May 1, 2010. Saturday.
Situation: Moi has already taken Mway for a morning walk, and she has work to do this morning. We both work tonight, but in different places, and I do hope to take Mway for a walk today. Moi mentions this morning that she heard some sort of weird and loud insect-like trilling or frog-like croaking sound, a sound like she’s never heard before (and she speculates that these might be the North Carolina frogs that the Boy released from his terrarium before going to NYC). I will be listening for this sound. I take Mway out about 3:30.
State of the Path: I’m even surer today that the majority of the honeysuckle bushes are Morrow’s, as many of the flowers on the bushes have turned yellow, and some have even fallen on the ground. And they are particularly fragrant today. The hedge garlic is all in flower, and probably at its peak. Leaves are coming out on the sumacs, and even on the pin oaks. I note how most of the ground under the maples is covered with jewelweed shoots. The leaves have come out on the weird tree near the pin oaks – whatever it is it has a compound leaf of five leaflets. There’s a new yellow flower under the deer stand – the first thing I select in Audubon is celandine, but I have to study more closely for a better identification some time. On the far side of the bank, there are also a bunch of violet flowers with similar petals. As I’m bending under the Morrow’s honeysuckle and the multiflora engulfing the big trees, I forget to look at the pink honeysuckle bush today. I don’t hear Moi’s weird noise.
State of the Creek: The creek is moseying along brown and shallow, the pools unmoving. I decide to cross the feed channel, which has about as much water in it as parts of the creek. I hear three frogs jump into the water, see some duckweed growing where they flop – and here’s where one of the honeysuckle bushes really crowds the path. As I step carefully across the feed channel I have to brush against the bush, and its twigs poke against my body. Crowded right behind the honeysuckle is a Russian olive shrub, and right next to that is a cedar.
The Fetch: On the way to the clearing, I note more strawberry blossoms out. Up in the clearing, I toss the “pro-quality” stick which I decided to bring along to help me brush away honeysuckle branches and to pivot across the feed channel. I stay in the middle of the clearing so Mway doesn’t have to carry the heavy stick too far. About five fetches today. Back in the back yard, Moi is in the coop talking to the chickens. She asks me if I heard her weird insect noise, and I say no. “Are you deaf?” she asks, “I hear it now. “ I listen carefully, and I finally hear the cicada-like noise that she’s talking about, and which I’ll have to listen for more closely on another day. After she drops the stick at the back door, Mway goes back down the porch stairs to hop into a washtub full of water under the lilac bushes, so hot it is today.
9 comments:
A walk and a fetch takes about a half hour. Two walks a day, that’s an hour.
Fine. I’d say if we took a walk every time you turn around, that would be full employment. Could we move on? Ask me some questions that would be relevant to Part ?, also known as Oler >. M.
I just got home from a long Sunday workday – cold drizzle early evening first day of May lush green puddles of water following long cold rainy April – and I don’t want to distract from our discussion here – but when I walked into the house Moi tells me almost in a whisper that this morning when she took you for a walk up around her wigwams you suddenly hesitated to go any further bolted back down the slope or something spooked by something she tells me in a whisper you were sniffing all over the place afraid to go up the slope to the clearing she saw near the board on the path a giant paw print in the mud she didn’t know what it was bigger than your paw print didn’t know what you detected something she said could it have been a coyote or what?
Yeah, I smelled something this morning, I don’t know if it was a coyote, an African elephant, an orang-utan, or what. M.
By Patricia Zengerle and Alister Bull – Mon May 2, 5:57 am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. forces finally found al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden not in a mountain cave on Afghanistan's border, but with his youngest wife in a million-dollar compound in a summer resort just over an hour's drive from Pakistan's capital, U.S. officials said.
A small U.S. team conducted a night-time helicopter raid on the compound early on Monday. After 40 minutes of fighting, bin Laden and an adult son, one unidentified woman and two men were dead, the officials said.
Tonight, after our walk, while I’m wearing my father’s Air Force safari helmet, after I come up into the lawn from a new path I’m trying to make beside the garden, what do I find lying in the grass, which I had mowed on Saturday, near a lilac bush, but a plastic WW II toy soldier.
Toomey: 'A good day for civilized society'
BY BORYS KRAWCZENIUK (STAFF WRITER)
Published: May 2, 2011
The long-term effect of the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is unclear, but the elimination of the man "who massacred thousands of Americans" could have a significant symbolic effect, U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey said today.
"It's a very good day for the United States of America. It's a good day for civilized society throughout the world. This is a big deal. It took a long time coming, but finally Osama Bin Laden was brought to justice," Mr. Toomey said during an appearance at the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce.
Man receives 40-to-life in revenge killing in Pomona
Will Bigham, Staff Writer
Created: 04/27/2011 03:25:26 PM PDT
POMONA - A man convicted of murdering a man to avenge his brother's slaying was sentenced Tuesday in Pomona Superior Court to 40 years to life in state prison, a prosecutor said.
Prosecutors accused Joel Martin, 24, of targeting Carlos Espinoza on Feb. 4, 2009, because Espinoza was friends with the alleged gang members who fatally shot Martin's brother two months earlier.
Taliban vow revenge for bin Laden killing
Sally Sara, wires
Last Updated: 22 hours 17 minutes ago
The Pakistani Taliban are promising to take revenge for the killing of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Taliban leaders are warning of revenge attacks against the Pakistani government and foreign targets.
"Now Pakistani rulers, president Zardari and the army will be our first targets. America will be our second target," Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, said from an undisclosed location.
Senate official: Wrong to link bin Laden, Geronimo
By MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press Matthew Daly, Associated Press – Tue May 3, 11:17 pm ET
WASHINGTON – The top staffer for the Senate Indian Affairs Committee is objecting to the U.S. military's use of the code name "Geronimo" for Osama bin Laden during the raid that killed the al-Qaida leader.
Geronimo was an Apache leader in the 19th century who spent many years fighting the Mexican and U.S. armies until his surrender in 1886.
Loretta Tuell, staff director and chief counsel for the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, said Tuesday it was inappropriate to link Geronimo, whom she called "one of the greatest Native American heroes," with one of the most hated enemies of the United States.
The Boy reports regularly from NYC on Facebook – I should join Facebook just to keep up with the kids’ doings, although Moi usually keeps me abreast of what’s going on. Lately the Boy has been tabulating the times it takes for him to ride his bike from his Queens apartment to work in Manhattan. He got the bicycle a month or so ago, and has found it saves him $100 or so a month in subway fares. This spring Moi has taken riding a bike too on occasion, and today she had to fix a flat tire. She tells me that the other night the Boy hit a pothole around 1 am in Brooklyn and busted his tire. He had to get a cab ride home. The taxi driver was going to charge him $60, but the Boy negotiated the fare down to $40.
Kenya: Elephants killed near Prince William cabin
By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Jason Straziuso, Associated Press – Tue May 3, 12:20 pm ET
NAIROBI, Kenya – Four of seven elephants outfitted with GPS tracking collars have been killed on the forested slopes of Mount Kenya in recent months only a short hike from the rustic cabin where Prince William proposed to Kate Middleton, conservation officials said Tuesday.
Save The Elephants fitted seven animals near Mount Kenya with collars over the last year to track their movements. More than half have been killed, and the group's founder, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, said he's worried about what may be happening to the elephants who aren't collared.
"We've uncovered a poaching crisis near Mount Kenya that we didn't know about before," he said.
Posted by M.
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