No surprise, less than one year south of 80 I'm somewhat old-fashioned in my habits. Like cleaning the house, using dusters and dry mops on floors. So yesterday when I was going through the weekly ritual of house-cleaning, with a little bit added to the usual chores tipping the hat to spring cleaning I had been shaking a handful of lambswool dusters free of whatever they had picked up skimming them over objects to be dusted in the house, bopping them out on the bricks at the front of the house, leaning out the front door, as someone unusual caught my eye.

Earlier in the morning my husband mentioned that he'd seen a juvenile raccoon starting to shimmy up the pole where we have two bird feeders hung. When the raccoon noticed that it was being noticed it changed its mind and hurriedly made off the scene. I mentioned to my husband that I couldn't understand why the little fellow didn't just approach the far more convenient feeding platform that we have out for the squirrels, which birds also go to.

And there, with half my body out the front door, shaking out the dusters, was the same little guy cautiously but not entirely improvidently continuing his search for food. Only this time as he rounded the garage and entered the garden he was heading for the platform. My presence seemed not to faze him the slightest. As I continued banging out the dusters, he just continued his sinuous way forward and installed himself under the roof of the platform and began daintily picking away at the offerings of nuts and seeds.

I watched him for awhile, fascinated by his heedless occupation, making not the slightest effort to be vigilant, aware of my presence just a few feet away, and happily munching on the goodies. The way he was behaving with the offerings was just the very same way we could observe our little dogs digging into their crunchy food. The little raccoon looked comfortable and he continued until he had satisfied his hunger.

Although our local raccoons visit our backyard composters nightly now that warmer weather has finally arrived, it doesn't take long before kitchen waste decomposes. So this little guy obviously hadn't been able to find anything suitable to his taste at the composters on this occasion. Glad we gave him the opportunity otherwise to achieve satiety.