Tag: Raccoons

The Chatter After Lights Out

New Life, Old Magic

It’s Spring again. Another 365.something day tour around our own little star. Isn’t it grand? Do you take for granted your travels on Spaceship Earth? Our home isn’t stuck on some foundation with a permanent address that can be viewed on Google Maps.

No, far from it. We’re traveling. We are travelers without knowing from whence we came or where we go.

The Old Ones know this. They take nothing for granted.

Except cookies and peanuts.

From yours truly.

Opie and Opette come to dine nightly, as does Vincenzi the Fox. Gladys and her crowd come by during the day.

Most recently we’ve been guested by Verne, one of Hecate’s kits. There are two others who also come by and say hello, although usually after we’ve shut off the lights and are in bed. We hear them talking; “Pass the peanuts?” and “Is that fresh water?” and “Any more cookies?”

And we’ll see them and other Old Ones through the year and through the years. All of them come to us. We’re a house of magic. So they tell us.

We believe. Old Ones don’t lie.

Say hello to Verne, all.

So Rude

Turning your back on your guests! And at the dinner table!

Life continues.

It may be the New Year according to at least one human calendar, The Wild doesn’t notice. Critters still must eat, Republicans and Democrats still must be hostile to each other.

One wonders how we Two-Leggers are from our non-human forebears. I mean, have you ever seen the childish behavior that gets in the way of getting things done along lawmakers and business leaders?

You have to wonder, are these really the people making the laws? Are these the people really keeping business running?

Case in point, dining.

Historically, meal time is where the most powergames occur. Not just in diplomatic and business circles, even among families.

Want to know a family’s true dynamic? Sit them around a table, see who gets to eat first, who gets to take the biggest helpings, who helps who with their food.

Want to know a nation’s dynamic? Go to a state dinner. Want to know a company’s dynamic? Go to a staff lunch or dinner.

I find such things fascinating. People spend more time figuring out the social signals than exchanging actionable information or eating.

Not so in The Wild.

You don’t want to talk to someone? Turn your back to them. Much easier and easily understood.

Sometimes.

My How They’ve Grown

And no TXTing at the table, either.

I mentioned In Beryl the Community Organizer that Hecate’s kits have grown.

I wouldn’t want you to think I was fooling you.

No, Hecate’s kits have grown. Sometimes she lets them dine with her, more often it’s not a happy family. The Wild doesn’t sanction children living at home beyond their years, something they often remind me when we see Two-Legs coming to-and-fro in the neighborhood.

I explain about college loans and dwindling economy. They laugh. They ask if I’ve ever heard of “loss of habitat” or “environmental collapse”.

Touche’, Old Ones.

In any case, Hecate’s kits:

Do you noticed that not a one of them has their cellphone at the table?

Hecate and The Munching Wallendas

Table for five, please.

Remember Hecate? Remember her kits?

There are few things as joyful as entertaining a troop of raccoons. One year we had four mothers and their kits, nineteen racoons in all, in our backyard.

It was wonderful.

We still have near nightly munchings in our backyard. Sometimes we have late afternoon munchings. Hecate always comes first and most forward, although as the kits mature they get bolder. None have walked over my feet or nibbled my toes yet and there’s still time.

 
You may also remember Beryl. I mentioned that we probably also had a Berylia. I thought I’d seen Berylia. There was a rabbit that seemed slightly smaller than Beryl but such evidence is hearsay and not admissible in court.

Yesterday afternoon, when I went out to feed Hecate and her kits – their names, by the way; Festus, Jules, Verne and ‘Tricia (not an abbreviation of Patricia, simply ‘Tricia, thank you, please) I saw Berylia and Beryl. No videos yet. Hecate took exception to their munching clover while her kits were close by.

So it goes. The joys of motherhood.

You never know, though…they might be wascally wabbits.