There's Always Something...

Snow...

One of the pictorial blogs I follow regularly is the one put out by the Boston Globe.

The photos are so darned real that they plunge me into wonderful nostalgia.

I've lived in several snow states: Wisconsin, Illinois, Nebraska, New Mexico, Connecticut, and going way back, Massachusetts - in addition to some that had SOME snow. Lots of fond, snowy memories. Maybe mostly enjoyed around this time of year. 

The romance of it can often blot out the tedious and sometimes violent realities of things that happen in the snow. Watching the recent weather reports is a sobering experience.

We rather enjoy the sunny 60's of the Arizona Solstice. I'm perfectly willing to relish the joy of the Globe's squirrel frolicking in the morning snow - at a distance.

Merry Christmas, friends!

 

Dogs, Cats and Other Wonders...

Chancy, of course, is one of my all-time favorite bloggers. Good internet friend as well. Her blog of today made me think of our furry friends, which is always a blessing!

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 05, 2009

Dog and Cat

WHERE DOG AND CAT CAME FROM

A newly discovered fragment from Genesis 3:25:

Adam said, "Lord, when I was in the garden, you walked with me every day. Now, I do not see you anymore. I am lonely here, and it is difficult for me to remember how much you love me."

And God said, "No problem! I will create an animal who will reside with you forever and who will be a reflection of my love for you, so that you will love me even when you cannot see me. Regardless of how often you are tempted to forget me, or be selfish, or how unloveable you behave, this companion will love you as I do, in spite of yourself."

And God created a new animal to be a companion for Adam. And it was a good animal. And God was pleased. And the new animal was pleased to be with Adam, and it wagged its tail.

And Adam said, "Lord, I have already named all the animals in thr kingdom, and I cannot think of a name for this new animal." And God said, "No problem! Because I have created this new animal to be a reflection of my love for you, its name will be a reflection of my own name, and you will call it DOG."

Dog lived with Adam and was a companion to him and loved him and obeyed him. And Adam was comforted. And God was pleased. And Dog was content and wagged its tail.

After awhile, it came to pass that Adam's guardian angel came to the Lord and said, "Lord, Adam has become filled with pride. He struts and preens like a peacock, and he believes that he is worthy of adoration. Dog has, indeed, taught him that he is loved, but perhaps too well."

And God said, "No problem! I will create for him a companion who will be with him forever and who will see him as he is. This companion will remind him of his limitations, so he will know that he is not always worthy of adoration." And so God created CAT to be a companion to Adam.

And Cat would NOT obey Adam. And when Adam gazed into Cat's eyes, he was reminded that he is not the supreme being. And Adam learned humility.

And God was pleased. And Adam was greatly improved. And Dog was happy, and wagged its tail.

And the Cat didn't give a shit one way or the other.

May Have To Get a Pig...

Kingsford Goes to the Beach - video powered by Metacafe

Never saw anything quite like this before.

Budweiser and Horses...

Clydesdales. Most amazing horses. Several years ago, Budweiser sponsored a national tour for their horses that included our community and we went by to see these animals in person. We weren't disappointed. Magnificent creatures!

Every year, a little after Thanksgiving, I find myself looking forward to the Budweiser commercials that feature these horses joyfully pulling sleighs highly suggestive of the Christmas season. The music never varies and is about as winsome and as Christmasy as commercial music can get.

Hoisting my remote control skillfully in my personal crusade to stamp shouting used car salesmen, furniture stores, casinos and Levitra out of our living room, I find myself reversing the normal process and turning up the volume when the horses appear, trotting out their Christmas greetings as they make their way across rustic bridges and past  tastefully decorated homes in snow-covered villages.

But, ungrateful wretch that I am, I have never purchased a six pack of Budweiser. I've decided that when Jo Ann next suggests a trip to the grocery together, I shall atone for my years of unappreciative neglect and utter a genuine "thank you" to the horses and to one of the few companies that make Christmas commercials pallatable.

Too Excited...

Well, I got too excited last night to shoot the promised pictures of our Chicken Cacciatore feast with the LA guys. But it was wonderful.

To compensate for my negligence, I offer you a link to todays photo-blog by Moose Peterson. I read him every day.

He's an outdoor photographer who regularly does truly weird and adventurous things -  like spending a whole week up north surrounded by Grizzly Bears.

In fact, that is what this link is all about. I truly admire the guy and wish I were young enough and brave enough to join him. Failing that, I recommend him to you highly. What a guy!

Off to the West...

Am getting ready for a walk on the wild side tomorrow - my third photo shoot in the Hassayampa River Wilderness area west of here. It is a haunting place of trees, rocks, shrubs and a river that runs through the state of Arizona, mostly underground. It is much like it was 500 years ago.

One walks is silence broken only by birdsong and the trudge of one's own boots. I have seldom seen anyone else there. There is always the awareness, however, of being constantly watched by wildlife somewhere just off in the distance. It's their country, thank God. And I know that.

I will bring back some photos for you - which is part of my reason for going.

New Years Eve...

I don't know anything about Verlyn Klinkenborg. But I feast upon his writings in the New York Times regularly - and he always leaves me with a bit more appreciation for life in times like these.

Look at this morning's New Year's Eve writing, for example:

The Rural Life

New Year’s Eve

By VERLYN KLINKENBORG

Published: December 31, 2007

At midnight tonight, the horses on this
farm will age a year. That is the custom — every horse has the same
birthday, Jan. 1. Like all things calendrical, this is a human
convention. When it comes to equine conventions, I know enough to
notice some of the simpler forms of precedence: who goes first through
a gate, who gets to the grain feeder ahead of the others. But I can
report that the horses make no fuss about their common birthday or the
coming of the new year. Tonight, like any other, they will be standing,
dozing on their feet, ears tipping back and forth at the slightest of
sounds.

There is something deeply gratifying about
joining the horses in their pasture a few minutes before the clock
strikes 12 on New Year’s Eve. What makes the night exceptional, in
their eyes and mine, is my presence among them, not the lapsing of an
old year.

It’s worth standing out in the snow just to savor the
anticlimax of midnight, just to acknowledge that out of the tens of
millions of species on this planet, only one bothers to celebrate not
the passing of time, but the way it has chosen to mark the passing of
time. I remember the resolutions I made when I was younger. I find
myself thinking that one way to describe nature is a realm where
resolutions have no meaning.

It’s not that time isn’t passing or
that the night doesn’t show it. The stars are wheeling around Polaris,
and the sugar maples that frame the pasture are laying down another
cellular increment in their annual rings. The geese stir in the poultry
yard. A hemlock sheds its snow. No two nights are ever the same.

I
always wonder what it would be like to belong to a species — just for a
while — that isn’t so busy indexing its life, that lives wholly within
the single long strand of its being. I will never have even an idea of
what that’s like.

I know because when I stand among the horses
tonight, I will feel a change once midnight has come. Some need will
have vanished, and I will walk back to the house — lights burning,
smoke coming from the wood stove — as if something had been
accomplished, some episode closed.

   VERLYN KLINKENBORG

 

           

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Easy Now...

One comes upon strange and unexpected sights some 20 miles off the main highway in the Arizona desert.

Squirrel...

The other day I was sitting at the breakfast table, observing our backyard wildlife when a squirrel casually walked across our back wall. That won't strike many of you people as unusual. Everybody sees squirrels.

Except people around here. I am extremely observant and appreciative when it comes to wild animals. We have lived in Phoenix 22 years, have a wooded back yard and I have never seen or heard of a squirrel around here before.

I scratch my head in wonder. Where did my friend come from? And where has he gone?

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The Judgment of Superstar Vick...

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