Having just spent a couple hours pushing the lawn mower around the backyard on this 90-degree sunny, humid day, I have to offer my kudos as I always do to the ones who invented air conditioning and freezer pops. AC and freezer pops are the great equalizers when I walk into the house with a soaring core temperature and clothes completely soaked through with sweat. Nothing like hitting the cool air in the house, slipping into dry clothes and sucking down several freezer pops. Those inventors should surely be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

And Diego loves the freezer pop box.

We had a few soaking rains over the past days… spin offs from Hurricane Alex. The rainfall was enough that the little pond in the backyard spilled over it’s banks and I had fish swimming in new places. Not an unusual happening. Fish get so excited when the boundaries of their environment expand and they rush for the edges so they can see just how big it is. Actually we received so much rain in short amounts of time that we had some minor flooding that ran off and soaked in fairly quickly.

The fish I have in my ponds are gifts from the gods, I guess. They appear on their own and proliferate like rabbits. First time I saw them, I thought, “Great, more mouths to feed.”

They are mosquito fish. They eat mosquito larva, so they are a benefit to a pond. They keep the mosquito population in check as far as the pond goes. Of course, they attract frogs which attract snakes and the water in general attracts dragonflies and birds and squirrels. Keep that in mind if you ever decide you want a pond.

I discovered several fish in an area the dogs had dug beside the house. It was a fairly long hole and maybe 6-8 inches deep. I made a mental note to check the area today when the water level was down a bit and the fish would be easier to catch. I really wasn’t sure what I would do about the bazillion tadpoles that were also in this hole. I was rather wishing I had not even noticed the fish or the tadpoles. There is bliss in ignorance.

Last night, I noticed a large toad around the area. The frogs and the toads seem to be incredibly large this year. I mean big enough you could trip over them. What’s up with that?

I let Boogee out last night for his usual evening romp in the yard. This is a fairly new habit he has. He goes out after dark and explores the yard. Not far from the front porch and the light. A couple times, I had to rescue a crawdad from his frenzy. Once I put a bucket over a frog to protect him from Boogee only to later find that the frog had somehow crawled out from under. Last night, Boogee appeared at the door rather abruptly. It seemed a bit odd so I let him in. He limped in holding one paw up. Because of his odd mixture of lab and basset hound, he has slightly deformed front legs. His wrists are prone to getting tired if he runs too much. But I had not noticed him running and he was not panting. But he sure wanted my attention.

I got down on the floor and he crawled into my lap, but he was restless and would not settle. Several of the other dogs seemed to sniff at him as though there was a strange smell to him that I did not notice. He did not like this attention and really snapped pretty hard at them. I have never seen this behavior from him. Oddly, he did not snap at the cats when they did the same thing.

I looked his foot and leg all over with a flashlight — he’s so black, you can’t see anything without extra light. I still saw or felt nothing. Finally, I decided to just take him to bed to see if that would settle him. With computer in hand so I could watch a movie, we went to bed. About halfway through the movie, I checked his foot again… and finally the answer to his problem was surfacing. His foot was swelling up – snake bite. Probably a copperhead. I have coral snakes, but their mouths are so small that they would have to bit a toe to make an impact or so it seems. By the time the movie was over, his foot was so swollen it looked like a balloon. His toes were spaced widely apart with his nails sticking at in all directions. His wrist was regular sized, but the swelling started again above that point and was working it’s way up his leg.

It’s been my experience that the face is almost the best place for a dog to get snake bit. Maybe because there is less tissue to get involved. It’s different with each dog and the situation is a bit of a wait and see thing.

Boogee is doing much better today. Limping, but using his leg. The swelling in his foot has gone down, but the swelling in his leg is still evident. This can sometimes take a while to go away. He was a bit hesitant to go outside this morning and did not go far from the porch, so I have no idea where he encountered the snake. Hopefully not close by.

After breakfast, I went back to the area out back where the fish had moved to. The water was almost all gone. I cannot believe how dry the ground must have been to have absorbed all the water overnight. I found a couple pockets with very little water and bunches of tadpoles jockeying for space… and only two fish. I wonder if that frog I saw last night looked at those fish and thought, “DINNER.” I wonder if he just waited for the water level to go down and scooped up the fish as the floundered out of water. I have no idea. There were no little fish bodies.

I rescued everything moving and transferred them back to the big pond.

I left the city for the country 17 years ago – for the simplicity, for the peace and tranquility, but there is certainly a lot of activity among the various species that I could easily not notice. But once I see it, I realize the country is just as crazy busy as the city, but in a different way. The city is full of the sounds of cars and people and the noise associated with that. Stepping outside on a warm summer evening after a rain, the sounds of the frogs and cicada and such is practically deafening. Other nights, the quiet is so large it seems deafening if you can imagine.

But I so prefer the country and all the abundance it affords me. It never ceases to amaze me.

I found this caterpillar yesterday — a Spilosoma virginica, I think. It’s the first time I have ever seen one of these. Not hard to miss. And pretty cool looking, wouldn’t you say?

People are often admired for their passion to a cause, a belief, an idea; respected even.

But what of the passions that fail, falling short of their mark, their goal. Where does that energy go?

I am in the throes of just such a failure (though my friend Viktor would tell me it is not a failure, but an outcome).

I compare it to a car traveling down the road at a high rate of speed heading straight for a tree. At this point, the front end of the car has already wrapped itself around the tree and its momentum has gone from 90 to nothing in an instant. However, the back end of the car is still moving forward, still anticipating the crash but unable to do much about the inevitable.

Looking at it from that perspective, I can better see that my continued efforts to prevent a very bad crash are long past. Best to make what I can of what I have left.

Being the optimist that I am — a “utopian” as a friend used to call me — I am hoping that perhaps the rear of the car will survive the collision so that all the momentum to this point will not have been in vain.

Those screeching brakes so often heard just before a big crash? That is my passion and my energy screaming to not be stopped in it’s tracks, to not die. Perhaps I can separate the back of the car from the rest of the car and it can be useful somewhere else.

Passion is powerful and passion is addictive. It is sometimes blind. It is the round peg in the square hole that pushes the envelope of what is often complacent normalcy. We owe a debt of gratitude for the minds that think with passion.

It need not always crash into nothingness. And it need not be viewed as failure… it is simply an “outcome.”

I shall live to fight another day, and I shall continue to act with passion, bruised as it is right now, but intact.

I have not lost everything in this crash.

In the mountains, a 4×4 SUV is almost a necessity if you plan to drive when it’s snowy. But if you live almost anywhere else, the “gas guzzlers” are a target of green scorn.

A pair of researchers in New Zealand ask: Should someone walking their Labrador be equally eco-outcast?

Yes, according to a book released this month by Robert and Brenda Vale, who study the science of sustainability at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

In “Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living,” the Vales calculate the ecological paw prints of our pets. The authors encourage the green-minded to look at their decision to buy a companion animal like they would consider buying a plasma television or SUV.

Their statistics show that owning even a medium-sized dog is like owning a 4.6-liter Toyota Land Cruiser and driving it 12,000 miles per year.

The research focuses largely on what dogs and cats eat, calculating the diet of a medium-sized dog to contain 90 grams of meat and 156 grams of cereals in the recommended 300 grams (or about 11 ounces) of dried dog food per day. That works out to about 450 grams of meat and 260 grams of cereal in pre-dried weight.

Environmental “footprints” are calculated in terms of land required to produce the energy, food and other resources a particular human, or pet in this case, needs to survive with its current lifestyle.

Chicken, per kilogram, requires 43.3 square meters of land to generate. Lamb and beef require much more than that, and a kilogram of cereal requires 13.4 square meters to grow.

In all, that gives a medium dog a footprint of 2.07 acres per year. A larger breed (the authors mention a German Shepherd) is more like 2.71 acres per year.

That Land Cruiser, to build and drive 12,000 miles per year, requires about 2 acres worth of energy.

Other ecological impacts of dogs are less dramatic, but the study shows that wildlife areas where owners walk their canines are about 33 percent less diverse in bird populations than similar habitats banned to pets.

Cats are not let off the hook in the study, though dogs are definitely the gas-guzzlers of the animal kingdom. The average cat has an ecological impact of about .37 acres (roughly equivalent to a Volkswagen Golf). Even keeping two hamsters is like owning a large plasma television.

In a town noted for both dog ownership and a commitment to environmental sustainability, the study was received with mixed reactions.

“I feed him like I feed myself,” said Lydia Leonard of her medium-sized pooch. “I think there’s issues with dogs, but I think (the comparison to an SUV is) pushing it.”

Leonard said that she has serious problems with factory pellet food, the kind of diet the study is calculated with, and often gives her pet scraps from the table, which are largely produced locally.

“I don’t see owning dogs like owning 1,000 head of cattle,” Leonard said. “Dogs are not SUVs, and no one is raising a herd of dogs.”

Justin Bridge said he feels a life of mountain recreation isn’t particularly green in the first place. He said he owns snowmobiles and 4×4 SUVs, both because he loves to ski and needs to get to where the stashes are.

“I try to respect a lot of things, but I do use a lot of carbon,” Bridge said. He also said he often feeds his dogs what he’s eating, which mitigates some of the problems stated in the study.

But like Leonard, dogs and carbon output are a non-issue for Bridge.

“She doesn’t drive my truck that much,” he said.
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reprinted from the Telluride Daily Planet website

Perhaps the reason I say cats rule is because the messes they make are smaller in size. For example, you can generally clean up an errant cat poop with a single paper towel. But if you have large dogs like I have, it takes a few paper towels. In defense of the dogs, however, I will have to say that cat poop smells a million times worst than dog poop. I mean, how can something that smells as horrid as that come from inside such a small creature.

But the dogs will trump this small vote in their favor by eating the cat poop before I can get a paper towel.

This morning, I read an article from K9 Magazine entitled, “Why Are Dogs Better Than Cats?” I thought I would review with you the 10 points in the article:

1. Dogs will make you healthier!
Bullshit! They eat better than me and I don’t eat until after they are fed. It’s called “the path of least resistance” or “the path to happiness.” It’s just easier… not healthier.

2. Dog owners have fewer minor ailments and serious medical problems.
Bullshit! I was pulling my arthritic dog up the ramp from the yard a couple weeks ago after it rained and slipped. I landed so hard on my butt that my teeth rattled. Kind of like those falls you had as a child when you were learning to skate. Remember those?

3. Having a pet can help children develop better social skills.
Maybe. I don’t have kids. But if I did, they could help me pick up poop and feed the dogs. Maybe I could trade some dogs in for some kids? (It’s a joke.)

4. Dogs aid children cope with stress.
Maybe true for kids, but see #3 — I don’t have kids. Being unemployed and having several dogs to feed, I am feeling the stress.

5. No more sneezing.
Maybe, but I have a lot more dirt in the house.

6. Stroking a cat or dog can bring down blood pressure.
Bullshit. It more likely to remind you that you need to bath and/or brush your pet again.

7. The British Medical Journal found that pets can often act as social catalysts.
Bullshit. I haven’t had a vacation in years because I don’t have any friends that love me enough to try to manage this pack for a week… even if they all take turns.

8. Pets can help recently widowed people deal with stress.
Absolutely. But it seems the author has digressed from the cat vs. dog argument.

9. Whilst it may seem obvious, owning a dog is a sure fire way to make sure you get some regular exercise.
No kidding. There is always another mess to clean up.

10. Dogs make us laugh.
YES! They do. If you can’t laugh at all the crazy stuff they do, you’ll never survive.

To summarize my stand:
Bullshit — 4 votes and THE WINNER!
Maybe (with conditions) — 3 votes
A blur of cats and dogs — 1 vote
No kidding (borderline “Bullshit”) — 1 vote
YES! — 1 vote

As a dog lover, I have to say I think the cats won this one.

Consumers would have 20 days to return a dog or cat that is sick at the time of the sale. The bill also gives consumers 6 months to recognize that a dog or cat has a congenital defect that adversely affects or will adversely affect the health of such dog or cat and return that animal under the same “pet lemon law.”

I don’t think “sick” is specified well enough. Likely, any animal returned under a “pet lemon law” will be discarded by the seller as damaged goods when in fact the pet might be fixable with medical treatment. In the case where a pet dies from pre-existing health issues, I believe the buyer should be compensated — their money returned. And I understand that a buyer is not expecting to be strapped with a mountain of expenses after they have paid for a pet, but my position is that the pet deserves as much consideration as the buyer. I am offended by the association Mr. Camillo makes between a pet and a car: “… just like car consumers, pet owners should have the same protections.” Like a CAR consumer?

Does this man even have a pet?

Here’s the article in it’s entirety from Mr. Camillo’s website:

Hartford – With the help of bi-partisan coalition State Rep. Fred Camillo introduced and received passage on a pet lemon law that will protect those who buy pets.

Reps. Fred Camillo (R-Cos Cob), Diana Urban (D-Stonington), Annie Hornish (D-Granby), Lawrence F. Cafero Jr. (R-Norwalk) and Brian Hurlburt (D-Tolland) co-introduced the House amendment, which expands the protection for people who buy from a pet shop a dog or cat that is ill or dies shortly after the sale.
“As an animal lover I know firsthand the expense of taking care of a pet and just like a car consumers, pet owners should have the same protections,” said Rep. Camillo, a member of the legislature’s Environment Committee.

Rep. Camillo said, “Common sense legislation for Connecticut residents can be passed when both political parties work together.”

SB-499, An Act Concerning A Pet Lemon Law And The Release Of Rabies Vaccination Records To Animal Control Officers, requires dogs or cats that pet shops or kennel licensees sell to have certificates of origin that identify specific information on anyone who had custody of the animal before sale,. Also a licensed veterinarian, upon request of the chief animal control officer (ACO) to provide the officer with a copy of a rabies certificate and any associated rabies vaccination records for a dog or cat that has bitten a person or another animal. Veterinarians who refuse to provide a copy commit an infraction.

Consumers would have 20 days to return a dog or cat that is sick at the time of the sale. The bill also gives consumers 6 months to recognize that a dog or cat has a congenital defect that adversely affects or will adversely affect the health or such dog or cat and return that animal under the same “pet lemon law.”
The bill also requires dogs or cats that pet shops or kennel licensees sell have certificates of origin that identify specific information on anyone who had custody of the animal before sale and provide a copy of that to the consumer. It also states that “no pet shop licensee shall purchase a dog or cat from a breeder that is not licenses from by the USDA.

Yesterday, I was riding my mower across the yard and I was thinking about the “Craigslist killer.” A young man who was soon-to-be a doctor and soon-to-be wed. Wonder if he wishes he could be at his folks’ house just mowing the yard. Seemingly he had a lot going his way. So what would possess him to consciously scour craigslist for someone to, at the least, allegedly rob. However, the young girl he contacted is dead. Assuming he is the killer, at what moment did he decide she needed to die? Did his mind just go beyond his tipping point and he went into some evil autopilot? Was he prepared to go this far when he hatched his plan?

As I was pondering this yesterday, a snake suddenly darted out in front the mower. A copperhead. Poisonous. I braked to a stop. In an instant, the thought popped into my head that I might be able to kill him if I drove over him with the mower. Is this a similar thought the craigslist killer experienced? In an equally quick instant, I thought “why kill him?” Granted, I did not just attempt to rob the snake. And granted, even though the snake had seen me, it was not going to call the police. The snake caused me no harm and I considered it might have some benficial role… so, instead, I chased the snake towards a flower bed out of my way and resumed pondering the craigslist killer.

Many well-intentioned people have lost their jobs. They have families and they are losing their homes, their cars and their savings. Sometimes, one of the distraught spouses commits suicide or kills their family than themselves… probably because in some moment of twisted, frustrated thinking, they believe this is the best way.

As I spread newspapers on the rubber pad for the puppies, the center pages of one section is always the obituaries. There are people whose life story covers almost 1/4 of the page; they have been so loved and done so many things and touched so many lives. I wonder what my obit might say. There are also obits for people who are just starting their lives and for some reason, it has tragically ended too soon. Many are younger than me.

There is little point to this post except to marvel at all the variables that are life. You could finish medical school and marry your fiance. You could look away and run over the snake with your lawn mower. Maybe you could even grit your teeth and dig still deeper to make it through this lousy economic time. Easy to say, so why does life have to be so hard sometimes?

Watching all the celebrities and the rich in front of us each day, it is so easy to wish to be them. Some have three or four houses and I think I would be happy with just one of them. Some of them are philanthropic, but I am not poor enough to be a cause. Susan Boyle has hit it big at 47. Damn, I am 52.

I am older these days… in my fifties. I am recently unemployed. I have several rescued animals in my care and am wondering if this is my last chance to create a new life/career for myself. Perhaps this is the time to do some of those things I have always thought I would do “one day,” follow my passion — while I still have life.

I’m thinking this might be a good idea and have been giving a lot of effort to this direction. But every now and then, a funk comes over me. Remember the John Travolta movie, Phenomena? Suddenly he has all the right answers to the world’s problems… and later finds he has a brain tumor which is prompting his brilliance. So if I have a brain tumor which is making this new direction look so bright, please let me succeed in my new endeavor before anyone diagnoses the tumor. And let my positiveness about the new direction override and erradicate the tumor.

To my guardian angels: please look over me and my very large extended family. We don’t need a lot, but would appreciate good health, happiness and a roof over our heads… and enough food to go around. We have cut back to just essentials (not that we ever splurged much anyway); we have planted a garden. Please help me find enough work to pay our bills. Please help me succeed. To anyone reading this, please send good thoughts and prayers our way.

We choose life.

This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists. Between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable. Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes.

Then something startling took place. In the autumn of 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes — the exact number is not known. Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let’s further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.

Then it happened. By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!

Although the exact number may vary, the Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when only a limited number of individuals learns and practices a ‘new way’, it remains the conscious property of those individuals. But when one more individual manifests this awareness and acts on it, the field is strengthened, a critical mass is reached and the awareness becomes the conscious awareness of all.

Moral of the story?

If we bring to the world through our lives what we learn about compassion, treating animals better, treating people better, creating a no kill community then it ripples outward. What’s the base of a community without killing? It may be one more act. Tell one more person of the change you’d like to see. Tell one more person of your vision of the future. If opportunity presents, save one more animal, feed one more stray.

Live your life aware that your approach to everything could become everyone’s approach to everything. Quietly do your regular job with faithfulness and love. I think every day in my job about what Mother Teresa said. “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”

Today, make one compassionate food choice, feed a stray, love on your dog a few extra minutes, take a minute to whip out a note to someone telling them that they matter.

Here’s the beautiful thing to me — Imo the young monkey was not a CEO, she did not set out to head a movement, she didn’t have a college degree, a marketing strategy and hadn’t even finished growing up. She performed one small act. Everything we do may be just that powerful.

Nelson Mandela said that man’s greatest fear is not that he is powerless, it is that he is infinitely powerful. Contemplating that our actions may change everything around us is not something that most of us do. But maybe we should. It is an awesome responsibility to be sure. Let’s go out there and use it to make everything better.

Any one of us may be the 100th monkey. One of us is.

What do you want to teach the tribe ?

reprinted from Friends for Life website