Barrier Crows

We dropped in at Whole Foods on the way home from preschool.  Having spent the morning updating our finances on Quicken, I took the prudent course and left my purse in the car while we dashed in to get some coin sleeves and exchange the soy whip which wouldn't squirt (apparently Whole Foods received a defective batch which had coagulated so my fervent attempts to squirt it over the pumpkin pie were doomed to failure.)  Wren was running barefoot (because he was hot) and with a bank-teller lollipop in his mouth.

He took it out the lollipop from time to time to taste "free food!" like grapes and later some goji berries.  Tasting the sweet red berries he exclaimed:

"Oh my GOD, those are awesome.  Like raisins!"

This amused other shoppers but must have made them consider eating raisins, since they are much cheaper.

As the ragamuffin rushed out of the store, veering round the Real Change desperados, he saw a crow and stopped.  

"Its OK, you can chase the crow," I called out.

Wren rushed at the crow which flapped and hopped a short distance and then looked at him.  He paused, then rushed back to me with a shriek.

"Was that a crow?" he asked.

I said it was a crow.

"No,"  he said, climbing into the car and grabbing Soft Shirt for reassurance,  "that was not a crow.  That was a barrier crow.  That is a special kind of crow.  It has sharp feathers by its beak and by its eye."

"Uh huh?" I said, buckling him in.

We drove for a block in silence.

"Barrier crows eat fruit and vegetables," Wren continued, as if without interruption to the conversation then added with an lowered tone, "they also eat meat."

"Is this real, or imaginary?" I wondered aloud

"This is real, in our world.  Not right here but in our world.  In Granny's world."

"Oh, ok.  Cos they sound a bit scary."

We drove past the vegetable stand on the corner of 65th and 15th.

"See, that shop sells fruit.  If they saw that the barrier crows just walk in and take the food."

We continued along 65th.  Bump, over a plate left in the road from construction.

"They also dig holes.  They dig holes and climb trees and this is a bit imaginary.  They cut down plants with their claws and beaks!  They cut the plants off like this.

I don't like barrier crows."

We saw a flock of crows (you can't really write murder without sounding overly melodramatic) rising out of the conifers near our house.  Frankly, if Barrier Crows occurred in those numbers I don't think we'd stand a chance.

I told Wren I don't like the sound of them either. 

Wren says "A man is coming to whack those Barrier Crows who are
eating all her food."

The Theories of Almost-4

"I am very clever," Wren told me this morning, gesturing towards a multi-story office building.  "I can't see inside that building but I KNOW that people are talking."

"What about that building?" I wondered, pointing to a shop on Stone Way.

"Oh, in that one they are cleaning up."

This afternoon, I took Wren to the fish and chip shop at Fishermen's Terminal.   I've been thinking about Mum's order to feed him more and rich fatty fried salmon seemed like a good idea for a cold rainy day.  While I ate too many fries he ate his way through the salmon.  He pretended to be an eagle and pounce down on the fish in his talons.  We joked about the way the eagle also pounced on the fries and pretended they were small fish called fry.  Once Wren mis-spoke and called the fish "Itch."  Instead of correcting himself he said:

"There really is a food called itch.  Its a real Chinese food.  Do you know what itch has in it?  It has soy sauce, vinegar, meat and cheese.  It is called Itch."

On the way home he became creative.

"Wouldn't it be cool if there were mechanical steps to get up into a bulldozer.  Mechanical steps for kids to get up?  And you pull a button to make it go up and you push the big button to make it go.  That machine, it costs ninety hundred dollars!"

Wren in Discovery Park.
Note all the scattered mushrooms under the conifers in the background.

Tiger Mushroom

It wasn't actually raining today and Judy was in town so I had a companion for a forest walk.  We decided to try out Wren's new back carrier and walk Tiger Mountain and look out for mushrooms to identify.

After getting vaguely lost on every prior hike on Tiger Mountain, I was well equipped with my New Green Trails Map of Tiger Mountain.  It was really peculiar knowing where I was and was lucky that we were able to measure distances I would otherwise have despaired of and turned back thinking I had taken a wrong turn.  Judy was a reassuring navigator, finding landmarks like streams and gulches to mark our progress. 

 

We had a break at the intersection of Tiger 3 and Talus Loop

 Over the weekend I bought a Sherpani hiking carrier for kids off Craigslist.  It is extremely light and comfortable but nothing can really make up for the discomfit of carrying a 35lb kid (plus a few lbs of snack, water, baskets, raincoats and emergency supplies like a compass, whistle and signal mirror in case we were lost overnight out there in the urban wilderness).

Overall, the backpack was a great success in that we did a bit of a  longer walk than would otherwise be possible with Wren.  I think we covered 3 miles - 1 mile up, one a traverse with some switchbacks and then a pretty sharp descent.  I carried Wren a large part of the ascent, about half of the traverse and only a little bit of the descent.   I got a good workout but my shoulders are a bit sore in a way that suggests I could adjust it better.

Wren walks slowly with an ongoing narrative.

 Wren is not an easy hiker.  He does not get the whole directionality thing.  Even while looking for mushrooms I have a sense of motion, especially when it gets past 12.45 and I haven't had lunch.  As he walked Judy encouraged Wren to count his steps, to follow me or to aim at something ahead.  Nothing really caught on until we were moving down.  He liked moving down.

One of his little games going along was scraping a patch of moss off each tree as he past.  He called this "shaving the tree".  Each tree got a little shave, the moss being dropped in the ferns.  If you look at the pictures you will see that this forest had many trees along the path so it took a long long time proceeding in this fashion.  Finally, Judy told Wren "This is the last tree that gets a shave because people coming along later will be worried that an animal has been hurting the trees."

This puzzling explanation seemed to satisfy Wren who then wanted to be carried.

No sooner was he up than he wanted to be down.  He complained I was jiggling him by walking or that he wanted to walk himself so he could have a stick like Judy.  Judy was quite the standard of excellence in Wren's mind.  At various points along the trail while I was carrying him, Wren would say reassuringly in my ear:

"I love you Mummy."
"I love you too, Wren" I'd reply.
"I love Judy too." he would add.

He would also enjoy looking for mushrooms from up high. 

"MUSHROOM" he would shriek, nearly deafening me and causing me to wobble as he lurched around to indicate the small brown something in the fallen leaves.  He really has a good eye for them but even carrying a 35lb kid seems easy in comparison to crouching down to retrieve a small mushroom while carrying a 35lb kid.

I think I did ok.

Here are some mushrooms I am planning to draw this evening.  They are like nothing I have seen outside the US and I find their folded caps quite intriguing.

A selection of gyromitas and helvella which were well
distributed on the Western part of the trail.

 We explored the Talus Rocks before taking the Nook Trail back down to the base.  Wren was very interested in the rocks as now says this was his favorite part of the walk.  We took a little loop through the rocks and looked down into a cave where I have been told there are bats.  Also found a tiny hedgehog mushroom over the crevasse.

Exploring Talus Rocks.  Wren was concerned that we would SEE the bats
rumored to live in the cave.

Wren in the Sherpani.  Why did I wait until my kid weighed 35lbs
to try this?

Bright orange saporific fungi I hope to identify later
(when Frost goes to bed and I can use the Matchmaker online key_

I shall post an update with a list of some of the mushrooms we saw today.  There were not many common edibles but many of beauty and interest.  After we returned to the trailhead we drove home to Vios at Third Place and had a rather large lunch with their current seasonal beet soup.  Oh my god, it was delicious.  Wren ordered one and then refused to eat it so he ate my beet salad and I had the soup.  Mrmrm.  I am going to make some at home this week.

Making spore prints for identification

Orange velvet

Sorry to be all about the weather but its been a glorious couple of days in Seattle.  At this time of year we are usually under a blanket of cloud wearing a layer of fleece with a gortex in the car.  Instead, it has been unseasonably warm with a record high temperature under dazzling blue.  All the clarity has led to fabulous vistas of acid yellow poplars, ruby maples and trees arrayed brown and orange with leaves like crushed velvet.

We have been enjoying ourselves.

Wren at Greenlake before a quick visit
to the dentist to adjust his first filling

Abundance of Agaricus
This warmth after rain (a record rainfall from a storm the day before) has led to a fresh crop of mushrooms all around.  Sadly, with Mum gone I have no myco-friend with whom to range into the woods, but I have been learning about the agaricus which have sprouted in profusion around the sidewalks and parks in the neighborhood.

Agaricus Moelleri from North Seattle yard

The majority look tasty and share many characteristics with the agaricus bisporus which is most commonly sold and cultivated (portobello) but I have learned that most are instead most probably Agaricus Moelleri which are toxic.

The agaricus genus is more difficult identification than other species I have tried to key out.  They are not nearly as distinctive as chanterelles and the common boletes.  Instead, the characteristics are often subtle things like odor and staining of the flesh.  I am, apparently, pretty smell-blind at the moment as I cannot smell the phenolic or almond odors which help distinguish between species.  To make it more complicated, pretty toxic ones appear similar to those which are most delicious.

I took some mushrooms down to the PSMS ID clinic at the Center for Urban Horticulture (Monday afternoons) and they confirmed the ones from Snoqualmie area were "fried chicken mushroom" Lyophyllum decastes so I ate a few.   I hope to take some of these agarics down on Monday to learn more from the experts.


More Raccoons
 The raccoons haven't dared show their faces here for a while or perhaps don't care to now that I store the compost inside and have no more chickens for them to savage.   However, I learned that raccoon drama has been playing out in other areas of Seattle.

Walking around the lake with Chris this morning, I heard the story of her neighbor who let her small white dog outside a couple of nights ago and had to fight off a raccoon which had it in a death grip.  The dog survived but everyone was shaken up.  Chris and Pascal heard the ruckus and learned later what happened.

Speaking with another neighbor I have learned that the man who feeds them lives over the back fence from her on 23rd.  Apparently he has fed them for years.

Wren makes a code
We have been rearranging the living room to prepare for our recent purchase of a couch.  While I was reinstalling the shelves in a new spot, Wren found a few discarded pieces of shim.  He drew on them and then asked for tape to join them together.

"This is a code!" he announced.
"What's a code?" I wondered.
"You know, when the boys play Indy Andy Jones they get A CODE to open THE DOOR into a NEW LEVEL!"
He carried his code around all day, even on a bicycle ride to the park.  When he feared he had left it at the park we had to ride all the way back even though we were almost home!

"This is my code."

On the same playground trip Wren surprised me by running up to me and hitting me with a stick.  While other parents looked on, bemused, he yelled at me:

"I am hitting you with a stick because I love you and I loosed you!"

He was very angry with me because he had lost sight of me (I was sitting on a bench nearby while he played and when he looked up he could not see me at once) and was afraid.

Couch Destruction
Josh hasn't been feeling very well and took the day off today.    Since a new couch is being delivered tomorrow,  he decided to break up the old one to enable me to take it to the tip in my van.  That way we save on a van rental.

"There is a Lego book in the couch!"

Wren and Josh work at demolishing the couch

Wren was very interested in the process of breaking the couch using a reciprocating saw (a big chainsaw in his words) and a sledgehammer.   We were all intrigued by the collection of pens, lego, dust, hair bands, broken ornament and coins which were down the back of the couch in the bottomless crease.

Halloween

Halloween is a favorite holiday for the kids and it was the first "trick or treating" that Wren has participated in as anything more than a cute accessory.  Tonight trick or treated with Isaac and Alex and their families.  Its been relatively warm this past week, the warmest Halloween since I came to America nine years ago.  We had no trouble wearing our costumes without coats and set off at dusk to trick or treat the neighborhood.

Frost and I were dressed as zombies while Wren was a skeleton.  Alex was a hobo and Isaac was a Warhammer Dwarf. 

Wren and I being Dead

But we can't keep dead for long...

Frost says I am too happy to be a zombie

Wren being scary

Alex - down and out

Wren enjoyed the trick or treating but was concerned that things might be too spooky or scary and wanted me to hold his hand to every door.  That meant he couldn't keep up with the posse of big boys and was torn between wanted to drag me along and to leave and rush off.  As a result he stayed with me but kept shouting "BOYS, BOYS" hopefully when he was given candy.

He was given a lot of candy.

Trick or Treat the Spider
There was one house in our neighborhood that Wren had been waiting to trick or treat.  They had a purple inflatable spider posed on a shrub and Wren had decided that this house, out of all houses, was his destination on Halloween.

The Spider House we had to visit

Unfortunately, when we knocked at the door there was no answer.   Wren was very upset.  A few hours later (on the way home from dinner at Trina's) he was upset when I told him we were done trick or treating.

"What about trick or treating the big spider?" he asked.

I agreed to stop one more time at the big spider in case the family had come home.

I stopped the car and Wren rang the doorbell.  The lights were on inside and big spider was still glowing but nobody answered.  I told Wren that they must be out and he said "no, they are in!"

He walked back to the car in tears.  While I was buckling him back in Frost noticed two children peeping out the window to see who was outside.  The kids decided they would "try again" in case the people had only just noticed them.  Clearly, they were home and hiding but Wren was obsessed.

Wren rang the doorbell again.  Just to complete the picture you should know that Wren was now in his pajamas without any basket and it was 8.45pm.

They answered the door and Wren said "TRICK or TREAT" and looked up expectantly.  The man was very apologetic.  He explained that they had no candy left because they had left a full bowl of candy outside their door while they went out with the kids and when they came back they found it had been stolen - the candy AND the whole bowl.

Wren was not gracious about this news.  He burst into tears in front of the poor guy.   I apologized and explained he was particularly keen on this house because of the big spider but he had plenty of candy.

Wren walked off into the darkness, a picture of dejection.  The door closed.

Just then, the door opened again.  We were called back.  The little boy who lived there brought his big pumpkin basket and offered Wren one of HIS candies.   Wren was thrilled, joyous!  All was now right with the world.  He had trick or treated The Big Spider.

I thanked the child profusely :)

Frost trick or treating at a neighbors

Wren didn't find this house too scary.

The Big Green Zombie [who ate the leftovers]
The most scary part of the night was at Trina's.  We had almost finished eating when someone came in through the front door laughing like a maniac and making a growling sound.  He pounced around the corner into the living room - it was Mike dressed as a bright green mohawked zombie.  He had bloody wounds, blackened eyes, three stubby teeth in a mouthpiece.  He was so bizarre that I didn't recognize him.

He had been to the Sounders FC playoff game with some friends all dressed as Sounders' Zombies.

Mike is the one on the right. 

Wren was horrified.  Mike had to remove the teeth, mohawk wig and some clothing to prove to Wren that he was a person, a known person.  Wren clung to me and wanted to go home when he heard the front door opening a while later.  He said he thought that more zombies might be coming.

Other than that, and the fact that the Sounder's lost the game, the haunting was a great success.

Two Arboretums walks in two days

Yesterday was one of those days of bright brilliant blue made more sudden because the sun is already getting low on the horizon.  Its not fully warm but its sunny and lovely so you dress warm and prepare for sudden squalls and go outside.

Anna, the kids and I went to the Arboretum to collect acorn cups, hunt mushrooms and look at the leaves.  In fall the maples turn a brilliant palette of gold to red.  As you can see, they were looking splendid.

The boys walked around looking for mushrooms and then transformed into bears.  I am not sure why they became bears - at least these bears didn't crawl around as Wren does when he is being a dog.   The bears hid in bushes, ran away, growled from dark corners and pounced on us when we "Do Not See Us"!

Why don't I have a 200 year old maple 'nook'?

The Bears pounce on me.

Acid yellow makes me happy.

Ari escapes from the maple bears, bedecked with leaves.

Leo and Wren climb the same tree Frost climbed
when he was 3.  Leo went Very Much Higher.

The bears hide behind a tree and are persuaded to growl
for the picture

BEAR!  BEAR!

 Of course there were mushrooms
Wren has adopted my pedagogical tone and likes to inform people about mushrooms and "boletes" and "garics" with blithe lack of concern for facts.  As everyone knows, it is authority and not veracity that counts for toddlers.

There was some rivallry to carry the collecting baskets and as a result I ended up with none while Leo and Ari carried them [or rather Leo carried one and Anna carried Ari who carried one] while Wren used his backpack.  Here, Wren opines about a mushroom while Leo politely listens.  

I imagine Wren telling Leo that this mushroom is Not Edible.  "It is Eat Poisonous
not Touch Poisonous."

Hugging a bunch of Chlorophyllum rachodes
I plan to use for stock

Mystery bolete of great decay and stature
 

Is that a raccoon?

Since the raccoon attacks Wren has become very anxious around the house.  Heather noticed it first, yesterday, when he was afraid to be alone in a room and followed her everywhere, including to the bathroom.

When I asked him about his fear he said: "I had a bad dream about a werewolf that jumped out at me and it keeps coming back."

I told him that I thought he was really scared about raccoons and that he did not need to be because they do not attack children.

"Do they come in the house?" he asked?

I had to admit that they do, sometimes, but "they only come in the kitchen.  They don't come into the bedroom."

He decided he would be safe if he was not in the kitchen.

Josh said I should not read him a scary children's book called Lon Po Po - a Chinese version of little Red Riding Hood and Granny vs Wolf.

This afternoon it was hard to get things done because Wren was so scared at home.  He would wail and scream if I was out of sight (to do the laundry, fetch clothes, put things away etc).  He was particularly scared of Kitty.  Yes, Kitty Haiku whom we have had since Frost was 2 years old and who is the kindest most long-suffering cat in the world.

Whenever Kitty Haiku came into the room he would shriek, look at her and ask "Is that Kitty Haiku?  I don't want to SEE HER.  Go AWAY!"

Is this a raccoon?

I sat him down and asked whether he was still scared of raccoons.

"I think that Kitty Haiku is a raccoon!  Remember my Werewolf Dream!  It is still coming all the time."  He also told me that he doesn't like Raccoons at all because "They look like the Tailypo and that is too scary."

Its true, the Tailypo has a very raccoon-like tail in the library book we read last week.

When we played with Playmobil this morning, the raccoon was the Bad Animal and it ate the pirates raccoons.   I am hoping this fear is transitory and does not cling like Wren's concern about dogs and waves and ominous noises.

Mum has left but not the boletes

Mum has returned to Australia and the cold wet weather continues.  We have the orange porch light up for Halloween and a healthy spread of spooky bones hanging around the yard.  Tomorrow, Frost has planned a party for some of his old school friends and on Sunday we are trick or treating with Isaac and Alex. 

Frost's Zombie Skeleton costume arrived just in time for his class party.

Dropping Frost off at Jaxie's for a playdate I was excited to see many crops of mushrooms in her yard.  I have identified 3 species - one being the edible birch bolete ( Leccinum scabrum) which I plan to eat.
There have been many more mushrooms popping up with this cold rain and I am hoping to participate in the Arboretum Mushroom Bioblitz on Saturday! 

I am excited about doing more botanical drawing of fungi.

Leccinum Scabrum from under birch in Jaxie's yard

His face as fat as a bolete

Tomorrow, Wren and I are going to go for a walk in the park and also run some errands to get dry ice and supplies for the party.  Blogging to now resume with regularity!

Brutal

I can't even believe I am writing this but New Chicken has been killed.   I returned home from dropping Mum at the airport and was sitting in the living room with the kids when Ruby (our Rhode Island Red) flew wildly up at the window.  The window is about 10ft above the ground so I rushed out the house to see what was going on.

It was around 5.20pm, about an hour before sunset and still light.

As I ran around the corner I saw Ruby landing on the woodpile while a raccoon was killing New Chicken.

I ran towards it and in my panic I didn't see where the raccoon went.  New Chicken was still alive and struggling her legs and trying to stand up.  For a moment I thought I was going to have to kill her and wasn't sure if I should go and get a knife, hit her with a rock, wring her neck or what.  After some inspection of the amount of brilliant red blood and the damage to her head, I soon realized she was dying fast and her movement was probably mainly nerves.   I sat on the ground and stroked her until she was dead and still.   I said sorry and wished that I could kill the fucking raccoon.

The kids watched from the living room window.

At about that moment I realized the raccoon was waiting right next to me - about 2 feet away on the other side of the gate.  I could have touched it if the gate wasn't in the way.

I was so mad.

A raccoon (for you forinners) looks like this.  Picture courtesy of FreeBallard.com
who saved their chickens from a daytime attack.

I grabbed a big chunk of firewood and threw it at the raccoon - dropped it on it over the gate.  I missed.  I threw another and hit it so it climbed the small tree by the gate.  I yelled at it and threw another log (from 5 ft away) which hit it but it just turned and stared at me.   I was so crazy to hit it that I missed the next and kept wishing Mum was still here because she said she was a great shot with a rock.

I threw another big log and ran and yelled and it dropped to the ground.

I kept throwing logs until it was gone down the steps to the street.  It was still really day, a moment before the chickens had been scritching in the dirt, they hadn't even started to come to the back door for me to take them to their night perch in the garage.  It was so early!

I returned and put dead chicken in a paper bag in the kitchen.  In my fantasies the zombie raccoon returned and dragged New Chicken away to eat it, maddened by the smell of blood.

I retrieved Ruby from the back yard and put her in the kitchen too.  Frost and Wren were crying.  Frost was in his bed, crying because of the chicken being killed and it being "traumatic" seeing the dead chicken and the raccoon and me throwing things and shouting at it.

Wren was crying because Frost yelled at him to get out of his room.

Ruby starting walking up on down on my xylophone which was a bit amusing.  Thing was, I was still super mad at the raccoon.

I went back out into the street carrying two logs and a rock.  I hunted for the raccoon.   All the working people who come by bike and walking from the bus were starting to drift up the street and I was stomping around with a brutal expression and some heavy implements.  I really wanted to find that raccoon and thump it.   I was not in a highly evolved mood.

After a while I realized I wasn't going to find the raccoon and returned home.  I washed down the path with the hose and all the clots of blood and feathers went down into the crack by the fence.  I wished the chicken a safe journey and apologized again.

When Josh came home he googled Animal Control and Raccoons.  We are not sure what we are going to do about it.  There is a raccoon out there that has developed a taste for chickens.  At the time I would have killed it myself but now I wonder about trapping and taking a raccoon to the vet to be killed.

I will put the word out among our chicken-loving neighbors but after this I am going to give up keeping chickens.  We are looking for a home for Ruby (an 18 month old Rhode Island Red who lays once a day and is lovely and clever and sweet with people and kids).  She needs to be safe.   A friend of Tara's may take her but we have not yet heard for sure that it will work.

Wren talks all the time

Most days, Wren and I are alone during the day and so we have only each other to talk to.  Now that Mum is here I realize that Wren talks, a LOT.   He has no sense of verbal space.  If I am talking to Mum he comes up and interrupts without hesitation.

He tells long rambling stories and great explanations for things.  Sometimes I want to record what he is saying and other times I wish there was an OFF switch.

Here are some comments from The World According To Wren:

In case you think Wren has bowed to pressure and become vegetarian, he often tells me:

"I eat meat and vegetarians"

Mum notices that Wren plays video game re-enactments with lego.

"Indy Andy Jones is coming with his guys!" he says.

Here is a typical story, told to Granny when they were playing Lego minifigures:

"All the horrible massive looking guys must be on one side and we want to build a world with hummungous size.  We are making Littlies vs Big.  We put some of these guys on my cake when I was turning three years old. "

Frost and Wren have a love-love-hate relationship.  Wren sticks to Frost like glue.  At times Frost loves this and takes pride in his brother's devotion.  When Frost has finished eating he drifts from the table.  I call him back but before he returns Wren has leapt from his chair (food uneaten) because:

"I must go.  Wherever Frost goes I go!"

When Granny asked him why he must go everywhere, he said "because I LOVE HIM."

On other occasions Frost gets frustrated and wants Wren to leave him alone.  He has discovered that certain malicious glares and gestures terrify Wren but are not strictly violent by parenting standards.  Even a particular stance: legs a bit akimbo, moving slowly (like a zombie) will have Wren running in shrill terror or attacking.  Frost uses these tactics sparingly but to great effect.

This morning, Frost did The Glare and Wren kicked him.

Frost:  Mum!  Wren kicked me in the stomach!
Wren:  Frost kicked me in the stomach!"
Me:  FROST!
Frost:  I did not kick him!
Me:  What did you do?
Frost:  I looked like this [making an evil grimace]
Me:  Oh.  Well don't scare him.
Wren:  Make Frost GO AWAY.  I need personal space!