Oh Goody......A tree! (sort of)

Dad did a little landscaping around here the other day and yanked this big tree/bush thing out of the ground. Complete with huge clump of dirt still around the roots, it went into the pen with River's group. All I'll say is....endless hours of crazy fun!

A little break for some chow.....Rosie a little more eager than others feels the need to sit IN the feeder.

RJ scrounges up a morsel from inside the tire.

And the rest of them dig around in the logs and dirt for theirs!

I have no idea how the very plump River managed to climb down this thing....it's a very bendy type of tree, not really a sturdy climbing tree......

Willie thought he could copy River but it didn't quite work out as planned......A little help here!

Scootch, RJ and River

Rosie

Baloo, Einstein and River

RJ

River looking up...OK mom! Enough with the pictures already!

11 little maniacs having fun!

Finally some good (by that I mean at least is was dry...no torrential rain and thunder storms) weather! I took the opportunity to add some fun to the big release cage out back. A huge pine tree came down in the woods so with a little help from dad and his chain saw, the gang got some new branches to climb and play on. Now instead of the usual flat shelves, they have a more natural, horizontal plane to run and climb on.

Of course, it took them a while to figure it out!!! Ha ha!!

But once they figured out how to climb ON TOP of the branches instead of under them, there was no holding them back!!

Throw in some chicken wings................

And a new, big pool.....yahooooooooo...........

.............and boy what a fun time was had by all! Yes, that is a slide on the pool...and Buster was the first to learn (much to his dismay!) that step on that the right way, and all the way into the pool you go....like it or not!

Rollo and Quinny are here now too so I'll be figuring out how to integrate them into one of the groups soon. That will be interesting! The work on Mary's pen has already begun, so once that is done and the older gang is moved over there I'll have a little more room to work with here.

The kids in the "REALLY big" big boys pen

This is the door separating the little kids from the really big kids cage. This was taken from inside the little kids section. Now that the little kids are older they are getting supervised visits into the 10ft section of the cage. There are 3 older coons in there (you can see one peeking in here!) and they have had many weeks to get to know each other through the gate.

It was finally time to open the gate and allow the little kids in to check out the bigger cage. One of the older coons wasn't so thrilled! He took refuge in his favorite box, occasionally pushing open the door to peek out! It was sooooo funny watching such a big boy hide from such little ones!



Needless to say the little kids couldn't be bothered with the older ones, they were so excited to have higher trees to climb and a bigger pool to play in!

Seeker in all his glory!

Tugger and Buster check out the pool.

One of the terrible twosome (I think it's Nosey) takes a swim.

Roxy greets one of the older girls.

Tugger enjoys the hanging shelf.

Teddy greets one of the older girls.

Stinky takes the hard way down a tree.

Clover plays with Gray, one of the older coons.

Gimme that camera! Roxy grabs for the lens.

Roxy and Buster mess around on a tree.

As you can see the gang had a great time playing in the bigger pen and everyone got along great! It does have to be supervised though, because even though they all get along, the older ones are much bigger and don't know their own strength when they play and I have to be careful they don't hurt the little ones by accident.

I don't let Tosser and Mohican run around in there too much yet...they are still a little small for the cage and the heights in there. I have to watch them like a hawk so they have briefly checked it out, but I usually leave them in their pen for now while supervising the others in the bigger pen.

Caught in the act!

Bella is growing like a weed still. She's up to 140 grams and doing great! Red is going to be heading back out soon too. The swelling is down in her foot and she's using it now. One more check with the vet and then I think she'll be free to go.

When I got the coon cam today to download the pics I couldn't figure out why there was dirt all over the camera and tripod. Someone had to be fiddling with it! I didn't put it on a tree because I knew the coonies would be ALL over it so I use a tripod that I figured would be to difficult to climb. Sure enough I discovered the culprit!! Curiosity finally got the better of someone who found a way to climb the tripod while another looked on in amusement!



It's good to know the tripod and camera can withstand a raccoon climbing all over it! Luckily I had anchored it with big, heavy bricks when I put it out there! Crazy coon! I hope it doesn't become a habit! haha