As I earlier reported, we began relocating the family of Mamachuck and her 6 younguns. We trapped one of the kids and released it next to a nearby swamp. Curiously, since that day, there has been no sightings of the Chucks. Mama took the hint and they left. For us it was one part quandary and one part relief. We've become infamous, however, in the inter-species press:
Sheesh, I'm getting a slagging from a publication I helped co-found!
Meanwhile, this morning C said she saw a big chuck and little chuck by the shed. Sigh, either Mamachuck has returned or a new mama has taken up residence. We're monitoring the situation and we agree that a Mom and 1 chuckette are tolerable and most likely (hopefully) not to do much damage. Stay tuned.
It's spritzing at the moment, hopefully foreshadowing the day to come. The birds are quiet except for a robin taking center stage in the treetops. I stumbled upon this reggae version of the famous 1959 Brubeck Quartet's "Take Five" that was renamed "The Russians Are Coming" and played by Val Bennett.
For the past year, I have identified Sky as male but I was wrong-Sky (now Skye) is a girl. There were signs back in May when I saw her exhibiting mating behavior with another squirrel. Recently, I thought Skye was showing nipples when she prairiedogs and if I am correct, our girl is preggers. Now, squirrel fathers do not help out with raising their offspring and do not bond with the female. Curiously, there was a male hanging out with Skye yesterday, they ate together at the Diner without any disruptive behavior for a good 20 minutes. Such peaceful relations made me wonder if the male was her brother as this squirrel had a nice full tail like Bahdra. From what I have read, adult squirrels are solitary but it has been noticed that they can recognize the scent of a relative.
Skye is at right, still showing her mange marks from this past late Winter.
She should give birth 30-40 days from now. I don't know where her nest is-it's not in the big birch.
The next evening:
She is with another male at the Diner who I think is Stubbs based on how his tail looks like it has grown back-there's an odd notch on either side of the central bone spine.
It was a warm one today-89°-and Skye sprawled on top of the deck railing and on the deck itself. Whew!
Jack Smith stared at The Roach during the entire arraignment on June 9 while The Roach never once could raise his eyes to meet those of his prosecutor. Observers felt that the former President looked like he was being taken to the woodshed. After being indicted in Miami on 37 counts, El Hefe stopped by a Cuban restaurant, burst in and bellowed to the patrons that he had done nothing wrong and rehashed his usual litany of victimhood claims. Did he order? Naw, he hung out long enough for sympathy and "happy birthday" wishes (June 14) and left.
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C calls this Buddy's hula with his arms and head turned to the side. I call it Buddy's hula with money shot.
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First litter bun practically grown up
The last couple of days, we began seeing the second litter emerge. This little one could fit in the palm of my hand.
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Right on schedule, the big orange daylilies are blooming
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Tiger in my garden
Buddy in Pepperville. I am v glad I spaced things like I did. C commented that he seems quite careful and not stomp or sit on anything. Good boy!
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Cover art from the band Still Corners single "The Trip" fusing sci-fi with '50 Life magazine advertising:
"We have a new neighbor in close orbit. It's changing things."
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Seen while out and about: we went over to LCC West so C could hang some flyers. Just before the parking lot we saw this:
The next generation of utility pole workers undergoing training. It was a startling sight-a bunch of guys at the same time climbing poles. Worse, the poles seemed not to be securely put into the ground for they wobbled as they climbed. Yikes!
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Mr. Purple Finch looking resplendent in his summer plumage. Roger Tory Peterson, author of the seminal Guide to Birds, the first modern field guide in 1934, famously described purple finches as “sparrow dipped in raspberry juice".
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There comes a tipping point in one's life where you fully realize that Death is closer to your horizon. It may not be visible yet but one can feel it lurking. This comes after the "I have less time in front of me than behind me" era of our middle age. A few years ago, I had an elder friend of mine remark, wide-eyed over his pasta, "Christ, Jeff-I've only got 15 years left. Maybe 20 if I am lucky". This is doubly upsetting factoring in the phenomena of time accelerating as one ages. Days, weeks, months, years seemed to go one forever in younger times. Now, the years fly by. I was struck by the fact that I just recently passed the five year mark of my retirement. Five years!
Well, my attitude remains as it was when I bailed: I want to enjoy the time I have left. I did my duty as a citizen, I always worked-all 47 years worth. I hear folks talk about the BS they have to endure on the job and I am so very happy and grateful that I don't have to do that anymore. I like the French attitude: you put in your years and retire when you are young enough (age 62) and hopefully healthy enough to enjoy life. And this is for everyone, not just those who had the huge salaries to bail early while the working class gets to work until they drop because they cannot afford to retire as it is in our miserable culture.
We could tell he wasn't feeling well, between his wound and probable tummyache from the antibiotics. Bud wandered the house and outside, mewing and seeking out his comfort spots for relief without much remedy. Poor lad. He finally ate and that seemed to help. A couple of days later, he was better-very purryfurry and he chilled out next to me on the couch. A extra helping of cuteness:
When C joined us to watch a movie after supper, he enjoyed the usual routine of scritches, belly rubs and just being close to his Mum.
It got up to 89° today with more to come. Only 1.06" of rain since May 1. Spent much of the day watering with more to do Wednesday.
We've begun relocation of the Chucks. Perhaps this will end in a revenge tale as one returns as the unnamed ravenous creature mentioned in "The Little Hosta."
Monday night, we noticed Buddy had a hen's egg sized bump on his right hip. This morning, we luckily were able to get him into the vet. As we suspected, it was an abscess which was drained and Bud was given a shot of antibiotics. Evidently, he got into a scrap with someone in the 36 hours since we returned from Chicago. He was pretty upset and vocal on the way in and thankfully less so when we got home. The bump has flattened out and he went outside for a bit when we had supper on the deck.
I seem to be coming out of a major flare with the PMR which lasted for at least 6 weeks. Today was blissful: nearly pain free everywhere especially in the feet, hips and hands. I'll enjoy what I receive, for however long that may be.
A couple of mornings ago, I noticed that my neighbor (top photo) and I (bottom photo) sustained a wild animal attack on our hostas. We've seen this before in the same plots but usually in the dry Fall months. The culprits are deer and this was substantiated by their dropping nearby. Why now and not in the Fall? Our drought. Curiously, I was relating this tale to an old working pal who said her daughter who lives semi-rural in the Ann Arbor area had suffered hosta losses from deer as well.
BUNNIES
We discovered a few days ago that we had a baby bunny in residence. Things were cool until I found one morning that it had eaten a month's worth of growth on my rose of sharon twigs. I covered them. The next day, it chomped on my tithonias. I had to drag out fencing to secure the raised bed.
WOODCHUCKS
We were aghast to discover that MamaChuck had birthed a big litter this year. A couple of days ago, it was just one. Last night, they all tumbled out of the apartments-SIX yes SIX chuckettes! For the time being, they seemed content on mowing the grass in the Back 40 but this morning, I noticed that they had been sampling the snow-on-the-mountain and watch them sniff and nibble on the hostas and newly planted day lilies.
Just in time! The ultimate Father's Day gift for your carnivore grillmaster: The Meater, a wireless grill thermometer!
That's right-yet another example of our culture's insane productivity fetish. Why stand around watching meat cook? How boring! Stick this into your meat, identify what kind of meat it is, request how well done you want it and walk away. It will let you know when it's done-yet another machine whose command must be obeyed (see June 9 Five Second Stories skin lotion ad).
The marketing pushes the idea that since you're no longer chained to the grill during cook time, now you can spend your time more productively like... with your family. Dream on. In reality, it allows the grillmaster to sit nearby, drinking beer while scrolling through his iPhone or playing a violent game. Standing around is such a drag.
The Meater-yep, they're clever cleavers with this pun. $80 on Amazon.
Once there were 7 hostas, all from the same stock and planted together on the same day. By the third season, 6 out of 7 were thriving and all were nearly the same size except for one. It was a puzzle why this hosta was so small, sickly, underachieving. "Something about the sun, rain and soil during the first season?" thought some. "Really, to have only 1 out of 7 failing, statistically was a minor miracle", others felt. They weren't very kind in their comments and the Little Hosta felt sad.
One day, a ravenous animal appeared and over the course of a single evening, ate all the big, healthy hostas to the ground. The Little Hosta could barely keep conscious after seeing and hearing the massacre of the others, waiting with severe dread for her turn as a meal.
For some reason, the Little Hosta was spared, perhaps the creature had a tummy ache from eating too much or missed her because of her size. The next day, a soft, steady rain came to soothe the Little Hosta and by the afternoon, the clouds cleared away and the Sun shone strongly. During that temperate Summer, the Little Hosta, feeling strong from her survival and no longer ridiculed by her siblings, tripled in size and looked magnificent. Her siblings did not recover.
The creature who had slaughtered her family never returned. It is said that the creature was heard expressing its admiration of the Little Hosta for her courage in the face of danger. He felt, therefore, that it would be a sign of great disrespect to eat her. She lived to a ripe old age and all her divisions over the years grew big and strong.
Mamachuck enjoying a bit of a favorite seasonal treat-newly matured Snow on the Mountain. She worked the perimeter only rather than rampaging through the entire bed. I appreciate this and I hope this signals some sort of understanding between us. She is welcome to nibble.
And, she is welcome to all-you-can-eat grass at the Diner which she enjoys with gusto. That girl loves her grass and helps keep it chopped down as I am not mowing during this drought.
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Photo by Jononmac46, Creative Commons/Wikimedia
Items from the Sutton Hoo ship
burial, now in the British Museum. Top: Gold garnet shoulder clasp
encrusted with Sri Lankan garnets (RobRoy/Creative Commons/Wikimedia).
Bottom: Gold belt buckle, weighing nearly 1 pound.
Sutton Hoo was discovered in 1939 in Suffolk in Southeastern England and these items had been
buried alongside a local king, Raedwald, within a 90-foot-long ship. He
died in 624 A.D., thus dating the site to nearly 1,500 years ago. Extraordinary craftsmanship on these pieces.
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Baobab trees in Madagascar stores water in its trunk and can live over 2000 years.
Beth Moon
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She wryly commented to her husband as they exited the shed "we have a variety of critter traps for all sizes". "Yep", her husband replied "it's our deterrence with the critters. They know we have them and not afraid to use them."
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We watched Fantasia 2000 from 1999 when Disney
decided to remake the 1940 classic. Visually stunning at times-my fav
was the "Pines of Rome" sequence with whales. However, Disney decided to
chop each music/animation segment up with some celebrity running their
mouths about how the animators did this or that. Evidently, Disney felt
this would appeal to the adults who would swoon because there was Steve
Martin, Bette Midler, James Earl Jones etal doing the intros.
Oi. It
comes off as a promo pitch selling an idea to investors/donors or some schlocky
culture lecture at the Kennedy Center. Very, very odd choice and in my
book, egregiously annoying.
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Serious condition: In our fetish to personalize every aspect of our lives come this ad for skin lotion Cera Ve. The skin is talking to the woman it inhabits: "Hey, I'm dry. I don't like to be dry". Well, the woman obeys the voice in her head and buys Cera Ve. The skin is happy and life is good, but, as it implies unsaid, only if you buy, buy, buy.
Nice conditioning (I couldn't pass up this pun) of the populace to taking orders. Siri, Alexi, iPhone notifications and your body are all part of the hierarchy of commands. Do as I say.
Yeah, I've been watching a lot of X files.
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Another strange opening for a documentry: from Planet Doc-"Armenia, Land of Noah":
"Unknown yet radiant, Armenia..."
This sounds he is referring to Miss Armenia on Eurovision.
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Buddy's yoga goals: Follow along with Mom's movements. Try and anticipate where they are going to go. Position your body so her hand will brush by your side. Scritch giving will be irresistible.
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I was one of those 12 year old geeks who built and flew model rockets, had a basic weather station and a telescope. Through the years, I witnessed solar and lunar eclipses, planetary occultations* with the moon, meteor showers and one summer as an adult, I kept charts of the movements of Jupiter's moons.
Galileo's chart of Jupiter's moons January 1610.
*Occultation occurs when one object is hidden from the observer by another object that passes between them.
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Noting the death of Astrud Gilberto who recently passed aged 83. She rose to fame as wife of Joao Gilberto, singing her husband's co-written Brazilian Bossa Nova huge worldwide hit "The Girl From Ipanema."
Another fave of mine also featuring Stan Getz on tenor sax: "Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars".
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When I was a kid, the Sun Theatre in Grand Ledge was where my family went to see movies. We had gone a couple of times to the downtown Lansing theaters, the Michigan and the Gladmer, but they were usually crowded and noisy. The Sun was more laid back, less crowded, cheaper and closer than Lansing from our house. The Sun has been in operation since 1931 with a couple of interruptions due to change of management and Covid.
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Seen while out and about: on the way home we noticed this message on the Delta Presbyterian Church's light box sign:
Deep dark depression
Excessive misery
Turn to Jesus
"Odd message" I said to C. "It's from Hee Haw" she replied. That's right folks, Hee Haw. My wife's elephant memory provides this odd nugget. The song, from 1969, is called "Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me" and here is the lyric the church used:
Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery
If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all
Gloom, despair, and agony on me
It is sung by a group of good ole' boys, gathered around the altar of their moonshine still, drinking from a jug and lamenting their troubles accompanied by their faithful bloodhound.
It made me wonder about just how old the congregation is at this church-hell, I grew up with Hee Haw and I didn't remember this tune. But, no matter for I suppose this is a clever way to spark conversation. Clearly, not something the Southern Baptists would do, lol.
Wonderful video by Yo Yo Ma stating that as a species, creativity is a common trait shared by all peoples regardless of gender, age or location on the planet.
Downtown New York City earlier this week as smoke from Canadian wildfires swept down into the Eastern half of the US. Here in MI, the skies had a milky haze but the air smelled smokey.
Swinton is a British scholar, a Narratologist, who during a visit to Istanbul purchases an old glass bottle in a market. Back at the hotel, she cleans it and pops open the top unleashing a Djinn who is 20 feet tall but manages to magically shrink down to 8. Over the course of the day, they tell each other about themselves with Swinton having not much to tell but Djinn recounts three tales of granting wishes, the unforeseen consequences as a result and his three experiences of being trapped in bottles.
An adult fairy tale: what would you do encountering a Djinn? Some nice visuals, interesting segments and good acting from the leads. We've found over the years that Swinton chooses intriguing projects and this is no exception. At the core of the film is love. What people do because of love and passion for another. It doesn't always work out happily ever after.
It was regarded by the industry as a box office bomb and one wonders how well it was marketed. On one hand, if folks were thinking this was going to be a Disneyesque feature for the kiddies, they were going to be upset (nudity! sex! inter-racial LUV). On the other, if Marvel fans etal thought this was going to be some action film featuring an ass-kicking Genie, they were going to be bitterly disappointed. There is an intellectual vein that runs through this story, pointing back to what Swinton's character does for a living-from Wiki:
"Narratology is the study of narrative and narrative structure and the ways that these affect human perception. It is an anglicisation of French narratologie, coined by Tzvetan Todorov (Grammaire du Décaméron, 1969). Its theoretical lineage is traceable to Aristotle (Poetics) but modern narratology is agreed to have begun with the Russian Formalists particularly Vladimir Propp (Morphology of the Folktale, 1928), and Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of heteroglossia, dialogism and the chronotope first presented in The Dialogic Imagination (1975).
Cognitive narratology is a more recent development that allows
for a broader understanding of narrative. Rather than focus on the
structure of the story, cognitive narratology asks "how humans make
sense of stories" and "how humans use stories as sense-making
instruments"."
Not your average Hollywood flick, in fact in lesser hands, this would have been a laughable mess. Some critics whined it was slow, whined about the lil white woman lusting for a Big Black Buck trope-go with the flow-it's worth seeing at least on the basis of originality. Available on Prime.
A front brought us cooler air on Sunday which made for a pleasurable afternoon. It was 2.54 pm and I'm hanging out on the couch YT surfing. Lord Bertram has not risen yet. My new day lilies are blooming.
The Diner and bath have been doing a brisk business. Many mating couples have stopped by the bath-sparrows, finches, jays and cardinals. I put on some music:
"Summer" by War from 1976.
Ridin' 'round town with all the windows down Eight track playin' all your fav'rite sounds The rhythm of the bongos fill the park The street musicians tryin' to get a start
'Cause it's summer Summer time is here Yes it's summer My time of year Yes it's summer My time of year
Stretched out on a blanket in the sand Kids of all ages diggin' Disneyland Rappin' on the C.B. radio in your van We'll give a big ten four to the truckin' man
'Cause it's summer Summer time is here Yes it's summer My time of year Yes it's summer My time of year
Young boys playin' stick ball in the street Fire hydrants help to beat the heat Old man feeding pigeons in the square Nighttime finds young lovers walking there
'Cause it's summer Summer time is here Yes it's summer
In Atlantic City or out in Malibu Or any where between, I'm telling you When you feel those balmy breezes on your face Summer time is the best time any place
'Cause it's summer Summer time is here Yes it's summer My time of year
'Cause it's summer Summer time is here (yes it is) Yes it's summer My time of year
'Cause it's summer Summer time is here Yes it's summer (yes it is) My time of year
Songwriters: Mark Andrew Pontius / Nicholas Oliver Ruth / Pablo Signori / Samantha Barbera / Sidney Anthony Miller
Big Blue, the Jay, was flying back and forth picking up the peanuts I had thrown out.
He saw me standing at the picture window taking a photo of the new lilies. As he dropped down from the birch for another peanut, he gave me a short two-tone call to say thanks.
