Seventeen Minutes
On living in a world with uncertain outcomes
The chittering and churring is what first attracted my attention to the grand old cedar earlier this summer. I walked beyond my gravel driveway and galvanized metal garden beds, and peered up into the greenery. Nothing. Quietness.
But then again. Maybe. I craned my neck up and finally perceived movement with the purring. The wee masks showed up one, two, three, and then a fourth, the mother, out from the large crack in the tree. Perfect housing, I thought, right there next to the permanent chicken coop we were building.
Over the next few days, the raccoon kits timidly made their appearances, working their way down the swaying limbs, while their mother both nuzzled their bottoms and cast glances toward me. It’s hard to want to shoot these predators when they’re making me laugh with their mewing and dangling legs and watching how the mother would get one kit onto a more robust limb and, while traveling to nudge the second one, the first one would return to t…