On Fri, 16 May 2008 15:38:09 EDT, kathy wrote:

Last year the raccoon tromped iris island.
This year he is after the dog food.
So far it is raccoon 3, homeowners 0.

DH thought he had the lid to the dog food storage
down tight. Didn't work. We moved the dog food to
another container and put two heavy pottery bowls
with plants on it. Last night one of them hit the deck
and broke at 1am and I caught the raccoon bending
back the lid (this is not an easy feat!).
Raccoon kept coming back every few minutes until
I got DH out of bed, armed us with a broom and went
out and rescued the dog food and brought it indoors.

Next plan DH plans to bungy cord the original container
shut..... anyone want to place bets?

k :-)

I have had some rather negative experiences with raccoons. In the
campground at the Okefenokee Swamp I was putting up my tent and turned
around to see a raccoon sitting on the fender of my car drinking my
Pepsi. Down in the Everglades I thought I'd secured my cooler lid
with bungee straps, but the raccoons got in anyway and stole all my
food. The darn things will actually chew through metal cans. So the
next time I went down I pop riveted a hasp on the cooler and put a
clip on it. It took the raccoons a little longer, but they got that
open too. So I made up a cooler with a combination padlock (I lose
keys) -- it looked pretty silly and I got a lot of grief from folks
when I'd take it to other campgrounds, but it was the only way I found
to keep the (*^%$#) raccoons out.