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!

Under Siege

At 4.35am I was woken by loud thudding noises in the kitchen.  While half asleep I thought that Joshua was throwing away a lot of garbage. 

"THUD" The noise of a door being closed.
"THUNK" Something falling.
"FWACK WACK ACK"

Suddenly my fogged brain realized that there were raccoons in the kitchen.

I shook Josh and we staggered out into the dark kitchen.  There were scuffling sounds and some more WACK WACKS as they escaped through the cat door.  Looking around we saw that they had been trying to get into the big catfood storage bin which has a latched lid.   I stuffed some sofa cushions in front of the cat door and a short while later spotted one on the deck trying again.

Really fed up with raccoons this morning.

Chickens in the garage

At dusk, the raccoon family returned to try and eat our last chicken, Ruby.

Joshua ran out waving a shovel and nearly hit one.   He maintains that things like raccoons and deer are very cute until you live with them around and they eat your chickens, vegetables and poop on the garden.  Then they become verminous beasts.

Half an hour later Mum popped out to check and they were back:  a mother and 3 adolescents.  Mum yelled for me to get her a rock "I am very good at throwing things!" she said.

I turned on the hose and Josh squirted the mother but she wouldn't leave her youngsters who were hanging in the tree to see what we would do.  Josh squirted them while I pointed them out with a flashlight.

After we had (finally) chased them off we checked the run perimeter and found that they had already dug down a number of inches at the door (now reinforced) and side fence  (double wired).

Josh said he would check on Ruby every half hour but I still felt anxious so we decided to let her roost in the garage for a few nights while we conduct a test of our raccoon defenses.  That means, in the morning we will see whether the raccoons have made it into the run and/or the coop.

We hope they haven't but either way, Ruby is safe.  She is roosting on a nice 2x2 supported by a ladder and a couch with newspaper underneath. 

We are tempted to keep our chicken in the garage forever.

Chicken Funeral

This morning, after googling "how deep bury chicken," we had a brief but poignant funeral for our chickens Sylvia and Chippy, killed by raccoons last night.  Wren made drawings of rainbows and Josh put them in paper bags labeled with their names.  They were good chickens.  They died too young - as mere adolescents - and I feel we failed them by not reinforcing the door enough.

Since she arrived, Mum has been saying "the raccoons could get in here or the raccoons could get under here."   She turned out to be right.

There are signs of digging all around the perimeter of the coop where Joshua had laid chicken wire underground.  The place they finally got in is under the gate where the chicken wire was left off to enable the gate to move freely.  It seems as if they pushed in a section of gate and then pulled the chickens out underneath.

Ruby survived.  We are very pleased about that.  However, she has decided we are her flock and tried to roost on the back of a kitchen chair at dusk.  We have put her back in the coop (cleaned, as it had blood spatter and clumps of feathers) and have reinforced the gate, locked the nesting coop area (an interior coop that is more secure) and hope to find a friend for Ruby within the week.

Chickens killed

We have had a very sad early morning.  I woke in the half-light and saw that Syliva was dead on the lawn.   Chippy was nearby.  Raccoons had got into the coop by digging under the door and pushing through the wire.  They ate a bit of them and left their bodies with feathers everywhere. 

We are all very sad, except Wren.  Frost and I are crying.  Frost wants to shoot raccoons with a BB gun.   Josh is wondering what to do now and Wren is making up scenarios about how the raccoons killed the chickens and how we could put up gargoyles to scare away raccoons.

Josh is considering a chicken funeral.

We now have one surviving chicken - Ruby.

We need another young chicken to live with her.  

I don't think you can keep only one chicken. 

Foraging again (and again and again)

Last weekend, on Vashon, I got stung harvesting nettles without gloves.  You may have tried the fabulous nettle and mushroom soup that Jerry Traunfeld serves at his restaurant from time to time. Walking in the Vashon forest there were so many nettles along the path that I immediately thought of this soup so Mum devised a glove of a knotted a plastic bag and I snipped them off with my pocketknife.

Unfortunately,  plastic grocery bags are rather thin so after a while the nettles stung through the plastic and I had to add an additional plastic bag until the packet was full.   For many hours my hands had strange tingling sensations, like pins and needles on the surface.   The soup was fabulous.   The recipe calls for button mushrooms but, having no portabellos, we made it with chanterelles.

Chanterelles, huckleberries and nettles from Vashon

Did I mention that we found another basket of chanterelles?  And more huckleberries?  We had 8 cups of huckleberries (huckleberry de-storking is the dark side of berry stalking).  This evening, Mum made a souffle and I helped her make huckleberry jam. 

Chanterelle and Backyard Chicken-egg souffle

Huckleberry Jam

Snoqualmie Trails
Fast forward till today - Friday - when we went up to the Snoqualmie area for a hike and forage.  The weather has been beautiful.  Crisp and bright and only one recent day of rain.  As we drove past North Bend we could see that there had been the faintest dusting of snow on the high stands near the treeline.  Getting out of the car coming from Seattle it was surprisingly cold - we were glad for our gloves and woolen hats.

Wren with a bolete (probably mirabilis)

Mushroom Foraging Permits
On the way we stopped at the North Bend Rangers station to apply for a mushroom foraging pass.  The passes are free but required if you are going to the National Forest with the intent to obtain mushrooms.  If you are hiking or camping you can gather up to a gallon on a whim - but if you are off with your mushroom knife and baskets, you need a permit.

To get a permit, you need your drivers license and the car registration.  You have an annual allocation of 5 gallons per applicant but you don't need to take that all at once.  You choose how many you want and then have 14 days in which to harvest it.  I spoke to the Ranger about it and she said that the major focus right now is on getting foragers to apply for the permit.  Most people just gather what they want under the "one gallon per person" understanding.  She said they are trying to explain that one gallon does not apply if you are meaning to collect mushrooms - its only allowed if you are in the park for another purpose (much as firewood gathering is allowed while camping but one isn't allowed to come to the park to gather firewood for your house without a permit).  She mentioned that they are working on ways to make the process easier and on recording what people gather.  Right now you don't need to hand in the completed permits.

So, we got a permit.

Nobody asked to see our permit but it was a good feeling to have one.  By contrast, when Tara and I found the chanterelles we hadn't got a permit (but we were in the woods for another purpose, hey?) and we felt a bit sneaky.  Well, I did.  It was good to be open and relaxed about our baskets and purpose and to talk to other park users about collecting mushrooms.

We also bought an annual Forest Pass to park at trailheads.  That was $30.

Today, we gathered different mushrooms.  We found a few chanterelles but many angel wings (a slighter version of the oyster mushroom).  Also, we were a few days or perhaps one week late for a huge flush of honey mushrooms.  I have never harvested honey's so I had to take a few a bit past their prime for identification at the PSMS Mushroom Show tomorrow.

Yes, the show is tomorrow!

Its late.  More stories tomorrow....

Drawing on Halloween

Wren is drawing at the kitchen table.  Yesterday, he discovered coloring in the lines and is now coloring everything he draws.   He loves to draw with sharpie - big bold outlines.

Coloring in at The Hardware Store

Wren:  This guy's bad.  I am making all the guys BAD. 

Granny:  Why are you making them bad?  Where are the good guys?

Wren:  There are NO good guys.  Except for Halloween.

Granny:  (who persists in a modern view of good and evil rather than the post-Cold-War, post-modern complexity) There are always good guys.  The good guys come and chase the bad guys away.

Wren:  No, this is specially for HALLOWEEN.   All the evil guys came and Feated them and chased them away.  They have SPELLS.  They have Freeze, Melt and so they did all that when they see a good guy and the chase-ed them away.

[Wren colors some more.]

Wren:  You color them in with YELLOW they are EVIL.  So this guy is yellow.]

[Silence and deep thought]

Wren:  Well, the scorpion thing is good.  I am going to be a Superhero for Halloween.  Actually, I am going to be a Good Archer. 

[Long pause of drawing]

Wren:  Actually, the scorpion guy is BAD.  He is the Boss.   I need another piece of paper. 

"This is the Bad Rock Monster
and his little Ninja Friends."

Shannon:  Who is this guy with teeth?

Wren:  He is a Rock Monster.   He is the Bad rock Monster.

[Long pause where the only sound is the pen squeaking on paper]

Wren:  I need more paper.

Granny:  One sheet or two sheets?

Wren:  Two sheets.   I am drawing a big Boss Knight with all his little knights. 

[Long pause while drawing.  I am typing.  Granny is trying to order David a sweater on Superdry.com but it keeps redirecting her to the US site.]

Wren:   Now I am ready to decorate.  I need scissors.

[Scissors materialize.  His wish is Granny's command]

I am cutting out the rock monster

Wren [cutting while singing]:  Halloween dot com.  Halloween dot com.  Halloween dot com.  Hallow BOOM.  Halloween BOOM.  Halloween wah wah wah wha!   Where is my tape?

[Tape appears]

Wren runs into his bedroom still singing.

Wren:  I get some more Halloween decorations!

"This shows about putting up my Halloween Decorations
The Boss Bruno, Scorpion H and The Boss Finest Scorpion Mage"