Raccoons - Outdoor Hour Challenge

This week, Olivia and I focused on studying raccoons for our nature study. We used some of the ideas from the Outdoor Hour Challenge that were posted back in 2009, but never did at that time. We also added some of our own activities.

Watch videos about raccoons.

We watched this one - Raccoons: Amazing Animals. Raccoons are opportunistic omnivores. They have very sensitive paws. There are seven species of raccoons, and most live between 2-5 years. That's such a short life!

We also watched this one - Raccoon demonstrates problem-solving skills. Rascal, the raccoon, shows how it can remember how to open a variety of locks to get through three compartments to receive treats and eventually leave the plexiglass tunnel. 

We also watched Raccoon Nation and some of the short clips from the episode. The "First Night Out" one was interesting as a mother and her young raccoons went out and about. As dawn approaches, they need to find a hiding spot for the day. We learned that raccoons can collapse their backs to fit into smaller quarters. 

Also on Raccoon Nation was "Filming Raccoons is Hard" which shows the difficulties of getting videos and pictures of raccoons at night. 

Read from the Handbook of Nature Study.

“None other of our little brothers of the forest has such a mischievous countenance as the coon. The black patch across the face and surrounding the eyes like large goggles, and the black line extending from the long, inquisitive nose directly up the forehead give the coon’s face an anxious expression; and the keenness of the big, beady, black eyes and the alert, “sassy” looking, broadly triangular ears, convince one that the anxiety depicted in the face is anxiety lest something that should not be done be left undone; and I am sure that anyone who has had experience with pet coons will aver that their acts do not belie their looks.”

                                                        -Handbook of Nature Study, pages 247-248

Read pages 247-250 in the Handbook of Nature Study about the raccoon. 

“The raccoon lives in hollow trees or caves along the banks of streams. It sleeps during the day and seeks its food at night. It sleeps during the winter.”

Do supplemental reading in The Burgess Animal Book for Children by reading Story 31. 

This story is called Bobby Coon and integrates facts about raccoons into the story. We learned some facts about raccoons including:

- they are nocturnal animals. 

- they are wasteful eaters, especially when it comes to corn in cornfields.

- they are related to the bear family. 

- the hindfoot shows the whole foot - including the heel and toes. It resembles a bear's footprint, but on a smaller scale.

- they eat eggs, young chickens, anything with flesh, fish, frogs, fruit, nuts, and insects.

- they like to wash their food before eating it.

- they give birth to more than one baby at a time.

- after the first snowfall, they typically hibernate in hollow trees.

- they can climb trees and move from treetop to treetop, if they are close together.

- they are most closely related to animal that is known by many different names: the Bassaris, the Civet Cat, the Coon Cat, or Cacomixtile. This animal lives in the far Southwest or the mountains of the West. This is what they look like: 

Neither Olivia nor I had ever heard of the Bassaris, so reading this children's story was worthwhile. We learned something new.

Learn some facts about raccoons on the Adirondack Ecological Center's website.

The AEC has interesting facts about raccoons that we enjoyed reading.

Spend 10-15 minutes outdoors on a nature walk. 

Raccoons hibernate in the winter so there will be little chance of actually observing one this week. Instead, look for any animal tracks in the snow or mud. Keep your eyes out for any mammal that comes your way this week.

We didn't do the nature walk because we knew that there would be no raccoons. It's easier for us to see them on the trail cam. 

Additional resources for this challenge:
Raccoon coloring page
Raccoon information from Nature Works
Raccoon tracks

This is Olivia's nature journal page: 

The Art of Noticing - Book Notes

 There's a book that I read recently that had some intriguing ideas about creativity. The Art of Noticing - 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration, and Discover Joy in the Everyday by Rob Walker had many ideas that I would like to try doing. 

Since the pandemic began back in March with a lockdown, I've struggled to get in a regular pattern of creative exploration and doing things that I enjoy - like pottery, sewing, writing, and quilting. 

Iris folding.

I'm hoping that by doing some of the activities in this book, that I will start doing these things again. (However, pottery will need to wait until the art center opens again.)

- My ambition is to provoke them [students] into thinking about what they notice, what they miss, why it matters, and how to become better, deeper, and more original observers of the world and of themselves. 
- A broad range of professions and pursuits relies on the creative process. The scientist, the entrepreneur, the photographer, the coach: Each relies on the ability to notice that which previously seemed invisible to everybody else. 

- The stimulation of modern life, philosopher Georg Simmel complained in 1903, wears down the senses, leaving us dull, indifferent and unable to focus on what really matters.

- In the early 1950s, writer William Whyte lamented in Life magazine that "billboards and neon signs," and obnoxious advertising were converting the American landscape into one long roadside distraction. 

- "A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention," economist Herb Simon warned in 1971. 

- Polyconsciousness is what one researcher termed the resulting state of mind that divides attention between the physical world and the one our devices connect us to, undermining here-and-now interactions with actual people and things around us.

The girls next to one another...but, unfortunately, in their own worlds.

- When you actively notice new things, that puts you in the present...As you're noticing new things, it's engaging, and it turns out...it's literally, not just figuratively, enlivening. (Ellen J. Langer)

- Windows are a powerful existential tool....The only thing you can do is look. You have no influence over what you will see. Your brain is forced to make drama out of whatever happens to appear. Boring things become strange. (Sam Anderson)

Thanksgiving window stars.

- The quieter you become, the more you can hear. (Ram Dass)

- Appreciate the random participation of others in our lives. (Speed Levitch)

- Our life experience will equal what we have paid attention to, whether by choice or default. (William James)

Ideas for noticing:

 - Conduct a scavenger hunt.

- Spot something new every day.

Lake Waconia - someplace new I visited in October.

- Take a color walk

- What are the colors that you become aware of first?

- What are the colors that reveal themselves more slowly?

- What colors do you observe that you did not expect?

- What color relationships do you notice?

- Do colors appear to change over time?

 - Start a collection (e.g., search images to hunt and document: arrows, public clocks, manhole covers, geometric shapes, specific architectural details, footprints, signs and objects prohibiting specific behaviors)

- Count with the numbers you find. The game is to find unexpected shapes, sizes, and contexts. Start at 1 and work your way up or start with 100 count down. 

- Document the (seemingly) identical - a developed named Jacob Harris regularly takes pictures of blue cloudless sky - near-identical squares of blue. He calls the series "Sky Gradients." Other ideas - sidewalks, parking lots, grass, tree trunks - both human-made features and natural ones offer endless possibilities.

Seed pods on a tree in the backyard.

- Look slowly. An example is Slow Art Day. Look at five works of art for ten minutes each, and then meet together with someone over lunch to talk about the experience. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York concluded that its patrons spend a median 17 seconds in front of any given painting. 

- Look up and then look farther up - this means slowing way down or stopping moving altogether.

- Repeat your point of view - occupy the same spot for 15 minutes every day and study passersby. 

- Look out a window - spend 10 minutes looking out the window you most persistently ignore. 

Two deer who frequently have visited our yard this Summer and Fall.

- Reframe the familiar - make a Polaroid-size frame, acrylic with a dry-erase surface - like portable windows. Hold the frame up to an object or scene and write a one- to two-word description on it (e.g., beautiful, vacant, cloudy). Then shift the frame to focus on a different subject, leaving the original description. How does the earlier description influence what you're looking at? 

- Cover 4'33" - John Cage composition in 1952 involved a 4'33" "song" of no music. Set the timer on your phone for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. Set it to vibrate or chime, place it somewhere screen-down, and don't watch the clock tick. Close your eyes and just listen. 

- Make an auditory inventory - collect sounds and write down what they are. 

- Digital silence - observe a week of digital silence. 

- Stand - "Standing with Saguaros" project - stand for an hour in the proximity of one of the cacti there. You can also sit. Adapt to your area. Pick one thing and really attend to it for an hour. 

- Spend a day of traveling your hometown without spending a dime. See what happens when you take money out of the equation. How does it change where you move, what you look for, how you orient yourself. 

Staying by the hummingbird feeder for a long time yielded some photos 

I enjoy looking back upon now that the hummingbirds have migrated south.

- Play Big-Box Archaeologist - look for and document products you couldn't dream up if you tried as you go through a big-box store. What is the most absurb product you will see? The most poetic? The saddest? The one most revealing of 21st century America? The funniest?

- Read the plaque - read public plaques. They often tell fascinating stories hidden in plain sight. See readtheplaque.com for examples. 

- Apply the SLANT method: Sit up, Lean forward, Ask and answer questions, Nod your head, and Track the speaker.

- Ask five questions, give five compliments - this requires an alert attentiveness toward other people and what they're saying.

- Find something to complain about - without complaining, there can be no progress. The trick is to treat negativity as a means, not an end. 

- Meet a friend halfway - pick a friend and calculate the exact geographic midpoint between where the two of you live. See geomidpoint.com. 

- Be alone in public - it's not a penalty to spend time alone. It's an opportunity - to exist totally free of anyone else's expectations or your smartphone. 

A stand of pine trees on a trail that I 

explored by myself one morning.

- Care for something. Caring is at the very heart of it all. These exercises help you decide what you want to care about - and thus what and whom you want to care for and attend to.

A river in Wisconsin that I have enjoyed visiting several times.

Outdoor Mom's Journal - March 2020

March was filled with a lot of outdoor time. From the beginning of the month when it was still pretty much snow-covered to the end of March when everything was in a state of brownish-green, it was a nice month to be outdoors.

On March 1, 2020, I took the dogs for a walk. The ground was still covered with snow for the most part. 

The fields were covered with snow.

The shadows that the dogs cast created interesting shapes. Danny looks much larger and more ferocious as a shadow.

Puddles were beginning to form as the snow melted.

The trail cam was showing lots of activity with the rabbits.

A couple of days later, on March 3, 2020, pheasants were walking through the front yard to eat shell corn.

Out of all the trail cam photos during March, this one on March 5, 2020, makes me laugh. I had no idea that rabbits could jump that high. That rabbit on the ground doesn't look humored by the incoming rabbit. 

On another walk with the dogs, the moon was starting to rise in the late afternoon on March 6, 2020.

My legs looked incredibly long in the afternoon.

On March 7, 2020, there was a large flock of turkeys in a field.

The sunset was lovely. I really like the shades of blue, lavender, and pink.

On the way back home, the moon was shining.

On March 11, 2020, I was shocked to see that a coyote showed up on the trail cam! This is less than ten feet from the front of our home. I had no idea that they came this close to our home. Thankfully, we have a fence around our backyard to protect our dogs. The backyard is probably no more than 30-35 feet from where the coyote is walking.

That night a racoon also was running around the front yard.

The pheasants continued to visit the front yard on March 12, 2020, where I had put some shell corn. They typically come out during the day. They never show up at night on the trail cam.

On March 14, 2020, I changed the trail cam to the back part of the property. A small herd of three deer showed up. This one made me laugh. She kept posing in front of the camera and would move her head and neck to show different angles. This is one of about 15 photos in a row that were taken of her.

With the super-photogenic deer, there were two more deer - one of a similar size and then a smaller one that was a bit camera shy.

On March 18, 2020, the deer herd came back by the trail cam. All three were there again. I moved the trail cam after this because I don't want the deer to be concerned or alarmed by the light going off at night. I want them to feel safe and be able to raise their young here.

On March 20, 2020, Sophia, Olivia, and I went to Eagle Bluff in Osceola, Wisconsin, and went on a walk through the woods.

The woods opened up a bit as we got to bluffs along the St. Croix River. This bridge links Minnesota and Wisconsin.

There were lots of holes in a tree.

One hole I thought looked like a person's mouth - almost like the tree is screaming.

This is a tree stump. There were shades of green and brown on it despite being mostly gray.

When I came home, I walked around the backyard and was surprised to see some of the perennials coming up.

There were some buds on the apple tree in the backyard.

There are weeds next to the driveway. They'll need to be pulled since they are quite tall. I'm thinking some native plants would be nice instead of the weeds.

When I looked out to the pond, there was a robin that was enjoying the water and taking a bath. A sure sign of Spring!

On the walk with the dogs, I spotted a woolly bear caterpillar. 

There was a milkweed plant that had the white fluff and seeds spilling out of a couple of its pods. I walked this path many times during the Fall and thought I opened up all the pods to release the seeds. I had hoped that this Spring that there would be a huge number of milkweed plants along the road I walked. At any rate, this milkweed plant I missed and the fluff was dry and ready to fly away with its seeds.

The fields no longer have snow on them. There's just some snow in the ditches and on the north side of buildings and fields.

On March 25, 2020, two geese landed in our pond and were spending time swimming around and eating. There have been a lot of geese and sandhill cranes migrating back to Minnesota.

On the March 26, 2020, Sophia came with me. The dogs enjoyed sniffing the side of the road and ditches. More people are walking their dogs because of the COVID-19 pandemic. There's more wildlife that is out and about now that the weather is warmer.

We've been taking longer walks and exploring a couple new areas. The dogs love this section. I don't think a lot of people come this way since it's a dead-end. So, there must be lots of wildlife scents along this section of the walk.

One of the trees I see on the walk is this one. For some reason, it reminds me of a person with one arm up and one arm outstretched to the front. The wild hairdo is the part that extends high into the sky.

On March 27, 2020, the girls, Danny, Scooby, and I went to Interstate State Park in Wisconsin. Sophia wanted to take the dogs and was in charge of them while Olivia and I took photos. There was a group of eight geese in the lake that was half-melted and half-covered with ice.

They maintained their distance from us - especially since we had two dogs with us.

Danny was enjoying exploring the new textures under his paws, the landscape, and all the new smells.

Scooby was so happy to be out walking at a new place. He even jumped over this log he was so excited!

Olivia was practicing her photography skills and using a new lens.

The lake was still frozen in parts.

The girls were practicing their social distance. They are walking along the pathway to the right of the photo.

There were weeds along the lake.

There was running water in a little stream in one section of the woods.

I liked how the water flowed over the rocks.

There were bright green ferns in the woods.

Not more than a couple minutes walk down the path, there was still snow and ice.

The stonework on a building by the lake was beautiful.

The shingles were made from wood.

We were wrapping up the hike through the woods.

As we were standing on the fishing dock, a broadwinged hawk flew overhead!

We had our first fire of the season and made hot dogs and toasted marshmallows over the fire. The drama of the evening was when I lost my balance and almost fell into the fire (the ground is uneven by my chair). Sophia's quick thinking and action saved me from the fire. 

On March 28, 2020, we went back to Eagle Bluff and went on the walk, but in the opposite direction to see everything from a different perspective. It was a cloudier and drearier day than when we went about a week ago. Nonetheless, it was a pretty walk.

The view of the St. Croix River was more gray than the bright-blue sky and water a week ago.

There were mushrooms growing on a tree in the woods.

Sophia took a break from walking.

Olivia and Sophia are standing on a bluff overlooking the St. Croix River. Wisconsin is to the right and Minnesota is to the left.

We came home because it was starting to rain. After it stopped raining, I took the dogs on a walk. 

Scooby came out to check the trail cam in the northwest pasture. My favorite oak tree is in the background.

On March 31, 2020, I noticed that the tiger lilies were coming up in the ditches around our farm. They are planted and have spread in all directions - quite likely by someone who lived in our home decades ago.

The sunset was peaceful and relaxing that evening.

The frogs were singing in the pond very loudly.

It has been a wonderful month exploring and enjoying nature around the farm, on walks with the dogs, and walks with my family.