Friday, October 26, 2007

Legends of Lemurs

You may recall that when we first moved into this house, the previous owner had told us that there were lemurs in the neighborhood...

Yesterday, late afternoon while Darling Man and ZBoy were at KenPo, I was working on my computer and sitting in eternal helll - uh, hold, with the insurance company when my eyes wandered to the window.

Across the street, a knot of people had gathered under a tree and they were all looking UP.

I pulled open my blinds and looked up in their tree too - and saw branches jostling around. So I ran all over the house looking for binoculars (we must have half a dozen pairs) but couldn't find any. So I grabbed my old SLR camera with the 700 lens on it, prayed that it would work, and headed outside.

Eight people under the oak tree were joined by me and my camera. There were two animals waaaaayyyy up in the top of the tree, screened by leaves. Meanwhile, excited voices at the bottom of the tree were speculating as to where the lemurs hide the rest of the year until the acorns are ripe and they come out to harvest them.

The people under the tree: The drunk that lives in the garage and his mother; the previous owner of MY house and her mother plus two other people she brought over in her car; the two neighbors next to the tree; and alternately, my own next door neighbors who took turns crossing the street to peer up into the branches before shaking their heads and going back across the street. Keep in mind that ALL of these people are at least 10 years older than me, the vast majority of them being at least 20 years older than me and the guy who was closest in age to me was swaying so hard on his feet that he was in danger of tipping over at any moment.

My eyes are showing their age.

THEIR eyes are showing THEIR ages.

The lemurs of the neighborhood came down the tree trunk and peered at all the upturned faces, then ran all over the tree - up and down, round and round. They waved at us, played peek-a-boo with us and looked incredibly cute while doing so. I used my camera lens (but the camera wouldn't take the picture) to zoom in and get a really good look at our friendly, neighborhood lemurs.

This is what they looked like:

That's right. Our lemurs are raccons.

But they're still pretty darned cute.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Raccoons are evil, but dang-it they are pretty freaking cute.

Anonymous said...

*snort*

Love it!

Anonymous said...

It is any wonder you could see them in the day time. Raccoons and possums are plentiful, but mainly at night.

Sandy said...

So all that time, when I was growing up, there were lemurs right in my very own oak tree! Who knew?

Great post!

Anonymous said...

Chicken-killing murderers!!Corn destroying invaders..but cute.

Anonymous said...

The coons are cute.
You have a 700 mm lens!
Why and for what kind of camera?
I am having lens envy.
Love ya
Steph

Anonymous said...

Lemuccoons are sooooo cute!
RYC: Yeah, 3D slides is kinda my thing (hence the name phre3D). I'll have to chain you to a chair sometime and force you to view all 713,000 of my slides. They're mostly landscapes - out west and NC. These pages are way out of date but if you haven't seen them before please take a look when you have nothing better to do. :o)
http://www.angelfire.com/nc2/phred1225/3DCentral.html

Robbiegirl said...

I think I just died of cute!!!

Anonymous said...

How funny about the neighbours confusing raccoons and lemurs. There are raccoons all over my area. They're huge and very confident. They just waltz down the street whistling a tune like they own the place. Actually the do own the place.

I had some neighbours for a short time who were from South Africa. The woman was scared to death of our raccoons. I said to her, good grief with all the wild and dangerous animals there are in Africa, you are frightened of these cute little guys.

Within a week of us having that conversation her little Jack Russell was shredded by a raccoon. He lived but had a lot more respect for them after that.

Unknown said...

I love your lemurs. Just watch out for the rabid ones.

Patience said...

Awwww! Cute.

Molly said...

The raccoons are very cute. We see them occasionally in our neighborhood too. But, we never see lemurs except at the zoo.

Alta said...

Oh shoot you are in Florida - you're gonna see more of the raccoons. I raised one from a baby many years back. She was so funny and yes - cute too.

Hootin Anni said...

Way cool! That's some great photography.