Random Living on a North Woods Farm

Hachi and Patsy Ann

2010-12-31T11:37:00.000-08:00

There are certain films that I can no longer watch.

For instance, every Christmas season, Deb just can’t refrain from gazing across the room on a cold winter’s eve and saying, “Hey, Tough Guy! How’s about you and me sitting down and watching It’s a Wonderful Life?”

I’ve learned to get up and stare out the window, and say, “You know Sweetie, I’d love to, but Jack and I found a bear den the other day. I think the conditions are perfect for me to go out and crawl into that hole to see if I can actually tap a bear on it’s rump with my bare hand without waking it up this time.”

“Come on. Admit it. You’d rather risk life and limb than sit here sobbing in front of the television.”

All I can do at that point is cast a withering glance in her direction, put on my heavy duty bomb proof ice fishing clothes, and go out and hug the goats, llamas and horses for the next 130 minutes.

Well, darn. There’s a new kid on the DVD block. It’s called Hachi, and if you haven’t seen it, then, when your wife rents it, consider coming on over and we’ll do a little North Woods Bear Tapping.

The story is about an Akita that greets its owner at the train station every day after work, and when the owner dies, Hachi continues his daily vigil for ten years after that. The film takes place in the U.S., but the real Hachi and his master lived in Japan in the 1920’s. Today there is a bronze statue of Hachi outside the Shibuya train station in commemoration of his undying loyalty.

This reminded me of another dog statue that we saw in Juneau, Alaska. It honors Patsy Ann, “The Official Greeter of Juneau.” A Bull Terrier, born in Portland, Oregon in1929, she and her owner came to Juneau as a pup. Patsy Ann was stone deaf from birth, but she somehow "heard" the whistles of approaching ships long before they came into sight, and headed at a fast trot for the wharf. And she was never wrong. Once, a crowd was given erroneous information and gathered at the wrong dock. Patsy Ann glanced at the crowd, sighed, then turned and trotted to the correct dock to wait.

She died in 1942. On the following day, a small crowd watched as her coffin was lowered into Gastineau Channel. Her sculpture now sits, watching and waiting with eternal patience, whether shrouded in fog, bathed in sunshine or covered with snow.

The other day, I watched a NOVA special on dogs, and there is a theory that human civilization could not have advanced without dogs. Evidently, wherever there are human remains, there is also evidence of dogs, and they think that without dogs to keep vigil over livestock and crops, mankind could not have advanced past the hunter gatherer stage.

Did you know that the Latin term for being faithful and loyal is fidēlis? That is why you are supposed to name your dog Fido.

Well, I have four Fidos, all of which are pretty darned loyal, but it’s hard to imagine one more attentive and loyal than our old Aussie, Sprocket. She’s kind of on a downhill slide, but her spirit is unfailing.

When she dies, I don’t know that I’ll be commissioning any bronze statues, or scripting any Indie films about her life.

One thing is for sure, though. If a film were ever made about her, I’d have to try to find every winter bear den in Forest County.

P.S.: Don’t even get me started on Old Yeller or The Yearling.

While the Cat's Away...

2009-09-14T21:08:00.000-07:00

It only happens when you're away.

Five hundred miles away from the farm.
The first trip that Deb and I have taken together to visit family in Michigan for years.
A cadre of friends and neighbors carefully selected and instructed on the care and nurturing of all of our animals and plants.
Four days into the trip with three days left before our return.

And the phone rings at my brother's home.
My brother's wife: "Deb, it's Pat for you."

I hear my wife give a cheerful, "Hi! How are you doing? What's up?"

"You're kidding, right?"

"Are the animals safe?"

"I can't believe it. Did they catch him?"

"Do they know who did it?"

"No, tell Jack not to chase any cows."

"No, we'll fix it when we get home."

"No, there's nothing you could have done about it. Sorry that it happened on your watch. Thanks for calling."

By this point, I'm dying. This was not anywhere near as clear as a Bob Newhart telephone monologue. "Deb, what in the world happened?"

"Some time in the night last night, there was a high speed chase down our country road. A vehicle ended up missing the turn, went through our pasture fence, into the field, and ripped out another hole in the fence on its way out. Pat doesn't know who did it or whether they caught the guy. A neighbor rounded up the horses and llamas, but Jack hasn't seen the cows."

Based on what I had to say, and on what I thought but left unsaid about the situation, if St. Peter really has a log book with him at the Pearly Gates, he wore out a few erasers wiping out any brownie points I may or may not have had accumulated over this long and sordid life. I was mad. That kind of thing isn't supposed to happen in my little piece of North Woods Paradise.

When we got home, our neighbor who had rounded up our horses and llamas, had taken photos of the scene and provided them to us on disk. This is what we had greeting us on our arrival home a few days later. The entry point:

And the exit point.

Upon speaking with the County Deputy Sheriff, we learned that the high speed chase had started miles away when he tried to pull over a pickup truck for speeding. The chase extended into the next county where the driver pulled off into a logging road that the Deputy could not get down. They didn't catch the guy that night.

Fortunately, our trusty fence ripped some pieces from the truck, including the license plate. So the Deputy was able to find the owner, who just happened to have a warrant out for his arrest before the chase for nonpayment of child support,but who naturally claimed that his vehicle had been stolen that night, and who "lawyered up" after having been read his Miranda rights, so we could not find out whether he has any insurance to cover our damages. The state victim assistance program also has no funds for covering property damage.

So we will have to foot the bill for new fencing. It was previously woven wire that got bent and stretched out of shape much beyond the two holes, so now we are replacing at least half the fenceline with cattle panels attached to much more closely spaced posts. The new fence may not stop a speeding truck, but it may do more damage and slow it down some. Whether we see any compensation will have to await trial and jail time.

At least the animals were uninjured.... by the vehicle at least. The horses, while out broke down a section of the neighbor's fence trying to get to their horses, again without any major injury. The cows were safe and sound in a different pasture on our property.

But in the new paddock where the horses were put, our little Arabian filly decided to investigate a passing porcupine and got a face full of quills:

We were able to extricate two from her face before she decided that she had enough of that. So add in the costs of an emergency vet visit to have the horse tranquilized for the remainder of the process. The vet said that the good thing is that unlike dogs, he has never had to pull quills out of a horse's face more than once.

All in all, I guess it could have been much worse. After I get the fence mended and the bank repaid, all I will have to do is try working on ever so slowly re-accumulating those lost brownie points.

Hemingway and Our Cats

2009-09-04T11:43:00.000-07:00

Last Spring we had a new addition to our feline family, little miss Polly. She was an extra barn cat from a friend's place. What enamored us to her was the fact that she had seven toes on all of her feet, front and hind. It's not too unusual to have extra toes on either the front or back, but it is rare to have extras on all four feet. The term for extra digits is polydactyly, hence her name: Polly.

Anyway, while in Columbia, Missouri, last Summer, visiting my daughter and her husband, I mentioned the cat and they told me that Ernest Hemingway had polydactyl cats, and that they have since multiplied down at his museum in the Florida Keys. According to the website:

"The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum is home to approximately sixty cats. Normal cats have five front toes and four back toes. About half of the cats at the museum are polydactyl. Ernenst Hemingway was given a six-toed cat by a ship's captain and some of the cats who live on the museum grounds are descendants of that original cat. Key West is a small island and it is possible that many of the cats on the island are related. Our cats are not a partiular breed, but appear to be a combination of various breeds--sort of "Heinz 57" if you will. They are all shapes, sizes, colors and personalities."

A ship's captain, huh? I never tried taking a cat in the boat fishing with me, but I'm willing to give it a try.

Well, those extra toes came in handy. Last winter, Polly flew across the top of the lightest snows with her permanent snow shoes. Some darned old Tomcat must have been hiding behind a snow bank, though. After all of these years of owning cats and faithfully neutering and spaying them, we overlooked spaying Polly. So sure enough, this Spring she gave birth to five kittens.

Some had multiple toes, and others did not.

We had no problem at all finding homes for them, and they were a lot of fun raising to a weaning age, but we definitely were never going to let her have another litter.

In theory, that is. I guess our little celibacy talk went right in one ear and out the other. Before we knew it, Polly, failed our deluxe pregnancy tester. She no longer fit through the cat door to the basement:

And sure enough, we came home one day to find six more little ones piled up in the dog bed.

As an author, Hemingway was prolific... but it was nothing in comparison to his cats.

Be Careful of What You Wish For

2009-08-15T16:07:00.000-07:00

Several years ago, we were told about a horse that was looking for a new home. At the time, we simply had our hands full with our own horses, boarded horses, and all of the other sheep, goats, donkeys, cows, a camel, llamas, chickens, geese, dogs and cats. When you own a barn with about 20 stalls and eight paddocks and plenty of pasture, there is a tendency to overdo yourselves with animals in need of a home. With just the two of us we had our hands full. At the time, we decided against taking the horse in. But I have always wondered what it would have been like to take care of this one. It was the first and only Bashkir Curly I have ever come across.

They are called Bashkir, because they are said to have originated in a region of Asia called Bashkortostan. (That's a new ...stan to me.)

They are called Curly because they have fine, soft ringlets of hair that can get to be several inches long and it can actually be collected, spun and woven. They say that the hair is more closely related to mohair than horse hair. If the Obama girls ever get to a point that they want a pony, these are supposed to be hypoallergenic, too.

Yeah, I know. Curlies are kind of goofy looking, but what they lack in looks, they make up for in personality and durability. They are said to be even tempered, calm, friendly and intelligent. They have short, strong backs, very dense leg bones and very dense, hard hooves. Some Endurance Riders swear by them. When their heart and respiratory rates become high with exercise, those rates recover unusually quickly.

For a long time, I kind of wished that I would run across another one needing a home.

Then look what I got this summer.

Meet Zoey. She looks like a Bashkir Curly, but unfortunately, she's not. Zoey used to live on our farm and has given us some beautiful babies.

Zoey is a mini and was sold to a friend a few years ago when we downsized our livestock operation. Last winter she got into some feed and foundered. Her owner couldn't afford to have her cared for, so we took her back this Spring.

We had the farrier out immediately to try to work on her feet. They had become so long that it will take several months' worth of trimming to get her back to normal again. She is still long and more lame than normal.

We also waited and waited for her to shed out her winter coat. But she never did. This is not normal. Deb recognized it as a possible sign of Cushing's Disease, and the vet has since verified it.

Cushing's Disease is caused by a benign tumor of the pituitary gland. The pituitary regulates the endocrine system, so hormonal, metabolic, and immune problems are symptomatic. Her failure to shed out, and an increased water consumption were the most obvious symptoms. The vet has prescribed a dopamine agonist, Pergolide. She will be on this medicine for the rest of her life.

Aside from her improving lameness, she doesn't appear to be in pain. We keep her isolated and on a restricted diet right now. She is a typical mare and lays back her ears squeals at the other horses through the fence when they get too close. Hopefully, we can give her a few more good years of life on our farm...

And I can pretend she's my little Bashkir Curly.

North Woods Mosquitoes and Bats

2009-08-10T20:07:00.000-07:00

Did I ever mention that we have mosquitoes in the North Woods of Wisconsin? Now that we have had some much needed rain, they are out with a vengeance. Actually, during the daytime outside they are not too bad. I attribute that to our farm buildings being pretty open with the West wind blowing over acres of open pasture.

It is in the evenings, when dusk settles over the farm and the winds die down that things turn ugly, especially in our old farm house's upstairs bedroom. Trying to read or blog at night can be a pain in the neck. I don't know how they get in, especially so many of them.

The sounds at my keyboard are something like: Click, click, click, slap, SLAP.... click, click, ..... Zzzzzzzzzz, swish, slap, swish, clink .... "Shoot. That was the last of the coffee. Darn it. Where are the paper towels?"

Did you know that in the early 1800's malaria was not uncommon in Wisconsin? Thankfully, that isn't the case any more. But late summer is the season for West Nile Virus borne by the buzzing hoard. WNV is nothing to mess with for either man or beast. We can vaccinate the horses against it, but us humans are left to fend for ourselves.

So, I've instituted measures to combat the bastions of boudoir bugs. Last year, Deb found a used bug zapper at a garage sale, and we had it hanging out on our back porch for a while. It is the kind with a black light encased in an electrified wire gridwork that electrocutes anything that ventures toward the light. Recently I decided to move it into our bedroom and hang it from a gate pin.

Sure enough, every once in a while, I would hear a very satisfying "Gzhzhwhaack".

To me, at least, it was satisfying. All cats and dogs have now taken leave of the room whenever the thing is plugged in. Deb always wanted the dogs and cats off the bed at night anyway, I guess. (But I kinda miss them.)

Soon I was waking up to a substantial pile of moth wings and other unidentifiable body parts on the bedroom floor under the zapper, which served to add to my daily barn (and now bedroom) cleanup chores.

It didn't take long, though, to conclude that the mosquitoes are more attracted to me than to the light. So I did some further research and found that professional scientists trap mosquitoes with dry ice traps. Mosquitoes are attracted to sources of carbon dioxide more than light. That makes sense. That's why I was zapping more moths than mosquitoes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention use light traps baited with dry ice and claim to catch 65,000 mosquitoes per trap per night in some areas.

Now you'd think that a dairy state that makes lots of ice cream would have plenty of readily available dry ice. Maybe so, but there just aren't any dairies or creameries this far north.

Then I read that you can use CO2 cylinders instead, but when I went down and told Deb about the exciting news, she put the kibosh on the plan. For some reason, she thinks I was planning on asphyxiating us in our sleep.

Well, that left me with a dilemma right back on itchy square one.

Then, I was talking to my retired logging buddy, Jack, and he asked me why my arms and cheeks were so lumpy and bloody. I told him that I was having somewhat of a mosquito problem in our bedroom.

He said, "You know, my grandpa used to work for the logging companies up here, and would tell me that mosquitoes were a problem in the camps at night until Old Sven was hired on as a camp cook. Sven would take his big 20 gallon cast iron pot and hang it from a tripod out in the middle of the barracks at night. Then he would put about a gallon of ox blood inside and paint the inside with it. Then he'd quickly put a lid on it and beat a hasty retreat. After an hour or so, he'd go back out and the pot would be covered with mosquitoes with their beaks stuck through that pot. All he had to do then was take a ball peen hammer and clinch over their beaks on the inside. He swore those mosquitoes couldn't bother his men anymore."

"Jack, I have to admit, there are times that you're more helpful than at others."

Then, last night, while sitting at the computer in our bedroom, I thought that I felt a particularly large mosquito swish by my ear.

Wrong! It was a big brown bat. All right! A bat in the bedroom!

According to the University of Florida Extension Service, "During the summer, when pregnant and nursing female bats have especially high energy requirements, each bat may consume as much as two thirds of its body weight per night. This would be the equivalent of a 150-pound human consuming 100 pounds of food per day!"

I know that some people fear bats, and I know that they can be a big problem if they occupy attics in large numbers. One of my early childhood country life memories was watching my Uncle Orin and Cousin Tom sit out on their back porch with shotguns shooting bats as they emerged from around the chimney.

But I lost all fear of bats from my caving days down in Missouri. A ton of bats would fly past us and never once touch us down in those caves.

Gazing at bats in flight is said to be a pleasant pastime in China: "Older residents of China cherish their childhood memories of summer evenings when neighbors would sit beneath a tree in their common courtyard, enjoying a cool breeze while chatting and drinking tea. Their children ran around chasing bats that swooped and flitted overhead, some of the more mischievous flinging their shoes at the bats in hopes of catching one. The bats actually seemed to enjoy this game of catch-me-if-you-can."

They even dedicated a 1992 stamp to this, entitled "Five Blessings Upon This House".

On that stamp, you see the kids chasing five bats. In Chinese, the word for bat and the word for good luck have the same sound: fu. Wu is the word for five. The five bat Wu Fu symbol appears frequently in Chinese literature and art. Each of the five bats in the symbol represents one of the five elements: earth, air, fire, water, and metal. Or one of the five happinesses: health, wealth, long life, good luck, and tranquility. They even use stylized good luck bats on their postal lottery card.

I didn't have five bats (yet), but at that moment, I was happy accepting any one of the five happinesses from my boudoir bat.

But alas and alack, Deb seemed to be of the school of thought that bats and humans should not cohabitate. "Get rid of it. You're going to get rabies if it bites you. The bat droppings transmit histoplasmosis, you know. If you'd just break down and use my Skin-So-Soft, it would put you out of your misery."

Aargh. There are certain lines I just will NOT cross. I spent a lot of years building up this tough old hide of mine.

Jules and the Acoma Pueblo

2009-08-08T07:56:00.000-07:00

We have had two mustangs on our farm. These are wild horses from the Western States that are captured and adopted out by the Bureau of Land Management. They have freeze brands (using cold instead of hot irons) on their necks. To see the brand, one would think that it is some sort of hieroglyphics.

Actually, the brand approximates the year of the horse's birth and gives an assigned registration number. The information is in an "alpha angle code" in which numbers are assigned to different angles, depending on the direction in which they are pointing, a pretty clever way of conveying a lot of information with only one or two different branding irons.

Each State from which the horses are gathered is assigned a range of registration numbers, so you can tell where the horse was captured (for example, 80001-160000 for Arizona, 240001-320000 for Colorado, 0-80000 for Oregon, etc.).

About eight years ago, we took on a rescue mustang mare. She came from someone who was using her as a broodmare, and they had rescued her from a place where she had been living with several cows in a junkyard. She had a history of foundering (where the vascular bed between the hoof wall and the underlying cannon bone becomes tender and inflamed leading to lameness). A horse can founder from being ridden or driven too hard on pavement or hard ground (road founder), but more commonly, it arises from a genetic insensitivity to insulin. When we got this mare, she had been bred and gave birth to a foal after we brought her home. The foal went back to the previous owners, and we never had her bred again.

We named the mare Jules. Before we ventured into mustangs, we spoke with a mustang owner at the Midwest Horse Fair in Madison, Wisconsin, who swore by them. She told us that mustangs are pretty skittish at first, but if you treat them right, they seem almost grateful to have found a new home and become extremely willing and gentle. That seemed to hold true for both of the mustangs that we have had. But then again, all of our horses are as tame as puppies.

Jules was a bay (brown with black mane, tail and socks) with the most beautiful, feminine head and eyes that I have ever seen. What I liked about her was that she had a habit of nickering softly to greet us whenever we came into the barn. She was broken to ride, but we never took her out much because she was tender footed. So she ruled our pastures.

The last two winters her founder returned in full force and she suffered pretty badly in the coldest weather. We religiously have the farrier out every eight weeks to trim all of our horses, and he did his best to correct her feet. This past week for the first time, he told us that he didn't think she would recover this time. Her hoof wall was essentially gone so that she was bearing full weight on her soles.

So yesterday we had the vet come and give his assessment. He concurred that she would probably never recover. So the decision was made to put her to sleep. I don't know whether you have ever witnessed this, but an overdose of barbiturate is injected, and within a matter of seconds, the horse drops and dies. It appears to be rapid and painless, but it is still hard to watch the life flow out of a friend.

I took the tractor out, dug a trench with the front end loader, and buried her out in the back 40 next to the burial site of Roany, Deb's 32 year old gray gelding.

Jules was a good horse and we gave her the best care and life that we could. I am not a spiritual person at all, but every once in a while, life seems to send strangely coincidental omens.

It turns out that we had the opportunity to travel to the Desert Southwest for a week just last month. While there, we visited the mesa-top Sky City Acoma Pueblo.

The Pueblo tribes keep kivas, windowless sacred chambers where religious ceremonies are held. According to most Pueblo legends, the spiritual beings of the world below instructed the people of this world to construct the kiva in the shape of sipapu, the place where humans emerged into the world from their previous existence. Entry to the kiva is from the top, descending a ladder into the kiva, most of which are built into the ground to bring the two worlds closer together.

Because the Acoma Pueblo is built on a mesa top, its only source of water is from the rain. So the kiva ladders were built with pointed skyward ends, and the Acoma three-pole ladder is built with a spacer at the top representing a cloud through which the poles pierce to help bring rain.

I could have sworn that the day we visited Acoma Pueblo, it was a totally cloudless day.
(Is that a horse in the sky?)

The night after I buried Jules, we received a much needed rain.

Rest in Peace, Jules.

Downsized haying

2009-07-31T06:29:00.000-07:00

Boy, it's been a rough haying season so far. While the country life and messing with farm animals have their fair share of idyllic moments, the lifestyle also has its share of maddening frustrations. I won't even go into the exceptionally cold spring that was followed by a growth-inhibiting dry spell. The vagaries of nature have to be expected sometimes.

The big problem this year is equipment failures. A few years ago, after I lost an off-the-farm job, we downsized and sold a 75 horsepower tractor and a good John Deere haybine (a glorified mower that conditions the hay by crimping it so that it will dry faster). I also stopped traveling around the countryside with my haying partner who had a decent Gehl round baler, leaving me with no baler at all. The price of gas and diesel last year was making the cost of putting up our own hay in quantities adequate to supply a marketable beef cattle herd along with our horses, llamas and goats through the long North Woods winter simply uneconomical.

Debra and I decided to try to hay off about 25 acres of our own pasture and cut down on the size of our hay-burning livestock herd. With such small acreage to harvest, we decided to buy a good smaller tractor and some very old used haying equipment, including a sickle bar mower, an ancient rusty side-delivery rake, and an old square baler.

When I was growing up, I had heard that you could always tell the successful farmers that were in it for the long haul from those doomed to failure simply by looking at the equipment in their fields. The ones most likely to succeed were said to be those using the oldest equipment on diversified crops. Those taking the plunge into huge acreage monoculture with the most modern expensive equipment were asking for big debt trouble.

So I figured it was about time I put this theory to the test. We got ten bales out of the field while testing the equipment, and too much hay cut and laying down when the equipment started falling apart. That downed hay will be good for nothing but bedding if we can ever get it baled and in the barn.

Boy, am I ever getting a lesson in breaking rusty bolts, knocking out leaking and worn bearings, replacing universal joints, facing the impossibility of buying parts that are obsolete and no longer available, and trying to fabricate parts that will substitute in their stead. So far the sickle bar mower has broken 4 times, and the gear box and drive shaft on the rake are currently in pieces.

Thank goodness Jack, my summer fishing buddy, is around to help. He has spent years in the woods repairing logging equipment, and can pretty much tell how something must be put together before it is even taken apart. He is also much less shy with the hammer and cold chisel than I am, and has been able to convince old, ungreased, oxidation-fused metal to yield to his wishes with much more success. Hopefully, we can get things up and running again before the snow flies.

Time will tell how this noble experiment with restored farm equipment works. Thus far, I am tempted to believe an old billboard that I once saw down in the Ozarks of Missouri. It was advertising recreational boating equipment and read: "Buy the best... and only cry once!"

Oh, well. My new mantra is: "At least I'm not paying interest... not paying interest... no interest... no debt... no interest..."

I just have to prevent this mantra from evolving into "... no interest... no interest... no interest in farming!"

A New Lake, Ospreys and Eagles

2009-07-10T07:45:00.000-07:00

My wife and Pat had plans for convening a local conclave of fellow "Goat Ladies" at Pat's place yesterday afternoon to exchange stories and information. So Jack and I decided to go fishing.

Jack took his boat. It's an old 14 foot aluminum v-hull with a 10 horse Evinrude motor that he had salvaged and repaired. He has it rigged with an anchor made of five old double hung window sash weights wired together. That anchor holds us in place in a good stiff breeze. The vessel is just right for two grumpy old men, but would be an insult for those guys with their 200 horsepower engines on their metal-flake fiberglass boats that I call bass bullets with their fully equipped electronic geostationary satellite positioning devices and "you can't hide from me" fish locators.

Anyway, Jack took us to a lake that I had never been to before--- Jungle Lake.

It was a gorgeous setting. Very few homes on the shore. Crystal clear water. Surrounded by forest. And we were the only ones on the water that day. The fish were biting pretty slowly, but steadily enough to keep things interesting. We ended up with our limit of bluegill, perch, sunfish, and rock bass. We also caught a few largemouth bass, but threw them back.

The real highlight of the day, though was the birds. A solo loon serenaded us throughout the day and was diving all around the boat. That loon call is as significant to my northwoods summers as the first robin song is to spring. I love it. For anyone who has never heard the loon's tremolos, wails, yodels and hoots, go here.

There were also two big ospreys out fishing for most of the day. They soar high over the water peering down for fish near the surface that they can swoop down and nab. It's amazing to me that they can not only pick out a fish from so high, especially when there is a good rippling wave on the water, but that they can tell that it is swimming close enough to the surface for them to hit when they stab for it.

At one point, one had come to a hovering stand still about 30 feet over a spot in the water.

Jack said, "Hey, it looks like he's spotted one."

And we both watched as it rocketed down and splashed, only to emerge with its talons full.

"Yup, he nailed it."

But as we watched, it climbed about 15 feet in the air, and the fish dropped back into the water.

Simultaneously we both yelled, "Oooooh! It got away," just like it was one of our fishing buddies right there in the boat with us.

"Hey look. He's still got one though." And, sure enough, he still had one in his talons. He must have caught two at once. Unbelievable.

He circled once, but then started to call out. Normally, they remain pretty quiet when they are fishing.

Soon we saw that a mature bald eagle was headed across the water toward him and the osprey was telling it to get the heck out of there. The eagle seemed to chase the osprey for a while, but then it turned its attention to the dropped fish. Sure enough, that eagle swooped down right where the osprey had dropped his catch and popped it out of the water.

Then the eagle flew low over the water across the lake to perch in its pine, and the osprey went off on its way. I hate to inform you of this, but our national bird is a lazy opportunist.

I looked over at Jack, and said, "Darned eagle is just like a tourist pushing his way into our favorite fishing spot."

To which Jack responded, "Did you ever stop and think that maybe we are the tourists in his fishing spot?"

Hmmm.

If you've never seen an osprey fish, it would be worth a couple of minutes to view the following National Geographic clip:

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/animals/birds-animals/birds-of-prey/osprey.html

As usual, I failed to bring a camera on this trip. The links to the images used are:

1) Mapquest
2) Loon

3) Osprey in flight

4) Osprey with fish

5) Eagle with fish

A New Cria and Goat Impossibilities

2009-07-08T06:33:00.000-07:00

We had our last baby of the year. It was born to the most famous llama in the country: our Olivia.

My wife named her Olivia. I call her Ollie for short. Famous? Why famous, you ask?

Surely you've heard of the Ollie Llama?

That shadow on the ground is a new cria. It was pretty dry, but it still had membrane clinging to it at this point.

That makes our fifth llama. The stud was our only registered llama. His papers came with the name Joya. We think that it is probably a Spanish name, so we pronounce the J like H. So I gave him his last name: Doin'. So now we walk up to the paddock and call out Joya Doin'.

Two years ago, we had a little boy baby, Ollie's first. It was born with a windswept deformity, so all four legs were bent in the same direction as though they were blowing in the wind, kind of like this: (( Three of the legs straightened out, so we named him OK. That stands for Off Kilter. He is now gelded.

Last year, we had another boy. His name is Llimpopo. Rudyard Kipling wrote a series of children's stories called the Just So Stories. One of them was about how the elephant got its long trunk. A baby elephant was drinking out of a river when a crocodile grabbed its nose, which got stretched in the ensuing struggle. Maybe elephants have strong necks and weak noses, but llamas have strong noses and weak necks. So when an alligator grabbed the cria by the nose, its neck stretched instead. Maybe. That's what I tell the visiting kids, anyway. Oh.... the name of the river: The Great Grey-green Greazy Limpopo.... hence the name Llimpopo.

We've now determined that this year's cria is yet another boy. We've decided to name him for the retired racehorse jockey that lives across the street, who used to own this place: Leonard M. So we'll name this one Lleonard.... Llenny Llama.

As with any birth on the farm, it is always important to check to make certain the placenta hasn't been retained. For those of you who have never seen this, here's a picture. Warning, fly past this photo if you love babies, but not afterbabies.

Now on to this morning's adventure.

We rescued four goats two winters ago. Their owners were an elderly deaf couple who were in a crippling car accident. One of the goats was a huge goat of unknown lineage. It is the biggest goat that I have ever see and it can jump any fence or gate on the farm when it wants to. We have to hide it during antlerless deer season. It is also, I think the world's ugliest goat with a huge underbite and a couple of missing front teeth. He looks like he took one too many punches in the nose, so we named him Bruiser.

In the goat pen, we have a variety of large run-in shelters along with a small Igloo brand plastic dog house that our pygmy goats and geese like to lay in. I went out this morning, and somehow Bruiser had squeezed his huge body into that little bitty dog house and got wedged in. He must have gone in head first and turned around, but based on the size of the goat and the size of the house, that's utterly impossible. The lower lip on the doorway made it so that his legs were pinned in. He was well and truly stuck.

I struggled and pushed and pulled. I got one leg out, but he pulled it back in. (Now I have had my practice session if I ever have to pull a baby goat during labor.) He grunted and pushed and squirmed. No go. I finally decided that I was going to have to take the house apart to get him out. Finally, though, he gave one last heave that buckled the plastic, popped out and immediately emptied his bladder.

BIG STRETCH. Man, it must have felt good to get out of there! Now he seems none the worse for wear and is back to his old happy self again.

Now I'm curious to see where he tries to sleep tonight.

Porcupine Quills and Riding Mowers

2009-07-04T15:27:00.000-07:00

Things get a little crazy up here in the North Woods on these big holiday weekends. The population on the roads and waterways explodes. For the local economy, they say it provides a very big boost. It can be tough on the wildlife, though.

On Friday morning, July 3, I got a rescue call from the Northwoods Wildlife Center. Several people had phoned in that there was an injured porcupine on the side of the highway.

Porcupines are one of those animals that seem to thrive up here. It is not uncommon to see dead ones on the shoulders any time of the year. They are nocturnal and pretty slow moving, so it's easy to drive up on one at night and hit it before you can avoid it. Evidently that is what happened to my rescue victim, but this one was reportedly still alive.

Now one of the rules of the rescue driver that is set in stone with zero tolerance for rule abridgment is that there are to be NO pictures taken of the injured animals. The animals are stressed enough without flashes going off and lenses being pointed in their faces. For those of you unfamiliar with a closeup view of a porcupine, I am borrowing a very good photo from TrekNature.com. Click on the photo for a full-sized view.

Anyway, I loaded up my trusty tote and paraphernalia and headed out to the scene. It was supposedly lying along the north side of the road somewhere in the 20 miles between where I live and Rhinelander. I had my doubts as to whether it would still be alive by the time that I found it, and if it was, it most likely would have wandered off into the woods again.

I passed several that were obviously long dead and decomposing. Then about seven miles east of Rhinelander, I spotted it not a foot off the blacktop. I pulled over, got out and walked up to it. It sure looked dead. I gave it a slight nudge with my toe, and it curled up a bit tighter. So it was alive. I saw a wound on its flank that didn't look too serious, but who knows what internal trauma it may have had.

I then went back, got my tote, a heavy sheet, and my welding gloves. I covered it with the sheet, gently picked it up, put it in the box, and headed on in to headquarters.

I must admit that this porcupine handling was done with a degree of trepidation on my part. Several years ago, on one of the coldest nights of the year and after a very rare overindulgence in social drinking, a friend told me, "Ya know, porkypine quillsh are worth a bundle on the innernet."

I said, "You gotta be kiddin' me. Toothpicks are a lot cheaper and easier on the gums."

"Naw, man. They use 'em fer joolry an' decoratin' and stuff."

"You may be right, by gosh. I have been hearin' a lot about pierced ears and pierced unmentionables. Heck, I know where I can get some right here, right now."

Not long before that, I had been out in our back 40 to show a visitor a junky old hunting shack that the boys of the previous owners had thrown together out in the woods. When we got there, we found that a porcupine had taken up residence in one of the top bunks and seemed to be pretty well ensconced for the winter. It was no big deal to me because I was never going to use the building, and it really didn't matter if the porcupine gnawed it to the ground if he wanted to.

Well when my buddy told me that the quills were like a pot of gold, in my slightly alcohol-addled mind, I decided to go out and offer that porcupine nice warm room and board in our basement in exchange for an occasional quill harvest.

So I donned my Carhartt overalls and hat and gloves, grabbed a feed bag and decided I'd just stuff it in the sack and bring him on home.

You'd be amazed at how strong, belligerent and pig headed an indignant quill pig can be when rousted from its chosen cozy spot. Suffice it to say, that I returned home with an empty bag and hands and wrists that looked like pincushions. And yes the quills did penetrate the fabric in sufficient numbers that my coat and gloves may as well have been stapled to my body with an electric staple gun gone wild. There was no way to take them off without pliers and helping hands.

Ah well, I haven't overindulged since then... and I didn't even find a buyer for the quills.

Nah, nah, what's done is done. That was then, and this is now. Older and wiser.

I got the injured animal into the animal E.R. They got it tranquilized and injected antibiotics and dexamethasone, and we're all hoping for the best.

I do happen to have a sheet of spare quills in case any of you creative souls out there feel some inspiration.

They are hollow and can be dyed and used like you would use Indian beads. Here are a few examples from the Internet of things created with them:

I might be talked into harvesting a few quills from the road shoulders if anyone is interested. There are a lot of creative people out there.

Which brings me to my final holiday find. The summer holiday weekends are also huge times for garage sales. This weekend, on my way to the animal E.R., I spotted a riding mower for sale. Boy, if it weren't for an injured victim in my car, I would have been sorely tempted to buy my wife a "Green Movement" 4th of July gift.

Giant Puffballs

2009-06-29T06:14:00.000-07:00

The other day, we were over visiting Pat and Jack's place. They are our friends who decided to adopt little Willie (the goat in the sweater). It didn't take much convincing. All we had to do was let them bottle feed him as a baby one time.

They live in a beautiful isolated log cabin in the woods that Jack made himself after their original home burned down.

Jack said, "Hey do you guys like puffballs?"

I said, "I do, but Deb won't eat 'em."

"Boy there's a dandy one over under that tree."

So we sauntered over through the veil of mosquitoes, and sure enough, there was a giant puffball about the size of a soccer ball just as white and prime for the pickin' as I've ever seen.

"Wow. She's a beauty. Aren't you guys going to eat it?"

"Naw. Pat thinks they're poison."

"Poison? They're only poison if you season them with cyanide in the fryin' pan. Heck. If you don't want it. I'll take it."

"Be my guest. There's another one up in the garden that Pat picked a few days ago and is using it for a decoration. Take it, too."

So, loving to partake of the bounties of nature, as I always do, I picked up both puffballs, gently laid them in the bed of the truck and headed down the drive. As we were departing, I heard Pat shouting after us, "You're gonna die!"

Well, let me tell you. Here's how to prepare them without fear of dying.

Puffballs don't store well fresh, so you should get them cooked as soon as you can. First you peel the rubbery skin off. Brush the loose dirt off, but don't wash them. If water gets inside, they'll get mushy. They should be as white as a marshmallow. You can see that the one that Pat picked earlier was starting to turn yellow on the surface. I discard any part that's not white. Then you slice them and dice them into 3/4 inch cubes.

And saute them in butter and bacon grease. They will shrink down to about half the size, like any fresh mushroom. One giant puffball makes a big batch, so you can freeze the cooked cubes in a freezer bag for use in anything that you would normally use button mushrooms in.

Let me tell you. If you've never eaten puffball mushrooms, you're not missing much. It's about like eating tofu. They'll take on whatever flavor you are cooking them in. But heck. You've gotta do it at least once in your life so you can say you're cool!

Goat Transport and Real Border Collie Work

2009-06-27T18:28:00.000-07:00

I have run across a couple of things recently on my blog visits that I just have to share.

Unfortunately, I can't remember where the first photo came from, but it reminded me so much of my days in Ghana, West Africa, that I had to save it. Goats roam freely everywhere you go. The Ghanaians transported them any way they could and you see goats tethered on the roofs of buses and tanker trucks. Any of you with goats ought to appreciate this photo.

Next, I have long wanted to attend a sheep dog trial, but we simply don't have any near enough for us to attend. Then I visited Susanne Iles' blog at http://ringofbeara.blogspot.com/ from County Cork, Ireland. She has flocks of sheep roaming the farms all around her place (and sometimes in her garden), and the shepherds still use dogs to move the flocks. She has a wonderful site with photos, and she posted the following footage of shepherding from Wales. It's worth a look:

Hope you enjoyed them.

Escape/Break-in Artists and More Work

2009-06-25T12:59:00.000-07:00

I went out to get our dairy goat the other night only to find all of the goats in our yard decimating my wife's newly planted shrubs and plants. It sure doesn't take them long.

It turns out that Deb had felt sorry for the goats in their grassless paddock and wanted to let them out in our woodlot paddock to graze on all of the tall grass there. Well, they found the weak spot in the fence. I had opened up a portion to transfer firewood to our furnace shed last year, but never got around to building a gate for it. Instead, someone had just salvaged an old piece of plywood from the scrap heap and leaned it in the opening. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side, so they say.

Each day Deb poses the following question (usually several times a day): "Isn't it about time you ___________?" It's a farm, so it isn't hard to fill in the blank(s).

So, that day it was, "Isn't it about time you built a gate for that gap?"

Sigh. "I guess."

Now to come up with the lumber for the job. A few days earlier, the question had been: "Isn't it about time you replaced those fence boards that the horses have been gnawing on?"

And I replied, "I guess" with a sigh.

I can't be certain, but I have my suspicions that the horses are attending evening seminars presented by our North Woods beavers. They seem to have the gnawing part down pat. Now if they could only learn some engineering from those rascals.

So now in the barn, I had a modest stack of old hemlock fence boards that needed to be repurposed. OK. Now how do I design a goat-proof goat stopper out of old fence boards that lives up to Deb's aesthetic sensibilities?

After some head scratching and chopping and sawing, this is what I came up with:

I'm hoping they won't fit through those holes. So I used my universal stain around the farm: Any surplus, on-sale, discontinued, outdated can of deck stain that I can buy for two or three dollars a gallon tinted with enough lampblack pigment to turn it black.

Me cheap? Only when it comes to buying fancy cameras that are so big and heavy that they won't shake in my hand.

Well, I got 'er mounted in the hole and will have to put 'er to the test as soon as I get around to herding them out of the pasture with the cows.

I have no idea how they got out there this time.

"Oh Debra, dear. Have you by any chance been feeling sorry for the goats again?"

Cold Weather Kidding and Freeze/Thaw Season

2009-06-23T12:26:00.000-07:00

After reading about the birth of Harry in warm weather on The Maaaaa of Pricilla, it made me think that we should figure out a way to have our kidding season in warmer weather....

March 6, 2009

Yup. As usual, the -20 F weather did its job. Patches, our dairy goat, dropped two wet, slimy baby kids on the eve of one mighty cold night. When I went out to do evening chores, there they were, wobbling around in the stall with Patches kind of staring off into space as if asking herself, "Why me? Why now?"

By the time we found them, the hair on their little tails was frozen, so Deb had me run in and throw some towels into the dryer to warm. Then it was out to the barn to thaw out and dry off the little slimy ones.

Patches did not like that process at all. I sat on a bale of hay doing my farmerly duty. This bale-sitting position perfectly and strategically placed my kidneys precisely at Patches' head-butting level.

Bam! Bam! Bam! (Now I know why kidney punches are outlawed in professional boxing.)

Well, the babies made it through that frigid night with mom under a heat lamp just fine, and Patches is now not so worried about us playing pass-the-babies. Now they are up and bouncing off the walls. They also do a lot of their own head butting right into Patches' fully distended bag to stimulate milk flow. That'll teach her.

Shortly after every birth, there are a couple of other vital little tasks that need performing. One is to check to make certain that the placenta(s) pass in their entirety. A retained placenta is not a good thing. A cow will eat hers if given the opportunity. Patches has more sense than that, so we were able to determine that everything was OK on that score.

Another thing is to watch and make certain that the babies' first poop (the meconium) comes out after a few good feeds. Unlike later feces, meconium is composed of materials ingested during the time in utero: intestinal epithelial cells, mucus, amniotic fluid, bile, water and lanugo. Lanugo is a fine downy hair that grows on fetuses as a normal part of gestation, but is usually shed and replaced by vellus hair toward the end of gestation. As the lanugo is shed from the skin, it's normal for the developing fetus to consume the hair as it drinks from the amniotic fluid and urinates it back into its environment. The lanugo contributes to the newborn baby's meconium. Meconium is almost sterile, unlike later feces, is viscous and sticky like tar, and has no odor. It should be completely passed by the end of the first few days of postpartum life, with the stools progressing toward yellow (digested milk). (Are we learning a little bit more than we really have to yet? Just wait. There's more.)

One of the babies is a nanny, and the other a buck. I have yet to detect whether the nanny has pooped yet or not. She may be far too discrete for my random observations. The little buck, however, developed a walloping case of Shitzu-butt. Shitzsu dogs have a tendency to cake up their behinds so badly that nothing can get out. The offending obstruction must be physically removed. (Just ask Bob Barker, our Schitzu/Miniature Dachshund mix. He got the wrong end of the Shitzu genes.) Well, the little buck had the same thing, but with yellow tarry meconium that barely came unglued, let alone dissolved in hot water. I had to actually abrade the tar that glued itself to the tub after the procedure.

When we had him in the house, in the tub, woefully succumbing to what was debilitating humiliation (to me, if not the goat), Louise's hospice nurse, Sue, showed up.

"Oh, isn't he just the cutest thing! Let me dry him off."

"Sure."

That was a mistake. I'm not going to tell you how hard it was to pry the baby loose, but it is a well-known fact that most primate mothers, especially chimpanzees and gorillas, jealously hold on to their infants for the first six months or more of life.

It took some convincing, but strictures and covenants (implied, if not specifically written) against baby goats in hospice corporate cars and private apartments won the day.

That's the thing about baby goats. They are born knowing how to work a crowd. The hummingbird-rapid tail wag, the head toss, and four feet in the air standing bounce are enough to turn even the hard-nosed cynic soft-in-the-head and weak-in-the-knee.

So without further ado, I would like to introduce: She-Nanny-kins (pronounced shenanegans), our baby girl

And Buck-aroo, our baby boy.

AND THEN

A few days later, the weather turned warm finally. I hate that. This place turns into an icy mess with thawing in the daytime and refreezing at night. With the ground still frozen, there is no place fcor the meltwater to go except into pools and puddles both in and out of the barn. That's the worst of it, if we are lucky or smart enough to forgo the other problem.

Did we drain the barn plumbing? Did we keep the loft heated enough to avoid freezing? Did we keep the faucets dripping to keep them flowing?

This year we bought a fancy, schmantzy, new high tech, nationally advertised, electric heater for the loft apartment/office/dog house that was supposed to save on heating bills and be guaranteed not to burn the barn down. It didn't burn down the barn, but it sure burned through our electricity budget. To keep the barn loft minimally heated (barely above freezing) we were paying more than $400 a month in electric bills. And as the winter wore on, we kept trying different techniques to lessen the energy required, like just heating the loft bathroom instead of heating the whole loft. Then we tried turning off the dripping faucets in case the drain happened to freeze.

Yesterday, I walked out into the barn to find that the loft pipes had thawed and ruptured and there was four to five inches of water in all of the stalls on one side of the barn. Patches and her babies had to be rescued from a high spot just like those Katrina victims on the rooftops, only without all of the "resources" made available through FEMA. I finally got the water turned off, and the water heater and plumbing drained, and most of the insulation downstairs tacked back up, and fans blowing to dry out the feed room, and maybe someday I might let Deb back into the barn to see what happened.

Einstein was right again. He said, "There are only two truly infinite things, the universe and stupidity. And I'm unsure about the universe."

Oh well. We'll try again next year. As Red Green says in his Man Prayer:

I'm a MAN...
But I can change...
If I have to...
I guess...
Amen.

80's Misery

2009-06-20T14:57:00.000-07:00

June 20, 2009

I had spent a part of last week gathering big white pine branches that had come down in the last big snowfall, and mending the fence sections that they had wiped out. I took the brush and piled it in our barn arena, where I lop off the green needles for the goats. It's like candy to them. I cut the small branches into chunks to burn in our chimenea. And the bigger branches I buck into fire wood for the winter's woodpile. It's a lot of work, for a little pile of stuff, but I hate wasting btu's in a brush fire.

Today is the first of the summer weather in the 80's, and I am suffering. I'm just not used to it. Our Missouri relatives think I'm crazy, but I seem to sweat at the least exertion. The sun is intense. And I'm crabby from the stickiness and lack of progress on anything.

So I went out into the barn. It's a big metal pole barn with an indoor arena, and it was hotter in there than out in the sun.

Our llama, Olivia, who should be having a baby soon, was laying in the arena in the shade, but right in front of the open back door. I went over to see her and discovered that she knew exactly where the most pleasant place on the farm was. The open door formed a wind tunnel, and it was blissfully breezy and pleasant. Plus it was right next to my big brush heap.

And there it was. My relief from the doldrums. I set my chain saw case down at the base of some split cedar rails that my wife wants made into a hitching post, making a perfect seat and backrest. I pulled our little Daihatsu utility vehicle up to use for a work platform where I could cut up the brush. Then I went in and got my current book (The Parrots of Telegraph Hill), my reading glasses, and a go-cup of iced coffee.

It's lop up a few branches to whittle away at the pile. Then sit in the breeze tunnel, reading a few pages, listening to the barn swallows chatter away and the llama humming, soaking in the fragrance of the sappy white pine boughs, sipping my iced coffee, occasionally reaching down to pet the barn cat that is weaving in and out between my legs seeking attention, and stopping occasionally when my mind wanders from the page to daydream a bit. Work a little, play a little, work a little, play a little.

Now I'm retired.

2009-06-18T09:16:00.000-07:00

My young friend, Kegan, to whom I send the Curiosity Clyde letters described in previous postings found out first hand how dangerous 4-wheelers can be. He shattered an elbow in a roll over accident, is all pinned and casted up, and has kind of blown his summer activities. There are new rules at his house. He's had better days:

December 31, 2007

Somehow this year I happened to remember that the NORAD Command Center has a tradition of tracking Santa's progress on Christmas Eve.

First the basics. NORAD officially stands for North American Aerospace Defense Command as exhibited on their official seal.

That makes no sense to me. If that were true, it would be called NAADC. The official name must have been a ruse to assure that paranoid Congresspersons would retain funding for the upkeep of the historic Night Owl Reindeer-Activated Detector (NORAD). I know, because I'm from Wisconsin, the very same state that Senator Joseph McCarthy came from. He's the guy that went after everybody for being Commies and Soviet Spies in my early childhood years. After going after the reputations and livelihoods of public officials and Hollywood stars, he turned his attention to childhood idols like the Little Red Hen and that red-suited demon, Santa Commie Claus. Senator McCarthy's original intent was to detect Santa in the night sky and blast him to smithereens. Fortunately, missiles weren't very accurate in those days. Anyway, while Senator Joe is long gone, the NORAD device is still up and running and with the advent of the Internet, we have the benefit of watching Santa's progress all across the world on Christmas Eve.

So this Christmas Eve, as soon as I remembered it, I tapped into the NORAD website and started calling Kegan, our 6-year old neioghbor. The first time I called, Santa was in Bosnia, but Kegan's whereabouts was unknown, so I had to leave a message. The next time, Santa was in London, but still no Kegan, hence another message. Then it was on to Iceland. This was really exciting to me because Santa was now in the process of crossing the ocean. I couldn't wait to tell Kegan, but all I got was the answering machine. All I could do was leave another news alert. By the time Santa was on the western shore of Greenland, I gave Kegan one last call to warn him that Santa was almost all the way across the ocean, and that I hoped that he got to bed in time. Still not there.

I gave up and went to the Bass Pro Shop website to see whether I could make a last minute purchase of a Night Owl Kegan-Activated Detector, but they were apparently sold out. (Evidently Kegan has become a very popular name.) I turned off the computer and hunkered down in bed with my book and dog and cat foot, leg and chest warmers.

Then, sometime around 8:30, Deb hollered upstairs that Kegan was on the phone wanting to know where Santa was. He had returned home and had gotten my messages.

So I dispersed my multi-component fur comforter, found a phone, and turned on the computer.

Kegan was SO EXCITED, he had to go pee while my computer was booting up. When I finally got on the NORAD site, it turned out that Santa had skipped down to South America before working his way northwards.

"Kegan, he's now in Colombia, South America."

Kegan turned his head away from the phone and started hollering, "Attention. Attention everyone. Please may I have your attention? Santa is now in Cumbia. That's real near Crandon. Everyone has to be in bed at 8:51, so go get ready. I'm going to stay up and talk with Graig now."

"No, Kegan. South America is still quite a ways away. Ooops! He just flew into Panama. He's getting closer."

"Oooooh boy." Turning his head away from the mouthpiece again, I heard him holler, "Everybody. Santa just went to Graig's Pa an' Ma's house. Hurry and get to bed."

"Well, I guess he is getting closer, so I had better get to bed myself, Kegan. I'll talk to you tomorrow morning to see whether Santa made it to your house. Good night."

Scream. "O.K. Click."

In this process, I learned that today's six year old isn't quite up on his geography yet, but there's no doubt about his Santa Claus education.

Follow up: Kegan has called me the last two years to find out how to log into that NORAD site. He's still a believer, still just as excited, and hopefully is learning some geography in the process.

First Official Rescue

2009-06-17T04:40:00.000-07:00

May 18, 2009

With the coming of spring, my volunteer work for the Northwoods Wildlife Center in Minocqua is supposed to be picking up. I have been officially taught the proper technique to use when capturing various types of raptors. My title is Raptor Rescue Driver. The title is nice, but I was disappointed to find out that the job does not come with a uniform, badge, and flasher bar or siren for my truck. I even have to provide my own transport box, which is nothing but a 20 gallon plastic tote with some breathing holes in it and a piece of remnant carpet in the bottom. Oh, well, I figured that it would still be interesting to be called out to rescue wild birds. It would be a good way to see new and beautiful nooks and crannies of the countryside.

A few weeks ago, my first call came in. It was from the staff at the Rehab Center. "We received a call from a person in Rhinelander who says he has seen a pheasant roaming his yard and the adjacent area for the past few days. He can't tell whether it is hurt or not, but is worried that it might be."

"But, wait a minute. I didn't think that there were any pheasants up here in the North Woods."

"There aren't, but we try not to argue with our concerned citizenry. Maybe it's a grouse or a turkey. Who knows? Would you be willing to go and check it out? Let us know if you catch it so that we can prepare a place for it."

So I tossed my tote in the car along with the other stuff that I needed and went to find the address.

The place turned out to be an old trailer home in a pretty run down area with lots of junk around. When I pulled up and knocked on the door, a younger man came out and started explaining where the pheasant was last seen and which way he was last headed. We searched and walked and looked in, under and around all of the old buildings and junk cars and trash piles, but no bird.

"Are you sure that it was a pheasant? There are no pheasants in northern Wisconsin. Maybe it was a grouse or a turkey."

"Turkey? That was no turkey, and it was too big for a grouse. What do you take me for, anyway? Nope, it was a pheasant all right. It was a beautiful bird with a brilliant red chest. Where the heck could it have disappeared to, I wonder?"

"Pheasants have an amazing ability to lay low when they want to. Hunters nearly step on them before they take wing. I'll tell you what. We've been at it for more than an hour now. If you see it again, now I know where you're located. Give me a call, and I'll come again."

That was the last that I heard from the guy, but it sure made me curious to know what in the world he may have seen. Then, in one of those mid-sleep epiphanies, it came to me that he had probably seen someone's domestic Chinese pheasant that had escaped. They are the only pheasant-sized birds that I know of that have a brilliant red chest and are strikingly beautiful. We had a neighbor that had one once in with her chickens. They can be purchased from poultry hatcheries and delivered anywhere by mail. That had to be it.

Which begged the question: what was I supposed to do if I was called out to catch an exotic species?

"Nothing. We're only licensed to take wildlife," they said. I wonder if that is how exotic, invasive species have such an easy time of it sometimes.

My next call came about a week and a half later. Someone had spotted a limping Sandhill Crane grazing out in their field and was worried that it would be easy prey.

This time the place really was one of those beautiful nooks and crannies that I had imagined that I would have a chance to see. It was a home on the headwaters of the Wolf River with an open back yard full of a herd of about 10 wild deer when I drove up. The owners had bird feeeders all over the place and were treated to a steady stream of wildlife grazing and browsing through.

The man was an older gent who had obviously grown up in the North Woods. He came out to show me where he had last seen the crane. As soon as we walked out behind the house, the deer scattered, but one of the mated pair of cranes remained behind casting a wary eye in our direction and slowly strutting away while giving its primitive sounding pterodactyl call to its absent mate. We walked around the woods surrounding the field until it was getting too dark to see, but couldn't find where the injured bird was hiding. The uninjured mate continued to stay close, but gave no clue as to where its partner might be. Again, I left my name and number in case they saw it again.

Early the next morning they called, so I hopped in the truck with my stuff and headed out. This time the only thing in their field was the limping crane. They were right. It was obviously injured and was not bearing any weight on that leg.

With cranes and herons, you don't have to worry about being pierced by talons, but our trainer recommended that at minimum some sort of eye protection, and optimally a full face shield be worn because when you get within striking range, the likelihood is that cranes and herons will go for the eyes with their long dagger beaks. So I donned my cheap pair of sunglasses.

The next piece of essential capture equipment is a sheet to drape the bird with. Most birds, when their heads are covered will calm right down and are much easier to pick up. So I grabbed my sheet and set off.

I sent the old guy out around through the woods to cut the bird off in case the crane decided to perform its woodland disappearing act again. It was a good thing, too.

Slowly I crept. Step by step. Inch by inch. Tiptoeing so as not to make a sound. And the bird kept hobbling further off into the underbrush. Eyes shielded and sheet held out in front of me, I continued my slow stealthy approach.

In the meantime, the owner came trundling through the woods at a rapid, noisy ground covering pace. I tried to whisper to him as loudly as possible to hang back so that I could proceed. But he was making so much racket that he apparently didn't hear me. Well the bird heard him, swung around on its good leg and tripped over a log, spread its wings out on the ground, and the guy just walked up and grabbed it by the beak. So much for all of that training and stealth.

I then walked up, put the sheet over the bird and gently folded the neck, wings and legs up into a compact, turkey-sized bundle and tucked it under my arm to carry it back to the truck. In the front seat of the truck, I had my tote ready and open. I gently lowered the bundle into the box, lowered the lid, and then made my mistake.

I did not want to transport the bird the hour and a half all the way to Minocqua wrapped in the sheet, so I cracked open the lid and slowly pulled the sheet off. And you guessed it.

Start singing with me: "All around the cobbler's bench, the monkey chased the weasel. The monkey thought 'twas all in fun. Pop goes the weasel!"

Out popped the crane, banging its head on the roof of the cab. First, I felt a flush of heat from the back of my neck turning red from frustration, panic and embarrassment. That was rapidoly followed by the feeling of a cool spray from the old guy's Pppppt, Pppppt, Pppppt --- a barely suppressed, tight lipped laugh behind me.

Geez! This time I wasn't quite so slow and gentle when I reached down, to bend the crane's good leg with one hand while cramming down the head with the other and attempting to close the hinged lid with my chin. I've gotta get a bigger box!

I finished up by gathering information and filling in the requisite forms for the Wildflife Center and promising the guy that if the bird recovered from its injuries we would release it back onto his place to join its mate. All the while the box was dancing around in the seat of the truck, and it was only after I settled into a steady speed on the highway straight-away that the bird seemed to calm down.

I finally reached the Rehab facility only to find that the main man who assesses the injured wildlife had left on an errand and would not be back. So I relased the bird into a holding facility and left.

A few days later, I phoned to see what the outcome was, and unfortunately, the bird's bad leg had been so shattered that it was irreparable, and they had to put the bird down. They did determine that it was a male.

I am really hoping that the bird's injury was that way from the beginning and not from my handling, but I'll never know. It gave me pause, though.

When I first saw the bird, it was definitely limping, but it was busy grazing and was apparently getting by out there with its mate. Neither the old guy nor I had ever seen the bird fly, so I don't know whether it could or not. I do know that it did not over winter here, and that it had to have flown in not so long ago. With the bad leg, it may well have fallen easy prey out in the woods, but it would have died a rapid death and would have been terror stricken for only a few minutes. As it happened, it was in terror for hours and hours, and I am not sure that I did it any favors. The staff at the wildlife center said that sometimes you are performing the rescue more for the benefit of the concerned citizenry than for the benefit of the wildlife. You never know.

What do you think?

P.S.: The wonderful photos in this blog were downloaded from the Internet taken by unsung photographers with far more skill and better equipment than I will ever have.

County Politics and Crime in the City

2009-06-12T18:49:00.000-07:00

Here's another letter home about our lives on the peripheries of the farm up here in the North Woods of Wisconsin.

By way of background, in order to bring in some income while caring for her mom, Louise, in our home, Deb had taken a job as the Forest County Medical Examiner/Death Investigator. She was the county's first trained medical professional to hold the job, but was not being compensated accordingly, so was heavily involved in negotiations with the County Board of Supervisors over her salary.

During this time, a very small, exceedingly energetic 70 year old lady, affectionately referred to as Squirt by the entire community, was coming to our home as a paid aid to help with Louise and some of the household chores. Her husband had recently died, and Squirt had taken a developmentally disabled woman, Cathy, into her home for some added income. We often tried to help Squirt as need arose.

This letter was dated:

December 24, 2007

This week started off on a weird note. Deb had a meeting scheduled for Monday evening to discuss what she wanted in terms of a full-time salary and benefits package in order for her to continue providing Medical Examiner/Death Investigator services for Forest County. Her current annual salary of $12,000 with no benefits for a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week, 365 day a year on-call schedule just doesn't cut it. Some of the Forest County Supervisors don't seem to understand.

Anyway, before the meeting, she dropped by Squirt's house and found her a bit rattled. Squirt had just dropped by the pharmacy to pick up some meds, and a stranger that was in the store had followed her home. When Squirt got out of the car at the house, the guy pulled up and got out of his car and asked Squirt if she had a can of gas that he could have. She told him, "No, but I'm sure that the gas stations are still open." He hesitantly turned away and muttered, "I hope I have enough gas left to make it to the station." And then he appeared to drive off. This was particularly wierd since he had to have passed at least one station in following Squirt from the pharmacy to her home.

Deb had Squirt call the police to come out to report the incident. Then Deb had to get to her meeting, so she called me to come in to town and spend the night with Squirt and Cathy in case the guy showed up again. I didn't know quite what I would be able to do if he did show up, other than act as a slight deterrent. I am not a hunter, but do have an old shotgun that belonged to my grandfather, but no ammunition. I have always thought that threatening someone with a gun would just as likely escalate a break-in situation to one of deadly violence, as it would scare them off. I opted not to bring the gun, but had a two foot long ice fishing pole in the car that maybe I could snag him with if I had to.

It turned out that I needn't have been concerned because Squirt met me at her door wielding a golfing putter in one hand and a can of spray Pam in the other.

My vision was fogged for a while. And I still have that greasy kid look to my hair. Also, a throbbing soreness in my left knee cap still has me limping. But Squirt and Cathy are safe and sound.

After taking off my boots in the kitchen and convalescing on the couch for a bit, Marge, the wife of my old haying partner, Butch, showed up at the door. Fortunately, I was able to convince Squirt to crack the door a bit and see who it was before she started sprayin' and swingin'. Marge had taken Butch over to the same meeting so that he could register some personal complaints against the zoning commissioner, and she had been sent over to check on us by Deb.

After repeating all of the sordid details again, Squirt wanted Marge and me to come see some special gifts that she had made that were down her cellar steps off the back porch. So Marge and I followed her out of the house, and down the steps to see her gifts.

Then we turned around to go back into the house, but the door I had pulled shut to keep out the cold air was locked. Squirt's face turned to stone. She had just that week replaced a window that her daughter had broken out when she had gotten locked out, and Squirt did not want to pay again for a replacement.

She checked the nail where she normally keeps her extra key. Not there. She went into the garage to check the car. Not there. We were good and locked out.

Then Squirt gave herself a dope slap, remembering that Cathy had just gone to bed not too long ago, and ought to be able to let us in. We banged on the door and hollered all to no avail.

Squirt had no coat, and I had neither coat nor boots and was in my stocking feet. Nonetheless, Squirt went outside into the middle of thee street to holler to Cathy to wake up and let us in. No luck.

Then Marge and I trounced around the house in more than a foot of wet snow looking for a way to break in. All of the windows were locked, as was the front door. Eventually, I found a pry bar and broke the door jamb on the front door and got in. By that time, Squirt was shivering and hoarse from shouting. My feet were frozen and I couldn't speak coherently from the chattering of my teeth, but we were back inside. I put the door jamb back together again well enough to close the door, and sent Marge home before she caused any more trouble.

I fell asleep on the couch, ice fishing pole to my chest, and feet propped on a cushion thawing, and dreamed of pulling fish and unwanted predators/stalkers through holes in the ice.

The next day, Squirt went back to the pharmacy and found that the guy had attempted to return some razors that had not been purchased there. The police also told her that the guy had also tried to get free gas down in Mole Lake eartlier that night. Someone got his license plate number, and it turned out that the guy was from the big city (Rhinelander) and had quite a rap sheet for fraud and petty theft. Anyway, that was the last that we saw or heard of him.

I guess it sure was a good thing I was there that night. After all, I was able to report to Deb that someone did break down Squirt's front door, but I was able to keep Squirt and Cathy safe.

Curiosity Clyde

2009-06-09T16:23:00.000-07:00

Our good neighbors, Roy and Tina, have an eight year old son named Kegan, who is one of those kids who has been obsessed about dinosaurs for most of his young life. And I swear that he knows more about more different kinds of dinosaurs, including scientific names, than anyone I have ever met.

Living out in the country, Kegan doesn't have many friends that he can share his enthusiasm with. So a while back, I decided to scan some of the scientific literature for new paleontological discoveries along with maps and images from Google searches, and write letters addressed to him from a field research scientist that I nicknamed "Curiosity" Clyde Calahan. In those letters, I pretend that I had heard through my network of fellow scientists of a dinosaur expert in Crandon with whom I could share some of my new finds.

I had not written one of these letters in several months because I never heard Kegan say anything about them. I thought that he may not have been interested. Then this weekend, his mom mentioned that Kegan had been asking why he never got any more of those letters, and was wondering if Clyde had forgotten about him. So I wrote another one with an explanation for my lapse in communication. Here's the letter:

June 8, 2009

Master Kegan Wilson

I hope that this letter finds you and your research staff well.

Please forgive me for not writing for so long, but I, personally, have not been well at all. I have been stuck in a hospital bed in Tan Tock Seng Hospital in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, for several months and have just now been released.

It was touch and go there for me for quite some time.

I find that I continue to remain a bit too weak to sit up and write with a pen and paper, so I am using a friend's computer this time. This is a pretty interesting, efficient tool for writing. I'll have to get one someday. Too bad they are so hard to carry out into the field when digging for fossils in remote areas. Oh well.

It all started when a friend from the Singapore Zoo called me wondering if I could come up and have a look at a sick Komodo Dragon (Varanus komodoensis), the world's largest existing lizard. Knowing that I am somewhat of an expert on the extinct giant Megalania, which are (or were), after all, even larger relatives of the Komodo Dragon, he thought that perhaps I might be able to figure out what was wrong with their zoo's prize possession.

In fact, when I received his call, I was fairly close by down in Southeastern Queensland, Australia. I was working with a colleague who is a chief model maker for Gondwana Studios, a company based in Tasmania that specializes in making life sized models of dinosaur skeletons for exhibit in some of the world's great Natural History Museums.

I thought it clever that they named their company after the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana that existed before our present day continents drifted apart.

Anyway, Gondwana Studios had been assembling a life-sized model of a Megalania skeleton and wanted my advice on some of the details. Being somewhat of an expert reptile man yourself, I probably don't need to remind you that Megalania was a giant varanid lizard that existed in the Pleistocene era 1.6 million to 40,000 years ago. The varanid lizards include all of the present day monitor lizards. Megalania reached lengths up to almost 20 feet, which makes them the largest terrestrial lizard that ever lived. Its name, Megalania, means "ancient giant butcher". They are believed to have been as nasty as the modern monitor lizards, including the Komodo Dragons. Here's a picture of Megalania's skull.

And here's a picture of the skeleton that we were building along with an artist's drawing of what we think they probably looked like.

As you can see, they probably looked a lot like a modern day Komodo Dragon.

Anyway, I hopped on a plane and flew on up to the Singapore Zoo to talk with Dr. Hang Fai Kwok and find out what was wrong with his Komodo Dragon. It just didn't seem to be acting right or eating much, and Hang Fai was doing a series of tests on it and injecting medicines, but without much success.

I asked what he had been feeding it. Standard commercial lizard chow was his answer. Then I asked when it had eaten last, and was told that it had been several weeks ago now.

Well, remembering that artist's drawing of Megalania, I asked if I could go into the emu pen and catch one to see if the dragon might perk up at the sight of a good fresh meal. He said, "Sure, give it a try."

So I grabbed a rather smallish emu and tucked it under my arm as best I could and slowly carried it into the dragon pen. Sure enough. At the sight of the big bird, the dragon perked its head right up and looked to me like it started drooling.

I asked Hang Fai to photograph this experiment, so he got some pretty good shots. As I walked closer, the dragon opened its mouth wider than I ever thought possible.

Then, before I knew it, that darned dragon made a lunge for the emu in my arms. Not wanting to sacrifice one of the zoo's specimens, I spun to protect the bird. When I did that, the dragon caught the back of my upper arm and started pulling backwards, shredding a bunch of my skin with its small, but razor sharp teeth. Fortunately, Komodo Dragons don't have teeth as large as the Megalania. Nonetheless, it inflicted quite a wound. Here are just a few of the bite wounds after I had them stitched up.

It is also fortunate that the Komodo's skull structure does not allow the biting force of say, a modern salt water crocodile. The killing technique of Komodo Dragons is to bite and slash the prey (the so-called "grip-and-rip" technique), then let go. Unfortunately for me, the prey becomes unusually quiet, loses a lot of blood, and apparently goes into rapid shock. The Komodo then just slowly stalks the prey and devours it. That is almost what happened to me.
Shortly after the attack, I became extremely weak and woozy and faint, and finally I blacked out. Fortunately, Hang Fai was there to save me. The next thing that I knew, I was in a hospital bed.

When I woke up and began to recall what had happened, I became extremely worried about the bite. Most scientists believe that the bite becomes badly infected with germs from the dragon's mouth and the prey dies from the subsequent infection. I wanted to make certain that my bite didn't show evidence of any bad infection, but I couldn't see it because it was on the back of my arm. The kind nurses assured me that they had properly cleansed and disinfected the bite and had given me ample antibiotic medicines.

That reassured me, but then as I was laying there, I began to think that I became too weak too rapidly for an infection from a dirty bite to have caused it. There had to be a poison involved. When Hang Fai came to visit, I asked him what happened to the dragon. He told me that they had to kill it, so I asked him to do a complete anatomical analysis of the dragon's skull and teeth and let me know what they find as soon as possible.

And do you know what they found? There are venom glands in the dragon's jaw that drain out between the teeth. Mass spectroscopy of the venom samples showed that toxins present in the venom accelerates the deep laceration-induced bleeding and drop in blood pressure through PLA2, kallikrein and natriuretic toxins, and further immobilizes the prey with AVIT toxins. The scientists that thought the bacteria in a dirty bite killed the prey are all wrong.

When you look at the teeth in a scanning electron microscope, they have grooves that guide the venom into the wound. They aren't like the hollow fangs of snakes, but are apparently just as effective. And do you know what has me the most excited? Those tooth grooves look almost exactly like the grooves in the teeth that we find in fossil Megalania! The ancient giant butchers were almost certainly venomous too.

EUREKA! That makes Megalania (Varanus priscus) the largest venomous animal to have ever lived.

I talked Kwok into publishing this in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Isn't Science wonderful?

I think that from now on, though, I'm going to stick with fossils.

Your fellow researcher, Clyde.

I then hand addressed an envelope, pasted on some printed Indonesian stamps, stuffed in the letter, and crumpled up the envelope to make it look like it had been in the international mail a while, then delivered it.

Kegan apparently remarked, "Wow. Clyde sure got lucky that time."

Furnaces, Windows and Leaky Lakes

2009-06-08T16:56:00.000-07:00

I had a comment from jaz on the last post that reminded me of how cold our house and kitchen gets sometimes in the wintertime. I went back and found the following letter to our families dated:

December 17, 2007

Oh, the joys of winter in the North Woods of Wisconsin!

I was sleeping soundly under my quilt, down comforter, the heavy Korean MoMo Mink blanket, overlain by three dogs and a cat when Deb shrieked me awake. The first thing that my eyes opened to was the lighted dial of the bedside alarm clock: [4:03 am].

Deb had apparently gotten up to empty her bladder and nearly froze to the toilet seat.

"Graig, I think the furnace isn't working. Get up and check it."

"I'm plenty warm and cozy, thanks."

"If you don't go down and see what's wrong, I'm calling the furnace man."

Now, please understand that the 'furnace man' is the new husband of one of Louise's Hospice Care nurses, who quit the job because Louise was outlasting her desire to be a nurse. This is the same furnace man that assured Deb in the middle of the summer two years ago that there was nothing wrong with our furnace, but that we needed to replace all of the windows in our old farm house with newer, more thermally efficient windows in order to keep warm. I haven't much cared for that guy's opinions ever since.

I said, "Deb, if you're cold, don't call your 'furnace man', just cozy up to one of those new windows I have been putting in over the past two years. They're supposed to keep you warm."

"GET UP!"

"Oh, all right. Scoot dogs. Ouch! That darned cat of yours scratched me! Jeeze, where are my slippers. These floors are cold!"

So down to the basement it was. Off came the front access panel to the propane furnace. Hmmm. A red light was flashing and there was no flame. I didn't see any dial or pilot light to even try to put a match to. "I wonder if this thing is under warranty. Oh well. Not much I can do tonight."

Back upstairs, I see Deb all cozy under the covers. "What's wrong with the heat?"

"There isn't any. The furnace isn't working."

"Well, fix it."

"From what I see, it can't be fixed."

I don't think I want to repeat the rest of the conversation. Suffice it to say that Deb's 'furnace man' got a call a few short hours later and he had a solution all right.... take a sledge hammer to it.

Anyway, I am now reading a book all about how to make a masonry stove ... a genuine Russian stove ... the kind that Leo Tolstoy describes as having a platform that Deb can sleep on. In that same book, it says that in the old peasant farm houses, farm families used to let the sheep sleep under their beds and heat from their bodies would keep the bed warm. I wonder if that's how the old method of falling asleep counting sheep started. We are trying that method until I can get the stove built, but I think that the old peasant farmers used to sleep on ticking filled with two inches of straw suspended by ropes strung across the bed frame, not 8 inches of polyester thermal fluff that resists any heat penetration. I hope the sheep stay warm.

Well, I was cold anyway and dressed for the weather, so I decided to go out with our neighbor, Roy, to try my hand at ice fishing. The ice was about eight to ten inches thick with about 5 inches of snow on top, but below the snow, there was about two inches of water over the ice. I can't figure out how that happens. I guess that the fishermen keep drilling holes in the ice and cause the lake to leak. Anyway, after sitting in the wind and freezing my bad hand (the one that I put through a table saw and couldn't afford to have fixed), I came home with one five inch yellow perch. At least I won't have to buy sardines for a sandwich this week.

It sure felt good to go back into the house. It's amazing how good temperatures above 10 degrees F can feel sometimes. You just gotta love this North Woods living.

Horse-drawn Golf Cart and Butter Toffee

2009-06-06T13:08:00.000-07:00

June 6, 09

In the Straits of Mackinac that separates Michigan's Upper from Lower Peninsula and connecting Lakes Michigan and Huron, there is an island, Mackinac Island, on which motorized traffic is prohibited. People and things are moved by foot, bicycle, or horse. Taxis, drays, manure and tour wagons are drawn by teams of Belgian and Percheron draft horses, most of which are stabled by one organization.

Several years ago, I took on a job with Mackinac Island Carriage Tours, and worked 12 to 14 hour shifts, seven days a week in the big barn mucking out tie stalls, helping harness and hitch up teams, stacking and dispersing hay, and driving the manure wagons to the centralized composting facility.

Toward the end of the season, I spent my days driving a two horse team for the golf shuttle. There is an 18 hole golf course on the island. The lower 9 holes are across from the Grand Hotel, and the upper 9 holes are 20 minutes away by carriage.

One of the things that the island is famous for is its candy... Mackinac Island Fudge... salt water taffy... and English Toffee. All are made there on the island, and are considered by many to be exceptional. Personally, I can take or leave the fudge and taffy. But the English Toffee is to die for. I had to quit the job while I still had money in my pockets and before I rotted my teeth entirely away. I'll never forget that stuff. Pure manna.

Then a few years ago, my wife took me into a local shop in Crandon that imported llama wool clothing from South America. It was the Christmas season, and the owner had placed out a plate of toffee that she had made herself for her customers . I took one piece. Then discretely took another. Then blatantly another and another. It was as good, if not better, than the Mackinac Island version. I told the owner, Barb, that I had to have the recipe.

"Riiight. I'm glad you enjoy it."

"No, I'm serious. If I don't get it, I'm going to forbid my wife from purchasing this ever mounting pile of sweaters, scarves, and mittens."

"Riiight. I know Deb. All I can say is you can try to stop her."

"Aw. Pleeeez? I need that recipe."

"Do you really cook?"

"Well, yeah! I can't live on the frozen pizzas that Deb cooks."

Finally, Deb, overhearing our exchange, came over. "Oh, he's serious all right. He was a scientist. You can't be a scientist without knowing how to experiment in the lab and in the kitchen."

So I got the secret recipe, which she had committed to memory, and have made the stuff periodically ever since.

And only because I know what special people bloggers tend to be, I share that secret here with you. Warning: Do not make this for friends and relatives on a diet (unless you are in a weight loss contest with them).

Barb's La Llama Butter Toffee

Butter a 9 x 13 inch baking sheet.
Combine 2 sticks (1/2 lb.) real butter, 1 cup sugar, 1/4 tsp salt, and 6 Tbsp. water in a saucepan.
Stirring constantly, slowly bring the mixture to a boil, and continue until a candy thermometer reads 300 F.
Stir in some chopped almonds, if desired.
Pour onto the prepared baking sheet.
Sprinkle the hot mix with milk chocolate chips and spread around as it melts.
Add more chopped almonds as topping, if desired.
Let cool and break into portions.

Even though this is poured into one large flat piece, and later broken apart, when hubby or kids ask for "a piece of that toffee" you will find that you have to explain that one of those shards compromises a portion, not the whole original one piece puddle. Also, do not send friends home in a car with an unsealed, open container of this stuff, or it will never make it home. Let me know what you think.

Death of a Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

2009-06-04T06:08:00.000-07:00

June 4, 2009

Our mama Hemingway cat, Polly (short for polydactyly), is venturing out away from her litter of kittens more now. The other day, I was outside and was intently watching the year's first Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly flitting past, when Polly flashed up and swept it out of midair. It really took me by surprise. All I could think of was the long migration that Monarch butterflies make every year, and what a shame it would have been for something so frail and delicate and slow moving to have made it all the way up to Northern Wisconsin only to become a slaughtered plaything for our cat. Even if it didn't migrate, it had made it through our Northern Wisconsin winters only to be snuffed out the first chance it had to bask in the warmth of the sun.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly
Jerry A. Payne / USDA ARS www.insectimages.org

I had no idea whether the swallowtail makes migrations, so I started searching for information on it just to satisfy my curiosity and learned some pretty fascinating things.

First of all, the swallowtail that I saw could have been one of two possible species: the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Papilio glaucus, or the Canadian Tiger Swallowtail, Papilio canadensis.

OK. The genus name Papilio is Latin for butterfly, and papillon is French for butterfly. (Does anyone remember the old Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman movie entitled Papillon about the French penal colony on Devil's Island?) Anyway, in taxonomic science the genus name Papilio is now used only for the swallow-tailed butterflies.

Everybody can guess where the species name canadensis comes from, but according to most dictionaries, glaucus refers to a bluish-white coating. Well, that makes no sense. Alternatively, in Homer's Iliad, Glaucus was the name of a co-leader of the Lycian allies of the Trojans, and he foolishly exchanged his gold armor for the bronze armor of Diomedes. I guess that gets a little closer to the yellow color of the butterfly I know.

Then I found out something that I never knew before. All of the butterflies that are yellow are males. The females are usually dark blue and I would never have guessed that these are the same species.

Female eastern tiger swallowtail (black form)
photo by HaarFager on Wikipedia published under
terms of the GNU Free Documentation license Version 1.2 or later

OK. That's cool. I'll have to keep an eye out for that one. But we're back to glaucus referring to blue or yellow? I don't know.

How about Eastern versus Canadian? It turns out that until 1991, they were thought to be the same species, but two subspecies. With the advent of genetic technologies, scientists have determined that there are actually two different species that are "parapatric", which is a fancy way of saying that their geographic boundaries butt up next to each other, but don't overlap.

OK. So where is that boundary? I found a map that shows it right along the dotted line. Those numbers were collecting sites for P. canadensis (Stump AD, Sperling FAH, Crim A and Scriber JM. Great Lakes Entomologist, 2003:41-53.)

Well, heck then. That settles it, we live just a little bit south of the bottom of the 2 on the map. Polly must have nabbed a Canadian swallowtail.

But what if historically, the governments got our national boundaries all wrong? It looks to me like nature has drawn the line between Canada and the US with the butterfly population, and that line is to the south of us.

As of 1991, when this was discovered, maybe I became a Canadian. That might not be so bad, come to think of it.

Canadian banks didn't crash like the US ones did (http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0.8599.1855317.00.html).

Deb and I are among the medically uninsured. Does this mean that we qualify for Canadian universal health care and cheaper pharmaceuticals? Did you know that contrary to what the US health and insurance industries would have you believe, the World Health Organization has ranked the US health system performance as 72nd in the world, and the Canadian health system as 35th (http://www.photius.com/rankings/world_health_performance_ranks.html)?

Should we not need a passport to drive around Lake Superior on a vacation after all?

But wait a minute. The bottom line of that scientific study is that we should be using genetic techniques to watch for any shift northward of the P. glaucus species that could be caused by global warming.

Oh, oh. Is the naturally defined US-Canadian boundary creeping northwards? Should I be in a rush to make my butterfly natural history boundary plea for health care before it's too late?

Well, as of the night of June 3, 2009, we still have frost warnings. If I can't garden yet, there should be some bright side to living up here.

I don't think I need to be in any hurry to make my plea.

Quite yet anyway.

P.S. -- Sorry. Sometimes I just need to vent.

Little Rice Lake and Crows

2009-05-30T05:50:00.000-07:00

May 30, 09

Our 40 acre farm lies in a little piece of Paradise in a valley near the headwaters of the Wolf River. Further downstream, the Wolf has been designated as one of the Nation's Wild and Scenic Rivers and is protected. Up here a small historic mill dam creates Little Rice Lake, and it's from this flowage that I supply our household with fresh fish almost year round.

I love that lake because it is so low and boggy that there is very little development around it, so there are almost never any water skiers or jet skiers on the water. Instead there are geese and loons and sandhill cranes. The sounds of marsh birds prevail. The lake is shallow and covers a large area, so it makes a wonderful propagation pond for panfish, mostly bluegill, sunfish, yellow perch, black crappie, bullhead, northern pike and largemouth bass.

The upper end of the lake is dominated by wild rice that is so dense that in a few weeks it will not be navigable by motor. Now you can see the new plants starting to take off just a few feet below the surface of the water.

There are numerous boggy islands in the lake that actually float around sometimes if the water gets high. They aren't stable enough to walk on, so they act as wilderness sanctuaries to all sorts of small wildlife.

One small island up in the wild rice area is called Pancake Island. On it is a tree that has an eagle's nest that must be decades old. The structure has to be six to eight feed deep. The eagles should be nesting there soon. I have seen eagles occupying nests on power poles along the highway recently.

I was out fishing this week in the lee of an island and saw more muskrats than I have ever seen before. When I was younger, living in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, I had a Native American friend that used to trap them and sell the pelts to furriers and the carcasses to a local restaurant. Once in a while he would bring me a few dressed out carcasses, and I would parboil them and then saute them in garlic and butter. There wasn't a whole lot of meat on them, but it was good eating. I'm well enough fed not to be tempted to go out and start trapping them myself, though.

At home, Deb has been doing some yard work and cleaning up. Yesterday, we were trimming a lot of deadwood out of our trees and shrubbery. I put the trimmings in our little utility vehicle and took them into the woods out back where we have a couple of brush piles.

As I drove up, there was a crow perched on the pile, and it hopped down to the ground. I was surprised that it didn't fly away, because crows are usually pretty wary. So I got out and started walking toward it. It kept hopping away, but obviously could not fly. I picked it up and could see no visible signs of injury, so I tucked it into the cab of the truck while I emptied my load. The crow just sat on the seat and remained surprisingly calm.

Back home, I showed it to Deb.

"What in the world are you dragging home this time? You're as bad as a little kid."

"Can I keep him? Please? Please? Pretty please? They're supposed to make great pets."

I really knew better. In the United States, it's illegal to keep crows or ravens as pets. They are wild birds, and that status is protected. But if an injured bird is unable to be rehabilitated and released into the wild, it either will be destoyed, or in rare cases there is a chance that it can be fostered out as a pet.

Corvids are exceedingly intelligent birds. European Magpies have passed the self-recognition mirror reflection test, where a mark (in this case, a yellow spot under the chin) is placed on the bird where it cannot be seen by direct self-examination. When a magpie is placed in front of a mirror it tries to reach the mark on itself either with its beak or its feet to remove it. This is the
only non-mammalian species to show this behavior (so far). In non-human mammals, it has been demonstrated in apes, dolphins and elephants (http://biology. plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0060202).

European rooks can not only use tools, but actually fabricate them to get at food (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8059688.stm).

Crows can also be deviously smart, too:

George was an orphan crow whom my wife, a wild-bird rehabber, raised and released five summers ago and who hung around for several months after that. George was mischievous. He liked to fly straight toward me and then veer away at the last second; grab my sandwich when I ate lunch on our deck; peck at my newspaper as I tried to read it; and so on. One day I was in the house and heard all this yelling outside. I went downstairs and found Suzie, Mac, Skye and George standing outside this big cage we have in our backyard, a cube of wood and chicken wire about eight feet on each side. The cage has a door with a bolt latch on the outside. Mac and Skye often lock each other inside it for fun. Mac and Skye claimed that they had both been playing in the cage when George had locked them in. Suzie, hearing Mac and Skye yelling, had just unlocked the door and let them out. Skeptic that I am, I found this story hard to believe, especially since my wife and children like to kid me. So I sent Suzie, Mac and Skye to the deck, about 30 feet away. Then, as George watched me, head cocked, I entered the cage. After I turned my back on the door and on George, I heard wings flapping and turned in time to see George fly over to the door, which I had left ajar, and grip the chicken wire just below the latch. He flapped his wings until the door eased shut, then slid the latch over with his beak, locking me in. Then, I swear, I thought I saw George smile. (http://www.stevens.edu/csw/cgi-bin/blogs/csw/?p=153).

Not only that, but like their mynah bird cousins, they can learn to talk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAQjgC9Nl84). A friend told me that the old-timers used to split their tongues to allow them to talk, but I doubt that's necessary.

Anyway, I decided to take this guy in to the Northwoods Rehab Center to see what was wrong with it and to make certain that it wasn't suffering from West Nile virus. When I got there, the chief rehab man found that it had a badly dislocated shoulder (wing). He said that they would keep it for a few weeks to see whether it would tighten back up again so that it could be released. In his experience, though, the prospects are not good. If not they would have to put it down. He also told me that it is too early to be seeing cases of West Nile virus.

OK. That gives me two weeks to cajole Deb.

Transferring Mothers and Squirrels

2009-05-27T09:27:00.000-07:00

May 12, 09

I was able to make a brief run down to the Lower Peninsula of Michigan to see my Mom for Mother's Day. She can no longer bear weight on her legs and is wheelchair bound, but is able to transfer to a car. So we spent time going out and about to restaurants, nurseries for flowers to decorate my Dad's grave site, and just touring the area. We ended up doing a lot of transferring.

To get into and out of the car, and for transfers to and from bed, because she cannot be lifted, Mom uses a transfer board. This is simply a hefty piece of hardwood about two feet long and six inches wide that is slightly tapered at the ends. It is delicately slid under the bum of the transferee and serves as a bridge along which the transferee slides along to the destination site.
One would not think that this simple device could be the source of much controversy, but I found myself smack in the middle of a major dispute. At first I just slid the transfer board under Mom not paying much attention to which end of the board went where. I must have done it "right" a few times before I took notice of the handy grab hole conveniently cut into one end. Then I started putting that end under Mom first so that after she slid across it, I could wrap my fingers through the hole and pull it out easily. Mom, however, thought differently. For some reason, she was deathly afraid of either becoming hopelessly snagged in that hole, or maybe even falling straight through it. She has never been a gambler and didn't realize that the odds against either one of those things ever happening were zilch. So I appeased her for a while, but then thought, this is stupid. I'm doing it my way. Grumble. Sniff. I can deal with it.

That night, I was staying at my brother's place and happend to mention the day's issue of contention as we were sitting around the kitchen table. My brother's wife, who normally takes on the responsibility of driving my Mom hither and thither, just laughed. She has had the same debate and has dealt with it in an identical manner.

My brother, who is a wood carver in his "spare" time has a shop full of very sharp tools and suggested that he could just cut another hole in the other end of the board. That would not only put an end to the controversy, but also give my Mom twice as much to worry about. Sounded like a good plan to me. "Yeah, I'll have to do it when I get around to thinking about it," he said. For some reason, his wife just rolled her eyes.

In the meantime, I was glancing out the kitchen window into their beautiful back yard with its deer wandering through and bird feeders hanging from tree branches. Then I noticed some mighty fat squirrels sitting in the trees contemplating whether they really wanted to attempt the acrobatics required to get to some of the seed. "That's odd," I thought. "I've never known squirrels to be hesitant before." They also seemed to be casting a wary eye toward the house.

Just then, I looked down at the floor by the bottom of the patio door and noticed in its well worn original box a genuine Wrist Rocket sling shot. "Wow, Gary. That's neat. I've always wanted one of those."

"Oh, that's not mine. It's hers."

Apparently Karen loads up the ammo pouch on the sling with an ice cube from her ice maker every time she spots a squirrel raiding the bird feeders.

"Yeah. Fortunately I'm a lousy shot and have never hit one, but when the cube goes whizzing past them, and especially if it shatters against a tree trunk, it really sends them scampering. Plus, we don't have to worry about the lawn mower picking up stones and hurling them against the house."

Well, that's interesting.

Next, the conversation turned to wood carving. I told my brother that the one thing that I'd like him to show me is how he sharpens his carving tools. So we disappeared down into his shop for a while, and I came back up with a leather stropping board that he had made and gave me as a gift.

We then sat back down around the kitchen table again, and I commented on what a nice setup he had down there.

"I like it. The next thing I need, though is a surface planer and a dust collection system."

That got a rise out of his wife. "Mister, you need to learn the difference between wants and needs. You don't need a surface planer, and I thought that all of your tools were dust collectors."

Now that's just cold. I swung around, casually picked up the sling shot and asked Gary if he needed some ice.

(P.S.: That wonderful photo of the squirrel was pulled off the internet some time ago. I tried finding it again so that I could give proper credit, but couldn't. My apologies to the original photographer. Let me know if you know the source so that I can give credit where credit is due.)

Retrenching for Winter

2009-05-26T06:20:00.000-07:00

Early in 2007, I had lost a good job with no prospects on the horizon for a new one. We were still providing elder care for Deb's mom, so Deb did not want to return to work full time. So we decided to find a smaller place and downsize our farm operation. To make a long story short, we put most of our equipment, our cow herd, and the farm up on the auction block. The cows and equipment sold, but our farm didn't. It was our worst nightmare. Now we still had the big farm, but no equipment to work it with. We are still on the farm and most of the stories from here on relate to our struggles to stay afloat while maintaining a semblance of good humor.

Mid November 07

We haven't had enough snow to shovel yet, but it has been enough to start us worrying about how we are going to keep our drive clear this year. Until now we had our pickup truck with the big snowplow on it. It was easy to climb into the heated truck cab, push the snow around with it, and then clear baths to the barn and paddocks with the walk behind snow blower. Both were sold at our auction, though. This year we decided to try to use a snow blower attachment on the riding lawn mower. So we bought wheel weights, tire chains and the blower attachment and had them delivered. The salesman assured us that it was no big problem to detach the mower deck and install the blower.

To mount the snowplow on the truck, all I had to do was line up the truck to the plow, connect two wire harnesses, pull out a couple of spring-loaded attachment pins, climb into the cab, put the pedal to the metal, and voila! We were set for a blizzard.

To prepare the riding mower to deal with snow, I had to find the manual and try to unhook belts and pins and mounting rods and brackets, some of which were described in the manual, but absent on my mower, and others of which were dangling from the mower, but not described in the manual. But eventually, off it came with parts eventually needed for remounting wired together and now hanging on the shop wall for next year. End Day 1 of lawn tractor conversion.

Day 2: Open the crate only to find boxes and bags of hundreds of parts along with an assembly manual. Step 1: unpack all parts and lay them out for easy identification and inventory against the manual checklist. I didn't expect to have to clean out my whole shop to find the room to spread everything out. So Step 1 took an entire day at the end of which I sat down to briefly scan through the manual only to find that 65 steps were listed.

Days 3-5: Suffice it to say, it took quite a bit of innovation and creativity to interpret and reconfigure the lawn tractor to look like the drawings in the manual and to make the parts that were supposed to fit to actually remain semi-stably mounted. At the end of Day 5, I drove it to the back door of the house, and Deb assured me that the blower auger turns when engaged. Now we'll see what it does in the snow. Hopefully it turns in the right direction. All told I count 49 extra pieces that I could not find a use for. Out of 65 steps, I figure that I must have 16 of them done as described. Time will tell.

The first of our holiday decorations are up. Deb and I mounted garlands of pine boughs around the front and back doors rendering them essentially unclosable, but they look festive.

That's all for this week. Hope that your Thanksgiving is enjoyable and that your belts are expandable.

Hunting Season and Fresh Bread

2009-05-24T08:06:00.000-07:00

November 19, 07

It is hunting season again so we have all of the animals up in the front paddocks so that they won't be mistaken for "Big Game". My largest worry is that Shaniah (the calf) or Griffin (her mom) will step through the board fences and go off cross country. So far, so good.

Next year, I'm going to raise pumpkins again and put a bunch of them in trees out back so that when the hunters spot orange in the trees, they'll think that there are already plenty of hunters in the area. They say that there are around 700,000 hunters every year that kill about 460,000 deer. That doesn't include the road kill. I think I'll stick to killing fish for now.

On these cool, crisp fall mornings, there's nothing better than to walk into the house and be washed with the aroma of fresh bread in the oven. Over the years, we have settled on one basic recipe for all of our bread. It's not the greatest for sandwiches, but for a hot bread at the table, or for breakfast toast, its hard to beat. And it's easy.

Deb's French Peasant Bread

2 cups of warm water
1 Tbsp sugar (brown or white)
2 tsp salt
1 pkg dry yeast
4 cups flour (mix and match types at will)

In a large, warm bowl, place water, sugar, salt and yeast. Stir until dissolved. If you have any doubts about whether your yeast is any good or not, you can let it sit at this stage to see whether it will form a froth on top after about 15 minutes.
Stir in flour and whatever else you want to flavor the bread with. Experiment with herbs, granola cereals, cinnamon and sugar, nuts, seeds, grains, cheeses, etc. The dough will be sticky, but there is no need to knead it.
Scrape the sticky dough into a greased bowl. Cover with a towel and let rise in a warm place 45 minutes or more until about doubled.
Stir the dough down and decide how you want your loaves to be. You can make flatter round loaves that you pass around and just tear hunks off for dipping in herbed olive oil at dinner, or you can use ceramic bowls or bread pans to make taller loaves that can be sliced for making some great toast in the mornings or for snacks.
For flat loaves, grease two baking sheets with oil and sprinkle with cornmeal so the loaves won't stick. Mounnd half of the dough on each sheet.
For bowls or loaf pans, oil and coat with cornmeal and then fill about 2/3 of the way.
In a small dish or glass, mix one egg white and a bit of water, and brush the tops of the loaves with the mixture. Set aside the remaining egg white mixture to use later. (This egg white glaze is just to make the loaves look pretty and maybe making it a bit crustier. There's no harm at all in omiting the glaze.)
Let the loves rise uncovered for 45 minutes or more.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
Bake 10 minutes.
Pull the loaves out and coat with more of the egg white glaze. Turn the oven heat down to 375 degrees F and bake for 20 more minutes. Put the loaves back in the oven as soon as you glaze them. The oven does not have to cool down before putting them back in.

And that's it. No kneading. No flour dust spread all over the place. No sticky fingers. And it's pretty darned good bread. When fresh out of the oven it has a nice crispy crust, too. Let us know what flavor combinations you come up with. We like to add rosemary, or crush up generic honey nut and oat type cereal to add, or ground flax seed and bran. The combinations are endless.

And speaking of bread, did you know that Chillicothe, Missouri is the home of sliced bread? The first time that sliced bread was ever offered for sale anywhere was smack dab in the center of the US. Old Otto Rohwedder sold his invention, the Rohwedder Bread Slicer, to the Chillicothe Bread Company, which put it into its first use back in 1928.

But for me, I just like tearing hunks off Deb's flat loaves like an old French peasant. I have officially vetoed the purchase of Otto's invention for our kitchen. I guess that says something about my social status.

Just Like a Good Neighbor

2009-05-22T18:23:00.000-07:00

Time passed and some things changed, including an unexpected early retirement for me.

November 12, 07

I was sitting at home one day and got a call from Deb. She was over at Squirt's house unbeknownst to me. Squirt is a lady of diminutive stature in her 70's who helps take care of Louise several mornings of the week at our farm. She lives in a house in town that she rents from a niece of hers, but the niece refuses to do any maintenance on the place. So we help out when we can, just like a good neighbor.

At the other end of the line, Deb was sitting under the bathroom sink with the trap taken apart and with a bunch of parts that she and Squirt had bought to try and fix it with. "Squirt's sink trap had developed a leak and we are trying to replace it. Can you come over and help? I have all of the parts, but can't figure out how they fit together."

"OK. I'll be over in a few minutes."

Well, I got there and sure enough, the sink trap was taken apart, and there were enough fittings spread over the floor to plumb a small city. Part of the problem was that because of the alignment of the sink drain and the floor drain, the trap not only had to have a "U" in it, but a whole "Loop-de-loop" going from one size pipe into a slightly larger pipe. The adapters that the hardware store had sold them were the wrong size and without the proper threading. But with all of these parts, I figured that I ought to be able to rig something.

So I started rigging and attaching and cutting and fitting and before long, I had a contraption innovated that ought to work. So I turned on the faucet. I watched for any leak and there was nothing coming from the drain or trap, but there was a significant leak coming from the metal wire coming down from the faucet fixture that moves the drain stopper up and down.

That made no sense at all since there was no water that flowed through the area that it comes from. So I decided to take apart the faucet fixture to see what the heck was going on.

Off came the handles. Then on to the valve mechanism, hot side first. I took out the screw and had to pry the valve up for it to come off. When it finally popped off, there was an exploding jet of hot water that shot up, hit the bottom of the medicine cabinet and succeeded in soaking everything in the room.

"She#*f!~uzzleduckin jabberflam." (Squirt is a very religious person, so I had to temper my language.)

After determining that a finger jammed over the hole was not going to work, and after a few more additions to the Oxford English Dictionary, Deb suggested that I may want to shut off the water valves under the sink.

"Oh, yeah."

That did the trick. I then took apart the rest of the faucet and discovered that the water spigot was loose and that may have allowed water back into the area where the drain plug rod goes down. So I tighteded that and went to put the faucet back together. But when I went to put the hot water valve back together, I found a short conical spring that had no apparent function. So I crammed it into a likely looking hole and put it all together again.

Then slowly... ever so slowly, I turned the water valves back on. No leak now from the plunger rod, but interestingly the hot water ran out the spigot no matter where the handle was positioned... on or off or anywhere in between.

It was time to turn off the hot water supply valve and take the fixture apart again. Maybe the conical spring was upside down. I did the change and tried again.

Again the hot water flowed regardless of the handle position.

OK. Now what?

I turned the hot water supply valve off and took the fixture apart again. Maybe the spring went someplace else. Nope. There was no other possible place for it. OK. I hadn't noticed a spring in the cold water valve, but maybe I hadn't looked close enough. That side worked, so let's take it apart and try to see the difference.

I pried the cold water valve up, and sploosh. Now not only was every inch of me and the bathroom wet, but it was cold and wet. "Spivvelmattr Bingledorrf!" Again, the finger in the hole succeeded in intensifying and dispersing the water jet about like a finger over the end of a garden hose. Again, Deb suggested turning off the cold water supply valve under the sink.

"Oh, yeah. Of course. Just testing your memory, darling."

While I was laying in the puddle under the sink, I noticed a sharp needling pain in the back of my neck. When I reached up, I found another one of those springs. Hmmm.

Well, there was absolutely no place for a second spring in the hot water faucet, so I stuck the second one in the cold water faucet like I had in the hot water side and put together the fixture yet again. Then I turned on the water supply valves again.

Miracle of miracles! Now both the hot and the cold water valves did not work.

"Squirt, I think that I have determined your problem. There is a dying spouting whale stuck in your water supply plumbing that is slowly working its way out. Now it is no longer under the sink causng problems, but has worked its way up to the faucet handles. I don't kill whales, so I think you may have to just live with it."

"I could do that, I guess, but why don't you just go out and buy a new fixture?"

"Good idea," says Deb, and off she races to the hardware store to find a replacement.

In the meantime, I'm wondering whether this is really what retirement was meant to be.

Deb got back with a new fixture. One look at the box, and I could see that it didn't have the required drain rod. This time, I went to the store while Deb and Squirt left to do other chores out of town.

I found one that looked like it would work and finally got it installed and working.

Later that night, I got a call from Squirt: "What did you do? The faucet handles aren't the same as the old ones!"

I can't win! Someday I'll tell you the reason why I never want to be a landlord.

First Snow and Hungry for Hen

2009-05-21T04:50:00.000-07:00

October 17, 02

We had our first snow this week. Saturday night Deb drove home in a blizzard.

Then her niece and significant other came from Missouri to visit with their new baby boy on Monday and Tuesday. On Tuesday night, to celebrate, we roasted Cornish Game Hens over an open fire while it was spitting snow. Boy, there's nothing better in my mind than the smoky flavor of these little hens roasted over fire. My mouth was watering.

It takes about an hour and a bottle of wine to cook the birds over a good fire, and just as I was unspitting the birds from the cherry poles, Deb stuck her head out the door and hollered that it was going down into the teens that night, and I had better put Kook in before I ate dinner.

So I went out into the pasture with Dolly (the Clydesdale), Clyde (the bay Quarter Horse that looks like a Clydesdale,) 5 Holsteen cows, and Kookamunga (our Dromedary). Now Dolly and Clyde were no problem because they remain terrified of the camel and kept their distance. But Kook has become practically inseparable from the cows. They hang out together all the time, and Kook seems to delight in sporadically and randomly slapping a foot on the ground and bucking to see the cows scatter. The cows don't seem to hold a grudge, though, and before you know it they are all back together again.

Anyway after weaving my way around the cows, who are becoming pretty pushy because they have come to know that I keep tasty horse treats in my pockets at all times, I was able to walk up to Kook and get his halter on without much problem. This is a process in which he must cooperate, because there is no way that I can reach high enough if he chooses to hold his head up. He was being a good camel.

Putting the halter on was one thing. Leading him away from the cows was a totally different matter. First, there was the task of getting him to the gate. Not too much problem, because the cows followed us: elapsed time -- only 20 minutes and 3/4 of my horse treats gone. (I figured that my Game Hen and wild rice were getting pretty tepid by now.)

Then there was the tricky matter of getting Kook through the gate without the accompanying throng. All the hollering and whistling and waving of arms that normally keeps the cows at bay had the same effect on Kook. I think this process was turning him a bit schitzy.

Finally, I ended up with a camel on one side of the gate, and the cows on the other. Elapsed time: another 20 minutes and the rest of my horse treats. (Maybe I could nuke my Game Hen in the microwave to warm it up.)

I now faced the task of leading the camel away from the gate with the cows bawling away beckoning him back, bringing him through another pasture with the miniature horses and ponies in it, through another gate, and in through the back door of the barn. The bigger the horse, the more frightened they are of the camel. The minis show no fear and are constantly under foot searching my pockets for treats. So I had another sorting task ahead of me. Kook wanted no part of it. Period. I was getting a lot of roaring complaints from the camel, but no spitting.

After another 30 minutes, I had the camel through the gate, separated from the horses, and into the barn. Now I had to lead it into its stall. By this time we were both rip snorting mad at each other and he refused to go into the stall and finally succeeded in ripping the lead rope out of my hands to go tromping off in the arena trying to find an escape exit.

After chasing him around for a while, I decided to try a trick that I have tried with obstreperous horses who don't want to be caught. I lay down in the pasture and play dead. Within a relatively short period of time the horses will walk up and sniff me and actually paw me with their hoof to see whether I am still among the living. I think that my chest x-rays will prove to you the efficacy of this procedure.

So I laid down in the middle of the arena, face down with my hands clasped over my head for protection, and I waited. Time passed. I peeked up and after Kook had given up trying to go back out the door, he seemed to have calmed down, and was parked in front of the mirror that we use to show riders how they are sitting. He seemed to be smiling at himself, proud of his victyory and pleased with his good looks.

I tucked my head back under my arms to wait. About then Deb walked into the arena, wonderring where I was.

"Graig! Are you dead?"

"No, Deb, I'm showing Kook what to do in the event of a tornado or nuclear attack."

She then disappeared into the feed room, grabbed a carrot, and calmly sweet talked Kook into his stall without even using the lead rope. Razzerfrattindrazzlefratin' camel!

By that time I had to hit the hay so that I could get up at 4:00 a.m. for my weekly commute to out-of-town work the next morning. I sure hope that three-day old Game Hen tastes good in a sandwich or a soup or something.

And the last laugh may still be on the guy that puts together the Living Nativity Scene in Crandon, when all that shows up is the Wise Man sans camel.

Hungry for Hen.

The Old Gray Egg

Left Hanging and Needing a Translator

2009-05-19T17:33:00.000-07:00

October 10, 02

While I was gone last week, Debra got a phone call from an acquaintance who owns and operates a boarding stable. Someone had purchased a wild mustang filly last spring for their daughter at the Bureau of Land Management Mustang and Burro Adoption. The parents had boarded it at the stable over the summer. Evidently the daughter messed with the mustang for only a few weeks, and found that it was not quite the appreciative, cooperative, cuddly horse that she had envisioned. So the parents decided to sell her (the horse) at auction, and if it went to the killer, so be it. The boarding facility owner thought that the filly had too much potential for that, so she called us and said that we could have it if we wanted it. Deb went to see it, fell in love, and agreed to pick it up.

Translation: "agreed to pick it up" -- get Graig to figure out how to load a young, wary, nearly wild mustang into a trailer, so that it can be hauled home.

First of all, the BLM does not allow any mustangs to be hauled in regular horse trailers because too often, they have gone totally nuts inside them and ended up hurting themselves and demolishing the trailer. Plain Jane open stock trailers are required, and the horse can't be tied during transport.

So Deb arranged with the owners of the horse to have them transport the horse in their stock trailer as long as I would volunteer to load it. They agreed.

Hmmm. So I was "volunteered". In the past I have had success with training our horses (over time) to load into our horse trailer without major battles, so Deb had every confidence in me. But, just in case, she had our sawyer friend come to help if I needed a hand.

The day came to load her up. Of course it was pouring rain, and the footing in the loading area was eight inches of mud, but the job had to be done. We got there plenty early to mess with the horse some so that its first moments with us would not be spent forcing it to move where it did not want to go. The horse had never been turned out to pasture for fear that it would not be caught, so it had been in its stall all summer. Our own horses act squirrely if we leave them in the stall for more than overnight. We were concerned over what this one would do when we tried to lead it out of the barn. But the filly seemed to be reasonably calm and allowed us to lead it up and down the barn lane while waiting for the trailer to arrive. All seemed to be going well, considering. I was beginning to think that this might be doable.

The woman arrived with her truck and trailer, and our sawyer backed it up to the loading gate for her. Now it was my turn to perform. I tied two lead ropes together so that I could connect it to the horse's halter, then wrap it around an inside post in the front of the trailer, and be able to hold the free end of the lead while standing at the back door of the trailer with the horse. That way I could try to pet and calm it so that it would walk right in. This strategy seemed to work when I trained our horses. I took my time.

At first the mustang led right up to the back of the trailer. It looked and sniffed around and actually swung a foot up into the trailer, but immediately withdrew it. Then the struggle ensued. She pulled backward, but couldn't go anywhere because of the way that I had her belayed. My strategy is to gently gain an inch of rope, relax the horse, and let it see that the best way to releave the pressure on her pole is to move forward. But no amount of cajoling would get her to relax. There was a good deal of struggling and bucking going on. Finally, I had Deb take the lead rope and called the sawyer over to link arms with me so that we could push the horse forward from the rear while position ourselves on each side to avoid being kicked. We moved her forward, but her front feet remained down. Then the boarding facility owner lifted one foreleg into the trailer, and the filly obliged by lifting the other into the trailer as well, but was still sitting back with stiff legs and would not move in. So the sawyer and I started lifting.

Our sawyer friend is about five feet tall in his boots, but is built like a tank, and we managed to lift the hind end of that horse up about four inches off the ground, but not high enough to get it into the trailer. And there we stood with the horse essentially sitting in our linked arms, feet suspended in mid air, but not high enough to move forward and up into the trailer.

I can't remember what exactly happened next, but everyone watching started to laugh at our suspended dilemma. I think that my partner and I gave each other a look and must have relaxed enough for the horse's feet to touch the ground. The new noise of crowd cackling must have been enough to scare the bejeebers out of the filly and make it jump right up into the trailer to get away. We quickly slammed the door. Now, at least, it was in with Deb, and she unhooked the lead from the halter. She then beat a hasty retreat as we cracked open the rear door.

The ride home was uneventful. The horse did not go wild, and it unloaded into our barn without problem.

Since then, she has proven to be a very mellow girl. Deb, in her usual imaginative way, named her Mustang Sally. Every night we let it out free in the arena to roam and explore, and she comes right up to us to be caught and led back into her stall. She doesn't even mind much when Bob, our Shitzu/Dachshund pup, barks its fool head off at it.

I sure wish that I knew what Bob was saying to that horse. Someday I am going to learn Japanese and find out.

Why Japanese?

No. Not because Shitzu's speak Japanese.

It's because the Japanese have invented a translation machine for dogs. No fooling. It is called the Bowlingual Translator. It is a small transmitter that links to the collar of the dog. When the dog barks, a signal is sent to a hand held translator that interrprets the message. It then shows Japanese language phrases to fit the emotional state, such as "I am sad." "I want to play." "I am super angry, and I am going to explode!" By golly, I'd pop for that one if I only knew how to read Japanese.

What's that? You don't believe me...................again?

Check it out:

My sources say that it is selling through the woof!

The Worm Turns

2009-05-19T07:38:00.000-07:00

October 3, 02

I suppose everyone has their moments. This week it was Deb's turn. She's always planning and scheming and wanting to build something. In an attempt to save money, Deb swung a deal with the guy that runs the local sawmill to provide her with a bunch of rough cut construction lumber in exchange for two Clydesdale/Shire foals to be used as a hitch team. The sawyer has had his eye on Dolly (our Clydesdale mare) for years now, wanting to breed her to his neighbor's Shire stallion. Because Clydesdale stallions are few and far between (in fact, nonexistent) in the North Woods, I consented. So he loaded Dolly in the trailer and shipped her up to her neighbor's pasture. This was to be a natural, hands-off breeding. It was to be Dolly's first blind date.

We got a phone call about a week later, telling us that Dolly must have come into heat and the stallion took an aggressive interest. But before the match could be consummated, Dolly had kicked the stallion square in the head and split his face deep enough to require stitches. But the Shire owner agreed to keep her on for another cycle to give her another chance.

Then Monday night, up drives our sawyer friend pulling a stock trailer with Dolly in it. Evidently she had started jumping fences and wreaking more havoc. The sawyer and Shire owner decided that it was time for her to go.

She unloaded and walked with me on lead just as calm as could be and was happy to be home. She got pretty scratched and bit up in the experience, and I don't know whether she has been bred or not. Maybe she actually picked up on the verbal training that I used to give her while grooming her and messing with her. It was the same talk that I tried to drive home to my daughtrs about what they should do if a similar situation arose on any of their dates. I used to worry about Dolly because once in a while, a neighbor's quarter horse stallion would appear in our pasture. She behaved perrfectly.

Then Deb volunteered to take care of a little mini horse belonging to a neighbor because their daughter was sick and would be in the hospital for weeks. Our neighbor was supposed to lead the pony down to our place on Sunday, while my wife was working. I waited and waited. Finally, the neighbor drove up and said that she had just spent all morning trying to lead that horse down the road and she couldn't get it to budge. She was in tears and beside herself. She told me that I'd have to bring the trailer to get her.

Well, heck. That horse isn't much bigger than our Golden Retriever. So I took a long lead rope down, caught the pony, and led her home just fine and gently using a butt rope (a rope clipped to her halter, then wrapped around her hind end and up to her head again so that you pull her butt forward instead of tugging on her head).

I put her in with Baaabette and Baaaboo, the Pygmy goat Baaah Family, and she did just fine until my wife wanted to catch her and move her into a stall the next day. She would not be caught, though. So I was assigned the job. But she ran from me now, too.

I had to resort to the strategy that I used to use on a stubborn mule I had to catch one time. The trick is to get down on all fours and start grazing. Seeing you with your head down and hearing the sound of tearing grass seems to have an amazing calming effect on skittish hard-to-catch equines. I was able to move right up to her and eventually halter her without problem.

My only worry now is that the procedure previously outlined for removing grass stains from textiles will also work on teeth and gums. I wonder what banana oil tastes like.

4-H Fair, Wise Men, and Goose Carving

2009-05-18T18:33:00.000-07:00

September 26, 02

Last spring, Debra had volunteered to assist the 4-H leader in teaching kids to work with horses and show them at halter. There were seven girls with various levels of previous experience. It all came to fruition last weekend at the Forest County Fair, the last, and probably smallest fair of the year. By Thursday night when I got home, all of the horses had been bathed, manes banded and/or braided, and tails braided and wrapped. Their coats were so slick, a rider would have slid off like water on a duck's back.

Friday morning at the crack of dawn, I was assigned to get up early to claim stalls and transport horses. I had eight horses to transport, so it took four round trips. All went without a glitch. Deb wanted to fulfill her lifelong dream of camping out with her animals at the fair, so I swept out the horse trailer as thoroughly as any man should be expected to do, and set her up a cot with blankets, sleeping bag, lantern, books, magazines, candy, and a cooler full of soda. When I showed her, she seemed to be truly touched. But the next morning I found that everything had been transferred into the trailer's tack room. Apparently I had neglected to use air freshener when I set her up in the horse compartment.

The show went without problem, and the girls walked away with fistfuls of ribbons and were happy.

This is the one event where you see a lot of local people of similar ilk once a year. Apparently, word had spread about me. I got cornered by the man that has staged the annual Living Nativity in Crandon for many years. I guess that it's quite a show, with markets and soldiers and beggars... the whole scene. Anyway, hemming and hawing did not suffice to get me out of agreeing to be a Wise Man. Evidently they have been searching for years to find one, so I finally agreed for the purpose of authenticating the scene. After all, I would be a natural at it. With quite a bit of fast talking, I was also able to finally convince the guy that I should bring Kookamunga as well. We shook hands on it and parted. I was pretty proud of my negotiating skills.

A few minutes after that, I saw the guy guffawing with my wife, though, and went to join the fun. But I stopped short when I heard Deb say, "See, I told you that strategy would work! I knew you could get that camel for the event." I'd been bamboozled again. Darn that woman.

The good part of the fair for me, though, was being introduced to two new breeds of animals that I had never seen before. One was a miniature Scottish Highland cow. This one was all furry with big eyes, huge ears, a wet nose and a friendly disposition. It looked like a stuffed toy. I think I'll get a couple of those guys. This one was not for sale, though. What was for sale, but back on the guy's farm was a Curly Bashkir. Have you eveer seen a horse with curly hair? These critters are covered top to bottom with curly hair. I haven't had a chance to go buy the horse yet, but pictures of them are interesting. I'm sure that Deb won't mind taking care of a few more critters while I'm off writing.

Then on Sunday, my brother came to visit for a few days for the first time in a couple of years. I took advantage of the situation and had him help me separate out the camel, horses and steers from the heifers. None of our horses are trained cutting horses, so we each had to settle on flapping our hats and whistling and hollering while straddled over broomsticks. After several hours of working up a big sweat and growing hoarse, Kookamunga finally got tired of chasing us around, so the cows stopped chewing their cud, stood up and gladly sauntered into their respective corrals. Who needs cutting horses, anyway?

Then it was time to go pick up a bull from the neighbor's house. The owner mentioned that we might want to remove the dividing partition in the horse trailer before we move the bull, so we did. However, we failed to measure the length of the bull prior to the project. The owner told us that the bull wasn't mean or anything, but warned us not to get him riled and angry. Neither my brother, nor I had moved a bull before, but could not for the life of us, figure out how to fold a big, long-bodied bull in such a way that he would fit into the trailer without raising its ire. We had no choice, though, and finally, after much prodding and pushing and sailor talk, got him stuffed in and the doors shut.

It was a loud, jolting ride home. I had no idea that a truck with all of that horse power in its engine could be bucked around so much by one squirming, kicking, banging animal trapped in a trailer. Once we got him home it was simply a matter of parking the truck in the pasture with the heifers, both of us climbing up on the roof of the trailer, and having brother hold my legs while I dangled down and unlatched the door. The bull exploded out of the back of the trailer, all steam and rage. It was not unlike opening one of those cans with a spring snake in it. I had no idea how I was going to get him back in that trailer by myself without a cattle chute after its service was performed.

Later that night, it was time to relax, and I started asking my brother about how his duck carving hobby was progressing. This is something that he has been doing for quite some time now, and is getting ribbons for his work. Living in the city, however, he doesn't get a chance to observe the real thing up close and personal. So I decided to go out in the dark and try to catch a goose to bring in the house for his detailed inspection. I was hoping that the geese would be like the chickens setting on their roost at night and easy to catch. No such luck. It was a chase. All squawks and hisses and flapping wings. Fortunately their bellies are white so I could see where they were. Finally, I made a diving tackle and caught one.

I took it into the house tucked under my arm, and after I had someone put the four barking, leaping dogs up behind closed doors, the goose settled down in my lap. There are feather patterns on a goose that I didn't know existed. My brother took close notice of where the folded wing tips ended in relation to the tail, and was pointing out the cape pattern on its back, when all of a sudden the goose let loose with a huge stream of what I can only describe as rank, foul, canned spinach. I have never waited and watched, but I always see pellets in the yard. This is a form that may never have previously been reported. It splashed everything within a seven food radius. Fortunately, Deb was upstairs, but Louise was tucked in for the night in her hospital bed in the living room, and started hollering, "Get that goose out of here. It stinks. You ought to be shot for bringing that thing in the house..." and on and on. So I took it back out, and went through a roll of paper towels cleaning up the mess and a drawer full of candles were lit to calm Louise down. Thank goodness Deb didn't come down through any of this.

The good thing is that next time my brother carves a goose walking across a marshland scene, that's another little detail that he can include.

I'm getting too old for this.

Question

2009-05-18T16:15:00.000-07:00

Should I place photos on this blog? Or are word pictures enough? You're opinion matters to me. Thanks.

The Dog-Horse and Banana Oil

2009-05-18T05:32:00.000-07:00

September 19, 02

Normally, no matter where I go, I have three dogs racing and jumping around my feet (and a cat draped across my neck coming along for the ride). I'm apparently not paying enough attention to our Golden Retriever, Riley, though. He has invented an unusual new attention grabber.

He is my second Golden, and I have come to the conclusion that Golden Retrievers are exceedingly handy with their noses. When they want attention, they poke, nudge, prod or kick you with their nose, then stare you down with those big brown eyes, and proceed to attempt telepathic communication while fanning dust bunnies across the floor with their tails. All of this is normal behavior.

This past week, Riley has adapted a new tactic. I can't take ten steps across a room without him coming up behind me, wedging his head between my legs, so all of a sudden I have a dog head protruding from my anatomy where there shouldn't be one. Now this isn't all that bad when he decides to walk right along with me. It is not unlike riding a horse bareback without reins. But lately he has discovered that he can bring me to a screeching halt (and it's not my heels that are screeching) by throwing his head upward to look at me while assuming a sitting position, thereby providing an impassable post suddenly placed in the most effective position to cease any forward progress in the lower part of my body. My upper torso seems to continue in a downward arc, though. Tain't cute folks!

Well, after one too many repetitions of this move when I got home from work one day, I decided that what he needed was a good wrestle/romp in the grass. So we all went out and rolled and played like puppies for a good hour.

Upon coming back into the house, Deb took one look at me and reacted, in what seemed to me to be an overly chagrined manner, at the new green stains appearing on the elbows, knees, shoulders and rump of my office clothing. I guess I had forgotten to change into my barn clothes for the romp, so I was in the doghouse once again.

To make amends, I needed to demonstrate that grass stains were no big deal and could easily be removed. So I started searching the Internet again and found that my timing was incredibly fortuitous. The textile experts at Cornell University had just posted their laboratory-tested details on removing 250 different stains (from adhesive tape to wax crayon and wine) with products that can be found in most grocery stores or pharmacies (http://www.human.cornell.edu/units/txa/extension/removingstains.pdf).

So I copied down the recipe for grass stains and smugly presented it to Deb, thereby proving that she had totally over-reacted, and that it was no big deal.

For those of you who find yourselves in similar trouble, I present the Cornell University solution to removing grass stains:

Blot first with banana oil (amyl acetate), then blot with detergent solution and flush with water; blot with ammonia solution and flush with water; blot with vinegar solution and flush; sponge with alcohol, blot and flush; remove final traces with bleach solution as many times as it takes, flushing with water after each application; apply vinegar solution to remove excess chlorine, then flush with water.

They say that this should work most of the time, especially if the stain is fresh.

Easy right? I must have been sweating as I watched her read this recipe because she very politely took an armfull of grass-stained clothes and dabbed my face with it from across the room.

This makes the procedure for removing skunk scent seem like a breeze!

Swashbucklers and Moving Targets

2009-05-17T18:23:00.000-07:00

September 12, 02

Deb and I took a whirlwind trip down to see House-on-the-Rock for the first time, while her brother and sister came up from St. Louis to stay with Louise. For those of you who have been expressing off-the-mark comments about a certain Scientific Writer's eccentric nature, I highly recommend that you visit this tourist attraction to find out what eccentric really means.

It was nice to get away, but of course while we were gone, the water stopped flowing out of our taps at the house. The one demand placed upon Deb's brother and sister was not to go into the basement. Remnants of multiple floods still mold and fester down there. But, with no water in the house, and her brother being a specialized plumber (commercial sprinkler fitter), the call of duty was too great and the demand was disobeyed. Aaaargh! I told them that they could have and should have dipped the green water out of the numerous stock tanks that abound on our place to wash up with, but noooo... he just had to identify and fix the problem. Well, I guess that is one less chore I had to do when I got back, and it freed up time for much more important experiments.

I found a source for Tanglefoot in a squeeze tube. So I got out a 6-inch flower pot, spray painted it bright blue, and layered a spiral of Tanglefoot around the body of it, topped off by what I hoped would be an enticing landing platform for pesky flies. Then I searched desks, the barn, and all of my tool and tackle boxes for an appropriate rubberband. This search took hours. Finally, Deb pointed to the doorknob leading down to the cellar that serves as her rubber band storage device. How ingenious. Harumph.

Anyway after mounting a rubber chin strap on the flower pot, I took it in and proudly presented it to Louise, who showed more movement and energy in shooing me away with her swatter than I have seen her display since her accident.

I couldn't let my work go to waste, so I offered it to Deb to wear. I married my wife for her looks, but not the one she gave me then. So it was left to me to have all the fun.

I donned the hat and provided the requisite moving target by roaming our stable, pasture, chicken house, kitchen, basement and woodlot. Results: Not one bug of any kind caught. It must work only for ambush flies like deer flies, but not stable flies, face flies, house flies, fruit flies, cluster flies, ladybugs, gnats or mosquitoes. I hope the Tanglefoot stays sticky until next year's deer fly season. I'm not ready to give up yet.

Kookamunga is starting to look like a Chesapeake Retriever. He is growing his winter coat and is now covered with short curly hair. Tuesday night we put him out with the cows for the first time, and he thought he was in heaven. Playmates at last! I'd be willing to wager that you never saw so much galumphing and bucking and roaring and drooling from a lot full of camel and cows. Our beef this fall may be a bit leaner in the end.

On another front, I think that maybe Deb is softening to the idea of a monkey. At the annual Labor Day sale at Foster & Smith, she bought a strong wire Gorilla cage (honest, look at their catalog) that was marked 90% off. That surely must be a hopeful sign. Since Louise refused to wear the flower pot, the first thing that I will teach that monkey is to wield a fly swatter and smack anything that lands on her. That should provide her long-desired and well-deserved relief from her fly swatting duties. .... On second thought, maybe I should teach it some fencing skills at the same time, just in case those two decide to duel it out. I think that if and when the time comes, I'll name the monkey "Old Swashbuckler".

I'm ready to foster a monkey for Helping Hands whenever they are.

Party Hats

2009-05-17T07:06:00.000-07:00

September 5, 02

My three-day Labor Day weekend was spent serving as an attendant for my 84 yo mother-in-law, Louise, while my wife took a day off and then worked two extended 12 hr shifts in the ER.

Louise seems to be recovering well from her broken hip, but still can't put any weight on it. She spends so much time sleeping that she sometimes has a hard time distinguishing reality from dream, especially as she wakes up. Once she wanted to hop out of bed, make it, then go into the kitchen to whip up a meatloaf and mashed potatoes. No can do, darlin'.

So she is restricted to lying in the hospital bed, moving to the recliner, or perching on the commode. That leaves reading and TV and one other activity at which she is becoming unbelievably adept.... swatting flies with her swatter.

On our farm, flies are constant companions and they drive her crazy. She can be laying seemingly sound asleep with swatter in hand, and without opening her eyes, obliterate a winged intruder. The first time I saw that, I couldn't believe it. So I picked up a fluffy goose feather out in the yard, and snuck in while she was sleeping, and lightly tickled her arm.

SMACK! Boy did I get stung. And she didn't even wake up.

Well, to relieve her torture, I decided to see if I could find a new method for trapping flies. Fly paper is a mess, and the liquid fly traps stink too much to have in the house.

Then I ran across an article about a guy with a farm in Northeastern Ohio that got sick of being bitten by deer flies while out on his mower. His trick: take a bright blue plastic flowerpot, covered with sticky material (Tanglefoot) and suspend it upside-down on a pole, waving in the wind. The results were amazing: "The deer flies didn't even look at me - they were all buzzing around that darn flowerpot." Deer rflies are ambush predators. They wait for prey to walk by rather than actively searching for it, so they are highly attracted to movement.

Then a guy down at the University of Florida's North Florida Research and Education Center tried to figure out which shape worked best. After numerous experiments, the trap that wooed the most deer flies proved to be a 6-inch flowerpot painted bright blue, capturing as many as 30 deer flies in a one-minute test -- 35-50% higher than for any other shape. An assistant discovered that the traps also worked when attached to a baseball cap and trolled by the hat's wearer.

Now all I have to do is find some Tanglefoot and convince Louise to wear a blue flowerpot on her head. Come to think of it, I might just make party hats for all the cows, horses and the camel while I'm at it. I don't think that the neighbors would be surprised at the sight any more.

When I sat down and told Deb and Louise about my discovery, they refused to be guinea pigs themselves. Louise said that she'll stick with her swatter. I just nodded and told her about my observation that she could even swat flies (and me) in her sleep.

She just asked, "What makes you think I was sleeping? With you around, who needs a pesky monkey?"

O.K. No more goose feathers.

Helping Hands

2009-05-16T19:27:00.000-07:00

August 29, 02

It's been a rough week on the farm, especially for my mother-in-law, Louise.

Her pacemaker started wearing through her skin, which led to surgery to have it repositioned under her pectoral muscle. That resulted in quite a lot of pain, which created the demand for pain meds, which caused constipation, which triggered the use of laxatives, which caused dehydration, which exacerbated her orthostatic hypotension. And in a resulting morning rush to the bathroom, she took a tumble and shattered her femur, big time, resulting in complicated orthopedic surgery with pins, plates, and bone grafts, all ending in a return home for rehabilitation in a hospital bed in our living room. Now she is going to need pretty constant care and assistance for the next few months. My wife has decided to stay home during her recovery.

There must be some good in all of this.

When Louise first came to our home, she was totally bed-ridden, catheterized, disoriented, and was told that she would never walk again. It sounded pretty grim. We were able to get her up and going again, though, so that until this most recent incident, she was doing laundry, washing dishes, cooking meals, and this year canned some bread-and butter pickles that she wants to enter in the county fair along with the best of her African violets. I attribute a big part of her recovery to the fact that we had her bottle raising a pygmy goat and hatching out chicken eggs in the house last winter. Right now we have no babies to raise, though, and the chickens have slowed way down on their egg production.

After Louise was all settled into her hospital bed this time, one of our friends came over to see how things were going. She had gone out and bought a stuffed monkey for Louise, explaining that she had seen a show about a quadriplegic person that had a helper monkey to help fetch things and feed him, etc.

Wow! Light bulbs started flashing in my mind's eye. What a great idea! Why mess with a stuffed one, when you can have the real thing? (Don't tell anyone, but I've always wanted a monkey.)

Anyway, I looked on the Internet and there was the answer: Helping Hands--Monkey Helpers for the Disabled. And they are seeking foster families with one person in the home not working. These families can apply to raise and train a capuchin (organ grinder) monkey for a few years for eventual use in the disabled helping hands program. They explain that raising a young monkey is similar to raising a human child, and requires nearly as much time and patience. Foster parents are expected to bathe and diaper their monkeys on a daily basis. Young monkeys are quite active. They run around exploring their homes, knocking things down. (With a nursing background, my wife loves to clean... I'm pretty sure, anyway.) As with human children, an adult must be there to supervise and intervene at all times if necessary.

In fact, not too long ago, my wife mentioned that she was interested in fostering a child. "Wouldn't it be neat to raise a child around all of our animals?" she asked.

Having fostered a difficult child long ago, and with daughters up and out of the roost now, I wasn't terribly keen on the idea. But fostering a monkey would be perfect!

It would fulfill my wife's desire to care for a foster child.

It would give my mother-in-law a goal in life to get the monkey trained to eventually assist her and others even less fortunate than her in fetching things.

Bob would have a playmate more his own size.

And I would have my revenge on the cats.

Now I just need to sell Deb and Louise on the idea. Hopefully, selling them on the camel was just a warm-up pitch.

Stay tuned.

A Sleepless Night in the North Woods

2009-05-16T11:38:00.000-07:00

August 22, 02

After the last farm report on mosquitoes and West Nile Virus, I received word from a colleague at the Research Foundation, that the newest and best mosquito repellent is catnip oil. She claimed that she had heard that it works even better than repellents containing DEET.

I checked on the Internet, and sure enough, last year at the American Chemical Society meeting, some investigators from Iowa State University had found that nepetalactone, the oil in catnip that gives it a distinctive odor, is a highly effective mosquito repellent. They put 20 mosquitoes in a two-foot-long tube, half of which was treated with catnip oil. After 10 minutes, only four remained on the treated side. In a similar test with DEET, almost half remained on the treated side.

Well, you just don't plant a seed like that and expect it not to grow in curious soil. I thought to myself, "Heck, I have a small stand of catnip in the corner of our garden, and I spent 20 years in research extracting lipids from tissues. I have got to give this a try.

So I went to my wife's herbal books to see how people normally go about extracting essential oils from herbs at home. The advice: Don't even think about it. It takes a ton of material and specialized chemical apparatus like retorts and condensers and specialized stills.

Baaah! I figured that I could just find some way to modify the old Folch chloroform/methanol extraction procedure that I used to use every day. The problem was that I don't have access to chloroform any more, so I had to try to find another suitable nonpolar solvent that is adequately volatile to be air evaporated. How about WD40? It seems to either volatilize or soak in pretty rapidly. I decided to try that.

Next, I needed more catnip than I had in the corner of our garden. So I rounded up all of our old catnip-filled cat toys and emptied them out.

WD40 and a small pile of chopped up fresh and dried catnip, when mixed together make: ......a mess.

OK. Plan B. First I needed to find more catnip. I weent to Rhinelander to the Foster & Smith outlet store to either buy a bunch of cheap cat toys, or ask if they sold bulk catnip. And, lo and behold, as I was browsing the aisles, I ran across a bottle of "Doctors Foster & Smith High Potency Catnip Mist". The label read, "Pure catnip extract ... formulated by our veterinarians ... made by extracting the essence of catnip from the highest quality leaves. These leaves come from the finest catnip Nepeta cataria grown in the world. ... harvested at the peak of their potency and freshness, then air dried and crushed in the extracting process. This produces the most aromatic catnip scent available without synthetics."

Well, hot dang! Ready made. So I bought it.

Now for the experiment.

Last week, my daughter and her boyfriend came for a visit and to announce that they are getting married. Putting my new-to-be son-in-law to the test, I decided that we would all spray one arm with the magic mist and leave the other arm as a control. Then we sat outside in the pasture as the sun set, and remained there well into the darkening hours. Sure enough, the sprayed arm remained unbitten, while the unsprayed arm developed itchy welts. Eureka! Maybe I can try it on the horses and camel.

The only problem? One adverse side reaction.

None of us slept very well that night because our three house cats would not stop jumping on us in bed and using our sprayed arms as scratching posts. The cat that chose to attack me was our black cat with the white chin and bib. My wife named it Bibs because of its white chest patch. From now on, though, I call it Bibs because it comes on like a Biblical Plague.

I don't know which is worse: Mosquito bites... or cat scratches from persistent pestering cats... or a daughter who is madder than a wet hen for giving her new fiance second thoughts.

Edgar Allen Poe and the Mayo Werewolves

2009-05-16T09:57:00.000-07:00

August 8, 02

After last week's story, one of my colleagues at work phoned and explained that farmers in Nebraska contend that chickens are for the freezer, not for hypnotizing. Another co-worker told me that my description of mesmerizing chickens is exactly what bird hunters do to train their dogs. They take a pheasant, tuck its head under its wing, rock it a few times and lay it down in some brush where it will stay until the Pointers find them. Then the hunter walks up, nudges the pheasant ever so gently and humanely with the tip of his boot, at which point the bird takes to the air.... and gets shot. So far I haven't had to resort to gunfire upon waking any of my chickens up, but....

We do have way too many roosters. We haven't culled out the boys from our crop of straight run hatchlings that we raised from eggs this winter. The poor hens are taking a beating. Not only that, but our three geese seem to find fulfillment in life by acting as the chicken yard sex police. Every time a hen gets mounted, the geese come charging, necks outstretched and squawking like a flock of Canadians (geese, that is) heading south for the winter.

All of this generally takes place under the bemused eyes of several crows. Do you remember when our economy was run by "trickle down" policy, whereby if you feed the horses enough grain, the sparrows at their feet will eventually get fed? These days it seems that the barnyard operates under "trickle up" economics, whereby if you feed the hens, geese, goats, sheep and camel enough grain and table scraps, the crows up above have some fine dining.

I see that crows in certain parts of the state (not unlike several of their human counterparts at the top of the economy) are dropping like flies. I walked into work this week, and one of the researchers said, "Follow me." He led me through several code-locked security doors, and finally into a cold room. There, stacked on carts and in fume hoods were stacks of dead crows wrapped in plastic grocery bags (as in that seemingly universal modern phrase heard all across America these days, "Paper or plastic?" Whichever I feel like choosing that day, when the cashier gives me the total, I respond by asking her "Do you want paper or plastic?"... the other seemingly universal meaning of the phrase.)

Anyway, my research friend is being sent dead crows from all over the state to be tested for West Nile Virus. He said that there are confirmed cases in the state now. Not quite as bad as Louisiana yet, but.... as the little girl in Poltergeist said, "They're here..."

I guess that I should not mind the crows in our chicken yard serving as sentinels for the virus. When they start dropping over dead, I had better keep all of the critters inside the barn at night to protect them from the mosquitoes. Come to think of it, I guess that I should also make sure that the stickers on the mosquitoes that I slap on me are all pointing away so that I don't get injected. Anyway, will I ever again scorn the crows?.... Nevermore. Nevermore.

Finally, speaking of tales of horror, another colleague pointed out an article to me that confirmed a "tall tale" that I had told her previously about ther origins of the Werewolf myth. It seems that in Central Europe years ago, a number of persons had a disease called porphyria. In this syndrome, compounds called porphyrins are deposited in the skin and teeth. These compounds cause photosensitivity, so the victims avoid the daylight. People with porphyria also usually suffer from hypertrichosis (an abnormal hair growth that can occur in patches or all over the body). Porphyrins are also fluorescent, so that they emit red light whedn stimulated by ultraviolet light.

Anyway there was a point in history when you could roam the night streets in Central Europe when the moon was full and reflecting lots of ultraviolet light. On your stroll it was not uncommon to pass people with excessive facial hair strolling in the moonlight. If they smiled at you, their teeth would glow blood red... hence the story of the Werewolf. Don't believe me? The best example I have ever seen is in an article entitled "Childhood Porphyrias" in the most recent issue of the Mayo Clinic Proceedings 2002;77:825-836.

Chicken Stunts

2009-05-16T08:12:00.000-07:00

August 1, 02

My wife finally allowed Crazy Ray back on our property. (He was the guy that was with me when I bought the camel.) He and I were standing around among the goats, sheep, geese and chickens admiring Kookamunga, when Ray said, "Ever hypnotize a chicken?"

I had heard that Al Gore could hypnotize a chicken, but put it in the back of my mind when it became obvious that it didn't get him enough votes to win the last election.

"Heck no, but I'm always ready to learn."

So I chased down my favorite rooster, Brewster, which didn't take much effort since I like to hold him on my lap while watching an occasional television program. He seems to like it too. So he allows me to catch and carry him around pretty much at will.

I held Brewster and Ray started twirling his finger around a few inches in front of its beak. That didn't seem to do anything, though.

"Huh! Something's wrong with that chicken. Go catch another one."

No luck with the next one either.

So Ray says, "I don't know what's wrong. My Dad used to take a stick and draw a line on the ground and make the chicken look at it. I could never get it to work, though."

So we got a stick and scratched a line in the gravel of the drive. I put the chicken down on its side placing its beak at the end of the line so that it was staring directly down it going off into the distance. When I let go, the chicken didn't move a muscle for ten or fifteen second. Then it just got up and strolled away. That seemed to sort of work. Enough to intrigue me into going on the Internet to learn more.

I learned that the phenomenon is called "tonic immobility" by animal behaviorists, and it is actually used as a stress test in the poultry industry. If a chicken has been put into a state of fear during handling, the immobility can last hours. The less stressed the happier the chicken. I guess that my chickens are just too happy.

I also learned that you can put the chicken on its back and rub its belly to immobilize it. I tried that one and it seemed to work for as long as I was willing to hold it. I always suspected that a chicken had a lizard brain. It must be true since rubbing bellies is supposed to work on alligators too.

When my mother-in-law found out what we had been up to, she said, "Well, you didn't have to go onto the computer to learn how to hypnotize a chicken. All you do is just tuck its head under its wing and spin it in a circle in front of you about three times, and it will be out."

So I tried that with one of our other roosters. I tucked his head up his armpit and held it there, drew a circle in the air with it three times while saying, "One. Two. Three. Alakazam. Fall asleep, or you're chicken Spam." I then layed him down on the ground and he stayed. And stayed. And stayed. Finally, I pulled his head out from under his wing. His pupils dilated from a constricted state. And he just strollled off calmly as though nothing had happened.

So now I know how to hypnotize a chicken, but the question is what ideas dare I plant in their little minds?

What's next? While doing my internet search, I also found that llamas are supposed to become hypnotized if you gently rub thier upper gums between their split lips. A llama is nothing but a South American camel, and I know that you cam immobilize a difficult horse for shoeing or vaccinating by running a stud chain up under his upper lip.

Well, I've tried and tried. So far, though, Kookamunga just raises his head out of reach every time I stick my finger up his gums. And Crazy Ray wants to know why I am so darned set on brushing the camel's teeth.

I think I'll be working on my Master's of Mesmerism for a while.

The Smallest Critter on the Farm

2009-05-16T00:32:00.001-07:00

July 25, 02

Normally, I'm not a little dog fan, but our neighbors ended up with an unexpected litter of puppies this spring, and my wife decided to get her mother a lap dog. We got the pick of the litter. It is a Shitzu/Miniature Dachshund mix, which means that it is a furry, long-bodied, low rider with hair around his eyes in big dishes like an owl. He has half a nose and stubby legs that seem like optional accessories. He has a brown/black, almost brindle coat with a light under down ending in dark tips. He fits quite conveniently in my jacket pocket when I go to do barn chores on chilly mornings.

It turns out that he is really quite the clown and my mother-in-law gets a pretty big kick out of him. He piles up toys in one spot under the dining room table, and then sleeps in them resembling that scene of E.T. in the closet among the stuffed animals.

His favorite toy is a small plastic butter dish with a lid on it. He chases that thing around like a hockey puck. The other day out in the barn, my wife gave him a butter dish with water in it. He took one drink then grabbed the far side of the cup in his jaws and carried it off, succeeding in spilling it all over his chest and the lane. At the far end of the lane he dropped it, looked around, then grabbed the near side of the butter dish in his jaws, which succeeded in totally enclosing his head in a little yellow helmet. He then came racing back down the lane only to smash into an open stall door. After pulling his head out of the dish, he did a whole body shake, and looked all around with a look that said, "I meant to do that, you know."

He plays like a big dog. He's all jaws and pin teeth. Our Golden Retriever, Riley, lies down on the floor on his back so that the pup can maul him. Our Aussie, Sprocket, tolerates him for the most part, but doesn't play much. Riley and the puppy will get going chasing each other. The puppy will make a dive at Riley as he goes flying by, and the pup usually ends up with a mouthful of yellow fleece. Once in a while, though, he will get hold of the tip of Riley's tail and hold on for dear life. The puppy looks like a water skier zipping across our wooden floors until they reach the end of the kitchen where Riley makes a sharp U-turn at which point the pup goes crashing into the wall. Undaunted the pup keeps coming back for more.

He definitely has a big dog attitude and doesn't seem afraid of anything. More than once he has come too close to our goats and sheep, and has been sent rolling like tumbleweed in a desert wind.

Our biggest problem was coming up with a name for him. First, we decided to let my mother-in-law name him. All that she could come up with was "Tiny". Deb and I thought that was a pretty ho-hum name, so the naming chore went to Deb. She started calling him "Little Bit". But I still didn't like that. Then she came up with "Ein Bischen", which is German for a little bit. I didn't much care for that one either.

Then one day, I was watching the puppy yelping at one of our cats perched on an unreachable shelf. It was a surprisingly loud bark for a dog that size. The cats mostly just glare down at him in disdain. That made me think of a perfect name for him: Bob..... Bob Barker. He had been given to us free of charge. The price was right. And he is a big barker. The name stuck.

Surprisingly, I found that I like Bob so much that I was thinking of contacting the neighbor again and getting another one just like him, so that he would have a playmate more his own size. My wife said, NO though, and threatened that if I do get another dog, she will banish it to the paddock with my camel. Well, I haven't decided what to do yet, but if I decide to be bold enough to actually get one, I've come up with a name for it. I'm going to call him King...... King Arfer of the Camel Lot.

A Wet Camel

2009-05-15T15:07:00.000-07:00

July 18, 02

The weather was hot last week while I was on my working vacation on the farm. It was good weather for putting up hay as long as I didn't sweat on it too much. Anyway, after spending a few days on the tractor out in the field, I decided to see if I could pull some of the wool out of Kookamunga's coat to provide him some relief from the heat. It came off by the fistful. I pulled about eight grocery bags of wool off his hide. I don't think that he'll have any problem keeping his body warm this winter.

For being a hot weather animal, Kook sure enjoys cooling off. He is the only critter in our menagerie that stands with both front legs in the water trough splashing water up onto his belly. On seeing this, I took the hose out to refill the tank and discovered that he relished being hosed off from neck to tail. He made it clear that his head was off limits, though.

Having been enlightened with this new insight as to his potential affinity for water, I decided to walk him down to our nearest boat landing to see if he would take a swim. Unfortunately, a grandpa was there with two grandkids just about ready to push off from the dock for an evening fishing trip. I guess that it was a good indication that the Joe Camel ads hadn't hit this new generation, because the kids had no idea what in the world that animal was and they seemed a bit beyond ill at ease. They rapidly crawled to Gramps' end of the boat for protection. Gramps, of course, was trying to play it cool and knowledgable, explaining that this had to be the legendary North Woods Hodag that comes to eat kids in the early evening. Not to worry, though. He would protect them.

While putting on the brave act, I noticed that Gramps seemed to be scrambling to get the boat launched in an awfully big hurry. In confirmation of my suspicions, once the boat was pushed off from the dock and he went to start the motor, he pulled the string right off the starter.

I was trying to be polite up to that point and keep old Kookamunga at a distance so that he wouldn't take a bite out of those kids, thereby proving Gramps knew what he was talking about with his positive identification of the huge lurking creature. But Kook was getting impatient and the lake was beckoning. So I led him to the water's edge not knowing for certain what Kook had in mind. He waded right in with no hesitation.

At that point, I think that Gramps started cursing at the engine, but I'm not quite sure whether the epithets were being directed at it or me or Kook. Gramps started ranting at the kids to have them start paddling with their hands to get them away from the dock into deeper water. Kook and I went in even deeper.

Just then, a second truck pulled up with a young couple obviously wanting to launch their boat as well. Being the considerate person that I am, I started tugging on Kook's lead to get him out of the water so that we would not be in the way.

Now if you can picture the Loch Ness monster with a snaky head sticking out of the water being trailed by a hump protruding some distance behind, you will have a fairly good picture of what swimming camel looks like. I guess the site of an old man and two screaming little kids paddling a boat with their hands trying to get away, and the sight of a full grown man apparently being chased out of the water by the Loch Ness monster, or the mythical North Woods Hodag, or whatever the heck it might have been, was just too much for the passengers of the second car. I heard a muffled scream and watched as the truck spit rocks leaving the parking lot.

So, wetter but wiser, the next time I guess I'll have to try to find a different place to take Kook swimming.

Fear Factor

2009-05-15T08:05:00.000-07:00

June 27, 02

Something spooked a neighbor's horse just after I got home last week. The owners were gone and one of the kids from a farm down the road asked if I could come help catch it before it got in with the dairy cows.

I just happened to be in the process of pulling the 15th baby skunk out of our rhubarb patch and didn't want to let this one get away. I had just read a news release that Philadelphia was trapping and selling baby skunks for $250 each, and they were selling like hotcakes! On hearing this news I cringed at just having let 14 babies go in the woods.

With dollar signs in my eyes, and a skunk in hand, but a kid needing help with a rampaging horse, I ran to the truck to toss it in the pickup bed only to find that it was full of rolls of new fencing that I had neglected to unload. I knew that if I threw it in there, I'd have a heck of a time getting it out again, so I opened the front of the truck and tossed it in there. Where could it hide in there? Right?

We caught the horse after a small chase, and I went back to retrieve the skunk. I could not find it. Baby skunks don't exactly spray like the adults, but they certainly have a distinct odor that seems to be enhanced in warm confined spaces. The cab of the truck was beginning to reek, but there was no sign of a baby skunk. There are more hiding holes in the cab of a truck than there are in good Wisconsin baby lace Swiss cheese: up under the upholstery of the seats, under the dashboard, behind loose trim, under corners of floor mats, etc. It took three days before I recaptured that skunk and sent it off into the woods. I don't even want to think about the money that could have been had any more.

After that my wife decided that it was a good weekend for me to fix the chain on the manure spreader and clear the barn lot of a winter's worth of stall cleanings. Her hope was that I would replace my lingering rancid skunky stench with a more natural barnyard aroma in the process, I guess.

The timing was unfortunate for me, though. This week there was a huge hatch of "friendly flies". Last year the North Woods experienced an incredible infestation of forest tent caterpillars. According to the Minnesota DNR, in mid- to late- June, adult flies deposit live maggots on tent caterpillar cocoons. The maggots move into the cocoons, bore into the pupae and feed on them, which kills the developing caterpillars. After completing their feeding, the maggots drop to the ground, form their own pupal stages and remain dormant until the next summer.

Friendly flies (Sarcophaga aldrichi) resemble houseflies, but they are larger, slower and distinctly more bristly. They measure 6 to 12 mm long, are gray, have three black stripes on their thoraxes, and their abdomens are checkered. They drone persistently and swarm over everything. They don't bite, but they can soil things with their regurgitations. Unlike other flies, they can't be shoo'd away. They must be brushed off. Imagine one of those Fear Factor segments where a person is covered with spiders or bugs, and you have a pretty fair image of me working on the manure spreader and tractor. Ah, the joys of country life. I think I'd rather brush off snowflakes than flies and mosquitoes. Anyway, the barn lot got cleaned up to the point that the tractor overheated and the spreader chain broke again and wrapped around the drive gear.

And I had to drive the truck to work this week with the windows down so that my wife could have a usable mode of transportation.

Moral of the story: Greed stinks.

Shifting Time Frames

2009-05-15T06:50:00.000-07:00

June 20, 02

In the time interval between last week's skunk report and the current writing, I trapped two more adult skunks and 14 baby skunks. That seemed like quite a few in a relatively short period of time. The babies were like little kittens. I played with them for what I thought was minutes, but my wife claims was hours.

I also toured them around to all neighbors that had kids so that they could see them and pet them and experience a tiny bit of nature up close. Most adults that had been born and raised in the country up here said that they had foxes, or raccoons, or woodchucks as pets when they were kids, but nobody had skunks. They all assured me that skunks make great pets if descented, but they also assured me that they can't spray until they are at least a year old.

Upon relaying this information to the last family that I visited, they said that they would take four of the babies for the kids to play with for a while before deciding whether or not to keep them. Evidently, after I left, not ten minutes had passed before one of the kids received a direct hit at point blank range inside the house. Clothes were stripped and burned, windows were opened, and farmhouse evacuation procedures were executed. I never heard whether they remembered to pack out the skunk kits in midflight.

If you happen to hear of a family of Rainbow People living out in the forest surrounding Crandon, don't believe it. They are just some of my neighbors on a spontaneous outing. I am sure that time will pass quickly while they await return to their domicile (but it may be some time before I am allowed to darken their doorstep again).

Time got a little warped for me when I was playintg with Kookamunga Camel in the paddock this week, too. I was generally messing with him, trying to get him used to me picking up his feet and feeding him treats. I also plucked a bunch of wool out of his coat. We are saving it for carding and spinning. It is very soft, luxurious, tan wool. He is being really good about not biting or spitting.

Anyway, I was ready to end our session, and decided to leave the paddock by crawling between the boards of the fence rather than going through the gate. I bent down and got about a third of the way through the fence when Kook decided that he wasn't ready for me to leave yet. He snuck up behind me and pinned me down to the ground with his chest, which meant that he had to get down on his knees to do it. And then he just sat there. No biting, no spitting, and no kicking on Kook's part. I can't report that I was quite as well behaved, though. That is when time started warping a bit for me. The mind races, but time drags when you are all alone and have a camel lying on your back. After a length of time that only Einstein could define in terms of general relativity, the camel just got up and sauntered away. I walked up to him and asked him what that was all about, but he plead innocent ignorance. The big dummy.

From now on, I leave the paddock through the gate.

Recipe of the Week

2009-05-15T05:44:00.000-07:00

June 13, 02

Last week our neighbors were out walking and watched as my favorite quarter horse, Clyde, approached a skunk traveling across the pasture. My horse had his head down, ears perked, and was all innocent curiosity. Then the air around Clyde's face turned blue. He got it square between the eyes. That sent him prancing and bucking with his lips curled back in what they call the flehming response. The neighbors had a good chuckle, but I was none to pleased when I went to mess with him.

We had known for a while that a skunk had taken up quarters under our chicken coop, but live and let live. Right? Then we noticed that one of our geese had lost its eggs in the night. Then the weather turned warm, and my wife started gagging every time she opened the chicken coop door.

OK. It was high time to get rid of the skunks (and for me to make up for some recent acts that my wife had quite arbitrarily deemed as mistakes in judgement on my part). I would catch that skunk and absolve my good name. So I got out the live trap and stuffed some bread in it and set it outside the chicken coop Monday night.

Tuesday morning came and all I could think of was returning to the joys of writing clinical and scientific papers, so I blissfully left home for my office early without giving the trap another thought.

It didn't take long for the phone call to come. My wife discovered that I had successfully trapped the skunk, but far from being pleased, she wanted me to drop what I was doing and come get rid of it. I guess I hadn't thought about that part.

So I asked around the office, and was told that others had tried shooting skunks in live traps, but that didn't stop the skunks from signing their last testaments in their death throes. They said the best thing to do was to throw the trap in the river and drown the critter before taking it out. They didn't say how you were supposed to get close to the trap and get it to the river before the skunk took notice of your presence.

Well, I considered the drowning option, but my daughter in Montanas had just called me that weekend and related to me her story of nearly drowning when her kayak flipped on a squirrely, elevated eddy line in a flooded whitewater gorge in Montana. She had been literally sucked out of her boat and down into "the green room" where there isn't much light. After swimming and swimming, she still couldn't find the surface. She is also a scuba diver, and was trained to hold her breath for long periods in ememrgency situations. She had nearly passed the point of choking back her violent urge to ghasp when she finally broke the surface, got to the rock face of the gorge wall, and scratched herself up to a firm handhold to wait for a rescue. That was too close for comfort, and having been a whitewater boater myself, I could relate all too closely with her experience.

Could I put a poor skunk through the drowning experience? Naw. There must be another way.

By the time I got home, a couple of guys building fence for us had tried to throw a blanket over the trap, and in so doing, gave cause for everyone in the valley to close their windows and light some candles. That was the extent of their attempts. So now I faced a pungent trap half covered with a blanket.

Think. Think. Think.

Then I got it. I went to the barn and got out my old faithful can of tractor engine ether spray starting fluid. I slowly approached the trap and pulled the blanket over the entire thing, lifted a corner and emptied half the can. Then I waited. Then I peeked. The polecat was wide-eyed and looking at me, so I sprayed again and waited. There came a point that I thought that it was surely knocked out or overdosed, at which time I gently, but gingerly, picked up the trap, still covered, and moved it to the truck. I found a spot in some remote woods and slowly lifted the edge of the blanket enough to open the trap door. Well, out he came and "high tailed" it out of there. Unfortunately I was standing in the jet stream. Which brings me to the Recipe of the Week:

Go to th cupboard and find that you have no tomato juice (which never worked in the past anyway).

Then remember your college chemistry. Alkaline hydrogen peroxide (30% water, 6 M NaOH) is used to scrub hydrogen sulfide from waste gas streams in the laboratory, and it also works well for destroying excess thiols in dilute aqueous solutions. Skunk spray is composed mainly of low molecular weight thiols, so try a version of the alkaline hydrogen peroxide reagent:

1 qt 3% hydrogen peroxide
1/4 cup baking soda
1 tsp liquid soap

Use it for a sponge bath; rinse with tap water; and VOILA!

It actually works.

So much for Papa Skunk. Now for the Mama and her babies. Now that she has sen how it is done, I'm trusting that my wife will take care of them while I'm working. I just hope that she goes out and buys some more hydrogen peroxide before she attempts it. (Which reminds me. I left what was left in the jar on the rim of the bathtub. I hope she doesn't think it's shampoo. Oh well. I always wondered what it would be like to be married to a bleached blond).

Lessons Taught by a Camel

2009-05-15T05:08:00.000-07:00

June 6, 02

Camels don't gallop along with the horses, they sort of galumph... all legs, neck, flubber-hump and thunder. (Our sighting of this for the first time caused me quite a bit of concern that my mother-in-law and wife were beginning to show signs of Grave's disease -- primarily presenting with a cold sweat and exophthalmia. My wife is now reporting having had her first ever camel nightmare, but would not elucidate further.)
A very special camel loves to have his halter taken off.
A particularly stubborn camel does NOT like to have his halter put back on.
Camels have a surprising ability to easily and quickly wrap their jaws around a human knee.
Camels can bite HARD.
#5 actually proved to be a somewhat miraculous (albeit temporary) antidote to lingering muteness induced by botox injections of the vocal cords.

A Memorable Marital Moment

2009-05-14T18:48:00.000-07:00

May 29, 02

This Memorial Day weekend my wife worked in the Emergency Room all three days in 12 hour shifts.

While the cat's away.... Or so they say.

A buddy of mine and I were planning on going up to a "small" animal swap meet on Saturday. These are sales where farmers and hobbyists gather to sell their extra Spring livestock. The only thing that my wife said before she left for work was an emphatic "NO MORE ANIMALS!" I still like to go because all of the babies are neat to see and you never know what you might find.

We got there plenty early to be sure to have a shot at the good stuff. As we were sitting in the pickup watching folks unload, a truck with a stock trailer drove up and parked. We were in perfect position to watch it unload. The back trailer door on the left opened, and the guys started hauling out portable stock fence panels, setting them up in a ring around the end of the trailer. As they were doing so, the trailer was rocking pretty wildly.

"Jeez, that guy needs new springs," I said to my buddy.

When they got a corral built around the back of the trailer, and opened the other door. Out came a critter and it was love at first sight. It snaked its head out and let out a bellowing roar that penetrated my soul. It was a fully grown two and a half year old, eight foot tall, bull dromedary (one hump) camel.

"Aw, man. I gotta have it."

"Yeah, sure," says Crazy Ray.

"No, I'm serious."

"Deb's gonna kill you."

"Naw, she loves animals." And out I shot to start bonding.

After an hour of questions and dealings, we went back home to get our horse trailer and my family inheritance.

My buddy just said, "You know at first I thought you were nuts, but I gotta admit I kinda admire your guts."

After we arrived home, I spent the rest of the day leading the camel around the farm, terrorizing the rest of our horses. It was amazing to see. The bigger the horse, the more frightened it was. My Clydesdale mare, Dolly, was absolutely terrified. The Quarter Horses, Arabs and Mustangs weren't much better. The pony was standoffish. But it didn't take long before the miniature horses and the camel were taking turns chasing each other around.

After putting everyone up in stalls for the night, I stayed up late just to greet Deb and take her into the barn. She was surprised to see me still awake, and even more surprised to get a big smile, hug and a kiss.

Under a furrowed brow, she said, "You didn't. I said NO MORE ANIMALS."

To understand what happened next, you need to know that more than a week ago, I received botulism toxin injections in my vocal cords to try to temporarily remedy my spasmodic dysphonia. These shots unexpectedly rendered me pretty much totally mute, which had already made for some very difficult horse/camel trading that day.

We entered the stable. I flipped on the light switch. There followed a thick moment of silence during which the atmospheric temperature perceptibly rose.

I innocently and eagerly watched Deb's face expecting to see it flood with joyous emotions................... Didn't happen.

"What the...? You must be out of your mind! Explain yourself."

At that point, being mute and everything, all I could think to do was point to my throat and flap my jaws. It didn't much matter, because the rest of the conversation was one-sided and unidirectional....and lasted the rest of the week.

To make a long story short, by now Deb has pretty much warmed to the idea of owning a camel, especially after everybody in the Emergency Room thought that it was such a great loving gift and neat idea. She has agreed that the camel can stay on the farm, but she has not yet decided about me.

By the way, the previous owners named the camel Hershey because its hump looked like a Hershey Kiss. How unimaginative. I renamed it Kookamunga, but my wife and her mother think that I'm the only kook among us.

Moral of the story: Get a botox injection of your vocal cords whenever you anticipate a situation where you may have some difficult explaining to do.

Love's Labor Lost

2009-05-14T11:07:00.000-07:00

A slightly truncated and modified version of the following story was published as "Love's Labor Lost" in BackHome Magazine (Sept/Oct 2006).

May 23, 02

We bought a brand new eight-week-old Jacob ram last week at a swap meet. He's a tricolor beauty. When full grown, he will probably have four horns, so we're calling him "Fororner". Hopefully he will grow and breed our Jacob ewe, but right now the ewe keeps it at a distance. Of all of our animals, the one that the young ram seemed to think was its mom right off the bat was our Golden Retriever, Riley.

We became interested in harvesting wool after an incident two weeks ago. We have two Angora goats, a buck and a doe, that we put together to breed last fall. All winter we watched and waited and came to the conclusion that there were to be no babies from them this spring. One Saturday, my wife went out to turn out the sheep and goats into their pen, and the Angora doe refused to come out of the stall. This was extremely unusual for her. Instead, she had her head tucked around on her side, was grunting/bleating, and was backing up against the wall. We thought, "By golly, this goat's in labor! She's going to have babies after all."

So we bundled up my wife's mom and called some neighbors in to watch the event. We wrapped up in blankets and sat in lawn chairs in the stall, and waited. Now, goats are a bit skittish to begin with, and we really didn't want to interfere and get her upset. We waited and waited. The goat would lie down and get up and squat and pass urine, and defecate, all the time looking at her side, and groaning and backing into the wall.

Finally, I went up to check her out, only to discover that the darned goat had a hunk of wool wrapped around one of it's lower teeth, and couldn't straighten her neck out. When I unflossed her incisors, she straightened right out and made a beeline for the stall door to join her pals.

We spent the next few hours shearing that goat.

After the horse and sheep incidents, we are gaining quite the reputation in the neighborhood. P.T. Barnum stated that "...the common man, no matter how sharp and tough, actually enjoys having the wool pulled over his eyes, and makes it easier for the puller." I had no idea he was talking about us and our goat.

My Brain on Animal Husbandry

2009-05-14T09:43:00.000-07:00

A post from

May 16, 02

I happened to run across this in my readings:

"Delicate durability describes the human body, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the urinary tract. If the liver is all bulk and thunder, the heart fist and thrust and piston, and the brain a foamy paste of insubstantial electricity, the parts of the urinary tract - namely the kidneys, ureters, and bladder - are a tracery of tubules and ducts of such a finess as would lay mad a master plumber..."

Attributed to: Richard Selzer. Moral lessons: Notes on the art of surgery (Brace; 1996, p. 78).

One way or the other, my brain definitely feels like "... a foamy paste of insubstantial electricity..."

Back to "Normal"

2009-05-14T05:55:00.000-07:00

The American Psychiatric Association publishes a comprehensive classification of officially recognized psychiatric disorders called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, currently in its fourth edition. This is universally recognized as the DSM-IV among mental health professionals. I am not sure where I found the following off-take, but it seemed apropos at the time.

May 9, 02

The mare is back with her foal in the barn. The water is being pumped out of the basement slightly faster than it is flowing in. The chicks hatched this winter were combined with the rest of the flock. The pastures are greening up just in time because we are running out of hay.

Life is returning to "normal".

This is from DSM-XV, not yet released but working on it...:

Diagnostic criteria for NPD: Normal Person Disorder

A chronic feeling of normalness.
A tendency to bore others easily.
A nagging sense of constantly meeting one's goal.
Lack of difficulty getting organized.
Inability to be humorus.
Knowing how to count without forgetting what number you are up to.
An inability to be creative and intuitive, no seat of pants to fly by.
Highly stimulated by lectures, speeches, dead cockroaches and other normals.
An unbroken remote control.
A To-Do list which gets done.
A choronic interest in each or any of the following for more than a week: Job, Relationship, Schedule, Patience, Passing Grades, Sex, Normals
A methodical nature.
Affectionaltely known as "Bump on a log" or "Nytol Substitute"
Always remembers to close the barn door.

I'm not yet suffering from NPD.

Flood and Escape

2009-05-13T14:50:00.000-07:00

Several years ago, I was telecommuting part of the week in my capacity as the Director of a medical writing service located in Central Wisconsin. Shortly after Angel's foal had been born, I received a request for a work-related progress update from my staff via e-mail.

Progress Update? I wish! Let me describe my week by letting you read some communications:

May 3, 02

Subject: Absence
Sent: 5/1/02 7:20 AM

Dear partners,

I may or may not be in this week. Right now I am in a BIG DOG HOUSE. When I was putting up our mare last night, she bolted back through the stall door as soon as I took off her halter. She and her foal ran out of the barn, straight down the driveway, around our perimeter fence and into 500 acres of Consolidated Paper forest/swamp land. Trying to spot a pure white horse and a small black foal in a flooded black forest full of patchy snow cover is no holiday. I don't know how the foal will fare being cold and wet and prime fresh coyote bait. Anyway, I'll be in as soon as I finish pumping out our basement that flooded in the night with a foot of water.

____________

From a staffer:
Subject: Absence
Sent: 5/1/02 9:50 AM

Boy I hope everything works out okay. I know the feeling of having lost animals out there somewhere. You didn't say if the mare came back. I'll try not to bug you because I don't want you getting crabby (I notice men have this tendency when faced with problems such as you are facing).
___________

Subject: Absence
Sent: 5/1/02 10:12 AM

Me? Crabby? @#!^%&"~`!!!!!

This morning, we found a satellite map of the area, and had four people out in the woods and swamp, along with a friend with an airplane topside. For three hours there were many sightings, but the mare and her foal would not be caught. Period. End of story.

We try again in a few hours. This time with a bale of hay and a companion horse in hand.

Grumpus

__________________________________________

From a staffer:

Sent: 5/2/02 9:36 AM

Did you get lost in the swamp land too now?

__________________________________________

Sent: 5/2/02 9:36 AM

I am back working today. The mare and her foal are back in the barn.

We spent all day in the swamp Wednesday. Angel still would not be coaxed with hay or grain. Finally, we took our 35 y.o. gelding, Roany, out to see whether Angel would follow him. In the process, he bolted and was loose, too. Fortunately, he is a real grain hound and was fairly easy to catch again. Finally, my wife, Deb, led Roany out of the swamp and Angel and her foal followed ... for a while.

Just when we were coming up to the access road home, Angel and her foal bolted ahead and turned the wrong way, straight out toward the state highway. At that point I followed the mare and foal. Deb took the gelding home, and called the neighbor to get his deer rifle. The neighbor did as requested.

In the meantime, Deb's mom (a devout Catholic) said three Hail Mary's to St. Anthony, which she is convinced always helps when something is lost. Well, all I have to say is that St. Anthony must be a regular patron of May's Bar on the highway, because it emptied to come help chase the mare.

Shortly thereafter, I had to do some fast talking to our neighbor with the deer rifle that it really wasn't me that Deb wanted shot. I shouted, "Honest, Roy. Deb wants the mare shot before it causes a fatal collision on the highway, not me!"

"I don't know. Deb's animated body language and subtle demeanor seems to suggest otherwise. I could have sworn it was you I was gunning for. Where are the horses anyway?"

Well, by that time the mob had chased the mare and her foal back across the highway and into the swamp again, but for some reason Angel ran back out onto our access road and headed home with everyone following. When they got to our place, Angel turned right into our yard and started grazing. When I finally caught up, Angel let me walk right up and halter her like it was no big deal. Aaaargh! The best thing that I can say is that there were no mosquitoes in the swamp yet.

So yesterday, we turned our attention back to our flooded basement. We rented one pump .... and the water kept rising. Rented a second pump .... and the water kept rising. I guess that we not only brought the mare and foal home, but the swamp, too.

When we re-plumbed the entire house two years ago, the plumber yanked out a brand new sump pump and disconnected it. "Aw, you don't need that. It's just for the gray water from the washing machine. Now the washer runs into the septic field." That original pump was nowhere to be found. So I went out and bought another sump pump. The new pump had the water drained by last night, so I turned it off. This morning the water was as high as ever. I said to heck with it, I'm going to work! So this weekend I face even more fun.

Still Grumpy

_________________

Maybe next week I'll have better writing progress to report.

Foaling and Observing Details

2009-05-13T12:08:00.000-07:00

April 25, 02

Well, our mare had her baby Sunday night. Baby foals are amazing studies in balance. My wife had me on watch to make certain that it passed its meconium and urine o.k. It's interesting how the mind wanders on such a watch. Somehow, the story of Sir William Osler, the Canadian Physician often described as the Father of Modern Medicine, came to mind:

A small bottle containing urine sat upon the desk of Sir William Osler, the eminent professor of medicine at Oxford University. Sitting before him was a class full of young, wide-eyed medical students, listening to his lecture on the importance of observing details. To emphasize his point, Sir Osler announced: "This bottle contains a urine sample for analysis. It's often possible by tasting it to determine the disease from which the patient suffers." He then dipped a finger into the fluid and brought his hand to his mouth. He continued speaking: "Now I am going to pass the bottle around. Each of you please do exactly as I did. Perhaps we can learn the importance of this technique and diagnose the case." The bottle made it's way from row to row, each student gingerly poking his finger in and bravely sampling the contents with a frown. Dr. Osler then retrieved the bottle and startled his students by saying: "Gentlemen, now you will understand what I mean when I speak about details. Had you been observant, you would have seen that I put my INDEX FINGER in the bottle, but my MIDDLE FINGER into my mouth!"