Bears, raccoons, and Chinese food

After church, we drove up to Newmarket, a bedroom community just north of Toronto, to visit Charlene’s parents.

On the way, we heard news that a bear was loose in Newmarket. A bear! We drove by the scene and saw police cars and a vacated hot dog stand but that was it.

They could have captured that bear in no time if they had kept the hot dogs cooking. That’s bear bait.

The rest of the day, a helicopter circled overhead. I read this morning that they eventually captured that bear at night.

We didn’t care. We were doing battle with our own private critters.

Turns out that a couple of raccoons had taken up residence in the chimney of the house in Newmarket. This isn’t a problem if you break the law (you have to be nice to raccoons these days) or if you pay someone to remove the raccoons for you ($600-$1,000). It’s a bit of a challenge if you decide to do it yourself.

Who’s smarter, raccoons or humans? I was wondering for a while there.

We tried all kinds of ways to get them to climb back out of the chimney. Eventually we capped off the chimney and settled for the fact that they were coming down, not up.

Brooms ready, and a box to catch them, we got them out with a little persuasion. They were actually a lot less ferocious than I had feared. We got them safely outside and reclaimed that chimney for ourselves.

Last night we celebrated our victory with Chinese food. It was good, but it would have been a lot better if my mind hadn’t kept seeing those beady raccoon eyes while eating.

Update: Left behind – We thought we had them all but one was left behind. Created a bit of a disaster last night. The saga continues.

Darryl Dash

Darryl Dash

I'm a grateful husband, father, oupa, and pastor of Grace Fellowship Church Don Mills. I love learning, writing, and encouraging. I'm on a lifelong quest to become a humble, gracious old man.
Toronto, Canada