Pool Party!

Not our ideal party! Unfortunately we were asleep and didn't hear a thing! Those cute critters, the rascally raccoons, that frequent thru our backyard went to town on our pool, and Zoe's skipping rope which had those ribbony things on the ends. The pool was a gift from Zoe's aunt and uncle last year, and up until this point there has been no problems with the raccoons attempting to get into the pool. They have ruined many backyard toys, leading us to be diligent in making sure the toys are put away at night. It's not just toys though, it's sprinklers, hoses, whatever looks like something to play with. Our hoses are like soaker hoses, many, many small holes from teeth, they use them like chew toys. I've seen them doing this, and they are very fascinating to watch, from the window, but Zoe's toys, and pool were enough to make us mad.
We were able to patch most of the rim around the pool, hopefully salvaging it for another year, we'll see how it holds up next summer. We fixed it, and put it away, since we were going on vacation soon anyway. The cover didn't make it.

We've since purchased a motion censored sprinkler called "the scarecrow" that does deter animals from areas in your yard by spraying water out when it is triggered. It works very well. We've seen many raccoons come into our yard still (always at night) and they set the scarecrow off but they don't always leave right away, they don't scare easily, once they figure out that it's water, they hang around for abit, but I think they do leave quicker than if we didn't have one. Plus there is no toys left to play with.

Check it out at the link below:
http://www.skygift.com/Contech/images/ScareCrow-images/Video/crowloop_high.wmv