When I arrived home from work last night and walked through the garage to the back yard, I found a baby racoon in the pool. Thankfully he was still alive, but clearly exhausted, paddling around the sides of the deep end. I dropped my stuff and rushed for the leaf rake and lifted him out. He sat on the rim not moving, struggling to breathe, seemingly in shock. His frightened little eyes held mine the entire time. I've no idea if he was there for 10 minutes or hours -- wonder how long a youngster coon can last paddling around?

I went to the back of the property and gently put the end of the leaf rake over the privacy fence (there's a large area of woods there) and turned it over. Then I retracted it, set it down and did a chin up on the fence. He stood on some bramble still struggling to breathe properly, making snorting sounds. Five minutes later I returned to the fence and did another chin up and saw that he was gone, and was so relieved to know he wasn't done in by my pool. For me, that would've been traumatic. In fact I have a hunch I would've had visions of having it filled in.

I once thought of letting my kickboard float around in the pool in case a squirrel or other critter finds themselves in trouble, but it invariably ends up at the skimmer and then blocks tree debris from going in. Still, I might put it in there anyway. Hey I just had an idea. I could tether it to the half moon hardware that's on either side of the shallow end for the kiddie rope I took down when I bought the place five years ago. Assuming the critter would make it to that end? Since we're in a severe drought here, today I also started leaving a small pail of fresh water each day by the pool's edge. Poor wildlife that's so thirsty they risk life for a drink of water, chlorinated at that!