trap\u00a0to the roof of the building using\u00a0 yellow nylon rope.\u00a0 This rope\u00a0was purposely\u00a0wrapped inside the\u00a0door of the trap and then each end of it extended ten feet in both directions – from the north side of the\u00a0wood shop\u00a0to the south.\u00a0 Can you see it?\u00a0 Visualize it?<\/div>\n
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Day-after-day I was directed\u00a0and reminded to “watch the rope.\u00a0 If it becomes taut, that means we got ‘im.”\u00a0 Or “her,” whichever the case may be; I suspected\u00a0the raccoon\u00a0to be a nesting female. \u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Thinking for sure that a loud crash, bang, boom would awaken us after we settled in for a night, meaning that the raccoon was caught, that did not happen.\u00a0\u00a0 Instead, six days later, during a bright Saturday’s mid-morning rope check, the rope was indeed\u00a0taut.\u00a0 “Hon,” I yelled and scurried through the back door.\u00a0 “The rope is taut.\u00a0 Come see.”<\/div>\n
Hearing this news, such excitement in\u00a0this\u00a0particular\u00a0grown man was comparable to a child\u00a0on Christmas morning!\u00a0 Quickly donning his dirt\/work boots, gloves, flashlight and safety glasses, once again he climbed the carefully positioned ladder.\u00a0 Sure enough, the raccoon was in the cage.\u00a0 Having not only eaten the dog food and peanut butter, but the plastic cup that held it was gnawed apart and eaten as well.\u00a0 Poor thing was mighty hungry.<\/div>\n
Untying the rope ends, hubby lifted the caged animal through the\u00a0roof hole.\u00a0Delicately climbing down the awaiting ladder with it in one hand, the raccoon seemed to playfully paw at my husband.\u00a0 Rather docile, I got the immediate impression that it was used to humans.\u00a0 No, we had no intentions of playing back!<\/div>\n
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Gently placing its caged self in the back of the pick-’em-up truck, we purposely drove it to the nearby river for release.\u00a0 Once there, the raccoon had to be coaxed to leave the cage.\u00a0 Strange.\u00a0 After a few long seconds, my husband tilted\u00a0the cage\u00a0forward and tapped it with a stick.\u00a0 I ran\u00a0twenty feet in the opposite direction, of course, chicken that I am.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The raccoon darted out of there in such a quick blur of motion with air, it could not be seen.\u00a0 Straight through the trees, over the rocks and boulders, down hill to the river,\u00a0we know it will be fine.<\/div>\n
Glad that we were responsible for its proper entrapment and release, work on the roof and the ceiling is under way.\u00a0\u00a0The comfortable nest area made from the existing fiberglass insulation will be replaced\u00a0along with dry-wall, plywood\u00a0and shingles.\u00a0 Such is life in our rustic suburbia.\u00a0 Ahh, it is\u00a0good.<\/div>\n
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A. K. Buckroth<\/div>\n
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\u00a0http:\/\/buckroth.wordpress.com\/2010\/05\/03\/a-raccoon-in-the-attic\/ This is the conclusive follow-up to a story written in May, 2010, entitled “A Raccoon In the Attic” by A. K. Buckroth – me! To refresh your memories, a soft spot in the ceiling of my husband’s wood shop … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mydiabeticsoul.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}