meeping Coons
I was up most of the night listening to a scratching noise coming from the ceiling over our bedroom. Every time I'd drift off, scratch, scratch, scratch, what the meep? Every time I got up to listen closer it would stop. This went on for most of the night. I suspected a mouse or squirrel at first but as the wee hours got closer and closer to daybreak I started hearing thumps and twanging noises like something metal was being pried at... then it started to rain and the noises stopped. Ten minutes later I was listening to rain dripping into the room. I knew immediately it was a meep and it wasn't in the ceiling or the wall, it was on the roof trying to pull up some flashing and get into the attic.
It was still dark outside and I wasn't going to go crawling around on the roof, in the dark, looking for a meep so I put a bucket under the leak and put on a pot of coffee. The rain stopped shortly before daybreak and I went to the garage and got a ladder and one of my .22 air rifles.
When I climbed the ladder, I found this perfect meep habitat:
A few years ago, my uncle Cliff converted an old sun porch into an extra bedroom. He never got a chance to finish the roof before moving to TN and retiring. His temporary roof runs under two eave on either side of the bedroom and both of them look like this. A perfect place for a meep to call home, only this meeper wasn't satisfied with this little cave. It decided that it wanted into the attic and spent the night prying that flashing away from the house, under the eave. It did just enough damage to it to cause the leak.
I shined a flashlight under the eave and saw it's eyes glowing green back at me. One .22 pellet later it was dead. I reached up into the cubby hole with an extended metal clothes hanger and tried to drag it out. No love. It was way too heavy. I climbed up onto the roof and got my fingers under the eave just enough to grab its tail and drag the meep out; a few inches at a time.
...biggest meep I've ever seen. This thing must be 10 years old. Holding it by it's tail at belt height, its nose is just off the ground. I'd guess that it weighs about 30 lbs, easy. I'm burying this meep. He's been around way to long to eat. It'd taste like old shoe leather.
Now, I have to go get a bucket of tar and fix the damned roof before it rains again.
meeping coons.
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mstrlance
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mstrlance
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nurglets
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beachgoat
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sunny77
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beachgoat
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godevilliv+
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godevilliv+
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mstrlance
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fastlane
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mstrlance
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lordkahuna
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beachgoat
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godevilliv+
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godevilliv+
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godevilliv+
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beachgoat
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lordkahuna
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beachgoat
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saltpeter
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pete56
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godevilliv+
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mstrlance
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lordkahuna
Oct21 '09
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hah, you got me..
Oct21 '09
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Holding it by it's tail at belt height, its nose is just off the ground.
Guessing your belt is about 24 inches off the floor, so...
Oct21 '09
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The midget got me too.
Oct21 '09
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Big meepin meep.You got me too......
Oct21 '09
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Just to keep me honest:
He's all of 32 inches even after rigor has set. I where 32x32 pants and I'm 5'9".
Oct21 '09
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32" inseam means I must have been holding the tail at about crotch height. (ke ke) I had to just slightly bend my elbow to keep the nose from dragging on the ground.
Oct21 '09
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You killed Bandit :(
My little brother killed a smaller one with a BB gun a couple months ago. Shot it like 8 times, then threw it in a hole and lit it on fire.
Oct21 '09
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Seriously.
That would make an awesome hat.
Or you could tie its tail to the antennae on your jalopy like all the kids are doing. 23 Skidoo!
Oct21 '09
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Great journal!
Oct21 '09
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HAT MOTHERmeepER, DO IT NOW.
then make some comedy deer meep doorbuzzers, and stuff
Oct21 '09
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Yis, Deerbut aliens, stat!m And the coonskin hat. I's looking for blood, carnage. Where you git 'im? No entry/exit wound.
Oct21 '09
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He SAID it was an AIR rifle...got him in the LUNGS!
Oct22 '09
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Some sweet Ted Nugent type item must be made with this.You could make a wicked huge bota bag out of his meep.
Oct22 '09
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that racoon is huge. you climbed your roof with a big rifle on your back? why not use a pistol?
Oct22 '09
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Most air pistols are not quite powerful enough to kill coons short of placing the muzzle right on it's head and shooting it multiple times. Raccoons are pretty tough critters that will tear you to shreds if injured and given a chance. A good .177 cal air rifles can do the job if you hit them right in the fuse box or the pumper but they usually require multiple shots and some luck.
A real handgun would have been ideal if I'd wanted to kill the meep and put a couple more holes in the roof while I was at it.
Most high end .22 cal air rifles are ideal for home invasion critters. These rifles have a high enough muzzle velocity (600 to 900 fps) to deliver heavier .22 cal domed pellets that have enough mass to humanely dispatch these critters if you can get within 20 yards. Live traps work but you have to wait for the critter to find it and while you're waiting, sometimes for days, it's still meeping up your home.
This is the first raccoon I've had to deal with but, because I'm raising chickens, I'll probably be visited by many more coons and possums that want to find a warm place to sleep near the chicken coops they are trying to break into at night. Looks like I'll have to meep-proof the entire place.
They can cause extensive and expensive damage.This one dug a fist sized hole in my roof, under that eave. Had he had more time he would have made a den in my attic. Probably one more night would have allowed him to do so... As it stands, this one meep, on one night, has probably done a couple thousand dollars in damage by the time I permanently repair that roof and the ceiling drywall that was damaged by the rain. For now, I covered the hole, re-flashed and tarred the roof and blocked off the open eaves. In the spring I have to rebuild the roof. I was planning to do so anyway but now I have no choice.
Oct23 '09
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Looks like I'll have to meep-proof the entire place.
Offer them real jobs and attentive fathers. They'll scram.
Oct23 '09
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Coons, Wotak? I'm so dissapointed in you.
Oct24 '09
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