Raccoons, cayenne pepper, and duct tape.

Which of the above three things does not belong in the same sentence? Sadly, they all do, at least for the moment.

Our corn has grown taller than we could have imagined.... cute little ears of corn are growing on all the stalks. The sad part--- the local raccoons have discovered it and they're having a corn party out back after the sun goes down.

Now you would think that with a dog walking around the property, the raccoons would find another place to go. But Gracie comes in the house at night, and she doesn't stay out in the yard by herself much during the day, so I guess the raccoons know they're safe out there as they play around in the corn.

And playing is what they've been doing..... a bite here, a bite there--- four little ears of corn today had teeth marks from the raccoons. They couldn't have picked just one ear and shared it? This is getting to sound like last summer, when our neighbors J & J kept finding melons in their vegetable patch with just one or two bites taken out of each one. With all the melons they were growing, I think just one or two escaped the midnight munching of the raccoons.

As with all things, my husband did a search on the Internet. Raccoons eating corn. How to stop? Cayenne pepper..... raccoons don't like the taste of it. Peppermint spray.... raccoons don't like that either. Duct tape.... you literally tape the ears of corn to the stalks and the raccoons can't pry the tape off because they don't have thumbs. My husband says that this is going to be like the Wylie E. Coyote and RoadRunner cartoons--- who's going to win?

After dinner tonight, my husband went out into the yard with two containers of cayenne pepper and a roll of duct tape. He sprinkled the pepper all around the corn rows till the topsoil was red. With each ear of corn that's growing, he used the duct tape to attach it to the stalks. Stop laughing. Do you honestly think I could make this stuff up?

While my husband was taping the corn, I was looking at the package of tape. It plainly said Duck Tape, not Duct Tape. Duck? As is quack quack? Doesn't anyone know the correct spelling of duct tape anymore? This is like Santa Claus....... because of that movie "The Santa Clause," we now have a whole generation that thinks Clause (not Claus) is Santa's last name.

Between the raccoons eating the corn, the chickens sitting on imaginary eggs, and the English language getting pulverized by texting and twitting and chatting in acronyms, I just can't keep up.