Printmaking (Raccoon), Minneapolis, Minnesota, February 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
inhaling the cold
raccoon paws melt into prints
fall between the cracks
-posted on red Ravine, Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
-related to post, haiku (one-a-day)
Thick fur on body
keeps torso warm in winter
but bare paws feel ice
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QM, I like those little paw prints & they inspired a great haiku!
razz- I like your haiku, too!
I’ve been intermittingly watching the eclipse of the moon, tonight, which prompted this haiku:
blood red moon hanging
eclipsed by earth’s dark shadow
caught in bare branches
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Ha! Raccoon paw prints are so cute!
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razz, thanks for the winter haiku. 8) Welcome to red Ravine.
LB, they are cute, aren’t they? Raccoons can be fierce if they want to be. But their young ones are so cute. And their tracks have such a distinct shape.
oliverowl, your haiku describes the way we experienced the lunar eclipse last night as well. Wasn’t it beautiful? But so hard to see for all the oak branches behind us!
Something else about the prints in this photo, I looked out one day and they were the only thing I could see in a new blanket of wispy snow on the deck. There were no tracks over to these two prints – and no tracks away from them.
It was as if the raccoon had stood there, munching on her bread crumbs, staring off at the moon for hours while the dirt and snow melted off of her (or him).
I didn’t get a chance to photograph them the first day I saw them. And went back the next day. The snow had melted off the deck – these two cute dirty little tracks were the only thing left. 8)
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Beautiful pic and haiku!
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QM, another very cool photo! I enoyed the haiku also, in addition to the one by razz & oliverowl. D
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fall between the cracks
I just looked at the photo and read the haiku again, and saw how the prints do fall between the cracks. Cool…
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Hey, thanks Heather, diddy, yb. You know what’s strange? We just took the garbage down to the curb (tomorrow is garbage day) and on the way back up the driveway, Liz looked down and said, “OMG, what IS that?”
Well, I looked down, too, and it was — a rabbit limb, part of a rabbit leg. It wasn’t bloody or anything or gross. But it was so strange to find it there. Then I wondered – do raccoons eat rabbits? Then Liz just looked it up online and YES, raccoons eat rabbits! I had no idea.
We also have a few hawks around. I guess it could be the hawks. But what if it’s the raccoon?
Another thing about this raccoon – our neighbor, Herb, who died last year, was quite friendly with the raccoon. He fed it scraps and said they had an agreement – the raccoon stayed out of his garbage if Herb fed him scraps.
We’ve never had the raccoon get into our garbage. But now I’m afraid she might have eaten Tawny, our neighborhood rabbit (?). 😦
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QM, we think it was a raccoon that ate our three hens (who you met) — Rose, Emerald, and I always forget the third one’s name. Raccoons are quite the bandits.
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QM, one summer night shortly after J & moved into this house, we were enjoying a nice quiet evening sitting on the glider on the deck. As you know, the view from the deck is almost the tops of the trees on our bank. We saw a raccoon checking us out from one of the trees. A cool sighting, but I suspect that the raccoon & black snakes were the demise of our tiny red squirrels.Sad indeed! D
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camping deep in woods
cooler locked, leftover food
raccoons eat my lunch
GRRRR! And it was BBQ chicken from the night before, and was to be lunch on a long hike that day. Very smart raccoons – they probably were into diligent practicing, picking locks.
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yb, diddy, barbara, thanks for the stories (and the haiku)! I didn’t realize it until now, but I bet everyone has a raccoon story or two in their arsenal.
It’s strange but I’ve never actually seen the one that lives near us. So I had to do some research (of course). Raccoons mostly come out at night, AND they are mating right now!
Here are a few other tidbits I learned:
-Raccoons are omnivorous, consuming a varied diet that includes berries, insects, fruit, chickens, and small mammals. Raccoons sometimes wash, or douse, their food in water before eating it
-Mating usually occurs in January or February, and a litter of four or five young are born in April or May
-Raccoons have 40 teeth, which are adapted to an omnivorous lifestyle. The chewing surface is not as wide as for herbivores, but the teeth are not as sharp and pointed as those of a carnivore.
-Raccoons are nocturnal, but can occasionally be seen during daylight hours. They are solitary animals and the only social group raccoons form is of a mother and her young.
Here’s a link to learn more NatureMapping (LINK). Any other raccoon stories out there? Love to hear them! I’ll keep you posted on whether or not Tawny the rabbit returns this year. But then, how would I know it’s her?
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The phot and the haiku are wonderful!
Something killed the rabbit that lived here on Drayton Island..from the tracks it was the resident bob cat. It made me sad…but such is nature..eh?
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[…] Goose Moon, Coyote Moon. I even found a reference from the Sioux, Raccoon Moon. I thought of our resident raccoon. I bundled wool over exposed skin, stood outside in no wind, -6 degrees of chilled air, watched the […]
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