The Horror of Ice Cream

I found this recent NY Times article twisted even by the standards of the Times. Entitled “When Parents Scream Against Ice Cream”, it details the efforts of parents in a number of cities to ban summertime ice cream vendors from parks or even entire neighborhoods. The basic premises are that ice cream is a sugary …

Read more

Party Animal

I just want you all to know that I am inordinately proud of the fact that I have degrees from two (#11 and #19) of the universities on this year’s Top Twenty Party Schools list. Matt, I am shocked that LSU didn’t make the cut. What’s wrong with those kids in Baton Rouge?

Prehistoric Environmental Destruction

One more nail gets driven into the coffin of the “ecological Indian”, you know that guy who lived in complete harmony with nature before the Europeans arrived here in 1492. The NY Times summarizes a recent study by Torben Rick (Smithsonian Institution) and Jon Erlandson (U. of Oregon) that documents evidence of sometimes serious environmental …

Read more

Cracker stacker

My Mongolian trip travel partner and friend Janell Cannon is now playing with video. She’s posted a fun new one on how crows stack crackers:

Artifact Looters

Down in the Four Corners area, the BLM and Federal agents have been on a campaign arresting people who’ve looted Anasazi sites on public land. Today’s Denver Post has an article on a couple in Durango, Colorado who have had their collection confiscated. An article from last month also in the Post, paints a broader …

Read more

Feeding Frenzy

The last couple of weeks, the hummingbirds have really been hitting the feeder hard. We’ve gotten up to a dozen at a time, but they move so fast that this is about as many as I’ve been able to get in one shot. It takes them about four days to empty the feeder. We’ve had …

Read more

Ponderosa Pines

I heard this interesting piece on Ponderosa pines on NPR on the way to work earlier this week. It was taped in that beautiful area in Arizona between Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon, which they say is the best place in the world to see Ponderosas. All I have to do is walk out the …

Read more

Lane Batot on Trailhounds: Part 2

Although growing up around relatives’ and neighbors’ trailhounds, I did not acquire my own first hound until I was well into my 30’s, and even then, quite by accident. A horribly starved, wretched little Black-And-Tan hound showed up at the place I was employed at the time–a small game farm/zoo in Tennessee, where the bossman …

Read more

Quiet night

Everything was quiet in the pasture this morning, with no signs of further predation during the night. The animals were all calm, and the guardians all seemed content. Although some may see the fact that two lambs were killed as some fault of the guardian animals, Jim and I disagree with that view. We shudder …

Read more

Predation

I swear any time I change my schedule, something goes really wrong. I drove my son Cass to Laramie yesterday to move him into a dorm for his freshman year at the University of Wyoming. It was a fun but stressful day as I tried not to think about the fact that my son just …

Read more