Family Photos

Sometimes I am so clever…

Like when I get a new camera to video the kids seated around the table.

And don’t realize I’m in picture mode, not video mode.

Fortunately, the kids forgive me these lapses.

Perhaps because they know I’m the Two-Legger who speaks gently to them.

Who views them as Brothers and Sisters of the Wood, not as pests and nuisances.

As both children of and representatives of The Old Ones.

Most people I encounter have no awareness of the life beyond their…ken.

It’s best to use old words, revered words, honored words, when working with The Old Ones.

Shows respect.

Or so I’ve been taught, anyway.

 

Just Hanging Out

Then there are those really hot days where all you can do is lay on your favorite branch and hope a cool wind comes by to ruffle your fur and cool you off.

Ever have one of those?

Perhaps sans favorite branch?

We had a true heat wave this past summer. Seniors, pets, and children were advised to stay indoors. Some school systems opened their doors so children would have an air-conditioned place to spend the day.

A few weeks back we had two days in the high 40s low 50s with a high 70s low 80s day followed by two more high 40s low 50s days.

Not sure I can claim this weather as a New Englandism.

I watch how things change, how invasive species enter and existing species exit ecosystems.

I suggest we – you – start acting before it’s too late. In many places a gallon of water costs more than a gallon of gas. What will you do when there’s a tax on breathable air? The phrase food insecurity came into common use not long ago.

I laughed when I heard it. It’s right up there with senior citizens being overhoused, meaning the government gets to decide how big a house they should have.

Strangely, the government never makes that decision with the wealthy and well-to-do, only with those living in he margins.

Thank god for that, huh? I’d hate to think we’re socialists.

But food insecurity? You mean they have no food to eat, right?

Then quit euphemizing it. Global climate change is not the same as global warming. The latter is a threat to existing species, the former is something which occurs naturally over time and nothing to worry about.

True, it does occur over time…usually centuries if not millenia, not decades, years, weeks, hours, and days.

 

More Kitticles

Yes, more of the same charming children.

Raccoon mothers tolerate each others’ children for only so long.

For that matter, they only tolerate their own children for so long.

A wonderful example of psychosocial distance, that.

Psychosocial distance is about how far we keep people out and how close we let people in.

My favorite example is “My child’s a genius, your child’s precocious, their child’s a pain in the ass” because it demonstrates the three primary regions (or boundaries) to our personal interaction with other people.

Western culture metaphorizes the nearest social boundary with whether or not we’re willing to be naked in front of another, ie, vulnerable. Westerners maximize trust with those whom they are willingly naked, and the metaphor is “They’ve seen me naked” meaning “They know everything about me.”

Reminds me of a long-time friend who once told me, “I’ve known you fifteen years and I still feel I’ve only seen the surface of the waves, not even six feet down.”

His admission shocked me. There was no one else in my life (at the time) with whom I’d been so vulnerable, so exposed.

“What else would you like to know?”

And there it was. He didn’t know what else there was to know, only that there was more, lots more. He could sense it, at times glimpse it, but never fully see it.

Or so he said. “You have so many layers, I don’t think anybody will ever know everything about you.”

For everyone else’s sake, I hope not.

 

Kitticles

Late in the year, yes, and kits.

Little, tiny, baby raccoon kits.

Some of you may know I had a massive computer crash about two weeks back. Lost lots of wildlife videos.

I wept.

Then I remembered I’d switch computers about a year earlier and never erased the files on the old machine.

Yippee Van Yahoo! I’d only lost perhaps a year’s worth of wildlife files. Quite a few, yes, and not all.

Hence today you’re seeing kits.

Truth is, you’d be seeing kits today whether I’d lost the files or not.

I’ve learned to live with such incongruities.

Makes like more interesting, don’t you think?

 

Felicia, Alice, Gertrude, Maxwell and Anastasia

Ah, happy families abound.

Especially at meal time.

It’s always good to see the whole family together, eating, enjoying each other’s company…

Except where’s Poppa?

Raccoons do not mate for life.

I sometimes wonder if they mate for the time it takes them to mate.

Males in raccoon society are not involved in child-rearing. Not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.

Also makes me wonder what raccoon mothers think of their sons.

“Will he be another one like his father? Five or six quick ones then he’s off to tell the boys what he’s done? Hmmph!

Evolution has its reasons for creating creatures such. Its systems are perfected over millions of years by infinitesimally small steps.

Personally, I think I’d trip a few times.