The feeder arrangement described in the previous post -- concrete, long pipe, elaborate PVC construction -- is more than I think one should be forced to build in a suburb of a major city. We have trees in our yard and a swamp at one edge, but this isn't The Woods. Four of our feeders hang from arms of one-inch steel pipe attached to a vertical pipe that holds them about 10 feet off the ground. i can reach the feeders for filing by standing on my tippy-toes. A baffle surrounding the pipe keeps squirrels from the seeds. That was my intent. Score one for us.

Raccoons are a different kettle of fish (they certainly are). Raccoons grab the vertical pipe and shake it like hell. They shake it so hard that they tear up the grass as they seek firm footing for this mischief. They shake it until the feeders, bouncing and swaying, bounce high enough to escape the hook and fall to the ground. The raccoons eat the seed, the feeder trays crack and fall apart, but, thank heavens, the animals don't carry the feeders away.

I wired the feeder handles to the hooks. Didn't work. I attached braces to the feeder pole, anchoring them in the ground, to make shaking difficult. Didn't work. So, I bought a large $70 Hav-A-Hart trap. If you don't know, this is a rectangular wire box with a door that slams shut when triggered by something, hopefully your target animal. You lure the animal into the trap with bait. I use Spam. If successful, youn have a really frightened and angry animal pacing and snarling and challenging you to, go ahead, pick up your trap, fool.

I have a smaller such trap that I've used for squirrels for years. My rule of thumb is I begin trapping when the usual number of squirrels beneath our feeders cannot be counted by fingers alone. What I'm doing now is leaving the both suet and seed feeders empty for a few days. I hope the raccoons take us off their route. Birds continue to come to our window feeders, and they'll find the seeds once we go back into business. I have friends who one year recently trapped 54 raccoons in their Minnetonka backyard. Fifty-four! Here's one of ours.