Heidi Chronicles - Winter Timeout 09

This is the ongoing story of Heidi and friends, raccoons and the occasional opossum that dine at my backyard, wildlife buffet. It's the winter slow season now. The raccoons need less food this time of year. It doesn't get very cold here, so there is still lots of food available in the forest, apparently enough to sustain them. As a result, I often don't see them as much this time of year, but rest assured they will be back in spring if not before.

Prior thread: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1045146/
1st thread in series: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/603944/

The photo below is of Precious, one of Heidi's 09 kits.

Awww, that is a precious picture of Precious!
Our kittycoons enjoyed a feast of turkey yesterday. Unfortunately, they didn't leave any for their coon cousins, but I always fill the dishes with kitten chow last thing at night, and there are always the bird feeders out front with black oil sunflower seeds.
Cats like cheese? I'll have to treat them to some. My brother in law was outside handfeeding them sardines, and the new resident, a young possum, ran past him up the steps to the back yard, lol.

Posting to mark the thread. I have followed along through all.

So glad you are back with us!

=^..^=

Hi KyWoods,

ROTFL at the opossum!

I actually put the expired cheese out for the raccoons and other wildlife, but I'm pretty sure cats like it, too. It's a milk product, and you know how they love milk.

I went to my sister's house for Thanksgiving this year. I took a HoneyBaked ham (1/2 ham) and chocolate mouse cake (also from HoneyBaked store). I really enjoyed the ultra-moist turkey my sister cooked and the scrumptious baby butter beans her husband made. I left them the ham cake and brought home several containers of the yummy home cooked food. I don't expect to share any with the critters though. It's all for me. : )

Thanks, Susan,

Glad to have you with us.

Thanks KyWoods,

Glad you enjoyed the pic. Precious really is a very cute, sweet little raccoon.

I have one last story from my sick days to tell you about - and that's it, promise. You may even find this one humorous, maybe.

A few nights after I got the IV fluids, I was feeling marginally better but was still in bed. It was dark out. My house is rather deep, and the MBR is on the back, so the house looks totally dark from the street even when I'm in the BR. (I actually kept the light on by the bed night and day while I was sick. For some reason, it comforted me not to be in total darkness.)

Suddenly the doorbell rang and Widget began barking. I couldn't imagine who would be at the door considering the house and yard were totally dark (as seen from the street). Thinking it must be an emergency, I got up and made my way to the door. No one was there. Confused, I went back to bed. I had barely gotten back in bed, when the bell rang again. Still, no one was there.

Now I was really confused. The house was dark. The front yard was dark. Why would someone be ringing the bell under such circumstances? And why were they not at the door when I looked out?

The only 2 answers that made sense to me (with a high fever) was that either (1) someone, maybe a kid, was playing tricks on me or (2) someone, seeing that no one was home, was double checking before breaking in. Now I live in a very nice, safe neighborhood. I never think silly things like this when I'm well, but, again, I had a high fever and was very confused, so...that 2nd option made me scared. I was too sick to deal with a burglar. Just to make sure they knew someone was home, I turned the front porch light on along with the chandelier in the foyer...and went back to bed.

I swear, I had barely gotten back to the bedroom when the bell rang yet AGAIN! Now I was getting annoyed. I was too sick to be walking back and forth to the door this way, and I was very confused about why they were doing this. Wrapped in my bathrobe and looking horrible, I went back to the door once more.

As I approached the door, my fever-impaired brain struggled mightily to make some kind of sense of what I saw through those little side windows, a trail of strange looking children walking toward my door all holding large bags. Indians, princesses, ballerinas, satan, and dracula. OMG! It was Halloween! I had been so sick and so out of it that the holiday had completely escaped me.

Now here I stood at the front door, framed by and bathed in the light from the chandelier high up over my head, wearing my nightgown and robe, tangled hair hanging in clumps form my head such that they surely thought me a Halloween witch. I was too 'busted' to pretend I wasn't home and too sick to hand out candy. I hadn't wanted to risk infecting anyone else with my germs, but now I was standing in front of a little side window looking at a huge gathering of children expecting candy.

Not knowing what else to do, I cracked the door about an inch, told them I was sick, and, upon hearing one child relay the message to his parent, closed the door again, turned off the lights, and went back to bed.

I had purchased a ton of candy including lots of mini candy bars just for this occasion. Each year I hand out some $40-50 in candy on Halloween. I enjoyed this holiday as a child. Others had supplied the candy for me. Now I figure it's my turn, so each year I load up on candy, dress up in a makeshift costume (last year I wore my black graduation gown form college, a cheap witches wig and cheap witches hat), and hand out candy.

I live in a nice area, safe with lots of houses close together, the type where parents are likely to bring kids - plus we have plenty of kids right here in the neighborhood. The sidewalk runs right in front of my house making it the perfect place for kids to walk. Add to this the fact that kids are likely to remember the good houses and tell friends, and you can see why I do such a brisk business here on Halloween. In the 1st 2 hours, the flow of kids is so constant that I've started sitting in a chair on my little porch to avoid running back and forth to the door all night.

Just as I imagine you do, we have a rule or signal for Halloween, and it's much the same as the one I use for the raccoons. If the house is lit up with outside lights on, it's fair game. A dark house, esp with no outside lights on, is off limits (i.e., not participating in the holiday). Raccoons it seems, understand the rules better than kids. I imagine some of those kids were so looking forward to the handful of candy I usually give them that they tried the door despite the fact that the whole house was dark this year - you know, just in case I forgot. Argh! kids! Ironically, once I got scared and turned on the lights inside and out, I was unwittingly advertising "candy here".

I guess once I told them I was sick, word must have gotten around because the bell didn't ring again after that.

The Halloween story is hysterical, Cheryl; and your poor sick appearance probably was scarier than any of their costumes, lol.

KyWoods, yes, many if not most cats like cheese... A LOT. And for some reason in cheese form the lactose doesn't seem to cause them gastric distress.

Ruth,

Isn't it the truth. I'm sure I was walking slowly and all hunched over like someone pretending to have an affliction of some kind, and my long hair was tangled from wallowing around in bed for a week or so and being to sick to care about brushing it. If it hadn't been the one day of the year where looking ghoulish is normal, I probably would have scared them all away.

They and their costumes were very frightening to me at 1st. I had a 102-103 fever at night during that time. It's difficult for the brain to make sense of things when handicapped by a high fever. When I 1st approached the door and saw all those little people in semi darkness dressed so strangely and all walking in a line of sorts heading for my door, I couldn't make sense of it at 1st. It was as if I were in the middle of some B flick zombie movie or maybe a really bad nightmare.

KyWoods,

Forgot to mention that now I have my own KittyCoons.

ROFL, that musta been scary!
I don't remember if I said this here on this thread, but I got out of the hospital after brain surgery, just before Halloween. I begged my family to let me sit on my front porch and hand out candy. I had fifteen staples on my half-shaved head and was loopy from Percocet. I was gonna sit out there and drool (purposely, wasn't drooling for real) and roll my eyes back in my head (also on purpose). Family wouldn't let me....they made me stay at their house, where no trick-or-treaters venture high on their wooded hill. Party-poopers!

Congrats (?) on the kittycoons...they are a mixed blessing, as they kill birds and other small creatures. It is fun to watch them eat and rub faces with their coon cousins, though.

KyWoods,

While the older kids might have 'enjoyed' your post-op look as a Halloween 'costume', it might have been a bit much for small children. Sometimes when I come up with really scary ideas for Halloween and/or see such items available for sale, I decide to forgo them out of concern for the small children for whom I think the holiday is most intended. Some of the little ones are scared enough just to be approaching strangers homes at dark, so I try not to use costumes or decorations that might further terrify them.

By my kittycoons, I was referring to the neighborhood cats who are now hanging out in my yard. Lately, I haven't even seen the raccoons much less seen them eating with the cats.

Nothing much going on right now, but while I'm waiting impatiently for Windows updates to load I thought I would check in just to let everyone know that I'm still doing fine. I'm washing my hands more now, using the hand sanitizer in my office and car, but I'm finding that it's a difficult habit to establish. Still I'm determined to learn to do it regularly as I'm sure there will be other bugs and assorted pathogens after swine flu.

I haven't seen the raccoons. We don't seem to be showing up at the same time. Lately it seems to stay pretty wet and icky back there (lots of rain). I don't so much enjoy hanging around back there alone while waiting and hoping for them to show up. They probably feel the same way about me. They have food in the forest still, and I have TONS of things to do inside. In late Jan when it gets cold enough here to kill the vegetation I'll check with them again as they may be hungrier then.

This past weekend I watched several installments of a show (Nat Geo, I think) called 'Stranger Among Bears'. It's about a 70yr old man in Alaska who has been feeding wild bears at his cabin for 20yrs, mostly black bears but also a handful of grisly bears. The bears hang out around his cabin all during the day while he is working. They come in the house. He pets them and they 'kiss' him. One of the grisly bears bit his hand once, left a scar but nothing too serious. Other than that he has had no problems with them in 20yrs - which seems quite remarkable.

He loves the bears, but the Alaska DNR is trying to stop him from feeding and interacting with them. (Depending on when the show was filmed, they may well have done so by now.) It's now a serious crime punishable by imprisonment to feed bears in Alaska.

Anyhow, I could really feel for the guy's situation as it seemed so similar in many ways to my own.

Ok, this next bit isn't about raccoons specifically, but it is about animals in general. Did you know that animals, like people, have a dominant 'hand' or side? Yep, it's true. I learned this through my lifelong work with horses, but I'm sure it applies to other animals, as well, including raccoons.

I always wondered about that in animals!
I know that man must love his bears, and it's a shame that it has to be stopped, but I'm sure the best interest of both species is at the heart of the law. Human nature is what it is, especially when it comes to animal lovers, huh?

Hi KyWoods,

I watched maybe 3 or 4 1hr segments (while doing other things, housework, etc). It was gut-wrenching for me at times because I could relate so personally to his situation and the resultant dilemma. I just could not image being told that I could never see Heidi or Dennis or any of my other raccoon friends again.

At 1st I didn't understand why, in a veritable wilderness like Alaska, anyone would care what the guy did. His cabin was out in the middle of nowhere. There were no houses anywhere near him, so it's not as if he was attracting bears to his neighbor's houses. He didn't have any neighbors. The guy had a small airplane, equipped to land on water, which he used to go for supplies and such. I mean, there wasn't even a road. GPS probably couldn't find his house.

He was 70+ yrs old and had been befriending, feeding, and interacting with the bears for two decades. He said if something were to happen to him now, he felt like he had lived a full life, etc, etc.

For the better part of that 2 decades he managed to hide out in his cabin and keep the whole thing a secret. Finally, a reporter found out and broke the story. Then ABC sent reporters out to document things. That brought attention from the DNR who fined him and began watching him by helicopter and such. Seeing that the end was near, he let a photographer stay out there with him for a while to document things. That's where they got the footage for the program on Nat Geo. Unfortunately, the DNR raided the place and confiscated the footage as evidence for a criminal indictment.

The bears would be at the door to wake him up in the mornings. Anywhere from 2 or 3 to a dozen or more bears would spend the day in the yard area climbing trees, eating, playing, and so forth. When he went for a walk in the forest, a bunch of bears would follow him almost as if they were his pets. The bears were only there in summer, so they would bring cubs with them. Just as I adore the baby raccoons, he loved to see the cubs each year. The year they were filming he had 12 cubs climbing trees and playing in his yard. Sometimes the fully grown grisly bears would sit down on the ground, legs spread (much like a human sitting on the floor). The sitting bears would reach forward with their hands and grab their feet/toes such that they looked like humans doing exercises. Just like me with the raccoons, he was able to see them behaving in a more or less natural state and doing things we don't normally see bears do - like sitting upright and playing with their toes.

Anyhow, as I was saying at 1st I didn't understand why the state felt the need to stop him. It was only after they showed flashes of a number of newspaper headlines of bear attacks on humans in the state that I realized that his behavior however well intentioned might be putting both bears and humans at risk. Even though he had no close neighbors there was no way to be sure some of those bears wouldn't end up at someone else's home. The bears might go to other homes expecting to find food and friendship. Other people, not knowing his secret of how to interact safely with the bears, might panic and either kill the bears or do things to frighten the bears and provoke an attack. In the end, after seeing all those headlines and photos of mauled humans and dead bears, I understood why the state was so determined to stop him.

As for the handedness thing, if you look at a horse (or dog or cat or other animal) running, you will see that one front legs is always out front. In horses we call that the 'lead'. When running, a horse is said to be on the right lead if his right front foot reaches farther forward than the other legs and on the left lead if his left front foot does so. You can see this in pictures, but since you are only looking at one instant in time, in a picture you can't see that the same leg stays out front the whole time the horse is running.

This matters because when the right front foot is out front (right lead), the right back foot is also ahead of the other back foot and vice versa. This means that, for a horse on the right lead, the right front foot is farther up under his body and better able to stabilize his weight in a turn especially a sharp turn. Therefore, a horse can execute more balanced (and safer) circles to the right if he is on a right lead and to the left if on a left lead.

Horses can run on either lead, but like humans they have a dominant 'hand' and will run on the corresponding lead most of the time by default. A rider can tell the horse which lead to run on and can even coerce him into doing so (in the case of a horse that has been allowed to run on his dominant lead all of his life so that the other lead feels strange to him and is avoided) by making it all but impossible for the horse to start running on the undesirable lead and making it easy for him to move on the chosen lead.

Note that what I'm saying here applies to any 4 legged animal that runs with a galloping gate - which is most of them raccoons included. I'm just using horses as an example because the fact that we ride horses makes the handedness issue important to us and thus noticeable. It's important because as with galloping in a circle it effects balance and other things.

Another way in which handedness in horses effects us as riders is when posting to the trot.Even if you don't ride, you have no doubt seen riders in books and on TV posting to the trot. You see this more with English tack. The trot can be a very rough gate. To avoid bouncing, the rider moves up and slightly forward using the trust provided by the horse and then stays up just long enough to miss a beat before returning to the saddle just in time to go up again on the following beat. Essentially, posting is a way to control the 'bounce' that one naturally gets from the trot. Instead of allowing himself to be bounced around like a sack of potatoes until the rider's brain is almost mush and the poor horses back is sore, the rider controls the energy, allows himself to be pushed up, stays up to miss a beat, and controls his body to return to the saddle gently before going up once more. In exercise terms from the rider's perspective it's a lot like doing squats in rapid succession while standing and balancing on a narrow bar that is moving. No problem at all.

Anyhow, getting back to the subject of handedness, since the rider goes up on one beat and misses the next, repeat, repeat, the rider is always going up when the same leg goes forward. We call these diagonals. If the right leg is going forward each time you go up, you are on the right diagonal and so forth. Here again, which diagonal you are on when posting matters as it effects the horses balance on turns.

Unless they have been trained since birth to be very balanced, or what in human terms we call ambidextrous, horses will tend to favor their dominant hand so much so that they will prefer for you to post on one diagonal all of the time because that feels more 'normal' to them. If you start out posting on what to them feels like the wrong diagonal (i.e., not the dominant hand), they will intentionally 'throw' you onto their favorite diagonal by missing a beat. If the horse favors the right diagonal, for instance, no matter how hard you try to post on the left diagonal, he will keep missing beats to put you back on the right diagonal because that feels normal to him.

Just as it is difficult for most people to use their non-dominant hand for difficult tasks like writing and detailed painting, it can be very difficult to get a horse to use his non-dominant hand unless he has been trained to use both hands.

This is just something that popped into my head one day while driving, and since there is little raccoon news in winter and none at the moment, I thought I would share this even if it is a tad OT. But it does pertain to raccoons, too!

Dogs have a dominant tail wag...they wag further on one side than the other. They did slow-mo recordings of dogs while they wagged and each one had a preference as to which side wagged further.

Hi melody,

How interesting. I never noticed that. We tend to think that handedness only matters for us because of writing and other intricate things we do with our hands, but clearly it matters for animals, too.

Widget is a professional tail wagger. He got the most wags award in daycare. I'm going to try to see if I can detect his dominant hand with just the naked eye. I'll report back if I figure it out.

I can tell that Carly 'wags right'...her tail goes much further to the right than left. I don't know how easy it would be to tell on a dog that curls its tail over the back. A breed like a Lab is pretty easy since their tails are like a 2x4, smaller and furrier dogs are harder to detect. (Carly leads with her right foot when running too)

I'm wondering if right handedness may also be the norm for animals as with people. I never thought to pay attention to whether the various horses I worked with were more likely to favor the right vs left 'hand'.

At work, my 'group' just setup a new server for a collaborative (wiki) environment to explore and share ideas - or something like that. I had been busy with something else and was last to actually sign on and visit my account. I found that everyone else had a personal avatar, all cats, just face shots. I see a definite theme here. Some are fluffy kitten faces. Some are grown cats. One guy is a catlike creature that looks like something out of Star Wars. I alone still had the plain, vanilla 'girl' pic that came with the system.

Well, I couldn't let that continue. I thought for a minute about where to get a picture. I don't have a cat. Ah, but I do have...that cute pic of baby Rupert with the big nose. I cropped it down to just a face shot, and now it's my avatar. Now we have 6 cats...and a baby raccoon.

Awww... That's perfect! :-)

LOL, great idea! He sooo looks like he's smiling!
Very interesting info on handedness. I will have to note whether my HoneyPup is right or left tailed, er, handed. Pawed? ;)

I love that photo... quite obviously -- it's framed in my bedroom... so he's always smiling at me.

Cheryl... very cool to use that as an avatar.

Thanks Marylyn, KyWoods, Terese!

Terese, I've come to refer to that pic as "Terese's Favorite Rupert Pic". Even today when I went looking for it, that's what I told myself I was looking for. (Got a pic of your Rupert pic?)

What a perfect avatar! Such a great picture!

That Rupert is such a sweetheart! Great avatar!

We watched almost the entire series of Stranger Among Bears last weekend too. What a fascinating story that was. I thought of your often while watching it. The ending broke my heart. I was surprised that even the photographer got all choked up at the end. But what a fantastic experience he had. I was amazed that he was even able to slap a grizzly on the nose when it "misbehaved", and to stop a grizzly from charging by just putting a stick out in front of him and saying "no".

By the way, your Halloween story was just hilarious! I'm sure it wasn't at the time though.....

Cheryl -- holy cow... i've been seeing the flooded streets in Charleston .. I HOPE that is not effecting your. what a nightmare.

and yes, Lil Rupert sits on my dresser. It's hard not to smile at it as you walk past.

Terese,

Thank you for thinking of me/us here in Charleston. I'm not sure where you saw that. I've not been able to find it on CNN or Fox nor have I heard anyone mention a flood. I had to kind of laugh when I read your post because Charleston is at or below sea level depending on the spot in question. Our city streets run right down to the ocean where The Battery holds the ocean back and keeps the waves off the streets - except during hurricanes when you can stand on the sidewalk and watch the waves wash over onto the street (and you) as much as a day before the hurricane actually reaches us.

Anyhow, I chuckled to read this because much of the downtown area goes under water with every hard shower. Around here that is a non-event, except maybe to tourists. We are all quite used to it. Most people know to back up and take a different route when they see water over the street ahead. After a while you even learn not to go down certain streets after a heavy rain. We just think of this as part of our Low Country charm. LOL. Houses in low lying areas throughout Charleston are elevated on pilings for this very reason - along with the hope of minimizing hurricane damage.

When I was attending late night classes at the Citadel, I had to do a bit of creative stunt driving to get around the flooded streets on more than a few occasions: driving on sidewalks and even through the edges of a few front yards to get around the water logged streets - but shush, don't tell the police.

We had a very nasty storm late yesterday afternoon through last night, complete with tornado warnings and such. Luckily, yesterday I worked from home; otherwise, I would have been trying to drive home in the middle of the downpour. It grew dark as night around 4PM, and I could hear the trees dancing in the wind. A few times I thought my bedroom might go with them. The backyard is waterlogged making it most unpleasant to even think of going back there to feed the raccoons. The road leading to my home floods somewhat in heavy rain though not nearly as quickly or as badly as the downtown areas mentioned above. Since I stayed home all day, I didn't see the roads after the storm until this morning when they were all clear again.

The biggest problem I usually face when storms come through my area is the inconvenience of not being able to go home at all for several hours due to large limbs and/or trees that have fallen across the only road leading to my home. It is a very old and narrow 2 lane road (which cannot be widened due to a land trust protecting the very old trees along the road) lined with 100+ yr old oaks and magnolias whose limbs arch across the road to form a sort of tunnel effect. Storms frequently bring down some of those large, old limbs which fall onto the street below blocking traffic. At such times, to keep the traffic from accumulating to a point that it blocks other streets around town, the police actually force us to turn around and go back into the downtown area until the limbs/trees can be cleared. I hate it when I'm on the way home after a long, hard day and have to turn around (often in the middle of a storm) and head in the opposite direction from my home.

Anyhow, thanks very much for worrying about me. I don't think we had anything more yesterday than our usual flooded streets, maybe a tad more, but certainly nothing horrifying. There hasn't been a lot going on lately on the national news front. I think maybe that's the reason you saw the 'disastrous' Charleston flood presented as news.

Thanks, June!

The guys were asking me today, "Is that a raccoon?!"

Thanks, goldfinch!

Little Rupert was so photogenic. Wish he/she were still around.

Wasn't that show about the Bear man incredible? It really tugged at my heart, too. I just kept thinking about Heidi and the bunch. I think I got the channel wrong. Must have actually been on Animal Planet not Nat Geo.

It really was amazing how he could handle the bears with a stick and the occasional light hand slap to the head. In a way that makes sense to me though. It's like he connected with them in a way that they understood. They weren't afraid of him. The slap and the stick were not meant to hurt them but merely to get his point across. I think they didn't attack him because (1) they never felt threatened by him and (2) they respected his space - which is sort of what the stick was for, to reinforce his space. Also, since he fed them, the grissly bears were never hungry enough to think of eating him.

Even though I've very much aware that there is no comparison between bears and raccoons in terms of the danger they represent, when he slapped that one bear it reminded me of how I used to pop Dennis on the top of the head when she misbehaved and refused to listen. I did the same thing to Echo once this past summer to get her to stop poking me in the back to get attention and treats. I also popped Bast a time or two. I still amazes me that none of the raccoons ever retaliate when slapped. They just seem to 'get it' and back off a bit to yield to my space. That just seems to be some kind of universal language. When the young grissly reacted to the slap in much the same way as the raccoons, I was all the more amazed and all the more convinced of the effectiveness of this universal symbol.

Terese,

Thanks again for thinking of me when you saw the weather info for Charleston. I do the very same thing whenever I see something dangerous going on in an area where I know one of you lives. It is interesting to see that I'm not the only one who does that.

Before I met all of you, I really didn't pay much attention to what was going on elsewhere in the country, didn't give it much more than a nod. With so many friends all around the country now, all that has changed.

Tonight when I was coming home, BTW, there was an especially horrific wreck near my home. Very sad. I'd be surprised if everyone survived that one. The road here is just so dangerously narrow, yet still traveled by large trucks and very large tour buses and everyone traveling way too fast. Most of the vehicles are traveling 20-30 mph or more above the speed limit. They are coming from a high speed area outside the city, and most blow right past the signs starting a few miles back telling them to slow down. Anyhow, I doubt you will see that on the news but wanted to let you know I'm fine just in case you do.

With all the rain making the ground 'squishy' back there, I haven't been out to feed the raccoons lately. Some time last night, as if to let me know they are hungry, one of them pulled the empty and well licked styrofoam container (on which that caramel pie had been served days earlier) from the trash, ate the part of the bottom where the pie had once been, and then brought the remaining container up to my back door where I found it this morning. This very brilliant inter-species communication prompted me to trudge back there, mud or no mud, to leave a chicken carcass, another chunk of cheese, and a bit of cat food.

Once again, I waited a good 30 min or so in hopes of seeing them but to no avail.

Waaaaaaaa....I miss the raccoons!!!

But fun to read your posts anyway, Cheryl.
Glad you are so much better and in outta the rain.
Be safe, and be well.

Love the editorial remark made with styrofoam container: clever little critters... And love your new avatar: too cute and so appropriate.

I've noticed that both cats and dogs seem dominant with one paw over the other; suspect that's a universal. And Melody, I can't tell about the dominant wag with our Shar Pei; but he leads with his right when playing. I remember one left-dominant cat I had many years ago, but she was the only animal I've known who was left-pawed.

Cheryl,we were in Hilton Head a couple of weeks ago and had to pick my MIL up at the airport in Charleston(loved that airport). We toured Magnolia Plantation then went on to the visitors center,hopped on a tour bus and took lots of pictures of the houses there.........I could NEVER drive in Charleston. How they maneuver cars, buses and trucks on those narrow streets I could not imagine. It was scary for sure but our guide just drove that bus like it was a compact car. Its a beautiful city.....BUT I can't figure out how anyone would want to live and work there. Then again I am older and more intimidated by challenges than I used to be!

My Amazon(parrot)Larita is a lefty. My vet pointed it out to me. My Conure(parrot) Einstein is a righty.
Angel my dog seems to be a lefty also. I am not sure but I think Puddy Tat(cat)favors her right paw.

Hi Everyone,

I'm at work, so I can't stay and chat (responses, etc) but wanted to warn all of you that there is a very serious product recall on Slim-Fast. Some cans are tainted with a dangerous bacteria. I know this is very much OT, but I wanted to make sure you got this info. I wouldn't want any of you to get sick.

Thanks Sharran,

I miss the raccoons, too! I know they are still around. I see signs all of the time that they still stop by. I just don't see raccoons.

Last night by the time I got off work and ran errands it was after 9PM before I got in the door. I read somewhere - and it makes sense - that, like most of us, raccoons are hungry when they wake up. Looking for a quick breakfast, they head out for their best spot 1st, the one where they have the highest expectation of finding food.

Since I haven't been very dependable for them lately (not there every night at about the same time) and have been getting out there quite late when I do show up, it makes sense that they would, it only makes sense that these days they would go for the forest 1st and swing by here some time later in the night on their way home. The raccoons aren't so famished this time of year either, not like during 'baby' season.

Lastly, we are in the middle of another monsoon season around here. Many nights, like to night, it is raining, and even when it isn't, the ground back there is unpleasantly squishy.

I miss the little darlings, too, but it will be spring again all too soon around here, and I know that they will be back and very hungry in no time at all.

BTW, speaking of weather (our endless rain), I see/hear on the news that some very unpleasant storms are making their way across much of the country. My thoughts and prayers are with those of you in its path. Take care of yourselves.