In two days I will probably disappear for a week from all social media EXCEPT for our Podcast, EVER NEW, on October 8th at 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time.
This is because my co-host on EVER NEW, Hannah McCrane, will be here for a week starting Saturday and I very much doubt I will be logging into Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or anywhere else while she’s here, unless she’s asleep at night and I’m wide awake and piddling around with nothing else to do.
So don’t worry if you don’t hear from me from Oct 1-7th. On the 8th during EVER NEW, Hannah and I will fill you in on what we’ve been doing … and maybe on a few other things, too.
HOUSE CLEANING ON STEROIDS
Because Hannah is allergic to cats and rats, I have been cleaning rooms and furniture and bedding and keeping the critters out of the rooms as I do them. The cats can sleep in the kitchen and hallway areas while Hannah is here, or out in the shed (which they enjoy doing usually, anyway), and the rats will go into a large glass vivarium out on the back patio while Hannah is here. Half of the top is screen and the vivarium will be completely out of the weather, so they should be fine for seven days. There are only five of them left, and they’re old and sleep most of the time. I’ll have hiding boxes in the vivarium so they will feel safe and secure. (I know rats shouldn’t be in glass-enclosed spaces, so I won’t keep them there any longer than I need to.)
If I haven’t managed to make everything critter-free allergy-wise, Hannah can wear a mask, and she’s bringing anti-histamines. The weather has turned too crappy to think about hanging out and sleeping in my six-person tent in the back yard, so we’ll have to come up with another plan if what I’ve done isn’t sufficient to keep her comfortable and happy. But I think what I’ve done will work. My sister is allergic to cats and she has noticed a definite difference, so I think we’re good now.
SOLSTICE IS RAVENOUS
With winter coming on and the nights getting longer and wetter and less friendly, Solstice (the now-free raccoon) usually beats me to the henhouse in the morning. This morning, because I was scouring the house, I didn’t get out there until close to ten and he was there waiting for me, looking frantic. He practically climbed up my leg to get at the food I was delivering to him (eggs and grapes), so I looked in all the cubby holes where I’ve placed dog and cat food for him to find and, sure enough, he (or someone else!) had eaten it all.
He’s getting heftier, which is important, and bigger by the week. As soon as he gets his fill, he charges around like a little warrior, backing off the goats and cats and ruling his pasture in his cute way. When he tries it with me, I bend over and do a raccoon, too, and he backs off, not wanting to tangle with Dad. I want it that way. If he ever got to thinking he could cow me, that wouldn’t be good. We have to establish boundaries while he’s young in case he sticks around after he grows up.
The thing is, he can paddy paw me (I allow that — that’s what raccoons do), but he can’t bite me (which is also what raccoons do while interacting with each other). I call the whole thing off when he starts to get rowdy. That’s how to establish boundaries.
That’s how I socialized Deaken, too, because I knew he was going to grow into a Doberman-sized cat and I didn’t want him roughhousing with me as he got older, so I stopped “playing” with him every time he got mouthy as a kitten. It worked like a charm.
Me with my dear Deaken back in the day
I don’t think I have any pictures of Solstice with me yet. I will ask Hannah and Lisa to get a few so I have them as memories. Not that they will be like the above pix. They will be of him “counting coup” with me, most likely.
