Speaking of tame wild life, we had a woman in MA who lived very near us who would carry wild squirrels in her blouse.? One time her husband went to the barber downtown and while he was getting his hair cut, saw his jacket pocket moving.? One of them had come along for the ride.? The trouble was, they would come into our flower garden to hide their nuts.? Connie -----Original Message----- From: Lynn Vondran <lynnvondran@att.net> To: Richard Berkheiser <reberkheiser@earthlink.net>; padutch-life@rootsweb.com Sent: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 9:27 am Subject: Re: [PD-LIFE] Animals in our backyards Tamed raccoons, if there is such a thing, were the in thing during the 70s. They were the in thing before having a ferret came to fame. I can remember some guys in the housing project, walking around with raccoons drapped around their necks_and I guess they WERE very tame, never heard of anyone being bitten. Here in Columbia, there was a teenage girl who had a domestic white skunk for a pet. I wonder what ever happened to that. It was a beautiful creature, for sure. We had squirrels who would sit on your knee and eat its peanuts, but once the kids started playing in our very backyard, when Lindsey was little, we stopped doing that, because we didn't want any of the kids to hurt the squirrels, and we especially didn't want the squirrels to be that close to the kids. Jimmy kept coming around for his peanuts though, and we enjoyed him for a few years. He was the one who would knock on the door for his peanuts, if I didn't feed him bright and early in the morning, or if the other squirrels got there before he came by :o) Drove me crazy that first time he did it, because I thought it was kids playing tricks, like knocking and hiding, just to get me to answer the door. Until I looked out the BIG windows in what we now have as the TV/Sitting room, and I could see the kitchen door from that window, and saw him saunter up and jump a few times against the door, then sit back and watch for me :o) John and Joyce know which window I mean :o) J! ohn was sitting in the chair that faces that window, while they were visiting on Monday! :o) Oh, speaking of which, that very window has a double short door under it. I believe I told you all about this before. John and Joyce, that is where they use to roll in the casket for the wakes. Soooo, where we were sitting, is where they held the viewings for that household. Hope Mike showed you the door inside. It is bricked up on the outside. I wanted to say something to you, Joyce, and forgot. I think we got onto another subject and it totally slipped my mind. Well, better get moving here. Have a GREAT day everyone. I want to get that email off to Karen about Glenside_things she probably didn't know about back then :o) Lynn BTW, Connie, that is so neat!!! Sounds like what our Whiskers (the cat) did when she had her babies. She brought them out of that big double decker cat house I build out of large bales of straw on the front porch that one winter for the cats to keep warm in. When she brought each one out, she layed it on Mike's foot, to show him, then she picked it up and brought out the next one. That's when we brought the whole family inside, and found good homes for the little ones. Whiskers is still with us, along with another cat who adopted us, his name is Morris, the fat orange cat. Rick wrote: I got to hold a raccoon my one aunt was nursing back to health once. The claws dug in a little bit but it was fairly content to be held. Connie wrote: Our raccoons in MA were almost tame.? One Mom brought her kids for us to baby sit while she went off with each one separately and taught them how to fish.? Came back, drop the dripping wet one and took another.? She had 3.? We would give them peanut butter bread.? Only after they tried to pry the screen door open.? They did try to communicate.? We had one woman in town that had tamed a few and they had the run of her house.? No harm ever came to her.? Connie ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to PADUTCH-LIFE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com.