Skip to main content

Could A Raccoon Play A Guitar?

       This is an area where I used to hike a lot. It's pretty wild country yet and sometimes when you hike there are some pretty rough folks on the trails. Not in the area shown here but in some areas I guess there are people who cook meth in the woods. I really feel sorry for these folks but I don't want to be around them. The photo is courtesy of my wife, who is the picture taker in the family, by the way.
      It's 38 degrees here on the mountain and there is a heavy rain falling. There have been times that I didn't have a roof over my head on similar nights and it feels good to be warm and snug. If we were a few degrees cooler we would  get a big snow, I bet. There is some flooding in the area.
    I was over  on Google news a minute ago and saw an article on gaming. The president of Nintendo feels that "smartphone games" are placing the future of gaming in jeopardy. I had a post months  ago that he should have read. I think that console gaming is facing its demise. They have been too fat, too greedy.
 Expensive games can not compete against the app store.
      Earlier, I went to the Apple bookstore and downloaded several free samples of Cormac McCarthy novels. I really like the movie adaptation of his book called No Country For Old Men and also All The Pretty Horses with Matt Damon. Somehow, though, I've never read one of his books. I plan on reading the samples and picking out one to buy and try. From what I've read thus far, he writes in a style all his own. It is a visceral style and not for the dainty soul to delve into. So far I like what I've read.
       I went to the creek today and looked for tracks. The flooding had receded and there was an area around the creek where the thick carpet of leaves had been swept away, leaving that rarest of things here in the woods, bare ground. This is cool for a tracker as the muddy swath left behind shows tracks better than the leaves. I found raccoon tracks and those of a wood mouse, a few deer prints and also dog tracks. It was a fun way to get some exercise and fresh air.
    Coons have these neat hands which are very capable. I saw one open the doors underneath my grill where the gas canister is kept. I believe a coon could play a guitar if you could get him to sit still and learn. Speaking of guitar, I tuned my electric today and worked on a few chords for the first time in months. I have no doubt that any raccoon that graduated in the top half of his class could play better than I do. As far as I know, none of them have learned to blog yet, so at least I have that to cling to.
      Speaking of tracks, would you like a little project? Take a few scraps of two by four boards and nail them together, fill them with sand or ashes from your fireplace and put the box in the woods, preferably close to water. Even if you live in a sub-division you'll probably get a visitor if you put a few apple slices or table scraps there. Then identify the tracks, take pictures or make drawings. If you have plenty of money, leave a guitar out there and see if you wake up during the night with a coon playing House of the Rising Sun.
     From the author's green retreat, I'm CE Wills.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The White Chicken Mystery

    The other night I happened to come home very late. It was the middle of the night and I was driving up a steep mountain road. Near the top I saw something white in my headlights. It was standing in the other lane, standing very still. It was a large white chicken. It was probably a rooster because I thought I could see his comb as I whizzed by at my customary pace. He never moved a muscle. This is weird, don't you think?      After a couple of days to consider this phenomenon, I have come up with some plausible answers for his bizarre behavior. 1. He was conflicted whether or not he should cross the road. 2. He was feeling cocky and decided to play chicken with the traffic. 3.He was being hen-pecked at home and had decided to end it all. 4. Someone had egged him on to do it. 5. He had just watched the movie Fantastic Four and decided to try to stop a truck the way that Ben Grimm did on the bridge. 6. He had driven himself crazy wondering if ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Egg Art

     Hey, everyone. One of the odd customs in America is the Easter Egg Hunt. Here at the Green Retreat, we do a hunt every Spring. I just ran across some of the pictures from this years hunt and it is obvious that an artist had sneaked into our midst. The orange egg is a rendering of one of the Angry Birds of gaming lore. If I were a bird and had to pass an egg that size, I would be angry too. Ha, ha.      We typically will dye about 10 dozen eggs and people get quite creative with their quotes and colors, as you can see. Many of the eggs are a bit risque for these pages. After having a few laughs, we hide the eggs. All of them are never found, which is cool. It is amusing to see old men (me) and all ages of folks, walking around with a basket on their arm. Some of the hiding spots are dastardly. Like eggs hidden in the guttering downspouts and ten foot up a tree. The kids are perhaps the most devious at hiding the colorful orbs, goi...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Biscuit

    Hey, everyone. What a relief that Christmas is over, huh? I don't think it was meant to be the way it is.     I started thinking about the so-called good 'ole days today. My wife says that at her house, they would take a left-over biscuit and shine their shoes before church. I one-upped her by saying, "Oh, yeah? I ate the biscuit when everyone got finished with it. And I was grateful for it." Truly, though, you can and people did, shine their shoes with a biscuit. Hey, they were greasy little buggers.     Speaking of greasy little buggers, I remember when everyone had wells and were very conservative about water, particularly those of us who had to crank a handle up and down to get a bucket of water. There was no daily bath. (No showers in those days, mate.) About twice a week we took a bath and here's the recipe: The oldest kid took a bath first, then the next oldest etc. You can see why younger siblings hated the older. Bathing in the...
Post a Comment
Read more