Future naughtiness, I just sense it

Last month I had to clean the fishpond, something I try to resist doing every year. The pond is small but it's hard to get into and clean because it's surrounded on three sides by the deck. I scoop what I can but eventually I have to jump in all that muck and bail out the water and sticks (and I'm not going to think about what else) while standing in it. Eeeugh. Eeeugh. Eeeugh. Luckily it doesn't take that long and usually Eddie is outside coaching me with wolf whistles and "Pretty!!!!!!!"s. That stuff at the bottom of the pond is noncompostable though, as well as being heavy and wet, so I filled a garbage bag with the stuff and left it open to dry before setting it out for the trash later in the week.

Violet and I like to sit out on the deck at night and watch the fireflies and listen to the cicadas. We were sitting outdoors enjoying the night when I saw some movement in the middle of the yard...where that stinky bag was sitting out. My eyes got used to the darkness out there and I counted four raccoons (four!) very carefully open the bag and reach in to see what smelled so fish-stinky good. They surprisingly did not leave a mess. I probably would never have known a raccoon (let alone four!) had even been there if I had not seen them up to their sneaky business that night.

The next night Violet and I were sitting on the deck doing the same thing, enjoying fireflies and cicadas, when I heard a tiny little unusual sound coming from the fence by the driveway. I looked up and saw the silhouette of one momma raccoon being followed by 3-4 baby raccoons along the top of the fence. They got to the garage, climbed to the roof and then they were over the peak and then...gone.

But they came back. I can tell. The turtles' water dish and the containers that hold my aquatic plants are always muddy in the morning. I thought it was from what seems like the near constant rain we have been having but about a week ago, I looked out the back window and saw four baby raccoons playing pattycake in Violet's waterdish (which I forgot to bring in). So now that I know the raccoons and their raccoonettes are back, it's time to stock up on grapes and reopen the coontina.

My first blurry customer...

The scamps. Who knows what kind of stories will be written about the naughty visitors (which I think is a good descriptive word for when raccoons are being good!). This summer has had a theme of bold, assertive, non-apologetic behavior from the animals I have been crossing paths with and I now have to wonder, why should my two new little goldfish be any different?

Here is a picture of the two goldfish after I put them in their new pond. They set right to work to building up their muscles by swimming "upstream" where the water is coming out from the pump. It's a strong pump. It's also a forceful waterfall. Those two fish swam with such earnestness to stay in place. And then at some point they would just let go and get blasted across to the other side of the pond. But then... they would swim right back up to where that waterfall was coming down so they could do it again and again. I checked on them pretty often during that first day and night and those two were at that game for a solid 24 hours.

I don't know. There's something about them. I've had them for almost a month and those two little fish are getting big and strong. I'm not sure why, but I sense some future no good and scamp behavior coming from those two too...

They came home in a plastic bag with a warning on it (about flammability of all things) but still, it's a bag with a warning. I'm on alert.

Advice and observations

Sarah warned me to be prepared for a lot of visiting critters on my 20.8 acres because at Redbud Ranch (which is close by) they have foxes, raccoons, possums, deer, muskrats, one beaver, skunks, coyotes, bobcats, snakes, hawks, snapping turtles, you name it. Cathy J says she foresees a lot of paper plates in my future. :-)

The above photo is of a new raccoon that came by around midnight last weekend. Unfortunately, I don't think he or she is Freddie.

But I suspect he or she is a relative because there's that bold curiosity thing going on... :-)

Freddie, are you there?

Freddie must be on my mind because of the claw marks I found in the wood beam on Friday. I had a dream last night that Freddie was at the back door and I was feeding him cut up cooked carrots and chicken. In the dream I wondered if I was in a dream and that if I was, to remember what I was doing so that when I woke up, I could check my memory to see if it was real or not. I woke up and dang, it was a dream. No Freddie.

But when I went outside this morning I saw this...

I had just washed the cushion cover the day before (of course) and somebody found some mud and put a big foot print on it. Could it have been a raccoon....like maybe Freddie? The footprint is kind of hard to figure out because of the cross shape in the middle of the pad. Odd pressure points there. It's definitely not that large smoking cat, it's too big for a squirrel, it didn't quite look like a possum's......could it really be a raccoon? 

I've been thinking of that Freddie all day and just a short time ago I heard a loud chittering coming from a neighbor's tree. A sound I had never heard before. When I went on-line to find out what a miffed raccoon sounded like, the footprint identification was confirmed. There's a raccoon still in the neighborhood and it might be Freddie. Aw, could it really be Freddie? It would be just like him to wait until the cushion and clean pillows were put back on the glider for him to return. That raccoon likes a comfortable place to take naps and prefers to have his meals served to him on plates.

And no, it definitely was a dream last night because the refrigerator didn't have any leftover chicken in it. I checked. :-)

Poop off!

I would like to introduce a miracle product to those of you who have to deal with bird poop. It works for bird poop indoors and bird poop outside. This is what the beams of my deck's roof look like after a winter of outdoor starlings anticipating free cat food at the coontina. Dissssssgusting!

But with a spray from this miracle product, and just a little bit of scrubbing (not much) it is GONE. All you can see now are the wet spots in the areas that just got cleaned.

I don't see the starlings that often when they're up on those beams but when they're up there, it's hard to ignore a couple dozen birds trying to get a good look at you through the back door's window, even with curtains. And of course, even if I had never seen them, I recognize what they leave behind. 

There's a lot of activity in the backyard when I'm not there. I remember one time finding a pork chop in the birdbath. I suspect a grackle could be blamed for that one but nevertheless, I am the cleanup crew for everybody's activities back there. And sometimes you find something completely unexpected...

...little Freddie hands forever scratched into the wood. Aw, I wonder where that little guy is now. I wonder if he'll come back for some summer handouts. :-)

Anyway, the name of the miracle product is...

Really, what else could you call it? I feel kind of silly for even having to write the name because what else would you ask for if you were looking for such a thing? But then, for some reason just to make sure things are very clear, the manufacturer named the product for what it does, and then described the name that described what it does... you know, just in case anyone was confused. So...... just to be sure I'm clear, it really does what it says it does it does. It does.

A day just full of events

Today is Mardi Gras so I thought I'd post something about my turn of the century fan from Switzerland. It's made of a lot of different crepe papers, some plain, and some with painted/printed designs (back then, it was not unusual to have gold ink printed on the crepe paper too).

The little figure has a die-cut scrap face glued to a cardboard body. She is dressed in more crepe paper and she is holding a pitchfork made of gold metallic paper glued onto cardboard. There are lots of pretty little gold decals floating on her costume and in the background. I think she looks like a little butterfly among the stars. 

But when you turn it over, you see a mirror (reflecting whoever is looking at it) and gold cut-out paper letters that spell out the word "hell" in french.

Well, and oh my. Not sure what to make of that. I'm assuming this was made for a Mardi Gras type holiday in Switzerland. Just another curious thing in my ephemera collection that I hope to find more about in the future. :-)

And today is also the day I got to see Rane again and to meet his friend Carse. I had NO problem recognizing Rane. And he had no problem recognizing me because apparently I have the same walk. :-/ That's what he said. I picked them up at Union Station and we went off to eat breakfast at Succotash and one of us (not me) had pear and pecan pancakes because today is also International Pancake Day. 

And while I was writing this I heard a racket on the deck and when I just checked to see what was going on, look who showed up after being gone for nearly two months...

Oh that Freddie. I opened the backdoor carefully to give him his plate of cat food but he managed to grab my leg. That surprised me so I dropped the plate and quickly got behind the screen door and Freddie got surprised himself and jumped backward. Gawd. That little raccoon was starving. Look how thin he is...

Freddie was a little put out because as we all know, he does not like to eat off of floors. He likes plates. But I was not going to take the time to carefully place another plate in front of him if he was going to grab and jump on me. So Freddie had to roll his food back onto the plate that was out there. Freddie's hunger eventually got the best of him and within a minute or two of impatient cat food rolling, he just started chomping on anything he could find.

Then it was time for a clean up and a short rest on the glider while that awful cat that smells like cigarettes made sure Freddie behaved.

I don't think he appreciated the feline supervision.

So off he went and we could tell where he was going by the dog barking we could hear as he travelled through each yard. Must be hard to be a raccoon in a dog and cat and possum world. 

The Coontina is open on New Year's Day!

I woke up around 4:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep so I went to get a glass of water in the kitchen. It's a habit to do a "coon check" every time I'm near the back door, so I looked out the back door window and this time....

I could not believe it. There was Freddie. All wound up in a tight ball of fur completely passed out on the glider at 4:40 in the morning. He had his tail covered up with fur, and his ears looked more cat than raccoon the way they were sitting up on his head but I knew it wasn't that gray cat who often does the same thing because 1.) that fur coat looked expensive for a cat and 2.) Freddie's gotten bigger.  It really was FREDDIE!!!!! And the only thing to do now was to wake him up and get him something to eat.

Here is a pained expression of a raccoon wanting to sleep in but enduring me anyway and since he's used to the flash on the camera, he now knows to look away from it. Doesn't make for compelling photos though.

Freddie unspiraled himself, let out a big yawn and then did a biggggggggggg stretch....

Maybe some scratching needed to be done too.

Then some thinking about what he wanted to do so early in the morning. But he decided to get his stiff little self off the glider to chomp on some cat food. He really wasn't that hungry. He didn't even finish what I gave him. He did like the water bowl though.When he was finished eating the dry cat food (which took two hands to eat, probably because he was so sleepy), he washed his hands in the water dish and then  ambled off.

Brian was telling me how he had seen a lot of critter catchers in the neighborhood and it saddened me to think that Freddie and his family might have been picked up and taken out of the neighborhood. So I was really surprised to see Freddie this morning. And Freddie looks great. Bigger. Chubbier. The possum that shows up usually around the same day as Freddie showed up last night too, also looking pretty big and chubby.

My new sister-in-law decided that each member of the family would draw names for Christmas this year and would then have to buy just one gift for that one person. She drew my name and although the earrings she sent were beautiful (and from Tiffany's!), I am the only woman on earth who does not have pierced ears. I'm treating Freddie's visit this morning as a late Christmas present, and the one I had hoped for! :-)

I have some feather pillows I have to throw out because they're old and have been replaced but I'm going to put them out for Freddie tonight. Brian told me a story about an old girlfriend who was bipolar and most of the time she'd be fine but then she'd have an episode and find it mandatory to do something like string bagels from trees at midnight. And now he lives across the hallway from a woman who has decided to go green by never using her electricity and when he comes home at night, he will sometimes see her moving around her apartment in the dark via flashlight. Good grief. Plumping up feather pillows for a visiting raccoon is on that same list of c r a z y, I know that. But really, this is just too much sweetness to ignore.

Still thinking about that raccoon...

It's 5 degrees outside. Brrrr. But yesterday it was above freezing and the snow melted enough so that I could identify the animal tracks in the backyard. Once the fluffiness of the several inches of old snow started melting, I could see the foot impressions left when they originally compacted the snow in the ground. I saw lots and lots of telltale little handprints...a lot! It was raccoon craziness all over the perimeter of the yard. There were prints leading to and leaving the elm...tracks indicating that some time was spent under the deck...but absolutely no raccoon footprints on the steps leading up the deck, or any footprints on the deck. Who knows if I'll ever see Freddie again. If those tracks came from Freddie, he's listened to his momma who told him to stay off the deck. And he definitely has.......he just has been everywhere else in my backyard. 

Anyway, the little guy is still in my thoughts, as well as raccoons in general.  This week I learned of another person (where I work) who grew up with a raccoon. 

This raccoon came to live with the family when he was a baby and was this person's brother's favorite pet growing up. Her brother spent a lot of time with the raccoon which she thinks is why this raccoon was so gentle for all of its life. The raccoon liked to sit on the back of her brother's shoulders and rest his chin on her brother's head when they went walking. The kids would take the raccoon to the creek and let him catch crayfish. They would also walk with him to the local stores. It seemed like that raccoon went everywhere those kids went. Their dad built a large fenced pen around some trees in the backyard and put several doghouses in the trees for this raccoon. But when it got cold in the winter, her brother would bring the raccoon into the house at night and it would sleep at the foot of his bed. Bandit was a very, very smart and gentle raccoon that lived over twenty years with that family. When her brother left home to go to college, she inherited the raccoon who then lived with her. The person who told me this story obviously loved that raccoon very much. She said that Bandit's hands were the most amazing things to feel and that she liked to take the paws and hold them against her face because they were so soft. 

I thought that was such a sweet story but, she had another one(!). 

Her father took a three week painting workshop in the Catskills a long time ago and since he wanted as much time as he could get to paint, he set up a painting tent to continue his painting at night. While he was painting one night, he felt a tug on his paintbrush and when he looked down, it was a young raccoon who had grabbed it. He gave the raccoon whatever was leftover from an earlier snack and so started the visits every night when he was painting. Every night the raccoon would return and tug on his paintbrush to let him know he was there and then her father would give him some food which he would carry away to his siblings who were less bold.

I just love stories like that. I don't expect Freddie to move in but it would be nice to know that he's still out there and is safe. 

Here's a picture of little Freddie taken over a month ago when he was waiting for the "food lady" to notice him and bring him something good to eat...on a plate, of course.

And a close-up of his face with an odd expression because he was trying to avoid the flash of my camera.

Miss that little dude. I keep saying that but I still mean it.

Tracking

When I looked out into the backyard yesterday morning, I saw some tracks. There were some small ones, obviously from a cat, and some bigger ones, obviously from a.......raccoon? I sure was hoping for that but I have at least two stray cats that come to the back door for breakfast and dinner. One with small feet. One with enormous feet.

I really couldn't figure them out. They were much bigger than the cat tracks but I couldn't see the telltale little handprints you're supposed to see because the snow was in the process of melting...I had to go by how the animal was walking. That's what made it so confusing. When a raccoon walks, the foot in back will step in the hand print that was just made. I have no idea what was going on here. And the gaps? What on earth, if this was a raccoon, was he doing?

But then, this morning.......fresh tracks, fresh perfectly formed classic raccoon tracks.

Looks like somebody had climbed up my elm. I didn't see any tracks coming down so I'm hoping Freddie (if it is Freddie) is taking a nap up there and hopefully, I'll see him again soon. :-)

Woo hoo! Freddie might be back! :-D

Fifteen seconds of Freddie

The last time I saw a raccoon in the backyard was last Saturday. A shy raccoon high in the elm tree (it was around midnight). I don't think it was Freddie. I think it was a spy to make sure Freddie didn't try to come back to the coontina. I've seen Freddie twice since November 17th (when I took this little movie), once with his little sister and once with a same size raccoon about a week later.

The reason my movie clip is only fifteen seconds long is because I forgot that Stella was out of her cage (which is why it ends so abruptly). Stella had surprised me by flying to my shoulder so I had to stop shooting and close the screen door so she wouldn't fly out and help herself to the cat food too. Freddie just kept eating. 

And I apologize for the dirty used plate. I couldn't put out a fresh one because I'm still scared of contact. I remember one time I kind of folded a plate toward him through the slightly open screen door and his two little hands grabbed the sides of the plate from me (that was cute!). Unfortunately the cat food got spilled and I learned he does not like to eat off a floor, food on plates only please. One time I threw some grapes out the door (he was right at the door and I didn't want those little hands grabbing me which is why they were tossed over his head). Freddie carefully rolled the grapes to the plate that was already out there (the stray cats eat earlier...usually). Anyway, this was one of those times where I felt safer just letting him eat off a plate that had been sitting there since morning. He was about six feet away, I quickly dumped the measuring cup full of food on the dirty plate and quickly closed the door. I feel bad about that dirty plate...can you tell? Ha ha ha. I don't like my raccoon guests eating off of dirty plates.

This is my last picture I took of Freddie on November 25th. The reason he looks so nervous is because there was another raccoon behind him supervising his behavior but keeping a cautious distance from me. Unlike that Freddie. :-)

I've been hearing stories about raccoons from people at work. How one person, when she was a little kid, encountered some young raccoons at the edge of a forest on a picnic and she and her siblings just went up to the raccoons and started petting them (huh?). Another co-worker told me how she knew someone who had a pet raccoon who lived in the house for years and when the raccoon was outside, he knew enough to crawl up and pull the chain on the outdoor light at night to turn it on. 

Well, I'm still on Freddie watch. I look for him every night. I'm hoping the sudden cold weather has just slowed his family down on their route and that hopefully in a couple days he'll show up again, even if he has two chaperones.  I really miss that little guy. I mean it, I really miss him. :-)

Cats and Raccoons. Real and the wannabe.

The Civilized cat (this is Daffodil, baby Rex's nanny):

The Cat wannabe (Freddie, from a few weeks ago):

And baby Rex, who just recently learned to walk and looks like what a raccoon would look like if it grabbed some wooden spoons and started walking upright (Meg says Rex's Indian name is "Coonwalker."):

Yesterday I spent the day at Redbud Ranch and watched Rex (he's almost one year old!) go round and round and round and round the house for hours and hours and hours and hours. Rex has just learned to walk and it was so much fun to watch him go go go. But it's exhausting(!) and he was the one doing all the moving and banging with the spoons. 

When I got home last night around 7 pm I looked out the backdoor and saw a raccoon. Not Freddie. I think it was Freddie's momma. She was HUGE. One sight of me and she was gone in a flash. But no Freddie.

At midnight I went out on the deck just to be outside and look at the stars and stuff, noticed one of the pillows on the glider had fallen and then I heard a rustle. There was a loud sound of something being done urgently to bolt up those deck steps as fast as possible. I raced into the house. It was Freddie galloping toward me at full speed. He must have been famished (but I think that's the normal state of raccoons even when their tummies are full). His little hands were reaching all over the screen door in search of dinner. Behind him was another raccoon which looked like it could have been his little sister. Freddie got his plate of food but he gave his sister a look so she went over the side of the deck and then under to get whatever cat food fell through the cracks of the deck. Easy to tell what was going on because there was a lot of crunching going on down there.

I think Freddie has been missing for a week because his momma gave him a long talking to and a long timeout to get things clear. Freddie is a raccoon, not a cat or anything else. Dang. I think that's the end of my visits with my my sweet little raccoon. He's traveling in a pack now. He was moving around too fast for me to feel safe to take a picture of him last night. He's back to being a wild animal but maybe he'll be his silly, slow, waddling self again if there aren't other raccoons nearby to keep an eye on him. I'm going to miss the old Freddie. But I'm still setting a plate out for him this Thanksgiving. :-)

And in the meantime, I guess there's a raccoon wannabe that makes me laugh (oh I'm so going to hell with this one)...baby Rex, Coonwalker.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce...

Oh good grief, I really shouldn't be giving the raccoon a name at all. He's a wild animal. And he's going to stay a wild animal. And I really shouldn't humanize him with a human thing like giving him a name. I learned that in a wildlife rehab class. It keeps you on track with your rehab mission but I did find out later that the people working at the wildlife center secretly did give names to the animals in rehab. Ha ha ha. 

I remember at the orientation meeting, all of us had to tell something about ourselves and what we appreciated about nature. Lots of nice thoughts, mine followed someone who liked to look at cardinals against white snow. Pretty image. But when it was my turn to talk, I said I liked to get a pizza and set it out on the deck and watch the birds have a big party (not my birds indoors, the wild ones outdoors). All birds love Italian food, wild or captive. I don't know how many nature rules I broke with that statement but I remember getting a look and...well, it wouldn't have worked out anyway. Ha ha ha. But giving an animal a name is an important thing because that brings them a lot into your world and hopefully a little out of theirs. 

I like to name my pets after people I know (friends, family, co-workers). So what name would I come up with this time....? There were lots of good ones for whatever reasons  but the one I'm going to try out and hopefully settle on (the raccoon hasn't come by tonight, otherwise I'd test it out) is a name of someone who retired from the company I work for several years ago. He was a darling man who was always in search of cake. He ......loved ........cake. I remember one day he was feeling very sad because there was no cake to be found and that was just so darn pitiful, I went out at lunch and bought him a cake, not a piece, one whole cake. It was so funny. It made him sooo happy. That man loved his cake. He would light up just talking about cake! So I'm going to try out his name on the raccoon. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Freddie K, who would be a cake seeker too if he knew what cake was.

This picture was taken last night right after he unrolled himself from being a tight little cat-sized ball of fur. Those are his  back feet in the front. He really did make himself kitty-size. 

I looked out the kitchen door window at 7 pm...

...and who was that on the glider? Was it the gray cat, or the raccoon? I really couldn't tell and 7 pm is not really raccoon time. Whoever it was, he was all rolled up in a ball and fast asleep. When I studied  him, all I could see was a ball of gray fur, some pointed ears and a tail that was tucked around tight, but whoever it was, he did have some subtle striping in his tail... so I opened the door to check out who it was. Guess who unrolled himself and showed his sleepy face? He had been waiting.

Meg says I'm running a coontina. :-) Yes, I am. From 6pm to 1am every night, it's all you can eat and only what you want to eat. Tonight I gave him his plate of cat food but he wanted more,  so I just handed him a measuring cup full of catfood through the slightly open screen door. Although he's entirely comfortable with me, I'm not so trusting of him (although so far he's the been the best behaved "stray cat" that's come around ). He took the measuring cup from my hand and seemed to like grabbing the food from the cup since when he eats, everything is carried from his hand to his mouth. Later I tossed him a small bunch of grapes and he carefully rolled them all back to the paper plate. He certainly is a civilized little thing. 

He reminded me of a sketch I had done of my old cat Bert in my 1982 sketchbook (I've had it lying around because I pulled it out to post that ghost drawing on Halloween). 

Bert:

and the cat impostor: 

Somebody has this stray cat lifestyle nailed! He certainly has had plenty of cats to study. Here's Violet giving him some strong scrutiny after the poor thing just woke up. That lasted all of 15 seconds and then the two totally ignored each other. I think the raccoon is her favorite stray cat that has appeared at the back door.

He continues to be so damn cute. Later this evening, I called Violet's name to get her back in the house for the night and who came running up the deck steps?

Not the solid gray cat who has lived in this house for 14 years whose first name starts with the letter "V."

Look who just showed up at midnight...

...for dinner, some grapes, and I swear, to be tucked in for the night.

Sweet dreams.

What is this?

Monkey? Cat?      Monkeycat?

Oh it's you know who. Making himself completely at home. The bold and brazen article who is now even more so.

Last night I noticed that the gray cat that smells of cigarettes showed up for his dinner and as I was serving him his dinner...I noticed  the raccoon coming up the deck steps. I went inside, got another plate of catfood, went outside, no raccoon in sight so I set the plate down and returned to the house. And that's when a little dark hand reached out from under the glider and got hold of my jeans. Good grief! The boldness. I was a little taken aback and even more so once the raccoon managed to crawl out from under the glider and started eating the catfood that had been set down for the gray cat. The food that was right outside the back door (the raccoon's plate had been set down further down on the deck). Well, what to do? In between the open back door to my house and me was this pretty big raccoon in a pretty tight area. I couldn't walk over him and I couldn't walk around him so I waited for him to finish the plate. When he was done eating, he didn't know what he was supposed to do either. Luckily the gray cat had had enough of all this special treatment and jumped down, punched the raccoon  in the nose a couple times and then they both took off to separate parts of the deck to cool off (well, one of them took off to cool off, the other one just waddled around like John McCain at a presidential debate).

I'm glad the gray cat did that because I could now safely get back into my house.......so I could bring out even more food. Yes, I know what I'm doing is stupid but then, that's what everyone in my family dies of, we can't help it, it's in the genes.  Really, I had to tell a new doctor one time that people tend to do something stupid in my family and then die which is why my family medical history was so lacking. When my dad, at 70 or so, decided he had never bungee jumped before and wanted to try it...well, why not do it from the tallest bridge in the world? My sister and brother went to witness that when he decided to go jumping in New Zealand because someone ought to claim the body if this was going to be his final act of stupidity (it wasn't). 

Here's the raccoon working on his second plate and if you look in the background, you can see the gray cat giving him a mean look. Click on the image to see the larger version. Hmmm...maybe he's giving me a mean look.

The raccoon didn't want to get punched in the nose again so he climbed up on the bench to avoid any further confrontations.

Here he is looking small and scared and pitiful. He's a good actor. He's none of those things.

The gray cat got served his food on a ledge outside the back door so everything was peaceful again at the all-you-can-eat. 

The raccoon finished his second plate of catfood and a couple grapes, climbed up on the glider, got comfortable, and then started.......... getting...............sleepy.......

...1.........2..............3.............and he was completely passed out.

Thanksgiving's coming up and one of my traditions is to make a complete dinner for all the pets served on real plates. I love watching my birds carefully eat their mashed potatoes and gravy while I drink champagne. I wonder if the bold, brazen article will be here for the annual event. No doubt by that time he will have moved into the spare bedroom and will be helping me make dinner by peeling the potatoes. I know those little hands could learn to do it.