Although the weather hasn't yet deigned to relent, and we remain in the firmly fixed aura of winter, our atmosphere icy, windy and snow-beset, our two backyard composters, weekly recipients of kitchen waste, are now finally beginning to diminish in their frozen bulk, allowing us to resume our twice-weekly dumps. And it certainly is not thanks to milder temperatures thawing out the composter contents to allow them to gradually and inevitably turn from recognizable fruit-and-vegetable scraps into garden-quality compost.

It is the re-awakening of the raccoons. Who have resumed their nightly visits to the composters. My husband keeps the composter lids loosely capping the contents. We've had incidents in the past when the tightly-clad lids have infuriated the raccoons to the degree that they'll take to destroying the composter in their furious attempts to get at the contents. On one occasion a young raccoon had been trapped inside one of the composters when the lid turned back around, clamping tight, and refusing exit to the creature. We'd no idea how long he had been trapped, but he was swift in exiting once my husband raised the lid for his release.

They make no mess, never scatter the contents outside the composters. They simply take what appeals to them and politely leave the lids ajar without creating a nasty scene for our later clean-up. So we welcome them; if what we discard is of use to these urban-rural animals that delight us in their occasional sighting and with whom we share our environment, then so be it.

We hear them sometimes, when a dull thud will alert us to the fact that they're in the backyard, rooting about in the composters. And we see them also, on occasion, when curiosity brings them to the front of the house to harvest treats for themselves in the covered feeder that my husband keeps stocked for squirrels and birds, below the bird feeder that squirrels are unable to access. 


The doves roost on our porch during the day and the raccoons and wild rabbits come stealthily along during nighttime hours, and when we witness their presence, it's a calming, enjoyable feeling of being at one with nature that overtakes us. Although it's we who have the enormous advantage and the responsibility to respect the other creatures who inhabit our landscape.