Meet my little friend – isn’t he cute?Right, uh huh …
It seems that this little creature – or one just like him, and I are destined to meet.
I tend to water in the evenings. Yes I know that isn’t always the best thing for garden plants but I really have had few problems develop by doing so. I water in the evening because I live next to two older ladies, uh, elderly ladies and they each come outside and water twice a day.
One in particular tends to follow me around, or worse she waits until I’m as far away from her as I can possibly be, and then she asks me a question or comments on the weather or some such thing.
“Huh, what? I can’t hear you?”
So I stop what I’m doing and walk over to where she is – usually on her porch – and get her to repeat whatever she had said. After a short conversation I try to get back to work, only to be interrupted several times. What should be a half hour job turns into a two hour job because of these ladies and other adjoining neighbors.
Having explained the background, hopefully you can see why I’ve taken to watering in the late evening, and even after dark?
My garden is small, but it’s full of plants, and as a result it can take more than two hours to water it adequately if I only water every second or third day. Most of the plants are in the backyard, therefore most of my time is spent in the back, in the semi-dark, and with the possibility of meeting up with Mr. and or Mrs. Raccoon. Oh and their kids too!
And that is what has been happening lately!
We have a raccoon that seems to think that the backyard is his or hers. It hangs out on the fence between our house and our other neighbors and watches me in the yard. I’m not all that happy with this situation. It’s not always there … sometimes it shows up after I’ve been watering for a while, like last night.
I heard scritch scritch scritch and looked over, and there on top of my neighbors covered patio was the raccoon. He or she was just about to climb onto my fence, and from there who knows where it would have gone. I turned quickly, hose in hand and dialed the nozzle to Jet and sent a stream flying at him! You should have seen him run!
Victory was mine! I felt like one of Charlies Angels with that move. My trusty water hose and nozzle saved the day.
Naturally after that adrenaline rush I was nervous. So much for my victory. It might come back!
So what did I do? No I didn’t stop watering. My garden was thirsty, but I do have to say, it probably didn’t get as much as it would have had the raccoon not made my heart pitter patter. I stood in my yard near the patio, not too far from the porch and safety inside the enclosed back room, and watered from there. I put the hose on a strong but wide stream and hit all the plants in the back corners and back borders. The plants closer to me got a little more accurate watering.
So how do I get the raccoons to stop hanging out in my yard? It’s not like there’s any garbage that they can get into in the back. They dig in a few of my plants now and then but otherwise don’t really cause any damage. Not so bad really … it’s just that I like being outdoors around the same time that they seem to come out and I don’t like meeting them face to face.
They’ve never been around this much. Before they used to just walk through our yard and move onto one of our neighbors yards – used ours like a freeway I guess. But I’ve been sick this year and haven’t been out as much – especially after dark, so I think this has given them a chance to stop and look around and say “Hey, this is a nice place to hang out”.
What’s your thoughts on raccoons hanging out in the backyard? Should I just stop going out there after dark and let them win? Unfortunately, that would mean braving my neighbors attention and everything taking two or three times longer than it should take to get done. Nope … I gotta figure out a way to scare the pesky raccoons away, because my neighbors are worse! Help!
Our latest invasion is a fox – possibly a mother, looking for food and riding the wastebins.
I would keep the night watering schedule–he will probably stop coming around once he realizes that you aren’t going anywhere (just a guess-not an educated answer!)
Hi. Found you through blogging chicks.
We have had a raccoon problem. One night, they climbed up our large arbor where we had patio lights hanging and proceeded to pull the glass off the lights and throw them onto the patio just to watch them explode. Even when my husband went out to scare them off, they just sat there and stared at him.
What’s funny is that I, too, have a large garden and I, too, have been using my “jet” setting on my sprayer, but it has been to scare the crows away. They love my italian fountain and have scared off all the other lovely birds and I’m stuck with the awful “caw caw” all morning. So, I fight them off as best I can.
I say keep it up with the sprayer on the raccoons. I also have cats that keep trying to come in and use one of my raised beds as a bathroom.
Arg.
Good luck getting rid of them – I don’t know the answer. We used to have an outside cat (he hated being inside) – and the racoons would come eat his food all up. Getting a dog seemed to help – and then we moved.
Now I have deer. I think I would take the racoon over the deer – at least those “bandits” don’t eat grape leaves, cherry trees, and 1/2 of my garden!!
I’m here via BChicks. I’m not a fan of raccoons–we’ve had 2 rabid ones on our porch–one causing the entire family, including kiddos, to get the rabies series. Anyway, I thought you were supposed to water at night so the plants didn’t burn in the sun? Shows how much I know.
Ha ha–Charlie’s Angel with the water hose. I have no advice, but thanks for the laugh.