Kirk and I cracked a couple of beers and wandered out to the back deck where I was just about to utter “…..sigh….what should I take a photo of...” when something caught my eye near the pond-stream-waterfall in our garden. I assumed squirrel, we have many….but it wasn’t moving right. It was grey…but moving too slowly and deliberately….then I caught a flash of stripes.
Trash panda!
“There’s a raccoon in our pond” I said to Kirk.
The it came into view…”….correction, a baby raccoon“.
Our neighbour had sent us photos the other week of the family of raccoons that was in her yard, Mom and a few kits starting to explore the wilds of our collective property. I guess one of them is exploring a little further afield and has made it to our yard.
Regardless, Mom has definitely taught it that humans are to be largely ignored.
I grabbed the little camera I had next to me, not wanting to go inside to get the big camera lest I scare it away.
I went inside and got my Nikon and came back out and crouched down a few feet from it. It didn’t even lift its head until I whistled and clicked at it.
I really didn’t need to worry about that, because it couldn’t have cared less about my presence. It had found water and was busy digging for whatever there might be within that might prove tasty.
Jokes on you little fellow, we used to live somewhere with a much more elaborate pond, that had fish, and you relatives terrorized it all. They stripped our pond of fish repeatedly, leaving scales and bits of fins of hand tame Shibunkins. They dug up my arrowheads. They uprooted my water lilies and ate the bulbs. We installed an electric fence eventually, and have them a surprise.
When we moved here I said “No pond!”
And I stood by that until we took the huge hemlock trees out and the prospect seemed a little easier and less messy without the annual hemlock cone fall….that always made the years feel like an army of rabbits had shit everywhere.
But when we did decide to put in a water feature, I stood firm on the decision hat the pond would be shallow (it’s not really, it’s actually about four feet deep but it appears to only be about six inches deep because there is a false bottom and the depth is to provide a volume reservoir for the stream and waterfall so the pump hidden beneath doesn’t burn out.
A shallow pond means no fish. And that was strategic because I knew there was virtually no way to protect a pond and fish here from raccoons, birds, whatever else thought it might be fun to go fishing.
We’ve seen birds bathing in the stream, squirrels and cats drinking from it, and we have seen the odd raccoon wander through the yard but, although we always knew they’d explored the water feature before (uprooted plant material as evidence), today was the first time we’d seen a raccoon actually “in” the pond.
He was cute, until he started rooting around and pulling at the moss I have strategically placed….and then I clapped my hands, and got a sideways look while he continued to pat his little hands around looking for anything good to sample. Eventually he gave up and wandered off into the depths of the plants surrounding the garden, making his cute little chattering and cooing noises. He came back one or two more times for another pass at the water before vacating for more productive yards, or maybe to go back home to Mom and his siblings, our yard failed to deliver anything for his belly.
So when people ask why we didn’t build a deeper pond and have fish….this is exactly why.
