Category Archives: Animals

Unforseen Consequences

Posted on January 11, 2012 by | 10 comments

That vertical rift you see on Old Sol this morning is a consequence of neglect.  While the Reiki cats and I were praying him up this morning Shiva the Cow Cat got distracted looking at the full moon still high on the other side of the sky.  She got out of harmony with the rest of us and the result speaks for itself.

Life’s full of that sort of thing here on this planet.  You can’t have any confidence you can get by with anything.  A couple of titanosaurs in Bolivia a few million years ago have themselves a secret rendezvous and next thing you know it surfaces and human beings are poking around nosing into their business.

Some Ichnogenus Gigandipus in Utah puts his foot off the designated pathway and a few million years later you’ve got the authorities swarming his footprints catching him out.

A lot of people think it’s just cameras, but that’s not right.  Do you think this guy in Kenya a million and a half years ago would have done anything different if he’d known it was going to come out someday?  He’d probably feel he pushed a stale yellow light that turned red before he got through the intersection and the camera got him.  He’s sitting out there somewhere fossilized waiting to get the ticket in the mail.

The planet and the Universe have us brainwashed into thinking we don’t leave any tracks.  But it’s a trick, and if we wake up to what we’re doing, say with our tracks of one sort, it sneaks in and preserves some other sort without our noticing it.

For instance, back when they started replacing real audience laughter and applause on television shows in the 1960s.  Who’d have dreamed they were teaching all the coming generations to be Pavlov’s dog with their emotions responses to what went on around them fed directly off a cathode ray tube?

That Santa Fe Trail on the image above is where the routes for land traffic from Saint Louis to Santa Fe converged before choo choo trains got into the act.  It’s the tracks of thousands of wagons, horses, mules and oxen branded into the landscape.

On the ground it’s abraded vertical walled arroyos a hundred yards wide.  You can follow it all the way from Santa Fe to Saint Louis if you know what you’re looking for.  And you’ll be able to do it again a thousand years from now if the mood strikes you and you have the time.

I’m just wondering what the consequences will be for Shiva the Cow Cat letting her attention drift over to the full moon.

Old Jules

 

10 Comments

Posted in 2000's, Animals, Astronomy, Human Behavior, New Mexico, NM, Science

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Engine Failures, Russians, Toyotas and Cats

Posted on January 5, 2012 by | 6 comments

Good morning readers.  I’m obliged you came by for a visit.   Yesterday the online comp spent most of the day doing its own thing.  It all began with some pesky notices in the lower-right part of the screen I’d been getting about updates something someone somewhere thought I needed to turn the computer off to install.

I don’t like strangers telling me what I need to do, so I always just clicked the little X and made it go away.  But the comp was going so skitzy and all the usual suspects didn’t speed it up, nor help anything load right.  As a last resort, I let the nagging signboard do what it wanted.  And it turned out what it wanted was to download umpty-ump megabytes of something-or-other most of the day.

Which actually, eventually helped.  Made me wonder whether it would be advisable to download this browser upgrade websites had been pestering me about all through 2011, claiming their sites wouldn’t support the version I was using after 2011.   Which I naturally responded to by clicking the handy X.

I don’t let any website tell me whether my browser’s going to be supported or not.  But since I was already letting strangers push me around and tell me what to do, I figured what-the-hell. 

Don’t ever let anyone tell you upgrading a browser on a slow connection is some easy, fast thing to do.  Hours upon hours, it took.

But don’t ever let them tell you it doesn’t make a difference on the way the comp behaves itself, either.

But, I’ve digressed.

Just before beginning this post I clicked my young consciousness over to http://spaceweather.com/ to get updated on all the important news and make certain Old Sol didn’t need any help getting up over the horizon.  He didn’t, but I came across this:

DOOMED MARS PROBE PHOTOGRAPHED: Russia’s Mars probe, Phobos-Grunt, has been stranded in Earth orbit since a main engine failure in early November. The spacecraft is now sinking back into Earth’s atmosphere, with re-entry expected in mid-January. “On New Year’s Day, I traveled to the French Riviera (850km from home) to record Phobos-Grunt’s last passage over France,” says astrophotographer Thierry Legault. This is the picture he took through a 14-inch telescope.

“It appears that the satellite is moving backwards with its solar panels deployed but not receiving the sunlight,” notes Legault. “This may explain why Phobos-Grunt had no energy to communicate with Earth.” An 80-second video shows the probe soaring almost directly above Legault’s observing site on the Plateau de Calern. “At the scale of the video the satellite would cross your screen in about 1/30s,” he says.

While a telescope is required to see the outlines of the spacecraft, the human eye alone is sufficient to see Phobos-Grunt as a speck of light in the night sky. On high passes, it glows almost as brightly as a first magnitude star. Check SpaceWeather’s online Satellite Tracker or your smartphone for flyby times.

 That Russian Grunt bears a striking visual similarity to the Toyota Grunt sitting across the meadow, when you look under the hood.  Yeah, on the Russian Grunt the bell housing’s out front and the radiator’s behind, trying to catch up.  But otherwise, there’s a lot of kinship between the two.

Both have a lot of miles on them, and neither one’s running the way it was designed to do.  If the Russians don’t want the thing I’d sort of like for it to come down out in the meadow here to see if I could rob some parts off it for the Toyota.

But this has all gotten longer than I intended it to be.  I’ll save the cat matters for some other post, except to say they all send their regards to you people hanging around in the non-hereabouts parts of the world. 

Thanks for coming by.

Old Jules

 

 

6 Comments

Posted in 2000's, Animals, Solitude

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Shame and a Confession About Inter-Species Sex

Posted on December 26, 2011 by | 13 comments

Good morning readers.  I’m obliged you came for a visit this morning.  In case you’re experiencing post-Christmas letdown this morning I’m going to indulge in a couple of guilt-ridden confessions to provide you a measuring stick so’s you’ll realize whatever troubles you have aren’t all that bad.

First I’m going to tell you something dawned on me about the Communist Americauna hen.  All my life I’ve known about clucks.  Everyone who’s ever been around chickens knows about them.  Every flock of any size has a cluck.

Farmers and town folks who’d lived on farms when I grew up had an expression, “Dumber than clucksh*t” as a means of describing me, frequently, and others of my ilk, and everyone knew the exact reference in the comparison.  A cluck is a chicken that’s crosswise with the world, with humanity, out-of-step with the flock. 

I raised these chickens around here except for the Great Speckled Bird, either from hatchery chicks, or from eggs hatched by brooding hens.  I’ve always taken a great deal of pride in the fact I don’t have any clucks.  My flock is comprised of all good chickens.

But over the past few weeks something sinister’s been creeping into my mind.  I’m being forced to acknowledge the Communist Americauna’s a cluck, right here in MY flock.  Always has been.

So if you think you have troubles, if you had a war with your relatives over Christmas, if you bankrupted yourself buying doodads, if your dad didn’t like the gloves or socks you gave him, forget it.  Forgive yourself.  At least you probably haven’t raised up a cluck and had it right there in your life all this time without knowing it.

But as if that weren’t bad enough:

Now the inter-species sex confession.  That silky rooster’s always been a source of amusement to me.  Back when I had silky hens he fathered the other bachelor rooster here and was always good to the hens when he could catch them.

But now the Communist Americauna’s moved in nights with the two bachelor roosters this one’s become odd-man-out.  His filial son got the Commie.  When I turn them out he’s spending his time lying constantly claiming he found something good but the Commie and other hens aren’t paying him any mind. 

The same people who used the word ‘cluck’ to describe me had another in their arsenal they used on me a little later, and it applies to this poor old rooster, too, same as it once did to me.  “Hornier than a three-peckered billy goat” crept into the language as I reached young-adulthood, and here it is again referring to this silky rooster.  I, at least, stuck to my own species and the opposite gender.

The guineas here came from the hatchery with a rooster chick for every four keets, the reason being guineas are braindead stupid and the only way they can learn to survive until they have a chance is having roosters to teach them the basic tricks like breathing, drinking water and eating.  All but two of those guineas got picked off by predators over time, but the two remaining still venerate the Great Speckled Bird and these two bachelors.  They listen to the rooster lies about what they’ve found and come running.  And when the roosters fight the guineas try to be peacemakers, interfering any way they can.

The other day I was outdoors and noticed the silky lying to the two guineas, which he’ll do, but then he started doing his rooster-dance and quicker than I can tell it spang mounted one of them.  And she cooperated.  An unsettling sight.

But then, somewhat later, Shiva the Cow Cat was down in the meadow digging one of her holes to relieve herself in when I saw the silky approach her, dance a couple of steps and he was on her so fast it took her a second to react.  She couldn’t believe what had happened, and neither could I.

Next thing I know he’ll be trying to mount my leg like some poodle dog.

So whatever problems you think you’ve got in your life this morning, console yourself.  It ain’t that bad, most likely.

Old Jules

13 Comments

Posted in 2011, Animals, Chickens, Country Life, Homesteading, Nature, Outdoors, Relationships, Solitude, Texas

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sundragons and Other Serious Stuff

Posted on December 20, 2011 by | 15 comments

Good morning readers.  I’m gratified you came by for a read.  There’s a lot going on in the Universe this morning, but most of it is too big, or too little to get a gander at, so I’m going to give you an opportunity to shrug it all off as I’m doing.

If you’re the sort of person who sees herds of cattle, naked women, elephants, alligators and stagecoaches in clouds, mountains and whatnot you’ll see immediately what was on Old Sol’s mind yesterday:

Which doesn’t require any further discussion except to say:

Which also speaks for itself.  Enough said about that.

 

Unless you want to hear it in song.

But if you’re feeling more in the serious and unsmiling turn-of-mind this morning you probably won’t grasp the implications and ramifications of that.

Instead you’d probably prefer something you can’t shrug off.  For you, I suggest you have a look at the comet Lovejoy as it passed away from the sun:

http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=19&month=12&year=2011

http://spaceweather.com/images2011/18dec11/spiraltail_strip.jpg

All that wiggling and wagging it’s doing with the tail might be the most interesting thing human beings have had an opportunity to view since the invention of the camera, the rocketship, the atom and other genius gadgetry of modern life including toasters.

Lovejoy is telling you something it might take human beings a longish time to hear, if they ever get around to hearing it at all.  Which seems about equally likely.

With the possible exception of the cats, chickens, and the occasional folks out there who see it but ain’t about to say anything.

But I’m not going to say any of that.  Instead, I’ll just say I’m figuring I might post something later along more interesting lines.

Thanks for coming by.

Old Jules

15 Comments

Posted in 2011, Animals, Astronomy, Music, Science

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

The Devil Take the Hindmost Religion of Human Progress

Posted on December 6, 2011 by | 10 comments
 

The Lone Psychiatrist Rides Again

 

“So,” says I to Mr. Hydrox, my second-in-command.  “Just what-the-hell do we think we’re doing?”

“Who?” Hydrox explains.

“Us.  You.  Me.  Niaid, Shiva, Tabby.  The Great Speckled Bird and the hens.  It’s coming on Christmas.  Why aren’t we gearing up?  Going on buying sprees?  Getting into the spirit of things?”

Christmas where the desert went and why

 

“Hmmm,” Hydrox frowns, scratching behind his ear.  “You’re thinking of what?  Maybe buying a few miles of lights and stringing them up?   Finding some ways of burning up some more kilowatt hours without warming the cabin, pumping water, creating anything, putting food on the table or adding anything necessary to things around here at all?”

I pulls at the suspenders to my insulated coveralls, stalling for time.  “Well, yeah.  Everyone else does it.  Remember when we lived in Placitas and the whole town got drunk and walked around the village singing?  Don’t you miss that?”

“I hated it,” Scrooge McHydrox mutters.  “So did the other cats.  Christmas.  Halloween.  Easter.  But especially Christmas.  Kids buzzing around the roads on new motorcycles trying to run one another over.  Garbage piled up around the pickup containers.  You humans are a mystery to me.  Can’t think of enough things to buy and throw away. 

“But all the while yapyap yapping about how hard times are.  Yap yapping about the cost of just staying alive.  You humans don’t even know how to eat a pound of meat that didn’t come in half-pound of plastic.”

This raised my hackles a bit.  “We’re smart.  We’re on top of things.  Every one of those empty cat food cans in that barrel over there are a sign of human progress and intelligence.  Someone somewhere dug that ore out of the ground.  Someone else smelted it and rolled it down into sheets to make into cans to hold meat someone else grew and killed and butchered so you can have a full belly.

“You eat better than the people who did all that work.  You cats eat better than the progeny of the people of the people I buy it from are likely to.”

Hydrox glared at me in a way I like to think of as put-in-his-place.  “Yeah.  And who’s responsible for all that?”

“Human progress,” I replied proudly.  “The religion of I-Got-Mine.”

Old Jules

  

 

 
 
 

10 Comments

Posted in 2011, America, Animals, Country Life, Current Issues, History, Human Behavior, Outdoors, Politics, Solitude, Survival, The Lone Psychiatrist

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Blind Chickens, Talking Diamonds and Greedy Galaxies

Posted on December 4, 2011 by | 18 comments

I’m aware some of you readers keep chickens.  If you’re having problems with blindness among them you might be interested in joining http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Free_Ranging_Chickens/ where there’s an interesting discussion going on about the problem.  This was the beginning post for the thread:

Blind Rooster
Posted: Sat Dec 3, 2011 5:47 am (PST)
Just wondering if anyone has had any experience with this. Monday afternoon, I noticed two hens on the wrong side of the fence, so went to retrieve them, and find the rest of their little band. Found all but one rooster. Couldn’t find him in any of the “regular” places, but they do have lots of room to roam. Figured I’d check again before bedtime, as he’s usually the first one in. Didn’t show up. Put everyone else in, and went hunting, for feathers if nothing else:(. Well, I found him by the fence, but inside. Just sitting there. He let me pick him up without protest, but he’s always been laid-back. Still, I knew something was wrong. Put him in a different coop, with shelves instead of bar roosts. The next day he was down on the floor, walking around, but bumping into the screening for the duck section, and sitting in corners/nests. Realized his vision was at least partially gone. Blocked him in, and started antibiotics, since I had no idea what else to do. That night he was back up on the shelf, so he must have some vision, I guess. Wasn’t eating or drinking that I could see, just walked over everything. Brought him into the Hospital Unit (a carrier in my bathrooom :). He began to drink, and finally eat. He crows (oh, swell) but his cue seems to be noise rather than light. Put him outside yesterday (in a big crate) afternoon for some sun, but he just sat there. Some of the other chickens did come scratch around him, but he seemed oblivious.
His eyes look odd, not whiteish, but the center (behind the cornea and inside the iris, where it should be black) looks “solid”, if that makes any sense.

Any thoughts?

Free_Ranging_Chickens@yahoogroups.com

Meanwhile, you readers involved in clandestine, extra-marital relationships might be well-advised to remove your diamond jewelry before checking into some seedy motel. 

In the quantum world, diamonds can communicate with each other

December 2, 2011 By Joel N. Shurkin

The vibrational states of two spatially separated, millimeter-sized diamonds are entangled at room temperature by scattering a pair of strong pump pulses (green). The generated motional entanglement is verified by observing nonclassical correlations in the inelastically scattered light. Credit: Dr. Lee and colleagues, Image Copyright Science|AAAS  http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-quantum-world-diamonds.html

Elsewhere in the news, the 99% movement has suffered a disturbing setback with the discovery we live in a greedy galaxy, gobbling up smaller galaxies.  http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-beast-tails.html

Barred Spiral Milky Way. Illustration Credit: R. Hurt (SSC), JPL-Caltech, NASA

The Milky Way galaxy continues to devour its small neighbouring dwarf galaxies and the evidence is spread out across the sky.

Government and Wall Street Cray computers working on the problem tentatively estimate the 99 percenters are actually 0.000000000000001 percenters galaxy-wide.  Political and financial-industry hired-guns are working three shifts to prepare television documentaries and PR campaigns to assist in correcting the error.

In a related story, multi-national corporations and Wall Street banks have hired a team of astrophysicists and astronomers to study black holes in an effort to develop more thorough strategies and techniques to solidify and expand their holdings.  Additionally, the illustration on the right suggests black holes might also provide improved methods in the use of pepper-spray.

“An optical image of the sky showing the location of the black hole, Cygnus X-1. (Right) An artist’s conception of the black hole system, showing the black hole drawing material towards it from a massive, blue companion star. This material forms a disk and jets that emit radiation. Credit: Optical: DSS; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

“Black holes are among the most amazing and bizarre predictions of Einstein’s theory of gravity. A black hole is thought to be point-like in dimension, but it is surrounded by an imaginary surface, or “edge,” of finite size (its “event horizon”) within which anything that ventures becomes lost forever to the rest of the universe.”  http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-black-hole-unmasked.html

The overall optimism derived from these stories was something I wanted to share with you readers to lift whatever waning spirits you might experiencing his crisp, rainy morning.

Old Jules

18 Comments

Posted in 2011, Animals, Astronomy, Chickens, Communication, Country Life, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Politics, Poultry

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

News from the Middle of Nowhere

Posted on September 1, 2011 by | 4 comments

Old Sol’s going through some unusual upheavals today.  I don’t recall ever seeing such an array of sunspots reported:

“GIANT SINE WAVE: Imagine a sine wave 400,000 km long. Today, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory is monitoring just such a structure. It’s an enormous filament of magnetism slithering over the sun’s northeastern limb:”

http://spaceweather.com/

Meanwhile it’s a red morning out there, so all you salesmen probably need to take warning.

Last night I was planning to haul water but I was interrupted by a wild hog meandering out from behind the truck as I came around the corner of Gale’s house.  We stood and looked at one another from about 20 feet, him undecided about whether he wanted some of me, while though I’d decided I couldn’t think of anything to do about it if he did.  When he wandered off behind a hedge I ducked inside to seal an agreement with him that we’d postpone any drama until we could each feel better about invading the personal spaces of the other.

Gale had told me he was having a lot of hogs troubling him but he didn’t mention I needed to pack a .45 walking around the place.

Maybe more later.  I’ve got to go let his chickens out.

07:45 AM – Snagged enough water to hold things together a couple of days down here without seeing any porkers.  Kay’s duck, which was missing last night when I locked down the chickens and caused me concern, flew in while I was filling the water jugs.  Eased my conscience considerable.  I hate having one of their critters come up KIA or MIA while I’m the one taking care of things.

While I was driving back down here I got to thinking about that tusker last night and the fact something’s been tearing up the pen where I keep the roosters every night.  Went out looking for hints of what might be doing it and found pig scat all around out there.  If it was there before I hadn’t noticed it and it appeared fresh.

I’m guessing whatever water source the wild hogs were using somewhere else must have dried up and motivated them with ambition to do some exploring.  It’s been a year since pigs were a problem here except for brief spatterings, a herd passing through.   I’m hoping these will follow the pattern, what’s left of them.

Tidbits you’ll be glad to know:

On this day in 1948 the Chinese formed the Peoples Republic of China, intended to create a nation of manufacturers to create all the stuff Western Europeans and US workers were having to make for themselves previously, getting their hands dirty.

On this day in 1926 Turkey began allowing civil marriage, the results of which subsequently became obvious.

On this day in 1918 the first US troops landed in Vladivostok, Russia, to help settle things down and restore the aristocrats overthrown by wossname, revolutionaries.  For those guys WWI didn’t end until 1920.

On this day in 1866, Navajo Chief Manuelito turned himself in at Fort Wingate, New Mexico, thus putting the final touches on getting all those Navajo over into the temporary [15 years] rez at Bosque Redondo, Fort Sumner bunched up with the Mescalero so’s to get the numbers down to something more tidy and manageable, which they did. [The Long Walk of the Navajo http://www.logoi.com/notes/long_walk.html ]

Old Jules

“The Java Jive” (Ink Spots, 1940)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP6IUqrFHjw&feature=related

4 Comments

Posted in 2011, Adventure, America, Animals, Astronomy, Chickens, Country Life, History, Human Behavior, Nature, Outdoors, Wildlife

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Four Limericks on Life

Posted on August 21, 2011 by | 18 comments

He goes by the surname of Fauna;
From platypus to the iguana:
He hunts and he stalks
And he ceaselessly talks
Of death and the killing he want’ta.

She goes by the surname of Flora.
She’s plankton; she’s trees, a plethora,
But lives in a dread
Avoiding his tread;
He’s Sodom; he’s death; he’s Gomorrah!

He eats, he digests, he excretes her;
She’s worried each time that he meets her.
It’s not so dismaying
To find him decaying:
His syrup of nitrogen treats her.

Submerged in a hostile reality
Humanity flirts with finality.
He yearns to transcend
But his carnal self wins
And he wastes all his life in banality.

Old Jules

Copyright © NineLives Press, 2004

—————

Interesting aside:

“The midnight sun is a sore trial for amateur astronomers in the high North,” says Fredrik Broms of Kvaløya, Norway. “But now, after a long summer without stars (save one), darkness is falling again. Last night when I was watching the beautiful conjunction of Jupiter and the Moon, the first auroras of the season suddenly appeared!”

“I am looking forward to a great season with lots of activity on the sun!” says Broms

http://spaceweather.com/

———————

GEK, the friend who owns this place is going into high gear preparing for the Hatch Chili Festival coming up soon in Hatch, New Mexico.  Last night he sent me a pic of his latest creation involving Siberian wolf fangs:

—————————————

Upcoming White Trash Repairs Project – Soon to be a nesting box

Getting the guts out of there without destroying the aesthetics is the challenge A layer of dead leaves or horse bedding chips in there and the Great Speckled Bird explaining the operation, they'll be right at home.

“Life after death will take care of itself howsomeever it plays out.  Finding something useful to do with yourself when the future passes you up without volunteering yourself for the burn pile is a this-lifetime matter worthy of concern.”  Josephus Minimus

“I am a Long Tall Texan” – Bob Luman

http://youtu.be/Uo-LZDy_Oxs

18 Comments

Posted in Animals, Nature, Poetry

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Catatonic Doggerel

Posted on August 14, 2011 by | 5 comments

Explanatory note:  I used to spend a lot of time on the Zuni Rez with a lady-friend who was school librarian there for 20+ years.  The animals described and named here were all hers.  I post this as a hat-tipping to Ernie, Princess, Spot, Boy Toy and the rest.

A schoolmarmish lady in Zuni
had canines subversive and loony;
her communist felines
made neighborhood beelines
with doctrines both outworn and puny.

The KGB cat was a lean
and speckled-nosed beauty serene
appearance alone
for her countenance shown
multi-faceted plots as she preened.

Her Weathercat history was tops.
She’d sprayed on dozens of cops
with a Commie aroma
ere she joined  Sertoma
cavorting with phonies and fops.

The ringleader hound was a red
and curly haired rascal it’s said
whose Trotskyish leanings
and Maoish gleanings
were pondered curled up on the bed.

Princess Redfeather, they tells
of this curly red bitch of the cells,
forsook her fine lineage
to sip of the vintage
of Lenin, and Gulags and hells.

The worst of the felines, Bearboy:
striped and cross-eyed and coy;
Politically weak,
but claws that could tweak
bourgeoise carpet, and bedspread, with joy.

The Uncle-Tom dog of the hut
was Ernie, the gray-bearded mutt;
dog-tired, and dogmatic,
he thought, ”Problematic:
dog-eared dialectic and glut.”

A calico hound lying dormant,
most likely a police informant:
a capitalist clown
took his food lying down
resisting the commie allurement.

The Uncle-Tom dog she called Ernie
began as a dog-pound attorney
commuted from gassing
he pondered in passing
discretion’s demands for a journey.

The Stalinish kittenish spies
spread foment and torment and lies
to the Indian curs
and mutts that were hers
and war-gods high up on the rise.

Princess and Ernie and, Spot,
and Chester , the narc-dog; the lot:
for half a piaster
would bring the disaster
to Zuni, once called. Camelot.

Old Jules
Copyright 2004, NineLives Press

The Communist Internationale (Original, with English Lyrics)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suVB3YGIUk0
http://youtu.be/suVB3YGIUk0

Gloria Jean’s CATS – “You Better Come Home” – CAT SONG
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw475QLrqdk
http://youtu.be/Lw475QLrqdk

5 Comments

Posted in Animals, Poetry

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

The Liar: The Great Speckled Bird, Part 2

Posted on July 19, 2011 by | 4 comments

I’ve described a few of the attributes of the GSB on another entry, http://tinyurl.com/4yxat2b,  but I didn’t get around to mentioning another  facet of his complex character traits.  He’s a liar.

When he finds food he’ll burble in a special way for the hens, he won’t eat, but pecks it, lifts it with his beak and drops it, bringing the hens running from all directions to fight over whatever it is.

But sometimes GSB gets lonely when he hasn’t found any food.  He’s crippled up and has to move about with a crow-hop, so chasing hens down when he’s lonely doesn’t come easy the way it does for other roosters.

GSB’s developed a practical solution to the problem.  He lies.

When things get slow and GSB wants companionship he’ll pick a spot where he might have found food if there’d been some there, and he’ll burble, scratch and peck, picking up imaginary food and dropping it.  The hens are wise to this tactic.  Somehow they’re able to sense he’s faking it, so they keep on with whatever they’re doing.

But GSB knows hens.  Keeps right on, insisting he’s actually got something they’d like.  Gets excited, urgent in his pronouncements about what he’s offering.  Eventually, one or another of the hens will begin to meander toward him, curiosity overcoming the weight of her experience and common sense.  Usually when one hen heads toward him the others can’t stand the thought she might get something they’ll miss, so the momentum increases and becomes a race to see who’ll get to him first.

When a hen reaches him GSB lifts the imaginary morsel one more time, burbles, and mounts her for a quickie.  The other hens lose interest, GSB dismounts and wanders away, and the hen stays squatted on the spot a couple of minutes on the chance he’ll come back for more.

But if it’s to be done, best it were done quickly.

Old Jules

The Taker – Kris Kristofferson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfkN2i-yS04
He’s a giver, he’ll give her
The kind of attention that she’s never known
He’s a helper, he’ll help her
To open the doors that she can’t on her own
He’s a lover, he’ll love her
In ways that she never has been loved before
And he’s a getter, he’ll get her
By gettin her into the world she’s been hungerin’ for

’cause he’s a taker, he’ll take her
To places and make her fly higher than she’s ever dared to
He’ll take his time before takin’ advantage
Takin’ her easy and slow
And after he’s taken the body and soul
That she gives him, he’ll take her for granted
Then he’ll take off and leave her
Takin’ all of her pride as he goes

He’s a charmer, and he’ll charm her
With money and manners that I never learned
He’s a leader, and he’ll lead her
Across pretty bridges he’s planning to burn
He’s a talker, he’ll talk her
Right off of her feet, but he won’t talk for long
Cause he’s a doer, and he’ll do her
The way that I never
And damned if he won’t do her wrong
’cause he’s a taker, he’ll take her
To places and make her fly higher than she’s ever dared to
He’ll take his time before takin’ advantage
Takin’ her easy and slow
And after he’s taken the body and soul
That she gives him, he’ll take her for granted
Then he’ll take off and leave her
Takin’ all of her pride as he goes

4 Comments

Posted in 2011, Animals, Chickens, Country Life, Free-ranging-chickens, Human Behavior, Liars, Outdoors, Poultry, Relationships

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,