!@#$ the Groundhog Says

 

Shot near the Mississippi RiverReplaces :Image:Groundhog Standing1.jpg, which, although of a higher resolution, is at a much poorer angle. , in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Copyright © 2004 by April King

 

I finally got out for a ride today. First one since sometime in the middle of January, I think. I put on all my layers and it was 50 degrees and sunny when I left the house just after noon. By the time we got home, it had dropped to something lower than that, the wind was blowing and it was spitting rain. It’s supposed to be 15 degrees tomorrow night! No, that is NOT Centigrade (all our Canadian friends are probably praying for 15 degrees right about now…) Ha!

 

February is hard because you can feel spring coming, but it never quite does. Though that little Philadelphia rodent predicted an early spring, which would put it in the next couple weeks; he may have lied… or been slightly hung over from all that hibernating. I know hibernation makes me leery of shadows, too.

 

It was a great ride, though. I expected to have WWIII on my hands with a fresh horse conveniently forgetting who rides whom coupled with the nice-ish weather and my own sore muscles from the fall I had working yesterday. But it was great. Sully was just glad to be out of the mud for awhile. We even passed a funeral, complete with weird covered chairs, flapping tent and coffin. How can a horse be afraid of a pig or a cow, but something that looks like a fancy coffee table standing in the middle of a yard and smelling of formaldehyde is business as usual?

 

We also rode by some resident groundhog holes, but no one seemed to be home. I guess they all know they only have two weeks before they have to wake up and do groundhog stuff.

 

After our ride, I took Mom home and Dad put mirrors on the truck for me. On my way back out we noticed the rear tire was soft. There was a piece of 12 gauge fence wire stuck in it. I managed to get it home, where now it is now resting on three tires and one rim.

 

 

 

 

 

Meteor trace (Photo credit: alexeya)

 

 

The asteroid did it. You know, the one that didn’t hit Earth today.

 

 

 

We have a nice evening planned. We had Chinese BBQ pork and rice for supper (homemade, of course) and we have a movie to watch while the snow flies. Yes. We’re going to be groundhogs this winter weekend!

 

That Cranky Time of Year

Common Aerial Yellowjacket (Dolichovespula arenaria) (Photo credit: Franco Folini)

 

I kinda get where the yellow jackets are coming from. As the nights get crisper and colder, and the days shorten exponentially about every 48 hours, the yellow jackets become insanely moody and ready to assault anyone who dares cross their path. I get it. Winter’s coming. Easy life for the yellow jacket is over. If they don’t get enough food stored up right this minute, they won’t survive the winter in their underground burrows. And those burrows, who wouldn’t be cranky at the prospect of four months in the dark?

 

I also get cranky and uncommonly aggressive this time of year. It’s a combination of things. I don’t worry about my ability to survive the winter any more than any other next moment. But the prospect of four months of being cold, being stuck indoors, of wheezing and coughing every time I breathe the cold air, and keeping a horse warm/cold/fed/watered etc. in the face of howling winds and slippery roads… yeah. It makes me cranky.

 

I do enjoy autumn. It’s beautiful. But spring is my very favorite season, and the only thing that makes me tolerable to my fellow man through the autumn/winter is the sight of springtime on the horizon.

 

I detest elections and holidays and snow, and so many of the things attached to this coming time of year.

 

I suppose if I were a yellow jacket, I would be buzzing around, stinger at the ready, too.

 

That said, I did have a lovely ride this morning, and their are new pictures of it up over at Proof It. The color is beautiful. But 10 minutes of beauty isn’t enough to make me forget the four months of hell just around the corner…

 

 

The Truth About Hogs

 

Apparently, they are one of those animals that other animals have strong feelings about. Other animals either find them fascinating or horrifying. Hogs seem incapable of invoking indifference in their fellow vertebrates.

I have one of each camp in my own menagerie. We all know how Sully the Fearless feels about them. While we have managed to bring his horror down to manageable levels, he still feels it necessary to pass by them on high alert, ears up, nostrils flared, blowing snorts of warning out to any wild mustangs that may be hiding unaware of the hog threat in the ditches. Walking normally is also out of the question. We must walk up on our tiptoes so that our vulnerable belly is as far as possible from the reach of those scurrying, grunting, marauding piggies.

In the other camp is Blue. We had our first encounter with a loose hog today. I was on my bike. Since I couldn’t head the situation off at the pass, it was necessary to do damage control after the fact.

Blue has always shown an obsessive interest in the penned hogs when we pass, but it’s as though he realizes he can’t get to them anyway, so he passes on by, nose in the air. Today, though, the loose hog is right there, and Blue bolts up to him like this is The Most Interesting [Dog???] in the World. All while Blue is [attempting] a friendly dog-like greeting, the near-sighted hog is freaking out and trying to back up but can’t back up fast enough because Blue’s nose is practically glued to his snout. Then Blue decides, hey, this ain’t no ugly dog! Maybe it’s edible! and starts nipping at its shoulders. The pig is grunting alarmed exclamations and falling all over itself in its feeble escape attempts. This is even more amusing because the hog easily outweighs Blue by 100+ pounds.

I’m calling to Blue through this whole frenzied interspecial interchange while I park the bike, and he’s so totally into this ugly dog-thing he’s ignoring me. So I march right up to both of them grab his lead and give it a sharp yank, which gets his attention back on me, and the hog is doubly freaking out because now there’s a really tall one, too!

I bring Blue away and discipline him for not listening, and he’s good as gold from then on.

The hog may have had a stroke. I suppose I’ll know if there’s only two next time I go by.

 

So Many Birdies…

This has the potential of being a rather lengthy update. This is what happens when one fails at blogging. I have plenty of excuses, and have been busy, but really there is nothing to it but to do it, as my grandmother used to say.

We got a badminton set last weekend. We got it set up, and then it rained for days, and then the wind wouldn’t stop blowing. I’ve managed in spite of all that to play enough to get a sore back and arm. But it’s so much fun. And gets your heart rate up even better than walking!

In addition to badminton birdies, I managed to freak out and subsequently rescue a fledgling red-headed woodpecker. Mama woodpecker has been hanging out around our barn and telephone pole all spring. On Monday, there was such a ruckus in the front yard that I was forced to lay down my crochet to check it out. Three or four of these little woodies had managed to fly as far as the porch on their maiden voyage, and then got stuck, in the open. There were a few cats nearby licking their chops in hopes of an easy meal.

When I walked out, three of the birds drew on pure adrenaline and flew low back to the safety of the barn. The fourth squawker just ran around on the grass, then up the swingset pole, where he realized with some dismay I could still reach him but it was a long way down. He took his chances. He leapt. He flapped. He plummeted like the Wile E. Coyote off the cliff. Then he started running, straight for the lions’ den.

Did I mention it was raining? I debated with myself briefly about the circle of life and survival of the fittest (which this little guy apparently was NOT), and decided I was already wet and had cleaned enough feathers and bird heads and wings off my front porch this spring.

So I followed the screeching little bugger into the cow pasture, dodging fresh patties and wet up past my knees. The tall grass stopped his frantic hopping, and he sat with his head craned back guarding his body with an inch and a half of really sharp beak. Being a woodpecker, he already had the hang of how to use it, too! To make matters worse, his screeching was ear-piercing, and Mama Woodpecker was doing fly-bys overhead, trying to decide if she was any match for me, and possibly if little dumbo had brought all this misfortune on himself.

I finally trapped his beak by pulling grass down across his head. I grabbed him firmly, and closed his ice pick of a beak between my thumb and forefinger to shut him up and protect myself. At this point, he simply lay there with an eerie, “I will get you for this. Later.” sort of gleam in his eye.

I carried him back across the yard and shoved him through the fence by the barn. I could hear his mother and siblings in the trees, and last I saw him, he was hopping/climbing/screeching in their direction.

Come to think of it, perhaps his situation was intentional. Maybe Mama told him to shut his yap and get out!

The hummingbirds are incredibly busy. They’ve gone through 3/4 of a cup of sugar water in the past 10 days. Now there are two pair, and they fly around like little kamikazes on suicide missions. I’ve actually witnessed one female body-slam another out of the air. Incredible. Not sure I want to get in the middle of all that.

Today I rode Sully across Doe Run while Mom rode her bike. We saw what we initially thought was a hawk up ahead on a fence post. Turned out to be something MUCH larger, sitting in the top of a tree several acres across a big field. It was screaming like an eagle. It was mottled brown and white, with an astounding wingspan and rounded wing tips. It was easily three times the size of a hawk, and flew like it was heavy, with big slow wingbeats, and long glides. My money is on Golden eagle, possibly an immature one. They aren’t common around here, though they are known to occasionally use the Eastern U.S. as a breeding ground. I can’t say for sure, but it was huge. I would say pterydactyl, but I’ve heard they’re extinct…

I believe that is all I have to say about birdies, for now. The rest of my updates will have to wait until tomorrow. Meanwhile, the take-away from today’s blog is: when planning to tick off woodpeckers, dress appropriately. I’m thinking full-body armor.

Biological Clock

It’s a widely held opinion that as a woman reaches a certain age (mine, perhaps?) her “biological clock” begins ticking. It’s the countdown to the day when suddenly having babies is no longer an option. I can’t begin to count how many “wise” women have informed me that one day, sooner or later, that timebomb that apparently erases all reason will start its deafening tick down to detonation. Somehow, this will suddenly change every belief I hold about parenthood, strong feelings that have been with me almost as long as I can remember. I actually cannot remember a time when the idea of motherhood appealed to me. I know I played with dolls as a very young child; even then, I wasn’t their mama, more like their childcare provider. Their imaginary parents payed me handsomely to keep their brats, too. They even allowed me to name them all Susie. Wasn’t that nice?

I suppose it’s always been in the back of my mind that once I hit 35, I would suddenly desire nothing more than a child, or sixteen. It would be an overwhelming sensation that annhilated all those other reasons for being childless.

I’m still waiting. It’s been roughly 492 days since my 35th birthday. I’m straining to hear any kind of ticking. My clock is busted.

Except…

Kitten (Photo credit: Bjørnli Foto)

Wait, I do have the insane urge to cuddle something baby-like. Something cute and helpless and tiny and… furry! Every couple of years, I am beset with the overwhelming desire to raise a kitten. Does this mean I do have at least one nurturing tendency, buried amongst all those other traits that make me unsuitable as a mother? I think it does!

Kittens are really perfect. What is cuter? They grow up quickly, within a few months. They don’t eat much. They are inexpensive. And as adults, they hang around for a few years (in my own experience) and then they just disappear. Aside from the occasional instance of prying one from the slobbering jaws of a hungry German Shepherd, or scraping one out of the road with a shovel, yes, always sad, but there’s always another kitten.

I’m sure a psychiatrist would have a field day with this post. Me? I’m off to the pound.

Sunday, Quiet Sunday

Wordy Wednesday

I find this amusing. So glad it doesn't apply to me! (I had Sully vaccinated against the dreaded amobacter.)

Cracked

This article comes with something between a PG and R rating, so if you’re offended by cursing and suggestive references, skip over this one. If not, you will laugh your butt off.

 

6 Car Myths That Cost You Money Every Year | Cracked.com.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday — Buckethead Chuck