Lil Critter...

Lately, it's been cool at night so I've kept the windows open. Last night as Berkley sat in the living room keeping watch on the front of the house, he found something.

And he needed to let me know.

I was in the kitchen on the computer backtracking through the first season of Lost, and he was just plain annoying me with the nonstop barking. No matter how much I told him to stop, Berkley persisted.

So I went over and sat on the floor looking out the windows. The only odd thing I heard was a small cooing sound. Like an owl almost. I couldn't see anything, so I went out front looking for the source of the noise.

And there he was. Clinging to the side of the house.

Notice Berkley is quite upset I'm out there and he's stuck inside.

It looks like he was hanging on for dear life, and he may have been. He seemed very calm though and watched me a lot. When I moved to the porch to get a shot of his face, Berkley distracted him.

I tell ya, if I didn't know better, I would have walked over and plucked him from the house and cuddled him in my arms. This little guy looked like a stuffed animal, he was so cute.

I believe I've seen his mom before. A few days ago at about dusk, Connor and I spied a raccoon climbing the large oak tree directly in front of the house. In these pictures above, the tree is right behind me. The creature climbed up rather slowly, (I must say that I'm used to hundreds of squirrels climbing these trees each day--at a hundred miles per hour) and perched in a space high up where a large branch had broken off at some time. The raccoon sat there for some time and watched us, as we proceeded to have everyone in the house come out and see.

So I wonder if this house climbing baby lives in my tree too. Maybe we'll see him again...