Nature...yikes!

Everyone sees LA as a suburban/urban sprawl with nothing to offer to stimulate the mind and senses. Sitting in traffic, going to meetings, etc. is soooo mind-numbing. It turns one off to one's surroundings. What can possibly happen here that's interesting?

Come to my neighborhood and you can see some fun, furry critters! No, not the bajillion people walking their dogs...we have raccoons!

The other day I was on the computer(as usual) when I glance outside and notice two raccoons by the back door, loitering about. I've always thought of raccoons as strictly nocturnal creatures, so to see not one, but two of them in daylight was quite a sight. So I did what any badass roller derby player who rides motorcycles does.

I freaked right the hell out!

Then I grabbed the camera.

Here we see one of the raccoons wandering around the backyard. The other one left. Must've had a mind-numbing meeting to go to. Or it found an open trash can.

Whatever.

As you can see, this sucker is big. I figure it to be a young adult. As you can also see, I was still freaked out enough to shoot this pic through the closed screen door. That's style, I tell ya.



After grabbing a couple of photos from inside the house, I excitedly called the husband. I asked if raccoons were dangerous during the day. He thought I was stupid and said that they should be fine. He then suggested that I take some water out for the raccoons. Hmmm. OK.



So I found a plastic bowl and filled it with water. Grabbed the camera, and tiptoed out the front door and silently made my way to the backyard. I put the bowl down and noticed that the remaining raccoon was having fun sniffing around by the trampoline.










It sat under the trampoline.

Then it groomed itself like a cat would.

For some reason, to see a raccoon lick itself as if it were a cat amuses me. It stopped doing that when it noticed me crouched about 20 feet away with a little box making clicking noises every couple of seconds.







Another shot of the confused raccoon. It had an air about it as if to say, "Why are you bothering me? Am I bothering you? No? Then please, let me get back to my licking. I have a hot date later tonight."









It got nervous with me being out there, so it cautiously made its way to the back fence and silently disappeared.

I left the water bowl out, but it has remained untouched. I guess I scared away the fuzzy critters. Ah well.