lapidated houses, by the dock. Armed with a hammer and a crowbar we entered the buildings and made a thorough sweep of the downstairs and its many cracks and crevices. Finding nothing we climbed the decrepit staircase and put our ears to the walls to listen for telltale squeaks. Dad thought he could hear something, and wedging his crowbar between the laths of the wall, exposed a ball of fir composed of three baby raccoons.

As our raccoons grew they became more and more independent. Some days you might see three striped tails moving through the grass as they ventured down to the water. By the time the leaves started to fall the raccoons were mostly grown and wanted little to do with people. We had been their mothers for a while but as soon as they were old enough to survive on their own their raccoon instincts kicked in. When they started to raid our garden, we trapped them and moved them to Isle au Haut, a nearby island with less than 60 year-round residents, only to have them swim back over. After that we moved them to an island on the opp

Some common words found in the essay are:
York Island, Mom Pop, , isle au haut, au haut, isle au, island grew, york island,
Approximate Word count = 707
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)