Now that I mostly understand Illinois weather, (though I do wonder how it was decided that the sirens would be tested every Tuesday at 10am, since that has been happening since Suzanne was a kid. Why Tuesday? Why 10am?), I have some learning to do in regards to Illinois raccoons and trees.
I think it was like the first morning that we lived here, after we got our stuff unloaded – that would make it a Tuesday. I was sitting at my desk at the unGodly hour of 5am when something in the window caught my eye. I tweeted about a parade of raccoons and I wasn’t kidding. Four of them, running across the wooden fence, the last one bringing up the rear, getting left behind, like a Disney cartoon or something.
I saw them again and then again once more. And then I saw them on the back fence at like 6pm. Why are raccoons out in public at 6pm? What’s with that? Don’t raccoons generally stay tucked away in their trees until dark? Florida raccoons seemed to do that. Do they have a longer commute up here in the north so they have to leave earlier?
Then, there are the maple trees. I’ve apparently never spent much time with maples. Or if I have, I haven’t spent enough time thinking about them or watching them.
We were laying in bed the other night and TW started cursing about “the helicopters”. Umm we live under the flight pattern for O’Hare but I haven’t actually heard any helicopters, so I questioned her on this. “The helicopters, you know – the seed pods that are all over the house? They’re always stuck to my feet.” Umm no. I had no idea what she was talking about. She got up, with a huff (which means everybody knows this stuff but you, why am I cursed with having to teach you stuff that everybody knows), and came back in with a couple of green things.
Apparently they are maple seeds? Or something. And when they fall from the maple trees, they spin. Or something. She tossed one up and nothing happened except that it fell onto MY bed, MY quilt, MY nice expensive white sheets. She tossed another one and oh yea, it spins. Whatever. I’ve never seen that before.
And now that she’s mentioned it, I’m noticing them all over the floor of the house and when I go outside the maple trees are shooting the freaking things at me. Yesterday during a phone meeting I was covered with the things. I get the point, the tree no longer needs to display this helicopter stuff to me. I’m totally done with maple seed helicopters, kthxbai.
I bet you don’t even know what to do with those helicopter seeds after they fall! You spread apart the little seed pod and place it on the bridge of your nose! And you have a contest to see who’s pod stays on their nose the longest. YES. That’s really what you do. Or the little Hatch kids did when I was growing up. I know you don’t know this because you were raised in Charleston where there are no maple trees…
And speaking of the weather alert siren, I heard the Anderson siren promptly at 8:00 am on Monday doing its little test because I had the porch widow open, and the sound was very loud. Just so you know what you missed. I can’t believe you were there for an entire year and never heard it…
But maple trees mean yummy maple syrup. Sheesh! And that sounds like perfectly normal raccoon behavior. The only way it could more normal is if you said they were fighting and screeching outside your window at 3am.
Just wait until those helicopters start taking root. The house across the street from me has a bunch of seedlings growing out of their gutters. And the nearest maple tree is several houses down.
I don’t like nature.
Did Chris ever answer your questions about the sirens?
Never seen helicopters? What kind of childhood did you have, freak? 😉
Haha. I don’t mind the helicopter seeds but I *hate* when those inch worms, or whatever they are, start hanging on spider-type strands from the trees. Totally creeps me out. Slugs are disgusting for some reason too.
Yah, here in Boulder they test the flood warning system, first Monday of each month, 10am. And that gives you enough time to forget until you, yet again, hear sirens, a muffled, repeated warning for about five minutes. It’s a female voice saying something about getting high, er, higher….but really loud and unintelligible. Who decides on these things?
cheers,
LuluMom
http://lulu-momblog.blogspot.com/
No maple trees here, but a neighbor has two very messy trees overhanging my front and back yards. I really should do something about the detritus this weekend.
First Tuesday of every month, 11:45 am – very LOUD! I don’t mind it so much because we really need an early warning systeme here. Hurricanes – everyone always knows when they’re coming and has time to do whatever needs doing. Tsunamis though, can come up pretty quickly and I’m “in the zone” so appreciated it the few times they’ve actually had to warn us to go to higher ground.
I haven’t seen a racoon in twenty years. I don’t think we ever had them near our home, but I saw them a lot when I was out and about – usually smashed flat on the shoulder fo the highway. Squirrels – we had a lot of squirrels.
Good lord. Those aren’t raccoons. Those are horses.
(I just made myself laugh out loud. ;))
I love those helicopters! I used to gather them up on the ground, climb up in the tree and let ’em all loose again.
Apparently you haven’t discovered earwigs yet? Those are another creature around these parts that show up in the house. Lovely things with nasty looking pinchers. ew.