There have been skirmishes since, of course, (including a little ugliness involving bird feeders last fall) but the main battles of the The Great Raccoon Wars were fought over 20 years ago. Hard to believe so much time has passed, eh.

The wars began the first spring we lived in our home. We had bought a bright, shiny new animal proof garbage can earlier in the winter and Paul's father told us that it would not be enough to keep out the raccoons. He recommended we build a wooden bin to keep the 'coons out of the trash, but my hub pooh poohed this, he had confidence in this new technology.

Raccoons hibernate, so we lived in relative bliss until the spring night they woke up from their long winter's sleep and found our raccoon proof garbage can.

It took Paul about half an hour the following morning to clean up the garbage the raccoons had strewn all over our yard.

Garbage back in can, my spousal unit took a hefty piece of rope, threaded it through the special raccoon proof latch in the lid of the can and secured it tightly through each of the carrying handles.

It took Paul about half an hour the following morning to clean up the garbage the raccoons had strewn all over our yard. That garbage now included the rope they had gnawed through to open the can.

The gauntlet had clearly been thrown. My hub got another length of the hefty rope, but this time he dipped it in some icky substance before securing the can as he had the night before.

It took Paul about half an hour the following morning to clean up the garbage the raccoons had strewn all over our yard. We didn't have to throw away this length of rope because the raccoons had simply untied the knots.

Knots have always been a special interest of my significant other. He has books and books about them. So he threw increasingly more complex knots at the raccoons. It did take them time to work at these knots, but eventually they solved them. This would give them access to new, improved garbage.

Rope, noxious substances and ever more complicated knots were not working so then Paul hit on the idea of tying the lid down and then putting a big rock on top. "Let's see them lift that off," he said with a smirk.

Well, of course they couldn't. One night we heard odd noises in the yard and we looked out to see two of them, in the moonlight, rocking the can until it eventually tipped over, the rock fell off and ...

It took Paul about half an hour the following morning to clean up the garbage the raccoons had strewn all over our yard.

Finally, Paul bought a length of chain and a padlock to replace the rope and victory became his.

But I used to tease him to make sure he hid the key to the padlock well, because if the raccoons ever managed to get into the house ...

--Marn