The Return of Percival

A few years ago we opened our curtains to a surprising sight: there was a raccoon on our porch! Patrick named him Percival, and we were interested to note that he was missing the majority of his tail. Yesterday he came back.

I could tell it was the same raccoon because of the tail. There has been a lot of speculation as to how a raccoon loses most of its tail and survives.


The cats were much slower to react than I expected. Sure, they crowded to the window, but the inflated tails (see above) were slow to appear and they never made any noise at all.

When we have birds or other cats outside this window, the cats chatter and growl. Maybe they didn't dare try that with Percival because he's kind of an unknown quantity.

I opened the window a little to make some noise and scare him away, but all I achieved was to peeve him enough that he turned over my watering can. Does anyone have tips on how to keep raccoons away? We don't keep our trash outside, so that's not the issue.

Tomorrow - crafty update.