Muddying up the Works!

I have been noticing a lot of muddy footprints around the hillside lately!  It seems that someone is running around and absolutely refusing to wipe their dirty feet. Every night, this muddy-footed culprit climbs up on the back porch to see if Ms. Put left any cat food in her dishes.  He leaves behind a great mess!  Today, when I finally made my way down to the pier, I noticed little footprints in the old skiff that sits by the pier.  Hmmm..the critter had definitely decided to investigate the skiff to see if there were any leftover fish sitting in there.  Obviously, it had been hunting its supper and was willing to accept any scraps as a free meal.  Sorry, there are no scraps in the boat today!

These footprints explained a lot.  Over the years, I have noticed that most of the raccoons that visit the gardens are muddy.  My friend that left the muddy footprints had come up out of the marsh, traipsed across the boat and then made his way to the back garden. At the moment, nothing is producing in this garden except a lone Jalapeno pepper plant.  Not finding anything desirable to eat there, he went for the compost pile!  There, I am quite sure that he dined upon scraps from my kitchen! The raccoon's visit made me realize that a lot of the critters are crossing the marsh of the Bayou just to visit this compost pile!  No wonder there are always muddy footprints on my backporch!  It (and Ms. Put's cat bowl) is just a hop, skip and jump from the compost pile!

The raccoon that wandered about the garden, compost and back porch is only one of many that prowl around the hillside every night.  Mark's "GameCam" caught the rascal as he made a detour through the garden.  During the low tide in the Bay, they can be seen scavenging for Fiddler Crabs and mollusks on the mudflats.  The compost pile seems to be the second choice for dinner but is still visited regularly.  I would not mind so much if they would only learn to wipe their feet!  Mud!!  Everywhere!