A message posted last week on Cleveland Park’s Yahoo group:

We have a raccoon which frequently climbs to our 2nd story flat top roof. It is so brazen that it will watch through the skylight while we eat. It seems to think the roof is a private outdoor privy & deposits droppings. Any suggestions for a repellant? Does the city provide a trapping service? Any suggestions short of violence?

(Emphasis added.)

Not the first report we’ve seen of a voyeuristic raccoon. Can we call it a trend?

From a recent post to Takoma’s Yahoo! group:

I just saw a young deer in the yard next door (on Piney Branch between Dahlia and Blair), but he’s gone now. I imagine he came in from the alley off 7th Street. Looked like a young male (small, with antlers). Does one call somebody about a wandering deer after he has gone off?

I say let it slide. But what do you think? Anyone know what the protocol is on this one?

There are fewer smells better than a crackling campfire in the woods, fewer pleasures more distinct than a pitched tent, a cold beer, and conversation. And there are even fewer inventions as genius as the humble pie iron.

Although my fiance and I recently acquired as a gift a fancy camping stove, I’m not entirely convinced we need it. The possibilities with a pie iron—two cast-iron squares, roughly the size of a piece of bread, hinged at the top and attached to long handles—are awesome to contemplate. With this one primitive piece of equipment, some wood, a couple of ingredients, and a little patience, you’ve got every meal covered: breakfast (try store-bought biscuit dough with cheese and a slice of turkey stuffed in the middle), lunch (some nutty bread, a slice of Swiss and a marinated Portobello) and dinner, the always-reliable pizza pocket (bread, sauce, cheese, and whatever else you like). Apply cooking spray to your iron, stack your ingredients, close it up, and stick it in the fire. That’s it. A few minutes later, you can flip out a neat, toasty package encasing simple ingredients, made melty and smoky from open-fire cooking.

Pie irons are sold in most camping stores, although I’ve never bought one. Pizza pockets were, I think, my first solid food as a child and the pie iron (a Tonka toaster) I inherited has been in my family for 30 years or more.

But if you don’t have one, don’t sweat it. Just get outdoors. Three-day weekends with near-perfect weather are too rare to sit inside your air-conditioned apartment. Camping in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania is super fun…and close!

Read last week’s cover story, Franklin Schneider’s “Buzz Kill,” and wondering what you can do to remember the millions of bees that have disappeared from the mid-Atlantic states in recent months?

Blogger Herb of DC’s found someone who’s way ahead of the curve in the bee-memorial department. Behind the Garden District nursery on S Street NW just east of 14th, there’s an odd street memorial somewhat reminiscent of the impromptu sidewalk encomiums following a resident’s untimely death, complete with votive candles and “dead soldier” beer bottles.

Chances are this is part of that SiteProjects DC thing—probably the work of Carolina Mayorga, though we haven’t been able to confirm— This is actually part of that SiteProjects DC thing—the work of artists Matthew McGuinness and Eliza Newman Saul—but remember this is about more than art: It’s about the bees.

Earlier this week the Workingman Collective—local artists Janis Goodman, Tom Ashcraft, and Peter Winant—installed 30 bird habitats on 14th Street NW between P and U Streets. The project, titled Site, Cite, Sight, was commissioned by WPA/Corcoran as part of SiteProjects DC, which places a variety of art projects onto that stretch of 14th. You can see the collective’s members in that picture on the right. What’s with the orange jumpsuits? It’s about “interaction with the community,” says Goodman. “When we’re out there in our coveralls, people can come to us and ask us what we’re doing.” Adds Winant: “We’re recognized as doing something that’s an art piece, rather than graffiti artists.”

Site, Cite, Sight, Ashcraft says, is meant to draw city dwellers’ attention to the distinctions between “the environment and the built environment”: the habitats are designed for the Eastern Bluebird, the Black-capped Chickadee, and the Downy Woodpecker, three of the hardest-hit species from the West Nile Virus. (Specific habitat designs are “mainly a matter of the size of the openings,” says Goodman.) The Workingman Collective specializes in work that deals in this sort of urban-natural intersection. In April 2006 the group went to Butte, Mont., to draw a five-mile chalk line that “represents commitment, delineates territory and marks what’s cut and what’s kept.” Earlier this year Ashcraft and Winant headed to the campus of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., to install Pine, a wooden ping-pong table intended in part to revitalize a little-used campus quad.

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I belong to one formal organization: the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club. I’m not really a joiner, but it would be kind of rotten to not at least fork over membership dues to the PATC since I spend most weekends hiking the trails its members built and maintain. (In addition to taking care of 240 miles of the A.T., the PATC maintains just about all the trails in both Rock Creek Park and Shenandoah National Park, in addition to other popular spots, like Billy Goat).

So when my boyfriend and I started getting the newsletter advertising all the trails that need “overseers,” guilt got the better of us and we signed up to clean the mucky, garbage-ridden River Trail in Great Falls Park. But not because we are of pure heart. The greatest benefit of joining the PATC, we found out, is being able to rent the club’s members-only cabins. And the biggest benefit of signing up to clean the mucky, garbage-ridden River Trail is being able to get to the best ones first. (Trail overseers get, at least once a year, a good head start on dibs.)

Exhibit A: Glass House, a lovingly maintained cabin built in 1950 and donated to the PATC by noted D.C. geologist Jewell J. Glass, a club member from 1930 until her death in 1966. The cabin (there are twin bunks that sleep eight) inside George Washington National Forest is wrapped by a fantastic deck and a giant screened-in porch. The view’s better than TV, trust me, and great hiking starts right outside the door. We did a nice 12-miler to Signal Knob on Saturday and returned to the best reward: ice-cold beer from the cabin’s new fridge and an appreciative toast to the River Trail…and Dr. Glass.

Editor’s Note: Earlier this year, Justin wrote Iceland, a blog about his band’s American tour. Justin isn’t on tour anymore, but Iceland continues, twice a week, on City Desk.

“Lo! Come hither and hearken to my testimony!” exclaimed the termite inspector. We huddled in my basement among drumsets and broken synthesizers. “Do you see the labyrinthine tunnels chewed into this deteriorating staircase? This is termite handiwork!”

“Who are these termites?” I queried. “Are these termites like the ones that plague the city of New Orleans?”

“How lucky are we not to live in the termite nightmare that is the Big Easy!” the termite inspector exclaimed. He tore at his thin white hair and rolled his eyes to heaven. “Oh, do not speak to me of New Orelans!”

“Tell me,” I begged. “‘Twas it Hurricane Katrina or termites that destroyed the House of the Rising Sun?”

“The damnable termites of New Orleans live and breed in wood, Cajun-style!” shouted the termite inspector. “They will leave your home in ruins! Do not doubt that the District’s termites will bore into wood they find pleasing, destroying staircases with tunnels lined with spit! However, these Mid-Atlantic termites live in the earth and return to the earth after entering your home and munching on arboreal delights. A simple chemical treatment will eliminate them.”

“I am impressed with your knowledge of the termite realm,” I remarked. “How termites must live in fear of you!”

“You’re absolutely goddamn right!” exclaimed the termite inspector. He looked around the basement at the drumsets and broken synthesizers. “Are you a musician?”

“I prefer the term ‘visionary artist,’” I replied.

“I used to live with a musician,” the termite inspector said. “Sleep all day, up all night! This man kept the worst hours of any man in the world!”

“Those of us pursuing visions live in a realm beyond time,” I explained. The termite inspector ignored me and stared at the walls.

“These walls are made of plaster,” the termite inspector said. “Termites have eaten the wooden stairs, but they dare not eat these fine plaster walls!” The termite inspector blinked back tears.

“I see that you are moved by this glorious plaster,” I observed.

“Oh plaster, fine plaster!” the termite inspector exclaimed. “At the turn of the century, American artisans routinely constructed such plaster walls as these. Now, drywall is favored for its low cost and can be installed by Spanish-speaking persons.”The termite inspector glared at me. “I hope my remark about Spanish-speaking persons does not offend you,” he said.

“No, ” I lied. How easily a racist remark can ruin an informative exchange about building materials! I thought. I really should rebuke this inspector for his “Kramer” moment. Instead, I reached at and touched the plaster walls that held up my home. Though I had lived in my home for eight years, I had never noticed this plaster before.

It says so right in our Freelancer’s Guide: “We’re not interested in Op-Ed material, fiction, poetry, stories about news conferences or demonstrations, or service journalism about 12 great places to get espresso after midnight.” So a few exceptions that prove the rule aside, it’s always a pleasant surprise when I can actually apply something we’ve written about to my daily life.

Take shit, for example. Just the other day, my wife called me with puzzling news: What appeared to be cat droppings were all over our backyard, which is enclosed by tall fences and presumably cat-proof. We kicked around a few theories. Then I remembered something that made me hit the archives.

I asked the missus whether the poop contained seeds, uneaten berries, or grubs. Why yes, she said. Thank you Sarah Godfrey, for identifying that we probably have a visiting raccoon (though possum can’t be ruled out).

A photo of the offending feces follows the jump.

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Currently on the home page of washingtonpost.com is the online edition of one of the cover stories in today’s paper: “Not Everyone Admires the View,” which details how Rehoboth Beach officials are contemplating the regulation of the construction of new homes that some residents feel clash with the town’s “cottage-y feel.”

Featured in the online article (but not in the paper edition) is this photo…

…which shows an obviously confused and terrified young man who is about to have his faced pecked off by a vicious seagull while his friend sits idly by contemplating the spectacle. The caption reads: “At Rehoboth Beach, Del., Mike Yerkes, 19, attracts gulls with crackers. (Linda Davidson/Post).”

Has the Post made a mistake here? Perhaps, on some lackey’s hard drive, there’s a file titled ManFeedingGentleSeaGull.jpg that was supposed to be put up in this photo’s place? Or maybe they just need someone’s help—your help—in coming up with a better caption.

CORRECTION, 2:54 P.M.: The photo actually ran on B3, accompanying a different article.

Has Knut, the polar bear babe rejected by its mother at the Berlin Zoo and who is 4 months old today, usurped Butterstick’s title as international bear of choice?

The “ice bear,” as the zoo’s translated Web site calls him, gets the May Vanity Fair cover shot by Annie Liebovitz! Sure, he’s included because of the implications of global warming, but my loyalty to Tai Shan tells me that it’s ageist. And Knut is lacking technologically—he may have a blog (only in German), but it’s no Panda Cam.

The National Zoo is, after all, really interested in giving us total access, and, as it happens, TMI. (Fortunately, they have a sense of humor.) For example, their Web site reports on Butterstick’s mom Mei Xiang’s cycle:

Analysis of hormones in her urine as well as vaginal cytology studies confirmed that Mei is in early estrus (also called “periestrus”). On Monday afternoon, we became aware that Mei’s estrus was imminent, based on Tian’s increased intensity and persistence in interacting with Mei. Tian was very interested in approaching Mei’s rear, as well as in standing on her back in some rather haphazard mounts. Mei was not at all pleased with this special attention! She swatted him several times and ran away from him.

Even if Butterstick will grow up not knowing how to have sex, at least, as a friend pointed out to me, he won’t maul baby seals.

Let the deer sexual revolution begin: National Park Service officials are floating the idea of using birth-control drugs to control the white-tailed deer population in Rock Creek Park.

The population problem has gotten so dire, says park superintendent Adrienne Coleman, that deer eating young trees has led to “bare spots” in the park. “When we have one resource that is damaging another resource, we somehow need to bring it into balance,” she said at a recent “public scoping meeting” held at the Rock Creek Nature Center.

Ken Ferebee, an NPS natural resource management specialist, says that contraception is “a preliminary alternative at this point.” If approved, the deer contraception would work much like human birth control?particularly the once-popular Norplant method. A doe would be trapped and sedated, then contraceptive sticks would be placed under the skin. The deer will be unable to conceive until the implant’s effects wear off.

While a “deer pill” could be a less invasive option, Ferebee says, “There’s no oral contraception that can be administered.”

While contraception is one of the more humane options on the table (other options include the use of fencing, poison, and sharpshooters) one animal-rights group is aginst putting Bambi on the pill. Bill Dallinger of Friends of Animals says people are the problem, not deer. “When free from human intervention, the deer population will stabilize,” Dallinger says. “White-tail deer have an interest in existing on their own terms.”