It’s possible. I didn’t see any tracks. We also have a new black Persian-type kitteh out and about, so I’m not 100% sure. Jane went out and heard a furious scramble of something large or at least noisy getting over the back fence, where the garage hides it.
I went out and took a cannister of black pepper out and about the pond. We don’t have any coyote urine in stock. Hope this solves it. Meanwhile the pump had blown its hose out again, and I put it back, which requires some gymnastics.
And the new sandals just paid for themselves: while applying the pepper to the pond rim, I reached too far, put my foot wrong at the top of the berm, caught-balance, turned, and had to take a few downhill running steps over the basalt rock rim and onto the concrete, where I fetched up against a patio chair, still standing. My balance has been critically, dangerously lousy for a couple of years, one reason I’m not on the ice, and by golly, with these sandals, I’m rusty at a run like that, but I didn’t fall on the soft dirt or the jagged basalt or face-plant down on the concrete patio. I was surprised all the way down that I was still on my feet.
Raccoons and water gardens = (as you know) not good. They are the reason we don’t have any permanent plants or goldfish in ours. Raccoons love to go fishing in our “too small and shallow to hide in” garden, yanking out each plant, taking a nibble and flinging it over the shoulder with a “nah, that’s not tasty enough, but what about…?” The plants are now limited to water hyacinth and water lettuce that I scoop up each evening in a bucket and store on a high shelf, while the goldfish live permanently indoors in a 10 gallon tank, unterrorized by maurading paws.
Good luck. My spouse has also had success with countermeasures involving a long spear and a willingness to confront the raccoons at whatever hour of the night they appear. It took a season (earlier that winter, a mama raccoon had torn our roof apart looking for a place to nest, which is what really tipped the scale to our aggressive response) but the local band learnt appropriate fear and now run far rather than saunter a few paces away. Apparently raccoons have enough cultural transmission to pass on to the next generation, “watch out for those householders, they’re crazy!” We still don’t stock the water garden, though.
Bird netting. It’s fine, it’s tough, it’s stretchy, and plants grow up through it. It’s not optimum, but tent stakes driven in flat to the ground at an angle, and a roll of this stuff that’s meant to protect orchards, has thus far thwarted everything, cats, raccoons, eagle, osprey…
Are you sure it wasn’t that smart-mouthed raccoon from the upcoming movie?
Give a raccoon-like critter an evolutionary nudge, and I could see the space lanes could get crowded.
While Robin Williams might do his raccoons as Irish, somehow I see them more as street-smart, working class, big-city types. Though I suppose their country cousins would be, well, equally challenging.
“Whadda youse lookin’ at?”
LOL.
Hoo boy, spaceship jockey raccoons….
Someone’s probably already done it, and I’m blanking out on whom, or I missed it.
Also, one is relieved you did not fall in the drink or on the rocks. Had you landed in the embrace of one of those space-going raccoons and sashayed in a dance number about the back yard, it might’ve increased the comedic factor. Though mild-mannered Seishi-chan might have taken matters into his own paws….
He might, but I sure don’t want him to try. Raccoons are hefty, bearlike creatures in their fighting style—nasty customers, cute as they are.
I am, however, a wee bit sore from that unscheduled downslope skip and dance. Muscles only recently challenged and waked by the sandal change to outside-edge balance just got sincerely challenged.
Interesting question? Would the ice-skating help balance? Is it something that is, what, learned? Or is it, “once it’s gone it ain’t comin’ back”?
It does help, because, first of all, it makes you conscious of center; it entirely relies on the ability to knowingly tip your foot left or right; and it strengthens the muscles that control that, all the way up to your hips and all over your body.
We stopped skating when Jane had her episode with anemia: she was forbidden to get onto the ice for about a year. By the time she had permission to go back, we’d lost a bit of skill, our coach, who could have helped us, had retired, and all in all, it’s not been an easy road back. I’m older than Jane: I feel badly about not going back for her sake, but I’ve also got the feeling that, for me, hard falls are more dangerous than they were when I was in condition.
Re: balance
Well, certainly falls have a history of being dangerous for the elderly, save for those who are always putting strain on their bones, say farmers and horse-“persons” 😉 who are lifting and tossing about hay bales.
I’m interested in what you think about “conditioning” the geriatric vestibular system. A few years ago my physical terrorist said it was beneficial to stand heel to toe and try to stay upright with minimal flailing about–said with practice one could get better. I found it’s much safer to do standing in a doorway, with one’s fists together on the chest and elbows an inch from the doorjambs. 🙂
But then I tried closing my eyes, or doing it in the dark, and that way my ability is “rubbish”! 🙁 Then it’s the vestibular system, not the visual system. I think it would be good to keep the vestibular system doing its share of the job.
I’m not sure ice-skating “exercises” the vestibular system, but the idea was intriguing.
ANnnnnd…of course the pond filter pump blows its hose out. The hose has shrunk just a wee bit from age, and out it came, stirring up sediment in the pond and otherwise posing a problem.
Naturally the fitting is Chinese plumbing, which is just a little ‘off’ from American standard. I went to Ace and got two pieces which can combine to equal the Chinese piece with an ‘outie’ instead of an ‘innie’, which means we could hose-clamp the offending hose instead of inserting it into the fitting and hoping it held.
This is preferable anyway. But it’s hot out there. I oughta clean the filter, but it’s hot out there. I’ll do that in the morning.
For some reason I’m hearing strains of “After Midnight” in my mind’s ear.
I remember those stories too, BCS. A Dutch trader captain and his business partners. Unfortunately all of the names escape me. Something like Van Riijn?
Nicholas van Rijn & David Falkayn ?? Poul Anderson — the Polesotechnic League series – Available from Baen, I believe
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poul_Anderson#Polesotechnic_League_period_of_Nicholas_van_Rijn
Thanks, Pholy and Tommie. The short sotry collection for the Polesotechnic League was available used at Amazon. I’m no longer sure what of his I have and haven’t read, and the titles remind me of “trader” books by Gordon R. Dickson and Andre Norton that I’ve read. I’m fairly sure I’ve read some of Poul Anderson’s too.
I was up late last night and I’m still muzzy this morning. Not sure why, but my brain felt inspired to fiddle with a “future French” grammar sketch. Dorky brain….
Y’know, I loved the trader books like Andre Norton’s Solar Queen, etc. They’re probably one reason I enjoyed CJC’s Chanur and A/U merchanter books so much. Great stuff!
I love Andre Norton’s Solar Queen series: Sargasso of Space, Plague Ship, Voodoo Planet and Postmarked the Stars. The trade officer in the series is Dutch, Van Rike/Rihn/?. She started writing these in the ’50’s and they are amazingly multi-cultural and multi-racial for the period, but still highly male-oriented. I think, at that period, it didn’t quite occur to her that women could be “spacemen” too. By the mid to late 60’s she was writing many female protagonists, though.
Van Rijn = from (the river) Rhine, with the dipthong ‘ long’ -ij- pronounced identical to the dipthong ‘short’ -ei-: one sound, for which I can’t quite come up with an English example, somewhere between ‘rein’ and ‘Rhine’ (but with a slightly dropped jaw, and definitely not ‘rain’ which needs the long vowel -ee- in Dutch).
Glad to know that. Of course, the Rhine. There’s a filk song, but everybody always has said it as REN, like wren, the bird.
Good description on pronunciaion, too.
Baen has been doing a massive reissue of Poul Anderson’s work.
the Polsotechnic league stories have always been favorites of mine.
I am reminded of “The Architect of Sleep” by Steven R. Boyett. How sad that we may never see the rest of the story.
Welcome!