Day 6 Community Asylum Seekers Project Art Marathon 5.8.25

I’m once again rewarded by my luck or foresight to have a stated goal of Sifting Mud. Does this allow playing in the garden and weeding to be part of my project? I might find out if the weather finds a way to stop raining. In the meanwhile I enter my shed in search of tools or gloves or pots or some gardening paraphernalia in order to make baby steps into the new season. A familiar smell gusts out through the opening door. I’m pretty sure I know that smell…it’s a little scary. It’s a little exciting. It might mean that the raccoons are back and there might be a new litter!

I have a lot of stories about raccoons. One year I looked out the window to see them crawling through the open windows of my spouse’s car. That was a good one! Last year I casually mentioned our family of adorable baby raccoons and learned to never ever discuss such things with farmers. It turns out farmers just don’t like them. Even wonderful organic farmers that you might love dearly and forever have strong opinions. Nope. It’s a little scary. It’s a little exciting. It’s a little baffling. Along with their incredible beauty, raccoons can carry a bad toxin in their poop that affects humans.

I know that smell means there is poop, but it also likely means there is a lot of cute adorableness in my shed somewhere if I want to go poking around. The farmers scared me well enough with talk of horrible neurological diseases that I likely will cede the space and just imagine those tiny racoons huddled in a little nest just beyond my office window.

Last year, during the throes of conflict between my fervent wildlife protectionism and intellectual understanding I should protect our family’s health, maybe even make this paramount, I talked to the local naturalist. She wondered what the problem with having baby raccoons was? She told me to let them be and not evict them. I did try at some point to limit their access to our shed, but apparently failed this spring. Af first I was a little surprised by my lack of success, but then remembered I left a hole open last year and never shut it after they left. I admit I’m delighted that they seem to be back, especially since it just keeps raining and raining and raining.

In any case I have plenty of N95 masks to clean up their poop when they grow up and move out. Maybe mama will show off her babies to me some night. I really hope so. I seem to love them already. Don’t worry I won’t make you a painting of their poop. Here is a cartoon of my upside down attitude towards wildlife. What can I say? My formative years were spent consuming cartoons and nature shows. My bias is permanently skewed toward the small creatures.