If you water it, they will come

When I learned that a raccoon had dug a house for itself under our garden shed, I intended to buy a trap. The children talked excitedly about a live trap, but I've had encounters with those dexterous creatures; I doubt I could manage an angry, caged raccoon. I thought I'd better kill him.

Then Terry Tempest Williams spoke in Bend. Have you heard her speak? Oh, my. When you read her books, you can put them down for a moment to hug your children, or punch a wall, or whatever helps you diffuse the intensity of her sorrow; but when she speaks, you must listen. You must face what she's facing. It's difficult.

Anyway, when Ms. Williams came to Bend, amongst her larger tale she told a little story about prairie dogs. She said that the Army Corps. of Engineers decided (I can't remember why) to eliminate prairie dogs from a section of Utah. Being modern citizens they first talked it over with the Native Americans, who said, "But if you kill all the prairie dogs, who will cry for the rain?" And the Army Corps. of Engineers said, Ah. Huh. Then they killed the prairie dogs. And then: Without prairie dogs maintaining tunnels under the ground, turning over the dirt and aerating it, the soil turned to hardpan; when it rains, the water doesn't seep into the soil but instead runs right off. Without prairie dogs, what was desert is now wasteland.

Now, obviously I'm talking about killing one raccoon, not all the raccoons in the Bend metropolitan area; but after listening to Ms. Williams, I thought it behooved me to pause. To consider. To watch awhile.

*

He left. The raccoon left. We put one of my son's old toy trucks at the entrance to the house he built under our shed, and now he's gone.

That's anticlimactic.

*

Yesterday evening my husband and I watched a rock chuck (a yellowbellied marmot) eat the clover in our front yard. He gathered tall, dry grasses and carried them into his house under our big tabletop rock, where I believe he intends to hibernate. He's super cute and fun to watch. He has dexterous hands like the raccoon. Like me.

But they say rock chucks like lettuce and tomatoes and this one I know for a fact likes not-quite-ripe raspberries.

So I'm watching.