The Cat Food Bandit

Meet Bandit, our cat food napper. He steals up to our porch most every night, lights on or not (he's very brave, this raccoon!) and opens the cat food bin. He's also very smart.

The cats don't mess with him really... they must have some pact about when he can go get into their food, and he's safe?

The other night Geoff grabbed the camera, and went out to get his picture. We both thought as soon as he opened the door, "Bandit" would run away.

Nope! That raccoon kept eating, only pausing briefly to check out my husband and the contraption that kept flashing every time he took a picture.

We aren't strangers to wild animals here... living out in the middle of nowhere (well, it used to be nowhere, but now somewhere is getting closer...) we see deer and wild turkey like we see our cats. Coyotes are all around these days too, as well as many other creatures big and small. More snakes than I care to think about, I am sure... But rarely do these animals allow us to get that close... they are still wild, of course.


But then there was Jasmine, the squirrel.

Geoff found this little guy watching him while cutting grass, and when he called us over to show the kids, that squirrel went right up to him, ran up his pants leg, all the way to sit on his shoulder! Jasmine was so friendly, we considered keeping her as a pet, but with all our cats we thought better of that idea. We ended up taking her to the closest wild life preserve, where they could take the best care of such a trusting little animal.

I am not sure if I know what is going on around here, but we love animals, and so they are coming to the right house. With two new puppies, two country cats and two children under 5, we aren't really in the "need any more pets" mode right now... but I can sure find them a great home.

Except for Bandit... he can stay. He is obviously able to take care of himself without us interfering, and I love watching him during his nightly visit to our back porch.

Besides, he is just plain adorable!