Four raccoons came to a barbecue on Azalea Court.

Although they came uninvited, they enjoyed all the “trimmings” a.k.a. scraps and probably returned several times in hopes of, once again, being on the fringes of a feast.

Patricia Ann Jackson was a hostess at the barbecue and said she didn’t really mind having uninvited guests.

“We get raccoons and coyotes up around here a lot,” she said. “They come up mainly at night and get in the cat’s food or whatever scraps we put out. They don’t bother anything but the food and water. They come and they go.”

But, then along came Ranni Raccoon.

“I guess, Ranni was one of the raccoons that came to the barbecue,” Jackson said, with a smile. “I’ve never seen the other three again but this one kept coming back. I didn’t know if it was boy or a girl. I called it he and I named him Ranni. I could see him poking his head around the tree or peeping up out of the bushes. He knew he was hungry so I started feeding him.”

Jackson would put food out for the raccoon and then go back inside so he would eat.

“I’d give him cat food and table scraps, chicken bones, whatever we had,” she said, and then added, again with smile. “Sometime I’d give him a piece of chicken. I have given him a whole pork chop.”

Before long, Jackson would stay around while the raccoon ate to keep Miracle, the cat away.

“He got used to me and I walk up close while he ate,” she said. “I started holding bread out to him and he’d come closer and closer. One day, he took the bread out of my hand. I was so excited, ‘He’s eating out of my hand,’ I hollered. I couldn’t believe it.”

Jackson also couldn’t believe that “he” was a “she.”

“I’ve never been so surprised in my life,” she said. “One day I saw these baby raccoons in the hollow of this ol’ tree. I didn’t know how many babies there were but I knew they were Ranni’s.”

Now, Jackson knows how many baby raccoons Ranni has.

“Four,” she said, smiling like a proud grandmother. “The other day, I came out and Ranni was walking across the yard and four little raccoons were following her. Four.”

Jackson’s not sure what the future holds for Ranni and the little raccoons. She knows for sure they can’t expect pork chop dinners or invitations to barbecues.

“They’ll just have to eat cat food or table scraps,” she said, laughing.

The little raccoons stay “pretty much” in their hollow but Ranni’s all around.

“She’s not scared of people, just a little shy when it’s somebody different,” Jackson said. “But Ranni’ll come all around us. She’ll even come up on the porch and rattle the door when she’s hungry. I feed her twice a day around dinnertime and about seven o’clock at night.”

Jackson knows when the little raccoons get older they’ll make their home in the wooded area behind her house.

“But, I think Ranni will stay around here,” she said. “It’s her home and I sure would miss her.”