liveonearth: (Default)
Maybe you're not like my neighbors.  They're fine people, decent people.  However, their two poodles are currently gated on the front porch of their house and barking at everything that goes by.  The constant noise pollution is not welcome.  I will remember this if I ever want to have a loud party or run a saw at 5:30am.  Consideration gets consideration.

This morning when I was done working in the garden I headed for the house only to realize on the steps that something was on the bottom of my sandal.  I scraped it off on the edge of the steps and it was dog shit.  I hosed off my shoe and the steps.  It may seem like a small thing to you, that your dog does not come when you call it and loves to shit in my garden, but it is not a small thing to me.

Yesterday I went for a walk with a girlfriend who has two dogs.  She wanted me to walk one but I begged out.  The one that she did bring, an American pitbull, was kept on leash the whole time.  It took the treats which were offered regularly regardless of behavior, and appeared indifferent to the kiddie talk tone taken in her speech.  It kept jumping on me, and slobbering on my legs whenever we stopped.  Slobbering may be normal in your world, but I don't want it in mine.

I live across the street from a park, and people walk their dogs past here all day every day.  I have a cat.  My cat hates dogs with a ferocity I have never seen in another creature.  She will go out of her way to draw blood if the dog is clueless enough to get in range.  But some dogs would kill her if they caught her, and she recognizes that kind and runs, climbs, escapes.  The park rules are that all dogs are to be on leash at all times except for when inside the dog park, which is always available.  I believe city rules are the same.  Any dog owner stupid enough to let their dog in my yard deserves the vet bill.  Any dog that is hunter enough to threaten my cat should be on leash.

My last pet was a dog.  I loved him deeply.  I did a real dog obedience training with him, with a lady who trained German shepherds for the police.  We both learned, and we had a language.  He did not run off to shit in someone else's yard.  I could call him off a chase when other dogs were still chasing.  He would sit and watch quietly when I spotted wildlife.  He would heel, really heel without a leash on, and stay.  He would stay laying in the shade while I had lunch in a restaurant.  So when you say your dog is well trained, at a bare minimum I expect that you can call them back to you and they will come.  Every time.  If he's not well trained, he should be on a leash.

Postscript: I texted my neighbors to ask for some quiet and admitted that the dog barking was getting to me.  They took the dogs indoors and the noise has stopped.  I can feel my blood pressure gradually dropping back toward normal.

I think that when this cat dies I will not have any more pets.  It is very American to have pets, it helps us with the isolation.  But I would rather hang out with my neighbors than listen to their pets.  I would rather make love to my partner than pet the cat.  I would rather not have a litter box to clean or warm piles of dung to pick up with a plastic bag.  The numbers are astounding about pet ownership in the US: could it be that we are substituting cats, dogs, computers and phones for having real connections with other people?
liveonearth: (moon)

Cheetah population crashes, raising threat of extinction

The world's cheetah population is crashing, leaving the world's fastest land animal approaching extinction, according to new research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday. There are now about 7,100 cheetahs left in the wild, the report said, down from an estimated 100,000 at the end of the 19th century. Cheetahs once roamed Africa and Asia, but they have lost an estimated 91 percent of their habitat. Most of the remaining cheetahs are in Africa, with about 50 remaining in Iran. In Africa, 14 of 18 groups studied were decreasing. Zimbabwe's cheetah population has fallen from 1,200 to 170 in 16 years. [USA Today, CNN]

SOURCE

The Week at http://theweek.com/10things/662478/10-things-need-know-today-december-27-2016

My thought: I'm still reading Sapiens and the first section, about how humans absolutely devastated the megafauna of every continent and island, is still reverberating through my consciousness.  The extinction of many species, including the wooly mammoth and the sabre tooth tiger, immediately followed the introduction of our species to a land mass.  We are still causing extinctions.  You would think that we'd make an effort to sustain at least token populations of the more charismatic species.  Instead it appears that the great white hunter would rather have one on his wall than to keep them alive in the wilds.  As the political reality in the US turns even uglier, I have less and less respect and care for my own species.  We may extinct ourselves, but that would be good for many other species.

liveonearth: (moon)
The First Wave Extinction, which accompanied the spread of the foragers, was followed by the Second Wave Extinction, which accompanied the spread of the farmers, and gives us an important perspetive on the Third Wave Extinction, which industrial activity is causing today.  Don't believe tree-huggers who claim that our ancestors lived in harmony with nature.  Long before the Industrial Revolution, Homo sapiens held the record among all organisms for driving th emost plant and animmal species to their extinctions.  We have the dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of biology.
--Yuval Noah Harari in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, 2015, p74.
liveonearth: (Spok has a cat)
I just heard her dispatch some squeaking thing.  I did not get up to save it from her.  She is probably licking her chops right now, having just chomped down the last bite.  Maybe it was a baby rabbit.  It squeaked like one.

I'm having trouble keeping her clown collar on her.  I bought her a birds be safe collar but the quick-release under-collar is too quick to release--she scratches it right off.  Maybe if I put it on her when she has just fed she will be happy enough to ignore it and get used to it.

In other home news the raspberries are coming in.  W says they've never ever been this early.  It's still May and we have both pink and blonde raspberries already ripe.  The blueberries are on their way as well.  We will probably not get very many of them, because the crows are waiting for their ripening as well.

I'm planing my tulsis outdoors today.  Rama tulsi, the most medicinal Ocimum, and Kapoor, and Vana.  These are the Ayurvedic names, and two of them have the exact same Latin name according to the seed company I got them from.

Bergamots are going out as well.  Three of them.  Should be interesting to see how they fare.

I never know what will live and what will die in my little garden.  
liveonearth: (Montana Mountains)

Above There Is The Mountain

And at its foot, the summer refuge---

sanctuary in town and yards under spreading

boughs of evergreens

Beneath the mountain’s wild, they find

their forage: shrubs, wild plants and the feast

of dropped fruit spread about the ground

Those with antlers come alone

Those without bring offspring---fawns

following last year’s babes nearly grown

Late summer afternoons, they descend

like evening shadows slipping down the slopes

and fanning out within the town

By night they feed; by moon they play

How swift they are, even the smallest ones

with stripes and spots

Under moonlight, they suckle then break

for cover---like wind itself---practicing escape

Neither are claws imaginary;

real and raw are the marks

which groove some yearlings’ flanks

Quiet coming, quieter still in going,

all gather again at first light, a full herd

of phantoms ready to depart

before the sun soars above the trees

At town’s edge, the solitary bucks

begin to bound---sharp hooves pounding

respect into pliant earth

Near forest, they pause, heads high,

nostrils flaring to test the morning breeze

Hidden high beneath the mountain’s brushy

crown: a flash of eye shine gold green,

the presence sensed but rarely seen

-Peter Hensel

liveonearth: (vampiress)
True story, just happened, 6:49am. Kitten just came muttering into my bed. She let out her little vibrato meow and I reached over sleepily to pet her hello. My hand landed on something wet. I let out a howl of disgust, thinking it was a dead mouse. She jumped down out of the bed, and then on the bedroom floor something went crunch. I turned on the light, and there was a spot of bright red blood and a few gray feathers on my white bedspread. I looked down at the kitten, and she was hunched over, eating the bird. Crunch, crunch, crunch, methodically. I laid back down and listened. Then I got up, to get a rag so that I could get the blood out of the carpet. By the time I got back the kitten had finished eating the bird, and was crunching on dried cat food. There was nothing left but a small pile of tail feathers that moved in the wind I created. No blood on the carpet, but the down comforter has a new spot. There's a drizzle of blood on her white chest.
liveonearth: (Default)
The kitten just brought me a gift. It was the front half of a frog, with entrails hanging and only one leg left. I was in the middle of about a dozen tasks at the moment that I saw the frog. The task most immediately at hand was making the bed. The kitten was very excited, clawing and scrambling under the bed as she likes to do when it is being made. But then she scrambled her frog half into my vision.
more )
liveonearth: (Default)
Went for a hike alone today. I had invited at least a dozen people, but all bailed and in the end, it was fine. I left behind all my musical devices, wanting to hear the wind and let my mind ramble around until it finally got quiet. I did carry my camera. The hike was 12 miles total--6 up 6 back. I listened to my breathing. Above 10,000 feet I have to take more breaths per steps---I play with ratios of breathing and footsteps as a kind of meditation. I could hear a talkative group a few switchbacks behind me for the last couple of miles. At the pass I found a shady spot under a limber pine and took a nap, then went down to talk to the talkative folks. They were a lot of fun. The people you find on mountaintops are the best kind of people. Interestingly enough, of the four people I met, two of them are psychotherapists. One practices in Flagstaff, the other in one of those Mormon towns that has been absorbed by PHX.

I hiked most of the way down with the chatty group, then split off to hike down Weatherford Canyon. The aspens are so thick in there.....it is a wonderland. I saw some cat scat----big cat scat. It was on a rock in the middle of the trail, a definite turf-marker but too big to be coyote. And too carnivorous. It gave me a chill to see the rabbit fur tufting out of the turd, and to look around in that thick forest and realize just how alone I was. But I didn't see or smell a cat up there. Back when I used to hike with a small dog, he would get very cozy with me when we were in cat territory. I bet the cat saw and smelled me. I know from my time in Colorado that big cats are mostly likely to attack small women running, so I walked slowly and stood tall. I am not food. Yet.

I'm sore and tired now....will sleep well. I am glad I made this hike. I have wanted to explore this route for years now, and never could find anyone who would complete the high altitude trudge with me. But later this week an old friend Jeff will be here, and we plan to go for the Humphrey's summit.

Awesome representation of the mountains and my route, behind cut )
liveonearth: (Default)
Tonight I finished reading the novel by Barbara Kingsolver, published in the year 2000. I have joked with my friends that the only time I read novels is when I should be studying for finals. Thank goodness for finals. Otherwise I would never feel compelled to read fiction.
Spoilers Galore )
liveonearth: (Default)
The prediction is for 2-4 inches tonight. When I got home a little while ago Shakti had manifested her huntress nature for the first time; she caught a small grey bird. There was just a little snow sticking and the bird was beside the walk, laying on its back and breathing hard from being tormented. My hands were full and I just kept walking. While it is sad for a bird to die, it is also the natural way of things for cats to hunt and to toy with their food. Shakti was looking at me as I closed the outside door, leaving her alone with her prize. Once inside I set to putting things away.
more )

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