Crow talk

photo by Life Writer

"I shall live bad if I do not write, and I shall write bad if I do not live." ~ Françoise Sagan


And to this end, Mr. Lee has dedicated himself to see that I LIVE. Fuck him. Tomorrow he is dragging me out into the Great Basin for an off road, off the grid, out in the true heart of fucking Nowhere for yet another wilderness experience. I am sneak writing this. Mr. Lee has his eye on me because, at this point, TIME HAS RUN OUT. I should be packing but I am barely packed however I am charging my two camera batteries and have amassed a pile of pens, pencils, erasers, notebooks, and sketch pads to comfort me out there. We go to very remote places. In one favorite location, a military plane crashed and wasn't found for 50 years. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?

For the last few days I have been scaling down the amount of food I shovel out into the Bird Park so that it won't be a total shock when the food dries up but, even as I write this, my old friend Minerva, and her similarity decrepit buddy, have showed up for a mid-morning peanut. I am sorry to say that the crows are winning the contest of who trains who. The other day Minerva landed and clomped (crows don't hop, they clomp) straight to my bedroom window (she not only knows where my office is, she knows where I sleep!) and demanded a treat. Unchecked, this will not end well. Crows have a hot-line. I fear that, before long, hundreds, perhaps thousands, will take up cawing at my window. I suppose it is better we go to the desert a while. Let things cool off.

And when we get back, if we do, it's off to Portland to see Baby Thea (a good thing), then LA (a just okay thing), Tonapah (an okay thing) and, on October 1, we leave for Costa Rica. Yikes and ey yi yi! It feels like a yawning chasm has opened up beneath me into which I plummet.

Beco's Tub Toy

At least somebody is having fun.

I don't believe elephants should be hostage to a circus or confined to zoos, but this little guy at the Columbus Zoo is making the best of it and, with the dummies on the reactionary right pitching absurd, hysterical tantrums at town hall meetings across the country, don't know about you, but I need a time out from the madness, even if it is only 01:27.

Local news at 12:56

Detail in a painting
Getty Museum in LA.

It is all in the details and today the details are driving me crazy so I thought I'd drop in here and complain a bit. Not only are we leaving for Costa Rica on Oct. 1, we are busy pretty much up to that time. It's all good but I am overwhelmed.

Do you like the photo? Sorry I don't remember the artist or the painting, something at the Getty. You'll have to go and see for yourself. One of the many great things about the Getty is that you are allowed to take photos, JUST NO FLASH. But back to work. Thanks for the shoulder.

Rest in peace Koala Sam

Sam the little koala rescued by firefighter David Tree during Australia's devastating wildfires earlier this year died yesterday. She was euthanized during surgery after the veterinarian found the cysts that threatened her life were inoperable.


Sadness upon sadness, Sam's cysts were caused by stress and these days are very common among Australia's koala population. One bright spot is that her life, rescue and death have helped raise awareness and support not only for koalas, who are in serious trouble throughout Australia, but has also helped highlight the plight of wildlife worldwide. Bye-bye little Sam. I am so sorry it ended this way.

Full story here

Local news at 11:24

The Bird Park is full of little birds today. They must be fueling up for bad weather. Snow is predicted above 9000 ft. in the lovely Sierra at whose feet we are nestled. I am in the hamster wheel today. Too much to do and too little time to do it all. We are going to Costa Rica on Nov. 1 for six weeks and already the long shadow is upon me. It would be wise to layout the newsletters through the end of the year. And I just volunteered to do a blog for a local animal welfare group. I got the url and did a mock up for it last night but much remains to be done before it's functional. So far I am 0 for 2 on this kind of thing but what the hell? Three is supposed to be a charm. The one I started for the shelter in Nicaragua turned out to be a terrible experience. The director was impossible to work with. Anyway, I should already be out the door, but just had to come here first and cry. It's a tradition.

Oh, and Baby Thea is now 12 lbs. 6 oz.
and more beautiful than ever, if that is even possible.

Here's a couple of thoughts

It seems that most biological mechanisms of action show that life involves far-from-equilibrium conditions beyond the stability of the threshold of the thermodynamic branch. It is therefore very tempting to suggest that the origin of life may be related to successive instabilities somewhat analogous to the successive bifurcations that have lead to a state of matter of increasing coherence. — Ilya Prigogine

Progress, then, is a property of the evolution of life as a whole by almost any conceivable intuitive standard.... Let us not pretend to deny in our philosophy what we know in our hearts to be true. — Edward O. Wilson

Saturday musings

Today's Daily Thea really knocked me out.

Spring is a great time to be born,
with the entire summer ahead
to kick back and take it all in.

Seems everywhere I look,

babies are doing their thing.

Even the Invisible Theatre has a new little one,

Buug and Hawgwahr.
(long o as in true blue)

Lucky for Buug,
Trusty Hawgwahr is there by his side

Buug, Hawgwahr and Rat Woman

keeping an eye on things. After all...

Buug, Hawgwahr and Rat Woman

you never know who you're going to meet along the way.

Baby Thea at the park

Plus having a special friendmakes every adventure a whole lot more fun.

FOUND! Who gives a fuck?

The missing Who Gives a Fuck? icon was found today and, as promised, a grand prize will awarded to the finder.

Me.

i just want to make one thing clear. I did not rummage though my archives looking for it. I just happened to find it when I was looking though the E Drive for a photo I want to submit to a magazine. Anyway, I get to choose my prize from three things ... either a peanut TLC bar, a cool Nevada rock, or an ice cold Pepsi.

Seeing as how I just had a bar and the rock is already "mine", as much as anyone can "own" a rock given that the rock is already about a million years old and will still be around when the sun implodes, I'm going to chose the Pepsi, gas station soda fountain in a cup with ice style. We don't drink soda much anymore, not since finally admitting to ourselves how terribly unhealthy it is. So soda. Tomorrow, when I go to Reno, I will buy a soda.

So, there he is. Have at him. ladies. Thanks Asia and JudyBlueSky. It is great to have the little guy back.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

Looking to up your chances of getting published?

Want a fast response to your submission?

Want to know where the pain is?

I just stumbled on this neat ratings site for magazines that publish poetry and fiction. They promise the lowdown on the good, the bad and the ugly.

Check it out. Duotorpe's Digest

Bird Park update,

It's been awhile since I posted any news from the Bird Park but a lot has been going on. This little family was one of the spring highlights. Dwayne says that the parents nested on his side of the fence, under the wood pile.



Fun surprise at about 0:57.

Larger screen here.

Naturally, they brought their little brood to the Bird Park. It was a quail paradise. I say was because the damn FAT neighborhood cats started hunting them. Everyday there was one less baby, until all six were gone! I have reverted to the way I saw my father act a couple of times when protecting us kids. I'll tell you what. Those bastards fly. The second a cat appears in the Bird Park, I drop everything and run out into the yard flailing my arms wildly in the air, yelling growls like a murderous beast. It scares the crap out of those bastards and M. Lee. I can be pretty ferocious when the situation calls for it. Savage. Barbaric. Bestial. Truculent. Positively primeval.

For now, the cats are lying low and that young couple has started hanging out in the Bird Park again although we were looking forward to seeing the usual 30 or 40 quail by this time. It's really peaceful watching them lounge around in the shade of the lilacs, peck for treats in Old Man Hills, take dirt baths by the hour, and nibble up after the finches. But no... the cats ruined all that for awhile.

But in the evening a crow comes with her still downy baby. I chop the peanuts for them. I've been making friends with her and sometimes I can even open the window and toss out a peanut without her flying away. And the 7 o'clock magpie still comes for dinner.