Off the Cliff

As I was lying in bed last night with the window fan and standing fan trying to cool the bedroom (and incidentally, why does it take me literally hours to fall asleep, when I can fall *back* asleep in minutes, and do it several times over unless I make me get up) I heard a squeaking noise. My window fan is brand new, it should not squeak, and the standing fan is fixed so it shouldn't squeak either. Got up to investigate, found the sound was coming from the back of the house, oh joy baby raccoons in the cherry tree crying for mama. Look out study window. No, by god, it's what looks like mama or maybe even papa-- very large furry beast-- on the wires between the garage and my house. Upside down, clinging sloth-like by its paws and yeeping in distress at this sudden attack of gravity. How on earth it got there is a mystery, because it wasn't on the thick Bell wires or even my sturdy clothesline, but the thin single wire that goes to the garage. Granted, there are vines growing partly along the wire's length, but Beast was a good four feet from where they stop. Squirrels can run along it, small cats maybe, but no way a raccoon could. Except it did.

So I went downstairs to the bunker and tried to see how to get the idiot animal off. Didn't have my flashlight, was of course one-eyed, and I discover that the fairy lights from Good Neighbour's yard don't illuminate much when you're at ground level. But I pulled the clothesline taut up against its body, hoping to encourage it to move back to where the vines overgrow the fence and drop from there. I have no idea how it did manage to get down but eventually the meeping stopped without any thuds or rustling. So that was that.

The cherries are barely ripe but the birds are already at them, as I learned when I put a wash out Monday. Only a small dribble but enough to signal the end of clothesline season: which had barely begun because rain and cold in April and May obviated against its use.