In the interest of time, last night I left out one thing. Last night I took out a little jar of fig preserves that someone included in a recent package for the raccoons. Early in the evening when the 1st couple of kits ventured out, I wanted to give them some of it, but at the time they were over on the other side of the feeding area and showed no sign of coming near me. I spread a spoonful or so of the preserves on one side of a stale hamburger bun, folded it, and tossed it over near them. Soon the 2 kits were arguing over ownership of the bread and of the area where it had landed as they scrambled to lick the grass, the dirt, and every plant in the area, apparently trying to retrieve every yummy speck of the sweet, gooey treat.
Soon the kits were over in front of me looking for more and enthusiastically lapping preserves off of the additional bread pieces I tossed to them. By the time Heidi and her kits finally showed up, all that remained was the almost empty jar, a small jar, probably 4oz or so, too small to pose a threat to the raccoons. Despite my concerns about possibly scaring them away by tossing such a relatively heavy object, lobbed the little jar a few feet to one side of them. The instant the glass jar made contact with the ground, Heidi's kits ran for cover. Heidi, on the other hand, headed straight for the jar which just happened to land beside an empty frosting can (that someone forgot to remove from the area). Ignoring the jar, Heidi sniffed the frosting can instead. Her fervor in doing so was palpable. Neither a language barrier nor species gap could obscure the extent to which she had hoped for the frosting can to be the item I'd tossed or her disappointment in realizing the truth. Unlike the kits earlier, on this day at least, Heidi wasn't interested in fig preserves. For another few seconds she lingered over the empty frosting can as though reluctant to accept the truth. And then with the pragmatic, stiff upper lip that so defines her, Heidi gave up on the dream of frosting and went back to her dish to continue her dinner.
Seeing that display, I knew instantly that tonight's treat would certainly have to include frosting. I try not to serve frosting too often. I'd hate to see the raccoons grow tired of this favorite treat. But Heidi's love of frosting seems as unflappable as her love of watermelon, a fruit she looked forward to with excitement day after day throughout the entire summer (just like me). So, tonight we had vanilla frosting sandwiches - again.
I wrapped a scant spoonful of frosting in a 1/2 bread slice and, with the arm I've trained for 3 years now, threw the treat some 15ft to drop it right into the small dish from which Heidi was eating. Dropped it right in front of her face, and I did this in the dark. Not bad for someone who was once unable to deliver a pitch within 4ft of the intended target. Normally, you would expect a wild raccoon to run from such an 'assault', but I've been throwing food at Heidi for years now. As the sandwich landed in her bowl, Heidi calmly began to lap at the sweet goo spilling out of it, and then just as I'd expected, as soon as she finished the 'sample', Heidi headed straight for me to ask for more. Frosting is the only treat that brings out this side of Heidi.
As Heidi approached, I slathered a huge glob of frosting on a bread square and held it out to her. Gently, she took the frosted bread from my hand as she had done several time before, but this time there was a change. This time she didn't fret over how to do it. This time she didn't make several aborted attempts, didn't alternate repeatedly between attempts to reach it with her mouth and then her hands. This time she simply and calmly opened her mouth and took the treat. We had made another small but not so insignificant step forward.
While I was feeding frosting wiches to Heidi, several kits surrounded me and joined in the festivities. I was sitting there in the kind of not so lady like but, oh, so relaxed position one adopts in the backyard at night when society and humanity are a temporary distant memory. Legs agape, but wearing slacks mind you, I sat shoveling frosting onto tiny bread squares and passing them out to the semi-circle of raccoons surrounding me. When Heidi ran out of frosting before I could get back to her, this time, my legs no longer forming a barrier in front of me, she walked right up to and virtually under me in pursuit of her next sandwich. I was sitting forward on the bench, and she walked so close up under my extended body that when I turned back around I could no longer see the end of her face. This was surely the closest that Heidi had ever dared to get to me. I made her another sandwich. She stepped back a bit. I held it out to her, but did not extend my arm, inviting her to come close again to retrieve the sandwich, and so she did. We repeated this a few more times before a noise from the street sent her scurrying to the forest. She was becoming ever more comfortable around me. We were making tiny steps, but we were getting there little by little.
