Nature, le nature, la natura, plnats, poesie, an occasional book reference, and whatever else sprout

Welcome to the new nature thread. Nothing much happening in Chicago and I am staying in to cook and to read. A really great way to spend a Sunday, no?

And wouldn't you know I left the "s" off of "sprouts" and saw it too late to edit it. After checking carefully to be sure I correctly spelled "plnats".

Apropos today's big games:

American Football

Hallelujah!
It works.
We blew the shit out of them.

We blew the shit right back up their own ass
And out their fucking ears.

It works.
We blew the shit out of them.
They suffocated in their own shit!

Hallelujah.
Praise the Lord for all good things.

We blew them into fucking shit.
They are eating it.

Praise the Lord for all good things.

We blew their balls into shards of dust,
Into shards of fucking dust.

We did it.

Now I want you to come over here and kiss me on the mouth.

Harold Pinter

That's the best sports poem I have ever read.

That's the best poem I have ever read.

steady on martini.

It's the first day of the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese Lunar calendar. Cold and wet with a steady drizzle. typical new year weather.

Happy New Year everyone!
新年快乐

Woohoo! I'm wearing a Chinese top today, quite by accident. I only realised the day when I got to work. Serendipity!

Weather here is fabulous - breezy, sunny, with flying cloud.

Speaking of all things Chinese, there's a bunch of kids here at work for an English language speaking course. One of them is wearing a shirt that says: EVERY DAY SPEND WITH A SMILE FOLLOW ETERNALLY.

Gong xi fa cai everyone.

I just ate all the xiao long bao. Happy dragon times, guys!

It is year of the dragon? My mother was born in one of those according to a placemat in a local Chinese restaurant (1940).
Happy new year!

Yep. Year of the Dragon. A good year in which to be born. Your mother should rock.

Oh, she does! I went to a church event she organized yesterday. She is a leading member of their "Advocacy and Social Justice" committee and they had a big presentation on debt relief for Zambia as part of their membership in the Jubilee debt relief movement. It was really interesting and I learned a lot but more to the point all the church people I met said something like "Oh, you are Roberta's daughter? She is amazing!"

Anna, that doesn't surprise me at all. I suspect you rock, too :)

Thanks! I was born in a monkey year. :)

Cabin fever:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYRI2Re5dmo

>16 yaaaay. Me too.

I think I'm a monkey year also! 1968.

Year of the ox, our motto according to wikipedia is 'I persevere' and our direction is North-northeast.

Such little snippets as this make our days more pleasant.

19: A rather terrible year wasn't it, except you and I were both born to grace this planet. :)

16, 18, 19 I'm also a monkey year. We obviously rule.

How can this be? I too am a monkey. How can all of us be monkeys?

Well, some of this is wrong. I do not rule, but I am a monkey year person.

Robert

From Wikipedia:

Persons born within these date ranges can be said to have been born in the Year of the Monkey, while also bearing its following elemental sign (i.e. Metal):

2 February 1908 – 21 January 1909: Earth Monkey
20 February 1920 – 7 February 1921: Metal Monkey
6 February 1932 – 25 January 1933: Water Monkey
25 January 1944 – 12 February 1945: Wood Monkey
12 February 1956 – 30 January 1957: Fire Monkey
30 January 1968 – 16 February 1969: Earth Monkey
16 February 1980 – 4 February 1981: Metal Monkey
4 February 1992 – 22 January 1993: Water Monkey
22 January 2004 – 8 February 2005: Wood Monkey

Yes, thank you, Tea. I see I am an old monkey, prob'ly 24 years older than Anna and Dr. Mary, 36 years older than Martin, and 12 years older than you (no offense). Durick, who as we all know lives in Monkeyland, is (I figure) either my age or on the verge of senility.

For you, Peter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01yMmm_XNdA

From all the other monkeys on this list!

Well, I am a rat. So there.

Me sssssssssnake.

I am a cat, in case no one noticed.

I am the same that they called the great WHO bassist, John Entwhistle, Ox (1949).

Not really nature, but sort of oxen-related:

As I drove along Loch Awe yesterday, I saw three Highland bulls just running down the road towards me. Highland cattle aren't very big compared to other breeds, but if their bulls are running straight at you, they look big enough.

I think they were meant to be running down the road. There was a farmer in a field nearby.

I am a horse, but some might say that is obvious.

I'm a monkey, too. An earth monkey, which is clearly wrong in some way, given my gardening skills.

34: Ditto! I have a black thumb. Now my mom the water dragon on the other hand....

I am not a monkey!!! I am an ox.

citybaby will be a DRAGON! So fierce.

And, yes, Murr, we noticed that you are a cat. We're just too polite to mention the shredded furniture and hairballs in the corner. But thanks for keeping the mice under control.

How's the proctologist?

we are all under the weather. I have cat flu, the proctologist has not sung any Wagner for a week, which is always a bad sign. I checked under the sofa to make sure he is still alive, and he is still there, eyes glinting blearily in the fluff, but something is wrong. Constant rain and cloud and freezing weather. Christ, I hate winter. January and February suck.

Off to japan with mother for a jaunt tomorrow.

An "occasional book reference" you say, Lisa? Here's one I'm reading at the moment, a whodunit featuring a ship (or is it a boat?), weather (talk about freezing weather, catman--this book is situated in the Bering Sea), geography, and murder: Polar Star by Martin Cruz Smith.

PW, Don't know why, but I haven't read Cruz Smith since Gorky Park/Stallion's Gate, though I enjoyed him then.

'Murr, enjoy the jaunt.

>39,40 Gorky Park was the last time I read Cruz Smith, also. Do you recommend it Pietro?

I do like mysteries, and so incline in the whodunit direction anyway. Also, the author and I go back a long way, to Canto for a Gypsy. a small, well-written book that I read before he was well known. Gorky Park, alas, was ruined for me before I could get to it by seeing the movie (which I liked), and thus putting a face to Detective Renko (William Hurt) before I could supply my own. It's why I never see a movie before I read the book. Which is to say I can't compare Gorky Park to Polar Star.

But I can say that the book is so steeped in nautical things--the details of a Soviet "factory" ship fishing off the coast of Alaska and north of the Arctic Circle, on a route from Vladivostok, followed by American trawlers--that I can't imagine you won't love it. And I do like Renko, his mix of resignation and irony, his antiheroic courage whatever the situation. The ensemble characters are excellent too. And the Russian je ne sais quoi (or French, or even British) is always a treat for voyeurs like myself, eager to levitate away from the ordinary.

Here is something worth checking out:
http://www.altalang.com/beyond-words/2008/10/12/ten-most-difficult-words-to-tran...

I plan on adding jayus, tartle and iktsuarpok to my regular vocabulary.

I like provonit. We used to always do that in Egypt to conserve minutes but I don't think they had a word. They would just say "give me a ring".

Oh, I tartle all of the time.

I like "tingo," but I can't think of an occasion to use it. I'll just have to make one up.
And that first one would be awesome if it were spell-able and pronounce-able. (There're words for adjectives, right? Can anyone tell me what they are?)

I've been lurking here for awhile but I can't resist chirping (or might it be tartling?) that we are awaiting a snow, sleet, freezing rain, snow, sleet, rain etc. event starting in a few hours. Up to 1/4inch of ice possible as well as a few inches of snow. Central western Vermont - I'm nestled up in the Green Mountains.

Now I have to go read about tingo and tartle.....

Prozvonit in Australia is "to prank". We invite people to prank us so we can call them back.

Slick, I love that whole link, thanks.

Welcome, sibyx!

>47, Welcome. Shall we call you sibyx or Lucy or something else?

We will need to add Huntington, VT to our next weather forecast list. Chirp whenever you like. We like birds, too. I think you will see that "tartle" might be appropriate if you are trying to introduce someone.

Have a look at the rest of le Salon. We are a somewhat odd bunch, but we do have fun and also read some good things together from time to time.

The 'something else' is tempting, but Lucy or Sib depending on your whim?

Thank you for a warm welcome!

Welcome Lucy/Sib. You come from a most lovely state.

You wouldn't believe how many times I've tartled.

Some of my co-corkers have a permanent lame-joke contest running. I was happy to tell them about the Indonesian word jayus. I love jokes that are so lame they make me laugh.

Note to self: add Montreuil-sous-bois

Thesaurus

It could be the name of a prehistoric beast
that roamed the Paleozoic earth, rising up
on its hind legs to show off its large vocabulary,
or some lover in a myth who is metamorphosed into a book.

It means treasury, but it is just a place
where words congregate with their relatives,
a big park where hundreds of family reunions
are always being held,
house, home, abode, dwelling, lodgings, and digs,
all sharing the same picnic basket and thermos;
hairy, hirsute, woolly, furry, fleecy, and shaggy
all running a sack race or throwing horseshoes,
inert, static, motionless, fixed and immobile
standing and kneeling in rows for a group photograph.

Here father is next to sire and brother close
to sibling, separated only by fine shades of meaning.
And every group has its odd cousin, the one
who traveled the farthest to be here:
astereognosis, polydipsia, or some eleven
syllable, unpronounceable substitute for the word tool.
Even their own relatives have to squint at their name tags.

I can see my own copy up on a high shelf.
I rarely open it, because I know there is no
such thing as a synonym and because I get nervous
around people who always assemble with their own kind,
forming clubs and nailing signs to closed front doors
while others huddle alone in the dark streets.

I would rather see words out on their own, away
from their families and the warehouse of Roget,
wandering the world where they sometimes fall
in love with a completely different word.
Surely, you have seen pairs of them standing forever
next to each other on the same line inside a poem,
a small chapel where weddings like these,
between perfect strangers, can take place.

Billy Collins

54> Wonderful!

Though I am a philistine when it comes to poetry, Billy Collins never ceases to amaze me. I love that one.

>54 That may possibly be my all-time favourite poem from all the Nature threads we have ever had.

You see how sharp I can be when I make myself scarcer around here?

Argh! I take it back! Come back, Piero!

#54 Good stuff. And, at #58, Peter, it probably just means your reading more...

For the record, I'm a Water Ox, or, in Vietnam, a Water Water Buffalo.

Thank you for your poem.

You're quite welcome, stranger. Here's another:

The Only Day in Existence

The early sun is so pale and shadowy,
I could be looking up at a ghost
in the shape of a window,
a tall, rectangular spirit
looking down at me in bed,
about to demand that I avenge
the murder of my father.
But the morning light is only the first line
in the play of this day-–
the only day in existence-–
the opening chord of its long song,
or think of what is permeating
the thin bedroom curtains

as the beginning of a lecture
I will listen to until it is dark,
a curious student in a V-neck sweater,
angled into the wooden chair of his life,
ready with notebook and a chewed-up pencil,
quiet as a goldfish in winter,
serious as a compass at sea,
eager to absorb whatever lesson
this damp, overcast Tuesday
has to teach me,
here in the spacious classroom of the world
with its long walls of glass,
its heavy, low-hung ceiling.

Billy Collins

God I love that. Billy Collins can be too twee for me, but that, despite the v-neck sweater, is heady and deep.

Miss 47,

but that is the weather of your state--I'm in Slovenia on the Adriatic coast and the picture for the next week and more is GRIM, temperature below zere during the day, snow, burja (It. bora)...and we don't have moose signs.

Mr. quicksiva has been seen in various parts around this here salon, and I am proud to say is another Chicagoan. We are almost catching up to the Oregon folks in numbers.

It was almost 50 (F) here today, and quite pleasant with the sun shining. Our poor Rick is talking about below zero C. 0 C is supposed to be our average temperature right now. We are just being blessed with abnormally warm temperatures.

A friend has booked a restaurant for a birthday celebration in the mountains (Pyrenees) - Idiot

Temperatures will be minus14 degrees centigrade. That's too cold for me. I am not going..

Now that is cold!

More weird weather. On the anniversary of the start of the snowstorm that paralyzed the city last year we are to be near 60 F. I am enjoying it while I can--this is Chicago and one is always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

>66 but think of the possibilities! You could end up in Spain fighting the Falangists. You could end up with a spot on your lung.

We had a week or so of snow and wind and cancelled ferries, but now Vancouver is back to winter-normal: endless rain and grey and sad faces. Just visited my family on Vancouver Island, where it was blowsy and changeable with flashes of sun, and it made me miss real-home much. Let me ask you all, what role has the weather played in your habitation choices, over the years? Nobody here who moved to Mexico for the sun, right?

The weather was a big factor in my moving to South West France. We wanted shorter winters, No cold winds and bearable summers. I like a warm climate but I also like to see the four seasons. It wasn't the only factor, good cheap wine, affordable housing, space and room to breathe, and a left wing political feel to the place all helped.

And here are the four seasons http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myIG9PEwXZw

>69 ha, I thought of you, Bas, of course. It does sound uncommonly pleasant.

Weather among the top three reasons. As I write this we are in for a week at least of strong NE winds and below zero highs and even snow. Sometimes in these conditions it snows in the karst and falls on us. Where 'the burja starts', near Vipava, 220 kph was recorded. Vehicles have been falling over. Our balcony faces SW and it's still too cold for more than two or three hours of drinking.

Weather is the reason I hope to eventually spend winters in Florida. Given that I cannot make a living there now, I stay in Chicago year 'round.

On the other hand, summer in Chicago is the best.

Well I prefer Sydney weather to Canberra, but that's not why I moved here. And I'm aware that moving 2:30 hours' drive north is not quite the same thing as moving to France or Slovenia.

Ahh...

I (and presumably Teresa and Piero, et al) am enjoying some wonderfully balmy weather.

I'll take a little rain over snow, any day.

I sat outside in the late afternoon today (and read while my dogs played, which was lovely), and had to KILL A MOSQUITO. In January.

Went to the big city today to have the doctor (who rebuilt my spine five years ago) pass judgment on my herniated disc. He says it's not a big deal. Maybe it'll get better by itself, and if not he'll do a minor one-day operation. Also the weather was splendid. And I will never, ever move to Florida. I'd rather freeze in the foothills and put up with electrical outages than live in the insipid, humid flatlands.

Sorry about your herniated disc, Piero. Is it very painful?

Only when I walk.

Oh, is that all.

Suddenly it's COLD here! I didn't take a hat going out this morning, and I regretted it bitterly. I had to check that my ears were still attached when I got to the office. They were, just barely. Météo France says it's supposed to be between -2 and -1°C today, but it felt much colder with the wind.

A bit harsh on Florida yesterday, wasn't I? Here's this as recompense:

Nomad Exquisite

As the immense dew of Florida
Brings forth
The big-finned palm
And green vine angering for life,

As the immense dew of Florida
Brings forth hymn and hymn
From the beholder,
Beholding all these green sides
And gold sides of green sides,

And blessed mornings,
Meet for the eye of the young alligator,
And lightning colors
So, in me, comes flinging
Forms, flames, and the flakes of flames.

Wallace Stevens

Lovely. Florida forgives you.

I assure you I'm not here (Houston) for the weather. Meanwhile it's warm lately, regretted the jacket while walking the dogs last night.

Peter - I grew up in FL and I would rather freeze in some foothills too. But, if you must think Florida, Wallace Stevens in an interesting place to start.

Having grown up in Edmonton, AB, all other locations have been an improvement, weather-wise. Although it was never the cold, but the dark that got me.

I have only been to Florida for vacations so I can't express an opinion. After I read Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings I wanted to visit the Everglades pretty bad. She makes all the weirdness seem quaint.

#85 consider visiting a healthier Everglades vicariously in River of Grass...

Notice I do not want to live in Florida in the summer. I have been there and it is nasty.

Since stumbling upon this thread I have taken to stepping outside frequently in hopes of 'interesting' weather. Alas. No luck. Unless way too warm is interesting.

I like that poem, I've spent considerable time in Sarasota (if you have to go to Florida, go there, it's a decent city) and I've come to, how shall I say it, appreciate Florida? (It's warm and there's ample daylight). There is something indefinably 'off' about the whole state, however, (maybe cos it is a swamp? At least, at the edges) that I find fascinating. (Inland has a different feeling, sleepy and forgotten, although that is changing too, which is sad.) So precarious? Temporary? It couldn't be more different in every possible way from Vermont, so that part of it is refreshing

Our balcony faces SW and it's still too cold for more than two or three hours of drinking.
Now Rick, perhaps wrapping up in a thermal sleeping bag would give you another hour or two?

88> But he still needs to have a hand out to hold his drink, doesn't he?

Oh gosh! Maybe a straw? IV?

One of these backpack thingies with a tube attached?

I know--a wrap like Hans Castorp had!

Lucy, we don't actually require that there be anything interesting about the weather to talk about it. We pretty much just like to "hear" ourselves "talk".

This poem was brought to my attention by a blog I recently started following. Seems particularly appropriate for Black History Month in the U.S. I found it in Poetry Magazine.

For My People
BY MARGARET WALKER
For my people everywhere singing their slave songs
repeatedly: their dirges and their ditties and their blues
and jubilees, praying their prayers nightly to an
unknown god, bending their knees humbly to an
unseen power;

For my people lending their strength to the years, to the
gone years and the now years and the maybe years,
washing ironing cooking scrubbing sewing mending
hoeing plowing digging planting pruning patching
dragging along never gaining never reaping never
knowing and never understanding;

For my playmates in the clay and dust and sand of Alabama
backyards playing baptizing and preaching and doctor
and jail and soldier and school and mama and cooking
and playhouse and concert and store and hair and
Miss Choomby and company;

For the cramped bewildered years we went to school to learn
to know the reasons why and the answers to and the
people who and the places where and the days when, in
memory of the bitter hours when we discovered we
were black and poor and small and different and nobody
cared and nobody wondered and nobody understood;

For the boys and girls who grew in spite of these things to
be man and woman, to laugh and dance and sing and
play and drink their wine and religion and success, to
marry their playmates and bear children and then die
of consumption and anemia and lynching;

For my people thronging 47th Street in Chicago and Lenox
Avenue in New York and Rampart Street in New
Orleans, lost disinherited dispossessed and happy
people filling the cabarets and taverns and other
people’s pockets and needing bread and shoes and milk and
land and money and something—something all our own;

For my people walking blindly spreading joy, losing time
being lazy, sleeping when hungry, shouting when
burdened, drinking when hopeless, tied, and shackled
and tangled among ourselves by the unseen creatures
who tower over us omnisciently and laugh;

For my people blundering and groping and floundering in
the dark of churches and schools and clubs
and societies, associations and councils and committees and
conventions, distressed and disturbed and deceived and
devoured by money-hungry glory-craving leeches,
preyed on by facile force of state and fad and novelty, by
false prophet and holy believer;

For my people standing staring trying to fashion a better way
from confusion, from hypocrisy and misunderstanding,
trying to fashion a world that will hold all the people,
all the faces, all the adams and eves and their countless generations;

Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a
bloody peace be written in the sky. Let a second
generation full of courage issue forth; let a people
loving freedom come to growth. Let a beauty full of
healing and a strength of final clenching be the pulsing
in our spirits and our blood. Let the martial songs
be written, let the dirges disappear. Let a race of men now
rise and take control.
Margaret Walker, “For My People” from This is My Century: New and Collected Poems. Copyright © 1989 by Margaret Walker. Reprinted by permission of University of Georgia Press.

"The Young Housewife" by William Carlos Williams (1916) came up on my exam yesterday

At ten AM the young housewife
moves about in negligee behind
the wooden walls of her husband's house.
I pass solitary in my car.

Then again she comes to the curb
to call the ice-man, fish-man, and stands
shy, uncorseted, tucking in
stray ends of hair, and I compare her
to a fallen leaf.

The noiseless wheels of my car
rush with a crackling sound over
dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling.

I set about deconstructing the binary oppositions but this morning, hung over, I don't feel so confidently aligned. 51 per cent for the first essay and a late submitted second, the final exam over with its two questions answered middling to poor.

88> thanks for the kind nod to Sarasota. It's been in the high 70s here the past few days -- utterly lovely. Having grown up in the lake-effect snow belt, I'll take any Florida any day from mid-October until July.

If anyone is interested in giving a way free books on the bard's birthday, you might want to check out: www.worldbooknight.org

ABC
I’ll never find out now
What A. thought of me.
If B. ever forgave me in the end.
Why C. pretended everything was fine.
What part D. played in E.’s silence.
What F. had been expecting, if anything.
Why G. forgot when she knew perfectly well.
What H. had to hide.
What I. wanted to add.
If my being around
meant anything
to J. and K. and the rest of the alphabet.

Wislawa Szymborska

She died, did you know, on 1 Feb.

>96 Oh my God! I can't believe you put that poem on here. It was the first poem of Szymborska's that I ever read. It was in an issue of the New Yorker and I loved it so much. I had never heard of her so I looked up all her stuff. I live in a very Polish neighborhood so I was pleasantly surprised because all my Polish friends know her work well. Chicago has the largest Polish population outside Poland so there were a couple of articles in our newspapers about her death. I love how simple but good her stuff is.

great stuff.

Me too Dr. Mary! I had it on my refrigerator for a year or so!

Sibyx, I cut it out and put it in my wallet. Then I changed wallets and I couldn't remember the author so I went around asking my Polish friends if they knew who it was! I finally found a girl who knew but I got the names of other Polish poets that way- Milosz(sp?). Now I like him too! I always thought the Irish were sentimental but the Polish can be just as much so. Oh, and I ended up finding that little clipping again.

Milosz is a favorite of mine too.

IF THERE IS NO GOD

If there is no God,
Not everything is permitted to man.
He is still his brother’s keeper
And he is not permitted to sadden his brother,
By saying there is no God.

~Czeslaw Milosz

First time I read that I was knocked flat.

Account

The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.

Some would be devoted to acting against consciousness,
Like the flight of a moth which, had it known,
Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle’s flame.

Others would deal with ways to silence anxiety,
The little whisper which, though it is a warning, is ignored.

I would deal separately with satisfaction and pride,
The time when I was among their adherents
Who strut victoriously, unsuspecting.

But all of them would have one subject, desire,
If only my own — but no, not at all; alas,
I was driven because I wanted to be like others.
I was afraid of what was wild and indecent in me.

The history of my stupidity will not be written.
For one thing, it’s late. And the truth is laborious.

Berkeley, 1980.

Czeslaw Milosz

I remember 102. I had not heard 101 before but wow. Thanks to all for Polish Appreciation Day here in the Salon. :)

Let Polish Appreciation Day not end yet!

Nothing Twice

Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.

Even if there is no one dumber,
if you're the planet's biggest dunce,
you can't repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.

No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with precisely the same kisses.

One day, perhaps some idle tongue
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
into the room, all hue and scent.

The next day, though you're here with me,
I can't help looking at the clock:
A rose? A rose? What could that be?
Is it a flower or a rock?

Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It's in its nature not to stay:
Today is always gone tomorrow.

With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star,
although we're different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are.

Wislawa Szymborska
trans. Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak

I bet something is lost in translation, and that which seems a bit cheesy wouldn't have been so in Polish.

>104 I love that one too! So what if it's cheesy. Sometimes that's the stuff you need to get through the day.

Some actual weather to report ---- Sunday's low is being posted at -3 F. I want to see a rash of those - esp with hard frozen bare ground to kill ticks etc. We never used to have any ticks because it was too cold and this is the kind of weather that knocks 'em dead. Lots of snow cover is less good because often the ground stays warmer, insulated. Today it was about 4 F at 6:30 a.m.

I like that last poem hugely. I'll have seek out Szymborska.

Whoa, someone is having winter? The failure to kill nasty things is the downside to the unseasonable warmth we have been having.

And those Polish poets are quite interesting.

My pipes have frozen.

Ick. That is not good at all.

Don't thaw them out too quickly, and pay careful attention when the thaw comes. Have a plumber handy.

A Story

Now I will tell Meader's story; I have a moral in view.
He was pestered by a grizzly so bold and malicious
That he used to snatch caribou meat from the eaves of the cabin.
Not only that. He ignored men and was unafraid of fire.
One night he started battering the door
And broke the window with his paw, so they curled up
With their shotguns beside them, and waited for the dawn.
He came back in the evening, and Meader shot him at close range,
Under the left shoulder blade. Then it was jump and run,
A real storm of a run: a grizzly, Meader says,
Even when he's been hit in the heart, will keep running
Until he falls down. Later, Meader found him
By following the trail - and then he understood
What lay behind the bear's odd behaviour:
Half of the beast's jaw was eaten away by an abscess, and caries.
Toothache, for years. An ache without a comprehensible reason,
Which often drives us to senseless action
And gives us blind courage. We have nothing to lose,
We come out of the forest, and not always with the hope
That we will be cured by some dentist from heaven.

Czeslaw Milosz

>111 I've never seen that. Where did you find it?

A book. Czeslaw Milosz: The collected poems. I realise that most of the poems we put on here are got from online somewhere, and quite possibly I'm breaking the law by putting that one up, but I couldn't resist.

Here's another one from another book:

An Era

The poor were fat and the rich were lean.
Nearly all could preach, very few could sing.
The fashionable were all one age, and to them
a church picnic was the very worst thing.

Les Murray

Don't worry we are all law breakers round here. Nice to see some Les Murray making an appearance.

Fuck the law

In another vein, I suspect some of you might enjoy participating in this:

million line poem

So most of you know that I am a sappy poetry lover and it is valentine's day so here is my favorite love poem. When I discovered this poem at about age 11 or 12, I decided I wanted to grow up to be that woman with small hands.

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(edit, of course this is e.e.cummings)

That's so great.

Agreed.

(btw, Happy Valentine's Day, darling Martini)

and the rest of you, too.

Posting from Miami Beach, Florida. I have been here at this time of year on many occasions in the past, and I don't remember better weather. Low 80s, sun, ocean breeze, every day since we arrived and forecast for today and tomorrow as well.

The boat show has been somewhat disappointing. Very few of the type of boats we like to look at, and some of the "stuff" people seem to have disappeared this year. Despite this, my husband managed to say as we left yesterday afternoon: "I never realize how much we need on our boat until I come to one of these". That means we will have a lot more to do before we put it back in the water. No rest for wicked boat owners.

Lisa, when do you return to permanent boat residency?

As for me, we just went through a bonanza of an electric storm. Fate knocked at the door indeed. My poor cat is even yet clinging to me with dilated eyes.

Being that we have been in the warm weather and surrounded by all things boat, we are talking about putting it in the water early in May. We have a lot of work to do on it before we move aboard, however, and it is usually too cold in Chicago to live on the boat in May anyway. The question is whether it is easier to do the work out of water or in water. So, not sure. Definitely by the 1st of June.

Lovely! (re living in the boat). An electric storm? What next?

RE 115: Lest the thought be lost, Fuck the law.

Happy Mardi Gras, y'all!

Wish I were in NOLA. Well, on second thought, I can't drink or smoke or do any of the other irresponsible Mardi Gras things (and I really doubt anyone is interested in me flashing just now), so it's just as well.

*sigh*

I am starting to miss wine. And scotch. And bourbon. And wodka. You see where I'm going with this?

Edited to correct spelling of wodka.

Your lent just started a little bit early!

And lasts a loooonnng time. How do elephants do this for two years? Oh right, they don't have to give up the hooch, or avoid sleeping on their backs, which is reelly hard.

My mother did not give up her martinis while she was expecting me. You all can judge for yourselves whether that was good or bad.

When my sister got pregnant, my dad was like "And cut down to a couple of drinks a day," and she looked at him like he was a monster, but it strikes me that this point was evidently not as big a deal in the past, with no evident epidemic of problems resulting.

he says

lol

Oh, for the days when we didn't know any better...or as I like to call it, a Mad Men pregnancy.

Well, they were drinking for two!

Don't worry, all the fancy cocktails will be waiting for you.

It is worth skipping the drinks and the ciggies when your pregnant. Kids get smarter and will read better books !

Drinking for two! I like that.

The ciggies are gone for good (except maybe on occasion), but will someone bring me a martini in the hospital? Grey Goose (or better), up, a little bit dirty, with extra olives, please.

got it, it will be YA and Potter and probably Ayn Rayd later

Here is a little weather for Thursday, February 23, 2012:

Farhenheit; low in italics

LaPine, OR 44/22 sun
Gaithersburg, MD 66/47 partly cloudy
Woodstock, NY 49/25 showers
Bethany, CT 52/35 partly cloudy
Austin, TX 88/42 partly sunny, breezy
The Gers, France 56/38 some sun
Portland, OR 45/35 sun
New York, NY 56/45 clouds and sun
Glen Allen, VA 71/53 partly sunny
Vancouver, BC 45/39 partly sunny
Greenville, SC 74/56 sun and clouds
Ghent, Belgium 52/48 clouds
Izola, Slovenia 54/38 increasing cloudiness
Oxford, UK 56/50 clouds and sun
Glasgow, UK 52/43 showers
Taipei, Taiwan 75/64 cloudy, showers
Sydney, Australia 82/64 sunny
Boston, MA 54/36 shower early
Los Angeles, CA 75/54 sunny
Chicago 44/30 snow
Houston, TX 82/54 partly sunny
Huntington, VT 41/26 a little snow
Montreuil-sous-bois, France 54/45 cloudy

Sorry about the italics, but it was easier to change the word than the code for every city.

I can't get enough of this Arctic-wobble winter weather. Beautiful.

I do feel sorry for our friends in Eastern Europe, however...

Great job Lisa

I'm the only one with the four letter s--w word in my forecast-- and apparently we might get a 'real' dump Saturday. I'll believe it when I see it. Right now it is going back and forth from rain to snow - hovering right at 32-33, luckily NOT freezing rain.

>141 actually, we have 4 to 6 inches coming to Chicago tonight. I am hoping that it will be more rain than snow in the city where the lake has helped keep things even warmer than it has been at the official reporting station at O'Hare airport.

Ah -- and then it will head on our way, either picking up steam or fizzling..... or veering .... our weather fellas are being sooooo cagey this morning.

Spring. Red-winged Blackbirds are already on territory and displaying their yellow-trimmed, red epaulets.

Last year's Great Egrets, which should have fled south or perished in the winter cold, are still being seen along Connecticut's coast.

It's warm and sunny. I'm taking a day off from the ol' mill and enjoying the woods with my blond naturalist research assistant, Sandypants the wonderdog. 'Gotta get out before that Chicago "rain" rolls in from the west.

137. I approve of YA (The Hunger Games rocks!) and Potter. And everyone reads Rand when he's young. Rite of passage. I have fond memories of The Fountainhead. You just gotta worry if it sticks.

It is unseasonably warm here in the DC area and I am NOT complaining. We may just get away with a mild winter this year. Crossing fingers.

Drank beer and read on a bench by the sea. Spring, the first of them, has arrived.

Who knows what we will get, but I love our local weather guru's descriptions in the Chicago Tribune:

"Skilling says a 'wintry cocktail of precipitation' will begin with rain late this morning, turning to sleet and then wet snow by early evening. There could be 'embedded thunderstorms' later in the night with lightning and heavy snowfall, according to Skilling.

The storm is being driven by a fast-moving low pressure system out of the Saskatchewan province in south-central Canada, according to Skilling. He says it's known as a 'Saskatchewan Screamer.'"

Much more interesting than an "Alberta Clipper".

Reading a lovely little book 'the biodynamic sowing and planting calendar' by Maria and Mattias Thun.
Had to get my tomatoes sown by 21.00 GMT. Made it with 12 mins to spare.
wonder what happens at 21.01
Beautifully mild winter here, rained every day for 4 months. Rest of GB having a drought. Ah well.
Spent the day in the garden planting.
My upper lip has swollen up. Think I'm allergic to something.
Someone call an ambulance!

Ouch! You poor dear! Do feel better.

We don't have National Health (Seirbheis Slàinte na h-Alba) over here.

If I called the ambulance, it'd cost about a trillion dollars.

Thank you Steve, acute anaphylaxis averted with antihistamines.

The "Saskatchewan Screamer" was somewhat over-rated and looks to be no more than a shout, at least in the city. It is a very messy storm since the temperature is hovering at the freezing mark. I hope for a bit of a rise in the temperature today so that it will melt before the temperature falls below freezing tonight.

Yeah, we're still waiting for it -- earlier the forecast was for snow to start around 8 a.m. today, now they've pushed it back to early afternoon......

Birds were singing outside my window this morning. It is a perfect, sunny day with not a cloud in the sky. It was supposed to rain. I think the meteorologists in Portland must drown their sorrows on a daily basis.

OK so the snow has arrived. Remains to be seen if it will amount to anything. They are predicting anywhere from 6-10 -- if it snows more than 6 inches in one go that will be the record single snowfall for this winter. It did start right on schedule, they got that much right.

Ahhhh!
The Americans DO talk about the weather!

155: Shouldn't we?

It's renowned that it is a Brit obsession!
Looked down on as unintellectual.
Funny to see you are just the same as us!

It would be ludicrous for an American to call Brits unintellectual, anyhow. I mean, comparatively, anyhow.

No, it's a load of shite

We have no TV (therefore no 'weather channel') which is probably the hardest thing on my husband who used to use WTC to sedate himself...... we have a pretty good time though with NOAA (Govt weather, fairly entertaining graphical options), our local Vermont weather guys (out of the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury, quirky and local, and the weather channel's on-line set up -- where, if we are starved, we can even watch the weather celebrities like Jim Cantore and last and best: WEATHER

Just to remind everyone that the weather has not gone away, sprouts are still doing their sprout thing (if you live in the northern hemisphere), and poets are still writing poetry. As for nature, she is still looking impartially on all these activities ... and sibyx is afraid this thread has been blown to pieces by the recent tornadoes that have been sweeping through Le Salon and East Tennessee trailer parks.

So please everyone, post your current weather experiences. Post often. Minute by minute if you feel the need. Just post.

Nobody has posted here in almost a month, and I am very sad about it.

In the incredible heat we've been having I've been inspired to work on this path in the woods, ultimately an x-country ski alternative to a part of our road which is a hill but gets plowed and thus not ski-able....... clippers, shovel, little hand saw, lots of sweat and grime, but oh so satisfying. There are few things I enjoy more than bushwacking a completely frivolous path from here to there. If I do about ten feet a week I should have it done by the end of August.........

The peepers are out here - three weeks earlier than usual.

My entire garden has decided it's May. I keep saying maybe not, but the garden and the butterflies are not listening. Good luck with the trail sibyx :-)

We are sorely missing Peter W.

Peter W.'s day has not yet come has it? Neither Western or Orthodox Peter - I think. If Orthodox Peter has come, somebody did not invite me to the annual feast.

In Farhenheit; and, in deference to the insane weather in the midwestern to eastern U.S., high in bold

LaPine, OR 44/32
Gaithersburg, MD 73/54
Woodstock, NY 76/50
Bethany, CT 68/52
Austin, TX 73/47
The Gers, France 51/35
Portland, OR 50/39
New York, NY 67/56
Glen Allen, VA 77/55
Vancouver, BC 45/39
Greenville, SC 83/58
Ghent, Belgium 53/41
Izola, Slovenia 61/48
Oxford, UK 53/39
Taipei, Taiwan 72/63
Sydney, Australia 79/63
Knoxville, TN 84/55
Boston, MA 66/52
Los Angeles, CA 68/52
San Diego, CA 62/52
Detroit, MI 76/57
Chicago 78/62
Houston, TX 77/59
Huntington, VT 76/48
Montreuil-sous-bois, France 52/37

I think it's lovely that Tani stays on the list. An honorary member, or alumni. May she return some day, and Piero also.

I hope she comes back, too. I don't want to drop her off. Pietro is probably trying to finish his book--more important than LT at the moment.

Someone else is going to have to do the poetry!

The "timberdoodles" have been busy at their leks each dawn and dusk. They "peent" away, then they climb skyward with a twittering wing-whirr, and then they plummet back to earth with a remarkable, dripping/twinkling sound.

I would use the more common name for this forest-dwelling shorebird, but I just didn't want to sound like a dick.

Oh, and the deer ticks have been out all winter, but they really got me this weekend!

The Fornicator

Ye jovial boys who love the joys.
The blissful joys of Lovers;
Yet dare avow with dauntless brow,
When th' bony lass discovers;
Pray draw near and lend an ear,
And welcome in a Prater,
For I've lately been on quarantine,
A proven Fornicator.

Before the Congregation wide
I pass'd the muster fairly,
My handsome Betsey by my side,
We gat our ditty rarely;
But my downcast eye by chance did spy
What made my lips to water,
Those limbs so clean where I, between,
Commenc'd a Fornicator.

With rueful face and signs of grace
I pay'd the buttock-hire,
The night was dark and thro' the park
I could not but convoy her;
A parting kiss, what could I less,
My vows began to scatter,
My Betsey fell-lal de dal lal lal,
I am a Fornicator.

But for her sake this vow I make,
And solemnly I swear it,
That while I own a single crown,
She's welcome for to share it;
And my roguish boy his Mother's joy,
And the darling of his Pater,
For him I boast my pains and cost,
Although a Fornicator.

Ye wenching blades whose hireling jades
Have tipt you off blue-boram,
I tell ye plain, I do disdain
To rank you in the Quorum;
But a bony lass upon the grass
To teach her esse Mater,
And no reward but for regard,
O that's a Fornicator.

Your warlike Kings and Heros bold,
Great Captains and Commanders;
Your mighty Cesars fam'd of old,
And Conquering Alexanders;
fields they fought and laurels bought
And bulwarks strong did batter,
But still they grac'd our noble list
And ranked Fornicator!!!

Robert Burns
1784

Story behind the poem here.

Thanks for the back-story, Terry. I read this damn thing 4 times trying to find references to goats!

Nice one Teresa

It has been so incredibly warm that everything is blooming and growing. Forsythia, some kind of flowering trees (I live in the city--what do I know). My one poor rose bush that I took from my grandmother's yard when she passed in 1986 and have moved twice is growing like crazy. I don't know what to do with it. I definitely don't want it to be killed when we get a frost, which I know we will.

Lisa: in Chicago, as I recall, that what grows is called a weed. In the suburbs they are called large ornamental miracles, unless they are rooted in the neighbors lawn and invade your air space, then they are called casus belli.

Roses are fairly hardy -- you can throw on old sheet over it if the forecast is for snow or frost and it should be fine.

I have a Burns freak friend who put out a CD - Burns w/ settings on the harp, ..... and she's a woman of the cloth...... I'm going to have to tease her about leaving that one out!

Rick, A rose by any other name . . . .

Thanks, sib, that is what I will do.

BTW--first day of spring in the northern hemisphere.

My favorite spring music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4kTei0XrCs

Gives me goosebumps all over, Viva Vivaldi. I never tire of it.

Porius? Stravinsky for Spring?

Ok, peeps, this has never happened in the thirty-two years I've been a resident of les montagnes vertes. We're on a Fire Watch from this heat wave. In Vermont. It's essentially a rain forest here. Last year we had several feet of snow lying around now. Barely a hint of spring.

I'm reading IJ, btw, so presently quite aware that I live in 'the concavity.' This weirdness is somehow appropriate.

Someone reported an Eastern Kingbird in Connecticut. So? Well, that little neotropical tyrant flycatcher should still be in Costa Rica, eating fruit and waiting for its gonads to swell, to signal it to head north.

Things are way-too warm and early around these parts.

I'm not surprised hearing about the Green Mountain State to my north.

Someone mentioned the other day that all of the birds that normally head north for the summer are here. I must admit that I was surprised to see a very fat robin and a cardinal about two weeks ago--seemed awfully early to me. There, btw, you have my bird watching skills.

if you see a lammergeier write me immediately (first take cover)

I will be on the lookout--nice looking for a vulture!

It has finally cooled off--about 60 which is still way above normal. Also, we have some good rain falling. We really need it. I hope we can blow some of it up to VT.

I cannot resist posting this tidbit -- I remembered vaguely that some famous figure had some encounter with a lammergeier and here is what turned up:

Linda Swett age 8. of Falmouth Foresides Maine

What is a lammergeyer?

The most amazing lammergeier story is about a poet. Aeschylus was a writer of tragic poetry in ancient Greece„ At the age of 65 the story goes he was killed by a lammergeier though in a rather roundabout way. The lammergeier dropped a heavy turtle on the poets head. It happened because the lammergeier likes to drop his food from a great height„

The lammergeier is also called the bearded vulture and the lamb vulture;. You may also spell his name lammergeir oar lammergeyer. You pronounce it lammer‑guy er. The strange bird is a relative of the eagles the falconal the hawks and the vultures. Yea these noble and repulsive birds are cousins. As a group they are called Valooniformesi

The lammergeier is well:. suited to cope with a meat diet. Like all his cousins he has a powerful hooked beak and curved sabre‑like talons on his feet. He also has mighty wings and very keen eyesight. His back is mottled grey and white. Underneath his feathers are white with pinkish tones. He is called the bearded vulture because he wears a tuft of bristly feathers on his chin.

The lammergeier is a lover of heights. Like his cousin the eagles he likes to build his aerie home high on a rocky ledge. In times gone bys he ranged through the mountains of Europe Asia and Africa. He has been hunted almost to extinction in the Alps of Europe. But he still soars among tae Pyrenees and the mountains of Africa and India.

In size: he is Europets largest bird of preys He is bigger than the majestic American eagle and bigger than the feather‑legged golden eagle. He is almost as big as the massive condor of the Andes. A large lammergeier may stand four feet ta.2l. His wingspread may be almost ten feet wide. Only the condor and the albatross can outdo his wingspreads

Being a bird of preys the lammergeier swoops down on his dinner from on high. He may catch a scampering rabbit or even a dog. He may steal a sheeps a lamb or a goat. This is wby the farmers did their best to run him out of the grassy slopes of the Alps. He is also kin to the vultures he will carry off an animal already dead. Ands so the story says! he will grab a pokey turtle in his claws and fly with him up into the sky.

Once aloft with talons full the lammergeier has a dangerous habit. Often as not he lets go his dinner. Down it crashes to splinter on some stone or rocky ledge below. The reason is that the strange bird loves bone marrow. The crash to earth breaks open the bones. The bird swoops down and starts to feed on his favorite delicacy.

He deals with a hard‑shelled turtle the same way. The long drop smashes the shell and there is the tasty turtle meat.. And this is why Aeschyluss the Greek writer of tragic poetry accidentally met his tragic end.

Some of the oddities turned up in the transfer from one page to the other, some are of Ms. Swett's own devising.

take cover, indeed.

Where but in le salon could one learn the eating habits of a vulture and the cause of death of Aeschylus in just a few paragraphs.

I think i remember that story with the vulture. But I think the story I heard is that the poet was bald, and the vulture mistook his head for a shiny hard rock to break the turtle on.

Also, in French the lammergeier is called a Gypaète barbu, which i always thought was a funny name, but no more than Lammergeier I guess...

here's how the bird appeared in one of my novels, the first person narrator of the moment sitting next to an intimidating lunatic judge: Silent lammergeiers of thought diminished between us, wafted high by currents of frosty air.

Someone really needs to draw a good cartoon of Aeschylus being bonked by the lammergeier's turtle -- something students would undoubtedly remember when teaching the Oresteia.

seconding 191

Please, Lammerrgeiers are not vultures. No silly-ass, wimpy, pink and naked faced, roadkill suppin', stork-for-a-grandma vulture, could ever crush bones, and eat bone marrow, like a Lammergeier.

Lammergeiers are indeed, bad-ass. Every day, I am eternally grateful that there are no Lammergeiers, in the US. I've enough concerns in life. I'd rather not also worry about tortoises being tossed onto my poor, unprotected, canine noggin.

Reached 20 celsius for each of the last 3 days here!

Sunday we walked into Oxford from Wolvercote across Port Meadow under pure blue skies, lunching at the wonderful Jericho Cafe.



Port Meadow.

ohhh zeno. Like walking through a painting by John Constable.

I thought it was a painting!

Now you are having the balmy stuff and we're sub-zero again - supposedly down to 12 F. - Blueberry bushes are covered up, but I doubt that will help them much...... Merganser couple in the pond today.

How is your rosebush faring, Lisa?

#191 - a variation:

Despite temperatures dropping, we are really just back to normal. No freezing. And today it is supposed to be back to the upper 60s during the day. Forecast has only one night below 40 for the next ten days. So the rose bush is fine! Hope the blueberries survive.

Dan, looks an awful lot like a bald eagle in that cover!

196 - Rena, if that is around Flatford Mill & Dedham then I have walked there as well. That is a really nice part of the country, largely unchanged from the time C painted it....

#200 - artistic license I guess... that and the book is fantasy/fiction

Zeno, that picture brought back so many memories of my trip to england last year, and our meeting. I have very happy memories of that trip, and of the beautiful landscape of Wales and the Marches.

england can be quite beautiful in the summer. when the sun is shining. which it never is.

When cruising along the eastcoast the only thing you can expect in summer are

( BBC 4 voice imitation ) ... some sunny patches in the afternoon...

I know most of you are not going to want to read this whole thing, but here is a presentation that was given about the weather that hit the fleet sailing the Chicago-Mac Race last summer. You might remember me talking about a boat capsizing and the loss of two sailors.

http://www.lakeeriewx.com/CaseStudies/ChicagoMac/Introduction.html

I am going to a one-day seminar on Saturday about weather and Great Lakes boating. The author is the instructor for my seminar.

In other news from Chicago, the reading hammock is up. I repeat: the reading hammock is up.

http://www.librarything.com/pic/50168

Now that looks good! A good place to sleep on hot summer nights, too? Which we have already had.

Frankly, that looks like a place to which I would bring a book that would fall in my face after about five minutes because I would be asleep.

That is a thing of beauty. Alas I fall asleep if I read lying down about 90% of the time.....

>207 and 208.

Thanks! Both of you are right. It's really the reading and napping hammock. Last year I couldn't set it up until June. Crazy weather we are having.

Hello everyone. I am somewhat at a loss for words here. But, I would like to announce the arrival of my granddaughter, Aziza Wessam Rutherford Ghonim, to this beautiful planet. She picked a beautiful spring day.

Congratulations, Anna! As a 2 month grandmother myself -- I can assure you it's a wonderful, joyous celebration and journey.

Yay! I hope so! With two sons and two stepsons I am just delighted that it's a girl!

Also, congrats to you too, belatedly.

Congrats Anna

and what an original beautiful name Aziza !

Yaaaaay! Congratulations Anna! Any thoughts on what you want your "grandma name" to be?

(my mother has flourished since she became "Gaga." My father's resentment at being dubbed "Papa" has lost none of its edge, and his granddaughter's starting kindergarten.)

Congrats Anna!

Thanks all! MM I can't wait for my babybabble name. That will probably not come for several months though.

Janeajones, what's your granddaughter/son's name?

205> Lisa, thanks--very interesting article

Anna -- his name is Caden Derek Cruff -- and he's growing exponentially day by day -- rather incredible to watch....

I think I have lammergeiers nesting in my forest.

Heads up in that case.

Porius,

Alas. I fear I am undone.

Not if you watch the skies when that dread creature is on the wing.

But Porius it is hard to watch the sky when you're on your hands and knees hunting for lurking weeds. Lurking bird, lurking weeds, malicious vervain, and goats jumping fences. I tell you, all is not well on my side of the pond or the mountain.

Must break eggs to make omelettes U.

But must we break my head???

Eyespeeled. Vigilant.

Or you could go on a turtle hunt and exterminate anything with a hard shell. Preemptively. Plus you can decorate your house with the shells.

"The indignity of it!-
With everything blooming above me,
Lilies, pale-pink cyclamen, roses,
Whole fields lovely and inviolate,-
Me down in the fetor of weeds,
Crawling on all fours,
Alive, in a slippery grave."
- Theodore Roethke, Weed Puller, 1948

Porius,

If there is one thing I hate, it is peeled eyes.

My hollyhock has rust. I have consulted all the experts. They say it must go.

Rustneversleeps.

It's better to burn out than to fade away

Belated congrats Anna! I have a friend whose grandkids call her "Jemmy" taken from Jemima Puddleduck in Beatrix Potter. It suits her incredibly well.

Aww thanks everyone. Pictures at my profile.

Sunday morning walk with the ol' pooch. The Ravens are up on the traprock, croaking away, and, everything is up early: the Toothwort, the Stinking Benjamins, the Cowslips, the Dutchman's Breeches, the Dogtooth Violets, the Spring Beauties...

Sandy, I always thought you were the ol' pooch.

Talking of Dutchman's breeches, we spent the Easter weekend in the low countries. A beautifully cool sunny day in Bruges, followed by a damp cold day across the border in Sluis and then to Damme.

Overdosed on frietjes....

Nonono, Sandy is the Spring Beauty.

Hi. Just got caught up. Pollen everywhere. Am praying for rain. We just moved into a new condo. Lovely cherry blossom petals float down into our little courtyard. Pretty, but I'd prefer them in a picture. Claritin only goes so far.

Belated grandmere congrats to janeajones and anna. I've asked my mother to pick out a grandmother name for herself. "He can call me Brenda."

Ach! And he only has the one grandmother. Any volunteers? Not picky: just 50+, female and willing.

When I was a child, we called our paternal grandmother "Bonnie" (or maybe Bonny?), which she insisted meant grandma in English. She had spent some time in New York with my grandfather before WW2 I think. Any idea where she could have picked that up?

237 lol frietjes

citygirl, I'm with you on the pollen. It's hard to see the flowers clearly through my reddened, itchy eyeballs. Down here, we moved from late winter to early summer over a weekend and so all the plants are tossing their sexually-related products into the air at once.

The peepers in our pond are so loud I have to wear my earmuffs to take the dog out.

Piran 12, Izola 0

Across the field of replicate battle
the bank of seats obscures the cliffs of Duino
where Rilke saw the strangest angels
Though here swallowtail battlements
built to bemuse Turks, whose lust depleted elsewhere,
cast shadows on the pitch

Cypress trees flocked and still block
a futile glimpse of home, leaving a steep flysch cliff
lodging permanence into the sea
sending currents through the imagination
that one ardently insists is memory

I brought two extra Czech beers
but no one accepts them in this fragment of Balkan land,
in this excrescence of Mediterranean comportment
with that which knows itself and craves for limits

Geometries of eclipse suppress nothing,
so I turn toward the cemetary, the third step
of anachronistic descent:
Fortress, battlefield, graves monked by fewer cypresses

I should have just brought two beers for myself
but I have yet to learn the codes of international generosity

A betrayal of sun spots the vagaries of day,
a halo for the enemy of Diogenes, a saint
pressed against the no smoking sign

Happily, I remembered to pack the perversity
of private cheer in my pouch of exile

Yours, Rick? It sounds like you. It's very good.

sending currents through the imagination
that one ardently insists is memory

I like it.

thanks. my son plays for Izola.

Happily indeed.

Tell me he is not the goalkeeper.

Adriano Panatta?
http://www.tennisgrandstand.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/adriano2.jpeg

A Moositation

Fine poem, Rick.

Looks like a baby moose.

How on earth can you tell?

It is clearly a youngish moose, he ambled around our whole pond while we ran from window to window. About once a year one will just casually stroll by the house like this. Always feels like a gift. It's astonishing how fast they move, looking entirely relaxed, and also how hard it is to seem them with any kind of forest or shrubbery.

Sibbo,

I had no idea you lived in New Mexico.

Your Harschness, heck no! I live in the land of aging hippies, ex-communards, and socialist congressmen, prize-winning goat cheese, where women over the age of 21 never wear make-up or dye their hair or pluck their chin hairs, where, in the spring, rivers flow with maple syrup and old ski poles, where men with graduate degrees build their own homes wearing their 'lucky' blue jeans for the duration.....ah, mon ami, the one and only state of VERMONT.

but I have a feeling you knew that

I've spent a couple of great nights in your state, and saw plenty of moose road signs--usually a good indication that you would not see a moose. The folks I stayed with knew of a moose in the area, so I got the idea there were few enough around (this more or less central Verm).

>253 totally uneducated guess, but a)looks small for a moose and b)no sign of antlers.

I'm wondering, also, if it wasn't a youngish lady moose..... this would be the time when mama would say, yer on yer own now kid. Our last moositation was a big fella.

I hope we see you here again sometime Rick. The moose signs are proliferating, also bear signs and etc. The only mammals that have not returned to VT are the wolf (I'm ok with that actually); a member of the mink family, called the pine marten; and maybe or maybe not, the mountain lion (known here as a catamount). The native catamount was extirpated in the mid-late 1800's but rumors abound and I seriously believe I saw one about ten years ago on a very early morning summer walk. I could go on boringly (or excitingly, depending on yr. interest) about the mountain lion biz - I think there are a few that stray down here, not enough for a breeding pop. And I'm kind of ok with that. I know there is a lot more going on up in our woods than of yore. I can feel it sometimes, a sense of being watched, that didn't used to be there. (I've walked this patch of woodland for over 30 years). It's definitely wilder. I'm OK with that -- there are places I don't often go anymore, deer yards and such, where I feel that good things are going on that I don't need to see.

Most moose are sans antlers for a good part of the year, they mainly grow them for the 'mating season' (fall). Antlers take forever to grow, months and months, so ... hmmm...... this time of year a male might have a few inches of something happening and that's all. The more I look at this photo the more I'm thinking a young cow. Good spotting Lisa!

Why do I know all this? Nature nut. Also, nature writer.

Not boring one little bit.

the mountain lion is the great cat of the US, so myths abound--there was one that roamed within the city limits of La Crosse (they say)...and when I lived (damn those years) in Iowa there were spottings in the southwest part of the state. Vermont is more believable.

(If I were a mountain lion i would want an environmentalist legislature.)

I was watching a tv program last night that featured some yahoos blasting crows out of the sky laughing like idiots and blathering about the 'sport' of such hidious adventures. They made me want to puke. How anyone can blast a bird out of the sky for a lark is more than I can comprehend. Somethng was muttered about great crow recipes - well those fucks deserve to eat crow.

Would that be: A Murder of Crows

Yes it would bas, yes it would.

ba-doom-ch

Sad, especially since corvids are so smart; even smarter than canids.

I had a bird in my house the other day (Stop sniggering at the back). It flew in through the balcony door. deep deep blue, almost black, with black legs and beak, wingspan about a foot wide. It was as terrified as I was, and was shitting all over my sofa in fear. I eventually managed to shepherd it towards an open window, when it flew off.
The bird life where I live is amazing. There are a pair of wild hawks (would that be right?) who ride the thermals in the valley below, enormous creatures, and you can hear them calling to each other. Also budgerigars live in the tree out the back.

That sounds awesome, Murr (well, mostly).

But one wonders, why didn't you eat it? The crunch of feathers etc.

Hey Murr, 'you still in Taiwan?

Perhaps they were soaring Gray-faced Buzzards.

(but then again, perhaps I'm a gray-faced buzzard)

That's what I thought SD.
http://www.birdingintaiwan.com/gray-facedbuzzard.htm

A bird shit on my leg yesterday at Manzioli Square in Izola. Brief discussion about whether it is a good or bad omen, which seems absurd: a bird shit on my leg and that ain't good.

SD: canids should be listed on Bully Tavern's vocabulary post, in which I hoped to gather all the 'ids' and 'ines'
I think corvine is on there

In Egypt bird shit is a good omen - it means you will get new clothes :)

Is vulpine on there?

In France stepping on dog shit brings good luck. Good thing, because it's hard not to.

And by the way, littéraire is misspelled again... :-P

Anna, it better be!

270-271
YEs, still in Taiwan. could be, I don't know, i can't get close enough to look at their faces. They have a piercing call. i'll keep watching.

272 - snap. A starling excreted on my trouser leg yesterday. The white surround was almost opalescent, I was momentarily fascinated by it after the initial reaction of repulsion & dismay....

Mine was a swallow, which I'd rather not think about.

LOL

And the swifts are back in Paris this morning! Well, in Montreuil anyway. It's officially spring now.

Swifts are cool. Cigars with wings.

BTW, why is there a veritable epidemic of Salonistas getting crapped on?

Destiny.

And luck, I guess.

because they are readers, they sit still and are an easy target.

Swifts are very intriguing. They live their whole life in the air, except when they are nesting. They are thought to sleep and even mate in flight.

There is one swift swallow whose life I am aiming to make yet more intriguing.

Our western hemisphere swifts are much lazier, retiring to tree trunks and chimney walls every night.

Swifts, swallows, house martins - I have trouble telling the difference. But they are all late in coming to S W France this year.

Went for a walk in the Lurie Gardens yesterday at lunch. The gardens are just on the edge of the concrete and glass of downtown in Millenium Park. There I saw two very intrepid red-winged blackbirds in a bush on the edge of a path singing loudly while we city dwellers stood not three feet away raptly watching.

raptorly watching?

In Portland, there is one school with a big chimney that has become a swift stopover.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapman_Swifts

That is seriously cool, Anna

I like how they stopped heating the school to let the birds roost.

But those spectators should stop eating the birds!

Chimney swift populations are tanking.

Chimneys are becoming passe, and the historical nesting sites (tree cavities in old-growth forests) have been gone for a couple centuries. So New England ornithologists and conservationists are experimenting with vertical tubular structures, lagged down to the ground.

I WANT ONE, I WANT ONE!

I found specs and etc. I am quite serious.

What kind of bird would be singing, in the city, at 2:00 in the morning?

A few years ago I was up very late writing an essay and some bird was making a very loud (but beautiful) call in my (previous home's) garden at 2 or 3 in the morning.

Then I heard something else and I looked outside to see my neighbour running around in my garden in her dressing gown yelling and waving a broom in the air.

Did you ever figure out what it was all about?

Birds can get a little mixed up in the city, start things early. Robins? You can listen to common bird calls quite easily - robin, cardinal by googling robin birdsong or something like that. You can also download a whole app that has bird songs. I'm planning to (I got my first fancy phone less than a month ago, so I'm still learning things).

Whip-poor-wills are nocturnal and loud. They do have a pretty obvious song (see name).

299> She was trying to scare away the bird. She couldn't sleep.

Mine is not a whippoorwill--that I would recognize. If I wake up and hear it tonight I will try to listen and then google a couple of city type birds. I know we have robins, sparrows, the occasional cardinal, and pigeons in the neighborhood. Not pigeons--they coo.

Lisa,

Northern Mockingbirds are notorious for singing at night.

I will add those to my list, Mr. Dog.

Hey Lisa, the radar is showing quite the neotropical migrant fall-out, these past two nights. Head on over to Central Park to check out the birds (and birders)!

It would be a long ride to Central Park from Chicago. Birds might be gone by the time I get there! Anything on Millenium or Grant Park?

OOPs! Wrong City. Well, at least my guess is still good for Northern Mocker (ie, in Chi-Town).

Okay, Izola is like Venice only a bit smaller. There are no canals, but if cars were not allowed on the old island it would be a perfect Venezian neighborhood. The Austro-Hoongars attached the island to the mainland. Anyway, tonight we were in the old city, where I live, drinking in Manzioli Square, which is as Venezian as it gets, and what do I see? A Jež! that's a hedgehog. I jumped from my chair and captured it--gently, no spines in me, and it turns out someone else had gone in the bar to get it some milk. It refused the milk and we were forced to let it waddle off to wherever in the old town hedgehogs go. Life was worth living, to say the least, for a night or more.

Oh I like that!

It is always breathtaking to see wildlife in the town or city. The echidna's were away during the wet season, but today I heard the tell tale rustle rustle, and saw one rooting around. They are friendly fellows. I'd love to see a Jež, just to see how different they are.

From photos on google it appears they are the same.

I can't explain all the nuances of convergent evolution but I do know a clear difference. Hedgehogs used to get caught in McFlurry containers. This occurred so often, that McDonalds had to change the design.

Echidnas never seemed to have this problem.

(Monotremes may be primitive, but they ain't dumb)

Similar but different. An echidna would never fit into a McFlurry container. They're about the size of a small cat. Their spines are thick, like really fat feather quills, and the quills don't come out of their back and stick into you if you touch them (i.e. they stay attached to Ol' Spiny himself).

Australian echidna:


--

And this is apparently a Jež:

Ant his is apparently an echidna rolled into a protective ball - I've never seen one do that.

Oh yes, they do that, and the quills go in all directions, just like in the picture. Apparently there is jewellery made of echidna quills, also boxes decorated with them. I would love to see an echidna quill box, however, I wonder how many echidnas that would take, and then I am not so sure I want to see one.

The Bidjara people think of echidnas as a delicacy. Are jež's eaten? Isn't there some gypsy hedgehog dish, or is that a myth?

I made a dumb mistake--I compared the jež and hedgehog. Echidna are definitely different.

A dish? i woud say definitely. the mediterranean has produced stone soup, sparrows and other small birds are eaten. certainly a hedgehog has been stewed. I think the one at the bar was.

A wise hedgehog that knows that milk would do it no good.

When I was a child we use to call Echidnas "spiny anteaters". Seems to have died out.

Yes, and goannas used to be lace monitors. I like the lace. They actually do look like aboriginal dot paintings, the patterns on their skins.

I love late afternoon light, honey, golden, but it never lasts long enough. But I have discovered it lasts all day if you have a fire nearby, and I am greedily soaking it up.

The 'peepers' are so loud in the pond this evening that I have to wear earmuffs to take the dog out.

spring Peeper

They have some awful nicknames, but chorus frog is good

So, like, is this thread sort of like watching a smoker who never knocks the ash of his/her cigarette, but keeps waving it around and talking and talking and you don't hear a thing because your eyes are riveted to the ever-lengthening tube of ash trembling and threatening to fall but it never does.... not yet...... but you know it has to fall sooner or later......

Oh, you thread-spoiler, you. I was just going to wax poetically about bullfrogs,

and porcupines

http://www.native-languages.org/quillwork.htm

!!!
!!!
!!!!!!!
Marabou storks are everywhere! In packs of hundreds! I fear for the children!

Tho they are majestic.

I went for an easy 4 with the dog last night (it wasn't that easy - we are both getting old), and saw a Peregrine Falcon motoring overhead.

They are pretty much cosmopolitan - one could even see one in say, Uganda, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Chicago...

324 Majestic and Ugly

You said it. But surprisingly chillaxed.

You are in Uganda right now ?

We had some peregrine falcons nesting in Chicago, but I have not heard about them this year.

>328 Yes. I am living in Jinja for the summer. I just learned to make chapattis.

Of course, you go to Africa to learn to make Indian bread.

A rich South Asian diaspora thrives despite continued discrimination and the legacy of the expulsion by Idi Amin.

i first wanted to go to africa because of an indian friend from Mwanza...Have you read A Bend in the River (it's the only VS Naipaul book I've been able to stomach--and I thought it was great, too)

They probably won't come out as nice, using all kinds of expensive utensils in smug, Western kitchens, but here we go:

http://indianfood.about.com/od/breadrecipes/ig/How-to-Make-Chapatis/

Jinja ? CIA ?

It's been awhile since I read any Naipaul..... oddly one book that has stuck in my head is a memoir/essay sort of book about the American South. I didn't realize it at the time but he must have nailed something, because little bits float up here and there.

333 No, but I'll look out for! The Enigma of Arrival is an albeit-twisted fave. The only novels available in this town seem to be those on the high school curriculum, which means African classics and the complete abridged works of Thomas Hardy.

Just a hunch, USCSC is close by

335/8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvTv-I2Y390&feature=related

Yes Africa ... a love and hate story

So far only love! Except that my irreligiosity has led to some awkward moments.

Martini, you are still no animist ?

After an average of 1.5 uncomfortable conversations a day about whether I am covered in the blood of the Lamb and destined for the Life Eternal, accompanied by many pitying-contemptuous looks, a little animism wold be a dream right now. We are going to meet gorillas soon (in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, speaking of plnats), so maybe they will have some gentle wisdom to share.

The wisdom of the Gorillas is good wisdom

I hardly dare to ask MM, but in what circles are you travelling ? If it is no CIA, then it is butchers or religious fanatics...

Man, get out, now that you still can !

"whether I am covered in the blood of the Lamb and destined for the Life Eternal"

Ok, Martin, I'm intrigued. What religious variation is this? (and, are you covered in the blood of the Lamb?)

NGO circles--certainly not butchers, and while there may be some individual religious fanatics, the organization I am working for is not faith based. It is called TASO (http://www.tasouganda.org/), and I am here to assess the impact and encourage the completion, by parents with HIV, of "memory books" (http://documents.nacwola.or.ug/Breaking%20Silence.pdf), which are intended to record important memories, contacts, information about the child's family and clan, and be a place to retain copies of things like medical records and the parents' wills. More or less. I encounter many doctors, counsellors, clients, and guys who are happy to have a job minding the gate or serving tea. It all seems pretty rational and peaceful, caveats above, and excepting the heart-twinge at some of the sick children.

>345 Uganda is 85% Christian--the main denomination is Catholic, but they're not like the doubting/sinning/relaxed/delightful Catholics where I'm from--they're intense, and the Protestants are intense too, and the family I'm staying with belong to something called the Calvary Church, and unlike really intense Christians at home who just want to convert you, these ones have so little experience with non-religious people (at least, such is how I am ascribing their motives) that ... well, see above, pity and contempt (or at best mistrust). But maybe it'll blow over. I made myself sound as Jesusy as I could.

(without covering myself in the lamb)

347: what is the other 15%? Are there a lot of Muslims? I am asking because this came up in conversation yesterday and I didn't know.

Muslims near the coast i guess : Kenya Tanzania

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Uganda

Which tells me that the largest group of the Muslim minority is are in Iganga, a non-coastal district: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iganga_District

ETA - wait, Uganda doesn't have a coast...

I think Mac means most of the Muslims in East Africa are near the coast. But yes, there are a fair number here as well. The relations between them and the Christians seem to be best characterized (from what I can see, not NOT trying to set myself up as the expert) as "mutual cordial unimpressedness."

352 indeed

Nicely put - the 'mutual cordial unimpressedness'.

Meanwhile, Rick, you will be glad to know that I rescued a sweet little Eastern Ribbonsnake from our cat today. Found the cat lounging in the driveway with the snake curled up defensively (that sort of figure 8) beside him. Needless to say, I put the cat inside immediately and took the snake to the woodpile where I have seen others of his kind. E. Ribbonsnakes are somewhat rare so, it's a fine rescue. I just hope it stays rescued.

This cat 'collects' animals - literally - We've found mice in pails, several at a time, the cat sitting on a perch looking down at them. He has a mouth like a bird dog, so I can often rescue whatever he has caught because he doesn't damage them for quite a long time. The cats are only allowed out between 9-5 so that the wildlife can feed in peace, but snakes are more vulnerable since they like to sun. The other cat doesn't hunt.

354 thanks! One thing I like about you is your use of Anglo quotation marks. I've been trying to learn that.

We had two cats--brothers--one a shaggy monster, the other Charie Chaplin in a tuxedo. Scrumptious was a stone killer, bringing back mice and rats and birds (for the last of which he was roundly scolded, of course) and once taking down a squirrel (I've seen him get kicked massively in the face on more than one occasion, though). Peanut, in contrast, is a natty gentleman more interested in wine tastings and snooker results. After Scrump's untimely death (I assume eating all those rats caught up with him, or maybe antifreeze), a distinct rodent problem started to emerge at the ol' homestead (my parents also keep chickens). So Peanut, obliging fellow that he is, starts trying to help, but he can't catch a rat or mouse or baby starling to catch his life, so instead he starts bringing home garbage--paper cups, plastic bags--and depositing them proudly on the doorstep. And he's so thrilled to be able to help, meowing and meowing till you come and congratulate him on his find. The rat situation is developing.

Poor peanut, trying to live up to his brother's memory. Tragic.

He means so well.

It reminds me of some plays by Tennessee Williams. Well, movies based on the plays to be honest.

Everest is willing.

Aw, he's so cute! Does he bring things to you? Plastic bags? Sticks? Rats?

Florence,

He has a long "pole" ... too long. Birth control was not the mode while he visited my does this summer. Accidents happened. Instead of three pregnant goats we have six. Barring unforeseen circumstances, that means a minimum of twelve babies in September.

Curry.

Naughty cat.

Sibyx,

cat v. ribbon snake...as the cat is just having a good time I think you did the right thing...I hope you substituted a rubber band or something

Goats have babies in twos?

Florence,

Nigerian dwarf goats do usually throw a pair of kids. Occasionally, a doe will have just one baby, but that is rare. Triplets are not uncommon. We had one set of triplets last year. Four of our goats come from does with a tendency to throw quads. I hope none of my does has quadruplets. In such cases, one almost always has to help the doe because one or more of the babies are in the wrong position. Even with help, the doe may die. At the very least, one of the kids will have to be bottle fed with milk from another doe.

Anybody know why my mama mice keep eating their babies? I've never seen that in humans.

I think it's pretty rare with humans, yes. On the other hand humans are rarely made to breed in a cage. Isn't that a reflex triggered by a sense of overpopulation / insufficient resources to feed more hungry mice? I think mother rabbits do this also. There is even a horrid Roald Dahl story about it.

I used to work with rats back in the days when I was young and wicked. Florence is right. Mother rats will also eat sickly babies. If you put a sick adult rat in with other adult rats they will turn on the sick one and kill it. My advice to all ... do not work in animal laboratories. I learned a lot ... but I am not sure there are any excuses I can offer.

Confession: these are for our python. The pregnant mice have been isolated and appeared healthy, had all the amenities, methodically ate the babies. Except in one case in which the plague struck one baby and then they all went rapidly, mama too. The second and third time it all seemed unnecessary. I also confess to having to switch off a light in one of my brain rooms in order to take part in this process. The one good thing is that this is a python that does not grow very long, so we don't have to start breeding dogs.

I wish I could send you some of our overpopulation of frogs.

This is definitely a downside to having pet snakes, for me. Whan I was a kid my sister had mice and they bred like crazy, starting to eat the babies after a few litters... not a good experiment. I think cats and dogs are enough work without the necessity of raising live prey...

For frogs I would have to catch a belouška, known rather pedestrianly in English as the grass snake. They're beautiful, but only easy to catch in a sanctuary around here. I do look for other places and though I see them now and then, they are not easy to get at. They tend to be in the water near a richly weeded bank and when you go after them they disappear quickly into the green. their close cousins, the kobranke, or dice snakes, head back into the water and are much easier to catch, even without a net. I caught one in an agricultural drainage ditch by leaping so that my feet were straddling the water and I was right over him/her.

Today U Thlen, our python, nabbed the mouse I put in there within a few seconds. I had waited an extra half-day to see if he was shedding his skin or not, and that was enough to get him on edge.

Rick,

If the python gets too big for you house, do not turn him loose in the wild. The Florida Everglades is loosing its native fauna at a rapidly because so many people have turned pet pythons loose in the Glades. The pythons are even killing off the alligator population. Pythons adapt easily.

Dear Ur,
I am keeping my eye on the everglades problem, reading as much as I can. we have an African ball python, which rarely exceeds 1.5 meters in the female case--those lengthy distaffers!--and 1.2 in the male. Ours is male. I told Arjun that if he really wanted one he would have to consider that he would probably still have it if and when he went to college.

Nay, in fact, Ur, I captured, caught and kept a deformed giant turtle that was not native to our region precisely because it was not native--we have a serious Istrian yellow spotted turtle problem because of released foreign turtles. I don't know what these turtles are really called, but they are Istrian and yellow spotted.

...and the Istrian yellow spotted range does not overlap with that of the Dalmatian Tortoise, which is all white with numerous black spots.

Historically, the Dalmation Tortoise was kept as a mascot by some of the less successful fire stations. They would be often seen plodding along side of the fire carts.

But we do have some kind of tortoise here

I'll stick with ornithology. I really don't know anything about herps...

Then the Istrian flying tortoise may perhaps be of some interest...

Flying tortoises?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0O5PDTuBUk&feature=fvwrel

I'm trying to have a serious discussion and you send me video of Mitch McConnell?

Ok. It must be the relative anomosity of LT. Why, why do I always seem to admit that I frequently, almost pee myself, reading your LT threads.

Addison Mitchell "Mitch" McConnell, Jr. and Gamera - separated at birth?

Wow. Things have been quiet. Everyone must be hunkered down withn the bowels of the sterile, air-conditioned Salon.

But wait. What's that? It's hot, 2:50 pm Eastern Time. I'm driving less than a mile from my country home (anywhere else in the US, it would be considered suburban) and who should amble across the road but huge, full-adult Ursa freeque-in americanus BLACK BEAR!

A lifer for me...

Cool.

Thanks, Robert!

That one's at attention (or at least, parade-rest).

And I thought yesterday (in keeping with this thread) was the big sighting. In nearby woods, I chased down a box turtle, which (because of the interstate highway system) tends to get squish-terpated and is now, exceedingly rare indeed. I've seen perhaps 4 in the last decade.

But a bear? Very cool on this hot summer afternoon.

Sandy - I can't believe I haven't stopped in here in so long - WOWOWOWOW!

Bear sightings are cool and unnerving. We've got 'em all around - see the poop everywhere. We saw a cub in a tree a couple of years ago and ran like hell from that area thinking Mom had to be nearby! No stopping for a picture or anything.

I pushed a snapping turtle off a road with a big stick which it tried to bite the whole time - feeling like a complete idiot. I mean a snapping turtle??? We have one the size of a hub cap in our pond and I never mess around in 'her' area - we've seen her lay eggs -- and I've seen the babies too. They look exactly like grown up snappers, therefore.... not exactly 'cute'.

I am so mad at myself. I saw an amazing butterfly yesterday, a deep orange red, black and white, incredibly dramatic, didn't get a photo and I can't find it anywhere in the guides.

Are the bears out more than is usual? My mother-in-law is nervous to leave her house (outside of Charlotteville, VA) because a black bear has been hanging out in her yard during the day and will not leave when she shakes the can with the rocks in it.

Read this and pass on what is relevant to your Mil? I feel reassured too, in fact, after reading this. Esp. interested that they don't defend cubs. Maybe we could have gotten that photo after all. Next time.

Black bears

Little need to fear big, dopey, lumbering, Black Bears, unless you are a bird feeder-o-phile. Bears tear up feeders.

Sib, with regards to identifying that Lep, try Painted Lady or Red Admiral.

Painted Lady and Red Admiral, sounds like a thriller to me.

We haven't had a bear in town since before i was part of we, but some bears did venture below the cliffest of the kras a few years back only to find themselves where railroad was laid between sheer walls of blown rock, killing several. since then I've hear of no bears nearby at all.

Red Admiral, definitely - finally found the right photo with bright bright color. I kept thinking it was an Admiral, but just not seeing the right one.

Ur baby, I gave the hat I had in the Ur box to a French (Breton) downs dyndomic your hat today--what is your size? i have others--are you afghan to any degree?

A couple nights ago, I successfully negotiated safe passage past a skunk - during a long jog. I felt like St. Francis, negotiating with the Wolf. (As I recall he obtained a signed contract prohibiting further lupine dining on villagers. St. Francis had to resort to more primitive techniques - singing - to abate a spat among a couple of clergy).

Alas tonight, I went out for an easy 4 mile run with my namesake (dumb-dog) and she encountered a skunk and chose (at least initially) valor over discretion. We are home now - safe but stinky. Ol' Sandy-pants now has a date with a weak solution of hydrogen peroxide...

Awwww, sorry buddy! Hope it all comes off. There's been a skunk under the stairs at my place for a while, so I know my day will come ... luckily he seems like the retiring type.

NO problemo, it wasn't a direct hit, and now the dog just smells like, well - dog.

I live in Connecticut, so, like Mark Twain, I just gotta talk about the weather. It's been nothing but a series of hot, murky warm fronts lately. Pretty boring.

But, just the other night, at the old abandoned airport, at dusk amidst the yackity townie kids' football practices, we (dog and dawg) were serenaded by an Eastern Screech Owl. Very cool.

'Sounded something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y62tCuQp-kI

On holiday last week in Northumberland I found out we were staying only a few miles from Chillingham, home of the Chillingham wild cattle.

Although my wife was lukewarm on the idea, and my son largely non plussed by it all, I talked them into visiting the site. It was far better than I had hoped - the hourly tours were hosted by the long term park ranger who had a wealth of interesting information on the herd. We walked right in amongst them (within 25 yards - anything else and they got jumpy, and these beasts are built for speed & attack where it is required!).

Interesting snippets:

- the herd have been in this location since the 13th century
- they have been untouched by man (no vets, no hand rearing...)
- they are all genetic clones of each other (a calf will receive identical genes from both parents)
- despite this long term in breeding they are healthy + robust
- the acreage in which they reside is probably the most organic place in Britain - no herbicides have ever been used
- as a result, the fields they occupy are one of the few examples of ancient woodland left
- the cattle are built like bison - thin at the back for speed (20 miles an hour at the drop of a hat was the description used by the ranger - who should now as he has been charged on at least one occasion) and muscly at the front for strength in battle
- their ancient natural enemy was the wolf - hence their body being built for speed in escape and strength for attack when cornered
- jury is out as to whether they are direct descendants of the aurochs
- the cattle give an insight into the behaviour of pre domesticated cattle - old males live a solitary existence outside the herd, teenagers also live in a herd separate from the main herd, a king bull usually rules the main herd with sole breeding rights until he is challenged and beaten in a fight - he usually reigns about 3 to 4 years. Females becomes sexually active at around 6 years so do not breed with their own father - it is as if nature has stepped in to make sure a workable system is in place despite inbreeding.

Yes!

I see they have ghosts too. Did you see them? This story of the wild cattle is rather bewildering, how did they get to be there?

P gets to the nub once again. The cattle are a remnant of the wild cattle which roamed the UK and probably other parts of Europe ...this herd survived because they were kept in the Chillingham estate as a hunting herd, so were protected rather than hunted to extinction.

The claim the park ranger made was that these cattle, white with mottled red faces, look very similar to some of the beasts in Lascaux...(see the image in 402)

Didn't have the same level of interest in the ghosts...

Lascaux, even the copy is just like wow !

I managed to visit the original font de Gaume ( small group, booking months in advance ). Flicking on it's mini torch, the guide made us look at the wall but our unacustomed eyes did not see anything until slowly the hundreds of animal drawings started to appear. You are blessed said our guide and so we felt.

And blessed you surely were.

403> Thanks, that makes more sense than the very elliptic explanations on the site.

406> Wow, I'd like to see that movie!

I just finished the last of my National Audubon Society Christmas Bird Counts: (1) Get up at half-past Gawd-awful (2) conduct a sea-watch at dawn (3) pish into the wind for 4 continuous hours, in an attempt to attract avian interest (4) take the Ferry to Port Jeff to look for a Razorbill. No Razorbill. (5) Back to terra firma. Pish a lot more. (6) Get some unsolicited help from Blue Jays, discover a very stressed-out, day-roosting, Barred Owl (7) Count lotsa ducks (8) Count lotsa gulls (9) attend compilation, post preliminary results online (10) crash and deal with compilation reports, much, much later...

408 Sandy, I envy your life

How do you manage all that pissing in the wind.

Oh, Bas, there's probably a book for that:

The Art of Pishing

That's it Por, I was standing in the freezing cold, crooning, "...when the Angels pour you drinks," and the Myrtle Warblers were alighting on me like I was Saint Freeque-n Francis of Assisi.

So...

It's now well into May and there are so very few neotropical migrants to be found in Southern New England. Too many easterly-wind weather systems? Habitat destruction in both hemispheres? It's been a silent spring indeed.

Aw, booo! Sorry, east coasters! Sorry, neotropical migrants!

Here in Vancouver it is also May, and that mystery bird has started up again with his call like "say, bo. say, bo." I thought he was maybe the one with the chevron and the black spots, but extensive googling has confirmed that that is a Northern Flicker, and they sounds different. Does anyone know the best way to identify a bird by its call?

Locate bird. Shoot bird. Take bird to library.

But Rick, all I got to shoot him with is that slingshot you gave me and I don't even have a license for that.

I, Rick Harsch, grant you license.

007

415

Martin,

(1) Spend some serious hours listening to all the options in there archives:
http://www.blkittiwake.com/birdsoundspage.html

(2) buy a parabolic mic, a good tape recorder, obtain a sonogram...

(3) Aw crap, Rick's right, just shoot it and take it to the library.

Time to meet my destiny.

Martin IS the bird! What a thriller--never saw this coming.

This little metric depresses the living snot out of the ol' dawg:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/10/atmospheric-co2-concentrations_n_325375...