The Council of Raccoon

Bird feeders and garbage had  been ravaged in our backyard.   We decided at least a month ago to trap the coon and  end our misery.   My two youngest boys dutifully set our live animal trap in the back garden, which obviously had visitors in the past.   The next morning, one of the largest coons I've seen around these parts greeted me with a cold stare.   The coon was defeated in posture and probably didn't appreciate my glee upon discovery.  

I asked the boys to reset the trap and see if there were anymore.   Um, were there more?   We kept this routine up for weeks.   My status on Facebook was daily about the latest finding.   We only caught one opossum over this time period.   The boys began to look at me with weariness when I asked them to set the trap at night.   Their reaction of triumph left them after the fourth or fifth coon.  

After weeks went by with a raccoon discovered each morning, I decided to give the boys  a break as we were busy settling back into our fall routine.   I was hoping we had gotten the lot of them but yesterday morning I found birdseed and watermelon leavings from the trash all over the place.   The boys regained their enthusiasm and went to the task of resetting the trap.   Sure enough, a cold stare greeted me when I walked out on the patio.

The morning greetings have seemed endless.   When will it stop?   I personally believe that raccoon across the Indiana territory had called a raccoon council in our woods.   There was probably votes on whether or not the humans would notice them and if there were trees and places to raise their young over the summer of 2017.   Topics of the council would include sending subliminal messages to city and state councils to outlaw the disposal of coons in town as they are so cute and rascally, who could be annoyed by them?    There might be discussion about how to get the word out to others of scheduled picnics by humans so that they could come and search out their garbage bags.   Which parks were the best picks for leavings?  

Discrimination against raccoon is out of control in this country.  This was probably the key note speaker's topic.   There are most likely areas where farmers, country and city dwellers are not deceived by cute little children's books and works of art for country decor.   (Seriously, if your yard was overrun with coons you might object).   The coons certainly stayed up late and ate loads of overripe berries on the night of the key note speaker.   Drunk coons for days!   We've heard them screeching at night.   It could be the topic of the evening was  getting heated or .....something.......

I'm sure there are raccoon in a woods near you making plans to travel to the next Council of Raccoon in our backyard.   It will be great.  

Hoping for a sale on birdseed soon......

Children free to play

I am going to use my old drafts as writing prompts.   Children free to play......    a person is a child once.   I see their time flying away.   What a delight  to see a child at play and reveling in it.   I have had  children addicted to the sandbox and they simply do not want to leave it.   The youngest in my family is getting older all the time of course and his older siblings are getting older, so there is less time spent playing.   I want to facilitate their playing as much as possible by throwing all of us outside and spending time together.  
"Free" to play was implying that children have less time to play as their lives are scheduled up such there is little time to just have nothing they have to go and do.  My year is as busy as ever and looking at the schedule I do want to guard their time to be able not be under pressure to produce and cough up anything for given activities.   Being free to be bored is awesome.

 Purposely taking off from school today, life around the house just seemed more peaceful.   Right now the kids are outside playing frisbee together.   Phew.   Kids playing outdoors afforded mom some quiet time too before the time of electronics.   I'm not against electronics, but I am against them forgetting how to play and imagine.   We are a family of addictions or obsessions so I do want to guard what time they have left as children to just be children and take that along with them into adult life.  

Clarification and reiterating that my choices with my kids are the privilege of parents for their own family.   I am not judging anyone their choices but stating what I have observed in my own family.   I want my children to have a childhood full of hands on playing.   I had it and have hilarious memories from all that my friends and I played together and wonder why my parents and theirs were okay with some of our shenanigans.   Wow.  I hear hilarious stories from my older children of the stunts they pulled together and then I can revel in the fact that my darlings did some pretty crazy stuff and we can all laugh about it now.  

Day off

I wonder if I can remember to take every Wednesday off and have it be 'the day off"?   Our Monday and Tuesday have me on my toes from Monday when I wake up til Tuesday around eleven.   If I give the whole family permission to take the next day off, I think that will remove quite a bit of stress for everyone.    I've been trying to figure out the schedule so we don't all lose our minds.  

Taking today off from tasks and homework has been over the moon wonderful.   We slept til we wanted to, I had a doctor's appointment and a few errands to run and the rest of the time has been everyone chilling out and waiting for Evening Prayer time.

I want to write more so will see if this is the last post for a few years or if I can manage to get back to it.  I've had many a blog post rolling around in my head but none get down in writing.