Category: Environment

Categories
Connecting Critters

Living this moment

When Chris Locke sent around an email containing the photograph and words found in this post, I wrote an email in reply:

I am probably getting old, and losing whatever I once had of any delicate sensibilities, but I can’t help thinking that dreams are wonderful when walking quietly by yourself in the woods; keeping you company as you reflect on what once was. They suit the drip of the water from the leaves, and the smell of rich, old dirt and the song of birds not quite seen.

But then I think I would rather get in my car and go home and be met with something real and tangible–someone I can wrap arms around and exchange garlicky kisses with after a nice dinner.

True, dreams never fade or get older; there are no shadows or harsh lines, and the light doesn’t glare, but instead glows with a lovely, inner light. Dreams don’t sag or get lumpy or wrinkly, or cranky. But you can’t reach out and touch a dream. You can’t move your finger down a dream’s face, or hold a dream’s hand. When you sneeze, it doesn’t go bless you, or bring you broth when you’re in bed, sick. It doesn’t laugh at a dumb joke, because though you might see your dream, it doesn’t see you.

Imperfect reality. I think I would rather have imperfect reality.

Like I said, I’m probably getting old, and losing whatever I one had of any delicate sensibility.

Tonight I was late leaving for my nightly walk and the weather was very warm and very humid. Once there, I put on my headphones, not being interested in listening to birds, and set off at a brisk pace. I made my circuit in record time, feeling good about the walk, but not good from the walk.

Leaving, I started to drive by a lump of dirt by the side of the road, when the dirt moved its head and I realized it was a small turtle.

This is the first I’d seen a turtle in Missouri though I know there are several varieties. I also wasn’t that familiar with it’s type–it had a softish looking shell and mottled markings, head stuck up in the air. I wished for my camera, but then reminded myself that I don’t have to capture for posterity every interesting moment that happens.

The turtle put me in a better mood–there was something about that defiant tilt of her chin; it was the first time I’d seen a pugnacious looking turtle. I looked at her and she at me, and that’s the way I want it to stay… Instead of rushing home, I took my time, driving in the warm summer evening with the windows down and wind mussing my hair, listening to music; I even stopped by at the library for a new stack of books. When I arrived home, it was late dusk and I was thirsty so I started to hurry up the steps to my home. Turning the corner, I found the area in front of our door was full of fire flies.

I stopped dead and watched them as they flickered around the bushes and trees, and even a curious one or two, around me.

When I finally returned to my computer tonight, I found that Chris, showing bright glimmers of his old rakish self, had posted a reply to my email, in true Rageboy form. He a bad boy, that Rageboy, but it’s nice to see him poking his head out of his shell. And I won’t even snap my whip at him.

No, no! Not the whip! Anything but the whip.

Anything?

…pause…

The whip! The whip!

By the way, I found a reference to the turtle I saw earlier. Chris, this turtle is for you.

Categories
Critters

Zoe and Dorian Gray

Zoe is home from the vet, pretty wobbly on her feet. She had a lot of tests the last two days, and the doc found this and that, as doctors do with the middle aged. I’m a bit worried about her at the moment because she acts like she’s hungry and thirsty, but seems like she’s forgotten how to eat. If this continues tomorrow, I’m sure I’ll be chatting with the doctor again.

Since we take Zoe to a cat clinic, I expect to meet a new cat or two wandering about the office with each visit. The staff brings their own cats in during the day, and they join the office cats, and the patients, all of whom are remarkably quiet and polite with each other. It’s usually a lively time while you’re waiting, and never dull and never acrimonious.

If the world was run by cats, we wouldn’t have war, but we would be eating a lot of fish.

Yesterday, I spotted the tiniest little charcoal gray kitten stumbling around on unsure legs, trying to get into any open container. When I asked about him, the receptionist said that his name was Dorian Gray, and that he was hand fed kitten, just heading into its 6th week. Just so interest wasn’t aroused, she said that the doctor who treats Zoe had just adopted him.

It seems little Dorian was found in the walls of a condemned house that was being torn down. It’s mother was killed, but Dorian was saved by the crew and brought immediately to the vet. Now, he’s an extremely curious, friendly, engaging little fellow that is mothered by the cat of one of the other people who worked in the office–a cat that was also abandoned as a baby and hand fed and adopted. You’d know this cat anymore, because she’s a glamor cat, and about the sweetest natured thing you ever saw–but who likes to get up in the toys on the wall and knock them all down.

When I picked Zoe up, I brought my camera, and I thought you’d all like to meet Dorian Gray and Christa.

[image lost]

Yes, Christa has a boa necklace, bright pink nail guards, and her tail is dyed delicately pink with safe vegetable dyes. She truly is a glam cat.

But then look at this little doll, trying to crawl into my camera case.

Categories
Critters Just Shelley

My micro world

I have to take Zoe in today to get her teeth cleaned. I hate having to do this. She’s an older cat and she’s had seizures in the past and I worry every time she’s under general anesthesia. However, as the vet said, this is something that can’t be put off. But I hate doing it.

What’s worse is she knows it’s coming. When she doesn’t get fed in the morning and her water is taken away the night before, she knows she has to go into the vet. She gets very quiet and very hurt looking, and then she crawls up into my lap and presses as tight as she can to me, and talks softly in her little chatter. Every once in a while, she trembles a bit and presses closer.

Before we adopted Zoe we had a cat, Boots, who was one of three boys born to another cat we were taking care of for a friend. Boots was an amazing cat, huge, close to 20 pounds. He kept getting into one scrape after another, including getting hit by a car and losing sight in one eye.

Boots ended up having stomach problems, and had to have surgery a couple of times, but he’d always pull through. Then one spring we noticed that he was losing weight and getting quieter, and not eating as well. We took him into the vet and they diagnosed stomach cancer and recommended surgery. They also suggested that we take him home for a few days and just spend time with him before the operation.

He looked like a young kitten again from the weight loss. His eyes were huge in his face, and he was so vulnerable.

The day of the surgery the vet said for us to go to work, he’d call and let us know when the operation was over. (Neither Rob’s company nor mine was amenable to time off ‘just for a cat’.) Later that morning, Rob called me and he was crying so hard I couldn’t understand him. It was a shock, because I never heard Rob cry before.

He said that the doctor called and the cancer was very advanced. They could try to continue the surgery, but the chance of him surviving was only about 20 percent and if they weren’t successful, Boots would continue in a great deal of pain. We had to make a decision: continue or allow them to just let Boots drift off to a permanent sleep.

Rob couldn’t make the decision; he was especially close to Boots. I called the doctor and we talked, and he said I had to decide quickly–Boots was still under anesthesia. So I chose not to let him suffer. But all I could think of the rest of the day is that Boots didn’t understand why he was going into the vet, and he didn’t understand why we weren’t there with him, and this was his last memory.

I am writing about Zoe and having her teeth cleaned. My priorities are wrong. She’s just a cat and this isn’t about Iraq, where people are dying and the world has gone to hell. Where’s my civic duty, and don’t I have more important things to write about?

But she’s part of my micro world where my actions have direct cause and effect. I can’t control what I can’t touch, but I can touch her.

updateThe vet is holding on doing Zoe’s teeth until tomorrow, in order to do additional tests today to make sure that the general anesthesia won’t trigger another seizure. As much as Zoe’s teeth need cleaning, we’re all hesitant with her medical history. So poor little girl has to stay at the Vet’s tonight. The clinic is not charging us for either the kennel or the extra tests, since these weren’t anticipated.

The people at the clinic are just wonderful. I’ve always wished that I could have a vet for my doctor.

Zoe

Categories
Critters

Look, do not touch

bear cubPhoto credit: Ray Morris, licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.

update The bear cub was not killed. They held it for ten days in quarantine, which most likely means the petting zoo bought the bear cub through an exotic animal dealer, and it wasn’t “wild”. Currently the bear cub is being cared for at the St. Louis Zoo, while the incident is under investigation.

earlier A story receiving wide circulation today is about a bear cub having to be destroyed for rabies testing because it bit students at an event at Washington University in St Louis. The wild bear cub was brought to the event as part of a petting zoo.

I first read about it in an article in St. Louis Today, but the story is showing up in all of the local media.

Petting zoos are a leading source of both salmonella and E.Coli poisoning. In all but rare cases, such as petting zoos at larger well-established zoos, petting zoos are also an unhealthy, miserable life for the animals. Both of these problems are accentuated when exotic animals are introduced into the mix.

Because of this act, this bear cub—most likely bought through our disreputable but legal exotic animal trade—is going to be killed for rabies testing, because it did what any animal would do in a situation where it was stressed and frightened: it bit people. Not seriously, but enough to break the skin with some of the folk, and that’s enough to doom it.

The University states that it demanded only domestic animals, but such a demand doesn’t make the act better. Petting zoos, especially small, poorly maintained operations, are miserable places for the animals. They’re also potentially very hazardous for humans because of the aforementioned salmonella and E.Coli poisoning risk. Now we can add rabies to the list.

I doubt the bear cub had rabies—they rarely do in the wild. But it died just because some students want a selfie for Facebook.

The petting zoo is Cindy’s Zoo, owned by Cindy Farmer. She’s licensed with the USDA under the name Cindy Farmer-Ryan. A quick lookup in the APHIS database turns up numerous violations of the Animal Welfare Act. So many that the operation is on a multiple-inspections-a-year track.

What a tragic end for this poor cub. Bluntly, it’s time to start putting down some rules about exotic animals in this free-for-all state. And it’s past time for Wash U to find some other way to help students release stress. I suggest jogging.

update: Riverfront Times has a story about the cancellation of an event using this same petting zoo. The story contains a link to a video featuring the poor little bear. It’s just a baby.

Categories
Critters Photography

Sucking clay and beaver tracks

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I went for what was a three mile hike yesterday and ended up going six miles, primarily because I followed an animal track rather than the trail meant for humans. In the Spring here in Missouri when the marsh grasses are fresh and tall, and haven’t been beaten down by other hikers, you can mistake a natural path used by animals for one used by humans — until you reach that moment when you go, “Way a sec. This can’t be right.”

My moment yesterday was when I drew close to the river and realized that much of the trail was under water, and what was above was very wet clay. If you have not walked on wet clay before, you may think that walking on something like ice is difficult. However, ice just sits there, being hard and shiny and fairly dependable–you know if you step just right, your foot on the ice will go a certain way. Wet clay, on the other hand, is devious. It will seem to be hard and stable one moment, and just when you think you can walk at a normal pace, it liquifies beneath you in a brown goo that slides out from under your foot even if you’re not moving. Worse, it sucks at your shoe so that each step is accompanied by faintly obscene and definitely undignified sounds.

th-OP th-OP th-OP

Thankfully I had my walking stick with me and was able to use it to hold myself relatively upright, as well as test for shallow pockets of muck, as compared to ones that will eat you alive. It didn’t help that I wasn’t wearing my hiking boots, but was, instead wearing my relatively new, though bought at a lovely discount, white tennis shoes.

At one point, the trail, what there was of it, split in two directions but neither was marked. I picked the wrong one, which is how I ended up walking through hip high green on a narrow trail that never did stabilize. Being pigheaded, I was determined to follow it until I reached the regular trail, but the path ended up going into the river. Not, however, before coming face to face with a nicely sized beaver, who I can tell you, was more than a little miffed that I was tromping through his territory.

(Some would say that bears are the most ill tempered mammals, but no creature can get meaner than a beaver — just ask people whose dogs have been drowned by the critters.)

April Flowers

Beaver are hard to photograph and here I was, faced with a golden opportunity to get a nice picture. I reached — ever so gently — to get my camera from its case, but even with the care I took, the beaver took alarm at my actions and vanished into the tall grass; moments later I heard a splash as it headed into the river. All I was left with was the opportunity to capture his tracks. In all the lovely muck.

beaver tracks

I returned to where the trail split and this time headed in the right direction. Along the way I passed fields full of wild flowers–amazing flowers– and birds and dragonflies and other colorful insects. I used my walking stick to wave in front of my face when going through dense greenery, to break any webs across the trail — it’s not particularly pleasant to walk into a web on a trail and then end up with a harmless but intimidating spider crawling on your face. Even if you’re not frightened of spiders, and let me assure you, I am, the experience is not edifying.

During all of this, I met no other hikers, which was unusual. The day was beautiful and the area usually has people about, even during the week. Finally, I met up with an older woman and asked her if I was heading in the right direction to make it back to the main trail. She assured me I was and warned me not to head in the western direction, because much of the area was flooded and impassable. I told her I had just come from that direction.

“Oh, but you don’t look that…”, and then she looked at my feet and lower legs, my hands, and my face, “…muddy.”

When I got back to my car, I was exhausted, and dirty…but satisfied. It felt good.