Life in Florida

Here in Florida we always get interesting wildlife sightings. I'm sure everyone does -- just different wildlife! The other day, when three families were loading up into vans in my driveway to go on a bowling outing, one of the moms noticed there was a baby raccoon up on my roof! It was only about 5 inches long, and looked newborn. Instantly, 10 kids jumped out of the vans, and lots of excited yelling ensued. I made a few phone calls to more experienced folk, and the consensus was that the mom was probably close by and would come back for it. They all said we shouldn't get near it or touch it.


We decided we'd get back in the cars, drive around the block, and come back. We thought the mom probably wouldn't come out with 13 people screaming in the front yard, but if she did come back, we wanted to see it. So we did our drive, and came back, idling in the street across from my house. No mom, but the baby was stumbling around, real close to the edge of the roof. Much to our horror, it tumbled off our roof! We all screamed, jumping out of the cars again. We checked on it, and it seemed O.K. on the ground, in the bushes. We left to go bowling.

Three hours later, we came back, and it was still there. Our theory changed: we figured since raccoons were nocturnal, the mom was probably still asleep. We thought the nest must be up in our palm tree, which is right next to the house, and that's why it landed on the roof. We decided we'd check on it occasionally, but the mom would probably come for it at nighttime. Sure enough, the next morning, it was gone. We are choosing to believe that the baby raccoon is now safely back with its mom.