It's early summer now and some friends brought over a little boy raccoon that had been "snatched" from
his Mamma and the idiot people that had him allowed their idiot children to feed him candy and bubblegum.

Well of course he could neither digest nor pass that bubblegum and in trying to do so had ruptured
himself and his intestines had started coming out of his body.  Before he got here, a local vet had
stitched him up "down there" but gave him little hope of surviving.

That vet didn't know about our Folks        They called him Timmy.

Timmy was a mess. At four months he weighed less than a ten week old and the Mom said you could feel every
bone in his little body. He refused to eat as he was in so much pain. A lot of trips to the grocery store to try this or
try that. Mom slept on the couch with Timmy cause like she told Dad, "I just don't want him to be alone if he dies".

The ol finger and strawberry jam down the throat did the trick

When Timmy started eating        Timmy started EATING !

The Folks had to be careful as he was trying to eat everything in sight. Almost got their arms
bit right off when they tried to make him slow down and eat very small amounts at one time.

And Gallons of Pedialyte

Remember Katie ? Well, Katie had been gone about two days when Timmy first got here. The Folks were
worried about her but had their hands full with Timmy and figured Fred would let them know if anything
was wrong.  You see, Fred followed Katie everywhere she went,  well, except up a tree of course.

Raccoons can be very possessive and territorial,  especially females.

How would Katie act when she came back and saw Timmy in HER house......

Bless her little heart, when she came back and saw Timmy she cautiously walked around him and tried
to sniff him.  Timmy was growling and carrying on cause he probably thought he was a goner and he was
just trying to protect himself.  Katie gave him one last sniff, looked at the Folks, gave a little hrummmppp,
turned and went down the hall and promptly went to bed.

Crisis over !

Katie now had a "son" to raise and she would teach him everything she knew.
They were inseparable. Timmy clung to Katie's back no matter what she was doing.

Katie seemed to sense that Timmy was not up to full strength as she stayed in or very near
the house most of that summer.  Poor Fred kind of got left out of things as Katie was so busy
with Timmy and so Fred took to playing with his fan belt again.

Timmy was getting stronger every day and Katie started taking him out back to the woods but every night,
right as dark came, she brought him home and Timmy slept in his "closet" and Katie slept in her bed in her
bedroom.  The Folks had figured out that if they left the backdoor cracked open and put a chair on the
inside, when Katie and Timmy came "blasting" in, the chair would tip back and shut the door so no bugs
could get in but Katie and Timmy could come and go as they pleased.

The days began getting shorter and the nights cooler.  Katie and Timmy were staying out longer and
longer.  It seemed no matter how long they stayed out, at least once a week they both come back to
the house to reunite.  If Timmy was not at the house when Katie came in, she would go back out and
somehow find him and drag him home.

One late October day when the sun was still nice and warm, Timmy came down from the sleeping tree and ran
over to the Mom who was playing in her flower beds, touched her foot, turned and ran off into the woods.  The
Mom thought this was strange that Timmy would wake up in the middle of the day and be running around...

But as she saw him hightail it to the woods,  she knew,  Timmy was all grown up now.