You thought we were telling stories when we said we take care of all those who dwell here?  Not so.  After all, this was a lost Spirit had we not taken this little guy in.

A careless driver killed this little guys Mother.  Actually there were a pair of twins.  My Sister took one and we took the other.  Sadly, the other baby didn't make it, but the Pooner did.

For a few months he pretty much had run of the house.  Then things started getting out of hand real quick.  The little guy started to do some exploring, in the lower cupboards.  He figured out how to open the doors and he'd pull out a box of cereal.   Those little paws had no problem tearing into the boxes.  He's scoop out a handful, taste it, and decided it wasn't to his liking.  So he'd open another box, and another, and another.

Then he discovered the computer.  He would climb up on the chair and have at the keyboard.  When things didn't happen fast enough for him he'd get anxious and start pulling the keys right off the board!  He must have figured there was frogs in the floppy drive because he couldn't keep those little paws out of there.

When would catch him in the act of wrecking something we would scold him to get him to stop.  He would start snorting and grunting and high tail it some place for a while.  Once he figured the coast was clear he would have right back at it.
It finally got so bad we had to build him a huge cage in the house to go in when he didn't have adult supervision.

Now this was not a cage really, it was a raccoon paradise!  Complete with logs to climb, a ladder to get to the upstairs sleeping area, and an array of feeding bowls, and watering bottles.

That little guy grew up to be a big guy, just about 45 pounds of coon.  And could he ever pack away the chow.  The meal started out with about a gallon of porridge.   Then there was assorted fruit, and oh did he ever love those beef ribs.  You had to have plenty of meat on them, and they had to be cooked just so.  He would wipe out 6 or 8 of them in one sitting.  Once he started getting full he'd take a couple up in his bunk to snack on later.

The upper loft was nothing less than prime Northern goose down quilt.  He would sleep away the better part of the day and come down the ladder about dusk to eat, and party.

Pooner was a male, and most folks said he'd turn mean when he got older and it was time to mate.  Of course he never did.  And he never hibernated either.

We had him for 10 years.  A lot of fun that little guy was.  He passed on, but he is always in our hearts.