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!

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.