Moving Out

Perhaps it has something to do with my interest in birds, perhaps it is because I am cheap and do not want to pay rent in the summer or maybe the house I live in is for sale. Impossible to know. But like my beloved birds, my Spring migration has begun.

Gray-crowned rosy Finch

The Warbler

An add on the back page of a 1904 issue of the Warbler, a magazine for bird lovers.

Pied-billed Grebe

Rock Wren

I had to move its foot

Sanderling

Earth Control Day

Wood Goose and Flowering Tree

From Stopping off Place

Overheard in the Locker Room

"I took a cat to the vet. My Rottweiler got a hold of it and broke its leg. The vet said, '$600 to set the leg.' I said, 'Put it down.' The vet said, '$700.' I said, 'I'll take care of it at home with a 25 cent bullet.' The vet said that he would fix the leg and find someone to adopt the cat. 'Knock yourself out.'" He went on about how cats are expendable, etc, etc.

I said, "It sounds to me like the Rottweiler is the one that should be put down - or adopted." He ignored me. Partially because I said it in my head but mostly because he did not want any trouble from the likes of me.

I am not usually excited about College Basketball

But I am usually excited about Birds. Presently Harris Hawks have struck my fancy. Did you know that they hunt in packs like wolves? They will stand on one another's backs in order to get better views, they live communally, and there is an alpha male and an alpha female.



The young stay with the family for up to 3 years. Maybe up to more years - it's up to the bird. I got to see one at school a few days ago with Ms. Kate's class. Not my school, Nevada City School of the arts in California. Some of the questions the kids asked were: "Why do you have this bird?" and "Is that pine cone sticky?"

Food for Thot

I never should have bought a Reticulated python. He was just a little guy, or she was just a little gal when I saw her in the pet store. Thot was about 6 feet long a year later. 6 feet is about a 1/4 or 1/5 the length a Reticulated python can grow. Thot was the silly name I gave the snake so I could say , "here's food for Thot," when I brought a rat or a chicken or a young cow home for his/her dinner . Joke names for pets was a habit back then. I had a cat called When until she left out of purr, excuse me, pure embarrassment. She is probably lucky she left before the giant python moved in. One thing I learned after buying the snake is that Reticulated pythons do not make good pets. They are not generally as docile as other snakes such as the aptly named Children's Python. Occasionally Thot would strike at the glass in his habitat (cage has such negative connotations) when a person, preferably a toddler, would approach. Thot recently (just now) came to mind as I was thinking of projects that I've started without thought of the logistics required to actually finish them. I knew, intellectually, that this sweet little python had the potential, with proper care and feeding, to be a huge snake. My mind decided not to let that thought get in the way of buying Thot. (Confused? Thought you might be). Another example is a 1961 Ford F 250 pick up truck given to me for free. Free? How could I pass that up, even with a cracked engine block. That truck sat in the driveway of my mother's house for years. Another example is my kick ass Honda CB 400 Super Sport that is still behind Mom's house. It had a seised engine when Dan Benavidez gave it to me. I managed to take the engine apart (proof can be found in a box behind my Mom's house) but never managed to reassemble it. Glad I never disassembled the snake. Even so, the snake died while away at college. I was away at college, the snake stayed home to die. I felt horrible as I always do when a pet dies. Well, I did sort of intend to disassemble the snake. I buried my Thot (ouch) in the backyard hoping to find a beautifully intact skeleton later on. That never happened. Another unfinished project.