My recent travels kept me away from the home computer for nearly three weeks. Although my family had done an exceptional job at cleaning off emails for me, eventually they were overwhelmed and the list of emails in the inbox got longer and longer. It took me about three days, but I actually managed to …
Predator defense mechanisms
As a livestock producer, I have an everyday relationship with predators that seem to like lamb for dinner as much as my family does. Our back fenceline borders the Mesa big game winter range, which serves as a coyote refuge with human presence prohibited during the winter months. What to do? We have no interest …
Animal Minds
The recent post at Atomic Nerds (linked by Steve below) plucks a number of threads that run through this blog. If you have animals or hunt animals—and especially if you have animals that hunt animals—give it a read. As a falconer who hunts (with a team of dog and hawk) a variety of common and …
Quote of the Week
From Tam: “Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.” -Theodore Roosevelt
Links
At Atomic Nerds, LabRat has a fascinating post on dogs and the sense of “self” : “We used to assume no animal but humans had a sense of humor, until we thought to thoroughly test that assumption, and we found otherwise. We used to think no other animal used tools, until we looked and found …
Response
Peculiar, Chas, and Dr Hypercube respond to my Superior Scribbler nomination.
River guardians
Today I drove to Jackson Hole to run a few errands with my son. We encountered these two river guardians in the Snake River Canyon along the way. Have a great weekend all.
A Girl in Every Port
The estimable John Noble Wilford reports on a new DNA study that shows the Phoencians, that sea-faring race of antiquity (no, not residents of Phoenix) have had a lasting genetic imprint on Mediterranean populations. “Scientists reported Thursday that as many as 1 in 17 men living today on the coasts of North Africa and southern …
Supernatural Cleaning Methods
The NY Times has a Halloween appropriate piece on how to rid your home of ghosts and other supernatural phenomena. It reminded me of the house we rented in Denver back in the mid-1980s that had a poltergeist. Some nights we could hear him walking up the basement stairs and through the living room. I …
My Extended Family, or, Charlie Rides Again
Falconer Steve Armstrong of Texas has a weak arm. Twist it just a little, and he’ll agree to anything. I’m glad this is true, since in the past year Steve consented to give a home to two hawks I’m quite fond of but couldn’t keep. The two hawks’ stories are related. First came Charlie, a …