Heidi Chronicles: A New Year Begins!

This thread is part of the ongoing saga of Heidi and company, the raccoons who live in the forest behind my house and frequent my wildlife buffet.

This is part of what we generally think of as the winter lull, the time when the kits born the prior summer have reached their adult size and have been pushed out of the 'fold' by their moms, the time when the moms usually rest up a bit before starting their new families in spring/summer to repeat the cycle once again. A few days ago, however, I learned that Heidi is already showing signs of carrying her as yet unborn 08 kits. The winter lull may have to be cut short this year with a new clan on the way so soon.

Link to the prior thread: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/799016/
Link to the very 1st thread that started it all: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/603944/

Below is a pic of Dennis (the Menace), one of the now grown 07 kits. Dennis is enjoying a Pumpkin Spice Yogurt left from the holidays.

Cheryl.... yesterday my sister was over for a while and i was showing her pics of your kids.

she is an animal lover from way back.... never had kids, so her pets have always been her kids.

she just loved that Clown Pic of Rupert.. but who couldnt love that lil face.

and YES i did read about Mr T.... very funny... and how frustrating that must have been in the beginning. I recall one where he was in your hair... what a hoot.

I'm still reading it, and I haven't gotten to the hair part yet, but I gotta tell ya--I had to change my pants from laughing so hard! "Talk to the butt, 'cause I can't hear you." ROFLMBOPMP
How do you get those little text balloons on the pics?

Thanks, Terese!

That combination of Rupert's adorable face with [what turned out to be] a beneficial photography error was one of those 'happy accidents' that only happens every once in a while. We should have a whole new group to photograph soon though. Glad your sister enjoyed them!

Thanks, KyWoods!

Glad you are enjoying it! I was using a tool called ACDSee. I like it for handling tumbnails and for light editing. It very easy to use and includes the talk bubbles. You can download a free trial copy from ACDSee or from cnet, etc.

my version of ACDSee is so old, i dont have those options... but we use it strictly as our "viewer". I think i'm running Ver4, but i;d have to look.

I don't have the latest version either. I have Ver 7. On mine when you choose "Add Text", you get a whole set of "Bubble" options on the tool menu. Honestly, I like the viewing, thumbnail handling features of ACDSee better than any of the others I've tried. I also use it for simple editing. It's very easy to use and does a pretty decent job for basic things. I have Photoshop for more complicated things, but use ACDSee more often.

Oops! Looks like I messed up on the cover photo. I forgot to lower the resolution. It took a while to open on my high speed connection. Sorry. Can any of you open it?

tonight i got pics. the cover pic is one of them. I need to take a break. Then I'll be right back to fill you in.

Tonight it's all about Dennis, well mostly. I don't think I've mentioned this before, but Dennis is, well, frankly, a bit on the homely side. Poor thing he's a bit small for a guy, not stunted like Fraidy, just small. Hopefully, he'll fill out more when his hormones kick in. He doesn't have the elegant red blond coloring of Blondie and HRH or even the 'normal' black and tan coloring of Heidi and Juliet. Dennis is small, seems to walk around in the hunchback position a lot, and has a mottled, near black coat reminiscent of a brindled cat.

But whatever Dennis lacks in physical beauty, he more than makes up for in personality. Dennis is a ham. He's the class clown. He's playful and good natured. If Cissy or Blondie wants his food, he'll just give it to them. No problem. Dennis would rather play than eat anyhow. Dennis is proof that a raccoon can have ADHD.

For the most part, the other raccoons come by, see what's offered, eat what they like, squabble with each other, get a drink of water, and leave. Not Dennis. Dennis walks across the yard with a swagger that reminds me of young human males trying to look 'cool'. He'll nibble a bite or two of cat food then waltz over to me to check out the treats. He'll take a bite, climb on my knee to see what else I have, take another bite, look in the chair to see what's there, 'sneak' any treats he can find on the chair seat, try to steal my stuff, walk around under the chair, play with a toy at my feet, take another bite, climb on the chair, check to see if now I have anything new, sit on the chair to eat a bit of whatever I give him, climb down...and on and on and on.

Dennis reminds me of my nephew (oh, I hope he never finds this) with ADHD who, if he asks me a question one minute will be outside and across the yard climbing on the fence before I can answer him, and if I order him a pizza he'll take one bite and then jump up to run off and play a video game - for a second. That's Dennis.

Thursday night in between eating grapes Dennis kept taking a playful swat at this little toy near my foot. (I think it was a tiny plush from a Happy Meal.) Thinking that Dennis appeared to be trying to figure out how to get me to play with him, I picked up the toy and gently moved it back and forth on the ground in front of him, and sure enough he started reaching for it. I would move it about, and he would take it from me and bat it about a bit in front of me. Then I'd grab the end of it again and move it some more. He was definitely playing with it and with me. It was incredible. And I could see that he was very careful not to play rough. When he was a baby I played with him using a toy on a string, but now we were playing with a small plush toy. ...and then, given his short attention span, after we played for a few minutes, Dennis wandered off to do something else.

Tonight Dennis was there before I could sit down. Normally, I unpack and put the stuff on the chair seat while I set up. Tonight I had 2 eggs, a yogurt, and a bag of marshmallows. I put the 2 eggs and the yogurt on the chair seat, and while I tried to open the bag of mm, Dennis was at my feet reaching and trying to grab the bag. I had to keep holding the bag higher and higher. Finally I got it open and gave him one. He took a bite and then dropped the mm to go see what was on the chair. Standing upright by the chair, he grabbed the unopened yogurt just a second too fast for me to move it. But he gave it back. Like I said, Dennis is very good natured. He just loves to play and explore. While I was trying to open the yogurt, he reached up and grabbed an egg. It was a lot like dealing with a 2 year old. It was cute, though, how he grabbed the egg in his 2 hands and moved it from the chair to the ground. The egg wasn't chipped yet, and he couldn't figure out how to open it, but with Dennis that wasn't a problem. All I had to do was reach down, pick it up, chip it for him, and give it back. Naturally, he ate a bit of egg and then came back to see if i had anything else. As I again struggled to open the yogurt, we went through a repeat of the reaching and holding it higher thing. He ate a little yogurt, climbed on the chair, ate some more egg, walked around the area, stood up at my knee, ate some more yogurt, climbed on the tractor scoot...

When I got the camera out to take a picture Dennis grabbed the lanyard dangling from it. Soon we were playing tug of war with the camera cord. When Dennis and I played briefly with the toy when he was smaller, I thought that was really cute but I had no idea that he would remember that, but now as he played with the camera cord it seemed as though he actually did remember. Photo below. Not the greatest since I was snapping the pick with the camera as he was playing with the cord.

Dennis in the chair eating yogurt

Dennis again. "Mmm, that was pretty good. Got anything else?"

In the chair after eating some yogurt. Notice he's licking around his mouth. If you look closely you can see that his front feet are off the chair/in the air.

Edited to add Dennis comment above and to say that the white spot on his nose (which I originally mistook for a highlight) is actually yogurt.

This message was edited Jan 13, 2008 11:58 AM

Checking the chair to see if there's anything fun there to play with or good to eat.

Zoom in on pic of Dennis licking face

Sculter, those are toooooooo cute! He is a ham!

Awwww! I am soooo jealous! I knew that one was special.

It has taken you a long time, but now you are reaping the rewards of such patience and diligence of working with your raccoons. Most certainly you can see the strong bond of trust that Dennis has for you to feel safe enough to climb and eat beside you and now to even play such games with you. Give yourself a pat on back. You deserve one. In his own way he is giving you his wild and free style of love and trust. Will be intersting to see even more so as time goes by how much more closeness and interaction he wil be having will you.

The day you know he one of your family wil be the day he follows you in the house, helps himself to the fridge and makes himself to home in your comfeyest chair and fights ya for the remote control.

Just love it!!

Susan
=^..^=

LOL, starlight! What fun!

Love your adventures with Dennis! It's amazing that he remembers the game with the camera cord... Thanks for sharing with us!

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all of the compliments on the pics and such.

I'm afraid I've been under the weather again just lately so haven't been able to do a lot of writing - and may not be so coherent when I do. Bummer. But then again, I've been doing so well since my diagnosis and treatment. I guess I can't complain about a week or so of illness after 5 months of feeling good. After 9 days of severe stomach pain, nausea, etc I decided to go back to the Dr today to see what's going on. Seems the Dr thinks it's a reaction to my meds. So now I'm taking another med to treat the problems caused by the 1st meds...

Since I'm not up to writing, I thought I'd post a few cute pics from recent nights. Below is one of Dennis looking into the more or less empty yogurt cup to see if there is anything left in there.

Here is Blondie with a different yogurt. Cissy had eaten about 1/3 of this one before Blondie came along and finished it off. As you can see this one was 'good to the last drop'.

...and Blondie was determined not to let a single drop go to waste.

The whole thing got totally hilarious when Blondie lifted her face [from the cup] and the cup stayed on her face. I tried so hard to get a picture of those few brief seconds before she figured out that she could pull it off with her hands, but, alas, the shutter closed an instant too slow, and I got this pic of Blondie just after she had gotten her face free of the cup.

I found out that the dark opossum isn't Snowball. On Saturday both of them were out at the same time. Here the dark one is having a friendly chat with Cissy in which he's explaining that he really doesn't want to share his dish.

Scutler, sorry to hear you haven't been feeling well, I can relate. Love the pictures, hmmmmm maybe snowball has a new "friend"? Blondie is a hoot! You give quality snackers! LOL

bit OT here....

doccat.... enjoyed the article on potatoes !! nuttin' better than home grown spuds.

Cheryl -- hope youre feeling better soon. Glad to see Snowball may have a pal, and those darned cute 'coons.
too funny with the cup stuck on the snoot. Buddy once did that with a box... got it stuck on his head.

Scutler, I have just caught up. Darn internet connection problems, but I guarantee I read every one!

I love the pictures, such great stories to go with the photos.

I also love the squirrel shots...I am a big squirrel fan, we have five babies running around on the porch right now and Mom looks ready to pop again!

Do you think Snowball has a lady friend? Perhaps baby possums in the works for the spring also? The friend looks a bit tiny, but you just never know with them.

Love the yogert pictures also!

Debbie

Scutler, just want to tell you once again how very much I enjoy these stories. I don't post often but I do come here first thing every morning. The relationship you've developed with all your backyard friends is so precious! And your pictures never fail to bring a smile to my day. Thank you for taking the time to keep us entertained.

Sorry to hear you're not feeling well and hope the doctors are able to fix you up quickly.

Definitely, do take care of yourself while taking care of the critters. We love you and hate it when you're sick!

Sorry to hear you are under the weather. Take care.

Oh, you can't be sick, what will the critters do?

What will we do without stories?

I hope you get better really soon!

Susan
=^..^=

Just got home from a trip out of town, and what exciting news that Heidi's '08 litter may already be a work in progress! No wonder she was making such an effort to get the '07 kids to get a life, somewhere else.

Sorry to hear about your health troubles, Cheryl; hope they'll soon find a solution and get you back to full strength.

Hi, Everyone,

Woo. Maybe I'm not as 'ok' as I thought. It took me 3 tries to spell 'hi' and I spelled 'took' 'took' the 1st time around. Good thing I'm not planning on driving anywhere.

Almost 2 weeks ago I very suddenly became ill, stomach pain, abdominal pain, nausea, and the works. After 9 days of that with no sign that it might be getting better, I went to the Dr. She thinks it's a reaction to my medication (from the prior illness). She added another medicine (because that's how it goes with medicine, you need 3 new ones to treat the symptoms of each one you take). She also told me to stop taking the naproxen (Aleve) that I'd been taking for 3 yrs or more as long term maintenance for knee and back injuries sustained in an accident. So 2 days ago, in addition to the current GI chaos, I started having severe pain in the Sciatic nerve area (now that I'm off the naproxen). Last night the back pain had reached the screaming toothache stage such that I could not find a single position in which to rest without feeling as though my hip were pierced by a dagger. I spent most of the night being mean to Widget (thank goodness dogs are so forgiving) because he was determined to sleep right up under the edge of my hip or legs which made it very difficult for me to toss and turn in pursuit of that elusive pain free spot. Last night I became so desperate to relieve the pain that every other second I had to talk myself out of grabbing the bottle of naproxen and downing a couple. So this morning I called the Dr office as soon as they opened (actually before that, too), and now I'm on additional medication for the pain.

This is really bad because we are in crunch mode at work right now and I can't afford not to be there but at the same time I'm a human not a machine. Right now I have to take care of me. I missed Monday, went in Tuesday but came back home as soon as I got my computer loaded with everything I thought I'd need to work from here, and after a 'heckish' (not my 1st choice of adjectives) night with a spear though my hip (or at least it felt that way), I missed today as well.

Although I haven't spent a lot of time with the raccoons, I have forced myself to put the food out for them. Some days I say I'm not going to but then I have to get up about that same time to let Widget out so it's not that much harder to put the food out while I'm already out back with Widget. I even cleaned out their green water containers one day and left a new toy in the clean pool water. There I was so nauseated I couldn't look in the fridge without feeling ill yet I was out there bailing green water out of the pool. Now that's love - or insanity, one or the other. The night before Dennis had let me know that he was thirsty and didn't want to drink the green water. I felt so bad for him, so I had to tough it out and clean the pool. I didn't take time to scrub it this time or soak it with bleach, just rinsed and refilled figuring I can clean it better when I'm well again.

Thanks to all of you for worrying about me. I think this is more of a temporary annoyance than a serious problem - or at least I sure hope that's the case. Still, while battling nausea and pain I've found it difficult to form cohesive thoughts and, therefore, to write.

Hi doccat,

Sorry to hear that you can relate (since I know that means you have or have had your own health problems). It's easy to share this with all of you because I figure many have experienced similar and even worse problems and will understand what I'm going through. I'm afraid I have so spoiled the raccoons that it's getting more and more difficult to find treats that please them. (lol at me) Right now yogurt and eggs seem to be the crowd favorites along with (sometimes) grapes. (At least right now they are showing a preference for the healthy stuff.)

Hi Terese,

LOL at Buddy with the box on his head!

With Blondie it only lasted a second or so but she was cute when she stuck her head up in the air with the cup still on it. You could see her moving her head around as if trying to see. Then she quickly figured out that she could use her paws to rub the container off her nose. In that last pic she had just dropped the cup off her nose when the shutter closed. Drat!

Hi Debbie,

So glad to hear from you again. Hope you are doing well.

Funny thing is both Snowball and the 'new' opossum are very small - about the same size. (I have other regular sized opossums in the yard sometimes so I know I'm not just confused about the expected size.) I'm starting to wonder if I've got a line of dwarfs here. The small ones, Snowball and this new one, both seem to be much friendlier (to me, not the raccoons) than the large ones. Well, by friendly I just mean they are more willing to come around me.

Cute squirrel shot. Did you see my thread about the squirrel photo contest at Duncraft?

Thank you very much, goldfinch. I needed to hear good stuff today. : )

Awh, KyWoods, Thank You! I feel better already just reading these kind words.

Thank You, nanny!