Bandits at 5:00 O'Clock

Helen spent some time yesterday adding a few plants to one of her flower beds in the yard. This one is right outside the window of the computer room. I don't remember where I was but I heard Helen yell "Paul, get the camera!" I grabbed the camera and ran in to the computer room and saw two very young raccoons wandering through Helen's flowers. We were happy to catch them unaware and they were SOOOO cute.



They were inquisitive and had to check out all the items Helen had lined up with the flowers.



Then Helen noticed that the cute little dears were molesting her flowers. Actually, I think they were eating the flowers. Helen banged on the window and yelled and they quickly scampered up a tree.

If they were cute on the ground, they were even cuter in the tree. I went outside, hoping to catch them relatively close to the ground, but when the saw me, they raced further up the tree, and they were fast.

They kept their distance, but they couldn't keep their eyes off me.

It became difficult to focus in the fading light with all the branches in the way. Going to manual focus helped a bit, but then I was relying on my eyesight instead of the cameras auto focus, so the results were mixed. I did the best I could and went back in the house. A few minutes later I looked out to see how they were doing and they were gone. Apparently they made their escape as soon as I turned the corner.