buon lavoro, b
“gute Arbeit” (?)

Posted by: claudio | May 13 2011 22:08 utc | 4

Great photo and great story, DaveS.
Here is a recent wildlife story to add to the thread. Sometimes I see foxes around my neighborhood. It is an area with lots of trees and very close to some wooded, undeveloped drainages, larger streams, and a couple of wooded parks.
One morning a couple of weeks ago I looked out the window into the back yard and saw a healthy-looking fox just sitting calmly near the back fence facing one of my dogs – a lab mix. I couldn’t see my dog and feared she would get into a fight with the fox, so I went racing downstairs and out the back to call her to come in. She did not want to come in, but she just sat staring at the fox from near the house. Very unusual for her – she is always chasing squirrels and the occasional rabbit or raccoon out of the yard. I couldn’t really interpret this behavior, but when I finally tried to insist that she come inside, she took off across the yard after the fox, who jumped the six-foot fence with ease and sat down in my neighbor’s yard.

Posted by: Maxcrat | May 14 2011 0:25 utc | 6

ok, since this is an open thread i thought i’d drop one of the most brazen attempts at make believe narratives i’ve read in a long long time. count the holes in this baby
ouch! uncle binny never dies.

Posted by: annie | May 14 2011 4:59 utc | 8

Love the pics b, and the critters. As I age, I can really appreciate the fact they share the planet with us, and are as deserving of life as we. Something I missed as a youth.

Posted by: ben | May 14 2011 13:43 utc | 10

All I ask of the wildlife is that is it stay, well, wild, and, ya know, live outdoors. Not in my house. Not in my attic. Not in my basement. That’s all.
Shortly after I moved into my house, I realized there was something in the attic. At night I could scritching, scratching sounds. Turned out be to raccoons, which I first realized by the scat. Yuck. And it was confirmed when my brother was visiting and sleeping in the guest room — which had the pulldown stairs to get to the attic. One night, the raccoon (actually a family…) was quite noisy and he could hear it on the pulldown stairs. He quietly got up and pulled the stair down, the raccoon fell down a step or two, and then, in a not smart move, he tried to grab the raccoon!!
By that time I was up, he had decided it was the better part of valor to not grap a raccoon by the tail, and it had disappeared.
Later, when I had the roof done, I had hardware cloth (small mesh, strong wire) put along all the eves on the outside, leaving the area I’d seen them exit open. I waited until the entire family was out for the night foraging and hammered up the final bit of wire. None in the attic since then. I hope.
So far, the only wildlife I see here in northern NJ suboonia is squirrels (oodles), rabbits (who like to taste tulip buds then discard them–grrrr), chipmunks (too cute, unless one turns an ankle in a well-used hole), raccoons (not seen for awhile, but something gets into garbage cans occasionally), skunks (again, far fewer since about 6 years ago; I had one reverse skunk: white body, black stripe, cool looking; by scent I know they’re still in the neighborhood), possums (they eat slugs-hooray!), one young bear (up a tree and removed to the northern forests by animal control — not in my yard but on my block), deer in the wooded areas around the golf course and near the reservoir, and, of course, birds. There are reports of coyotes, but I have never heard them or seen any. I saw a red fox once around the reservoir woods–absolutely beautiful.
I used to have birdfeeders and loved watching the birds, but stopped feeding them because there was concern a disease was being spread among song birds at feeders. And the squirrels would gnaw at the plastic and wood feeders, ruining them, or would scarf up all the seed and keep the birds away. Decided to let nature run its course. Plus, my cats learned how to hunt…. No hunters now; maybe I should try again with the feeders. Need to check on what’s happening with the disease thing.

Posted by: jawbone | May 14 2011 14:24 utc | 12

Oh, yes, there’s been push back about black bear hunts in NJ, but it seems people began to realize it was difficult for the animals if there isn’t enough territory — and no seemed to want to move a donate their land as bear preserves…. It’s the young males, especially, which tend to wander into more settled areas in search of new territory and, perhaps, mates (I don’t know if their old enough to mate).
A few years ago an orange tabby treed a bear, twice, West Milford, NJ, not far from the NY border.
Friends in NW NJ have to take real precautions about bears, like heavy duty garbage arrangements and keeping kinder and little pets inside or watched. watched. But, as Jack the tabby showed, a small cat can tree a bear.

Posted by: jawbone | May 14 2011 23:52 utc | 14

Thanks for this thread b. It is a welcome relief, especially with the “Obi-Wan Kenobi Is Dead…” link.
I think your first picture is of a red squirrel, which are sooo cute they look cuddly, but quite the opposite. They can be a major and destructive pest. We had them in our attic two winters ago and were advised that they could do major damage like chewing through electric wires. They are almost impossible to trap in a have-a-heart trap as you can catch one but the rest learn. They can’t be poisoned (which is an absolute last resort for my wife and I) as they have a gag reflex and regurgitate them. I finally found their entrance in our home but knew I had to get them out of the house before I closed it off. I found out they hate loud noise so I recorded a cut from “Magic Carpet Ride” (the instrumental solo) and “Gimme Three Steps” (both of which I love) and screwed the frequency and tempo around until it was totally obnoxious. Then I set it running on an endless loop, full volume on my guitar amp against the wall where we often heard them and left the house for four hours. Upon our return I blocked off their entrance and hoped that would suffice. I didn’t quite. The next morning we could hear their noises and squealing and severe scratching in the attic. I got outside just in time to see them exiting through a screened in roof vent. They had chewed their way through it. I immediately got a ladder and covered the vent with hardware cloth and that finally took care of it.
This year they are back on the bird feeder and I wonder how anything so cute could be such a disaster once nested inside a home. So far they haven’t found their way back in and my wife says she has communicated with them and told them we’ll let them feed on the bird feeder as long as they don’t come back into the house. I’m skeptical but so far so good. My left brain is probably blocking my intuitive and subtle communication with non-humans. I’ll admit she may be on to something.
I’d like to talk about bears as well. They do in bee hives and my wife is a bee keeper but that’s another story for another time.
Chiao all.
John

Posted by: juannie | May 15 2011 1:06 utc | 16

@ maxcrat,
reading about your dog made me think of an old gary larson cartoon.

Posted by: dan of steele | May 15 2011 15:05 utc | 18

a chinese “netizen” retorts Obama’s accuses (“We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan. But we don’t know who or what that support network was.” Furthermore, he said “We don’t know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government, and that’s something that we have to investigate, and more importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate.”):

“We believe that there is some support within the United States for bin Laden network, though we do not know who is supporting the network, we do not know if any US government official is supporting the network or not, otherwise 9.11 would not have happened at all.”

Posted by: claudio | May 16 2011 0:11 utc | 20

from last friday –
nyt: Secret Desert Force Set Up by Blackwater’s Founder

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Late one night last November, a plane carrying dozens of Colombian men touched down in this glittering seaside capital. Whisked through customs by an Emirati intelligence officer, the group boarded an unmarked bus and drove roughly 20 miles to a windswept military complex in the desert sand.
The Colombians had entered the United Arab Emirates posing as construction workers. In fact, they were soldiers for a secret American-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater Worldwide, with $529 million from the oil-soaked sheikdom.
Mr. Prince, who resettled here last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times.
The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts, the documents show.

Posted by: b real | May 16 2011 17:58 utc | 22

yeah, Maxcrat
probably the “relocation” of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq is part, someplace, of the same “metastasizing” process;

Posted by: claudio | May 17 2011 0:17 utc | 24

Ha! That’s so perfectly but also sadly ironic, b!
I had the opportunity to hear General Eric Shinseki speak today about his Japanese-American heritage and his personal journey to the highest levels of the military and civilian government. (General Shinseki is a retired four star army general who is now the head of the Department of Veterans Affairs.)
Shortly before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, General Shinseki was called to testify before Congress in his capacity at that time as the Army Chief of Staff ( I forget the exact title, but basically the military leader in charge of the Army). He was asked during the questioning time at the hearing about his estimate of how many troops it would take to secure Iraq after our glorious precision strike on Saddam followed by the joyous throngs welcoming our troops as liberators. He replied that it would take a couple of hundred thousand for a prolonged period. That answer was at odds with the party line that the Bush Administration was promoting – namely that the need for significant amounts of troops stationed in Iraq would be minimal and only for a short time. For his honest answer to a direct question, Shinseki was forced into early retirement.
I had a chance to greet him briefly after the talk and thanked him for his candor and courage that day at the hearing. I have never forgotten it. A real leader, not one of these boot-licking soul-selling hacks that the military establishment seems to have in abundant supply.

Posted by: Maxcrat | May 18 2011 1:42 utc | 26