Bat Box

I always wanted to build a bat box. I read about it in a Missouri Department of conservation years ago. If you make some habitat for the bats, they may favor you with settling in your neighborhood. I have heard that the number of insects (particularly mosquitos!) that one bat can eat in a day is more than the bat weighs. Talk about an efficient and effective substitute to insect repellent and bug zappers.

There are cool plans at: http://free.woodworking-plans.org/bat-house-plans.html including the Missouri one. I will probably try it this summer.

Bats are endangered, so it probably doesn't hurt to give them a home. Most of the problems with bat population in Missouri are from people visiting caves and disturbing them. They get fat in the fall and survive on this fat through the winter, but if they fly around in the winter, they burn up their reserve and can die. I just heard that there is a virus attacking bats in upstate New York that may be like the one attacking and wiping out honeybees. They are very afraid that the bat populations may get decimated, too.

This is the first time I've ever seen one, at a park called Burr Oaks near here in Blue Springs. I wonder if they understand that it's ok to live there because it has the bat logo on it?

Litter Notice

I hate this poster.

It's hard to believe that trash can deform a turtle this much.

Funny little fungus

These fungi look like little fans on the side of this fallen tree. Notice that they have moss on them?

Crinoid Stems

I remember crinoid stems from when I was little.

These are fossils of a plant that comes in segments and looks like a little stack of disks.

We were told that the Indians used them as money, which I've never heard confirmed now that I'm older. I think it's just that they look like little stacks of coins.

We found this one during a winter walk in the woods.

Where's the Turtle

We found this turtle shell near Lake Jacomo last weekend. I can tell it's a box turtle by the shape and size.

I'm not sure why it turned white. I must have been bleached by the sun, but why doesn't a live turtle shell bleach out? The shell is made of a material called keratin that is like fingernails, hooves, and even hair.

The spine is visible inside the shell. It's fused to the top of the shell. You get a feeling that the turtle was really part of the shell.

I'm sure this one did not like coming out of his shell.

Lonesome Dove

I'm not sure if morning doves migrate or not. My brother has some in his neighborhood that I've noticed twice when I visited him. We have them near my office, but I only notice them there at certain times of the year.

They should call them mourning doves, they sound so mournful and sad. It's a strange lonesome sound, but at the same time comforting.

I know that they are in the pigeon family, which was a big surprise to me when I learned of it a couple of months ago.

This one was probably not so lonesome as he sounded. As I drove past, I noticed another one in a tree across the street, so I'm thinking this one was scouting out a little dovette to make beautiful music together.

Mystery slaughter

I saw car tracks and something that looked like a bloody in my favorite deer field across from my office. I kept thinking some hunter had finally spotted our growing magnificent inner city herd and had taken one out. This was out of season, in city limits, and on private property, so I wasn't happy with the prospect.

I went over at lunch today to investigate.

I did find a very old deer carcass, the kind that you could tell had probably died of natural causes and sat out to be picked over for a long time.

The mystery meat was indeed meat, but not at all what I expected. It appeared that someone had emptied out their freezer of old steaks and hamburger. What a strange and disgusting way to dispose of this stuff.

At least it wasn't one of my deer friends.

Turkey Crossing

Turkey is often used as a derogatory term. However, I think they might be a lot smarter than a racoon or a possum. Maybe. Maybe they are just more maneuverable.

This morning I got to watch a long line of Turkeys waltzing toward the road. There was morning traffic on the road, and I knew they wanted to cross, and they would most surely see some cars. I kept watching, wondering if I should interfere and thinking that I was about to see a turkey get hit by a car.

But turkeys don't get hit by cars. Have you ever thought about it before? You see racoons, possums, squirrels, deer, and an occasional rabbit, but I don't think I've ever seen a dead turkey at the side of a road.

The turkeys approached the road cautiously, alert and looking around and backing off when the cars came around. When the traffic stayed clear, they rushed across, just like we teach children.

So maybe they are a little smarter than the average furry mammal. I know they didn't hang around and play chicken with the drivers.

Three way

For the last few nights, we've had a face off at the cat food dish between our resident possum and a persistent racoon. While scary and fierce with their long teeth and their ferocious hissing, the possum is no match for the racoon. When you have tiny people paws, you just stand back and reach in and bring the food to you. The possum has to commit himself by leaning in. During the standoff, the racoon steadily polished off the food dish. After the racoon scarfed and ran, the possum played vacuum cleaner and sucked up all the loose kibbles that had dribbled out during the melee. Sort of like the tortoise and the hare.

The cats are curious about the standoff, but not terribly obsessed by it. After all, the wild critters can eat all they want, and the people will just open the food bin and poor out some more. There's no competition here, or danger of hunger.

Advertising Elephants

The whole Elephant theme from nearby Elephant Rock State Park was evident in the advertising of local businesses.

I know that when I think Elephants, I think of buying a good new car.

Drive, Doggie, Drive

How long before one of these sad and hopeful pups decides that the waiting has gone on long enough and drives themselves to the local dog park?

Elephant Rocks

Most people wait for nice weather to visit local parks. We visited Elephant Rocks on a snowy winter day, which turned out to be very intersting. Once you get over the cold and the snow, the view was very pretty.

I didn't know what to expect, I thought the park was all about rock formations. It was actually an active quarry up to the 1960s, so you get to see natural scenes, and jumbles of rocks left over from quarrying operations.

The crown jewel of the park are a line of huge boulders that are balanced on the top of a ridge. They tell you that the rocks look like elephants, but I kept thinking of mushrooms. We'll have to go back in the summer.

Mysterious Ornaments

I'm not sure why little iron birds stuck through the roof are a good idea. Is it a whimsical attempt to make you think there are birds on the roof? Why use a model that looks like the eagles on the tips of flag poles? Do they serve some useful purpose, like breaking up ice sheets and preventing them from falling off the roof all at once?

Did they freeze in place there, enchanted by some socerer that was irritated by their peeping? Are they there to scare something away? They are pretty small. Maybe they scare away worms or moths.

It will have to remain a delightful mystery.

Shiny Copper Spinner

When you stare at these with your eyeballs in real time, they seem to disappear, reappear, and shimmer. I thought that taking a stop-action picture of it would answer the mystery of how they work. No such luck. The mystery is only deepened.

Bear Dog Passing

We got to see the famous Bear Dog wandering away after his photo shoot. It's the closest to celebrity spotting we'll ever get.

Fairies?

What kind of strange creature are these? I would have said wood nymphs, but they are too civilized. Must be their cousin, the parlor fairy.

Road Kill Cafe

We finally found the perfect poster that captures the cullinary experience of Steve's kitchen.

Bugs Bunny goes to Marti Gras

I'm not sure why rabbits are better suited to display Marti Gras garb than a standard mannequin, maybe they had the rabbits ready for Easter and thought, what the heck, Rabbits like to party, too, right?

Dog Sitting

This family was in a store, getting some kind of canine family photo taken. I couldn't tell for sure whether the dog on the right was half bear or what.

Ray

We finally got to meet Ray, my brother's new Yellow Lab.

Sorry he's blurry. He was so happy that he couldn't sit still for 2 seconds.

He's not supposed to climb up on us like this, but you have to make allowances for excited happy dogs.

Woodlawn Farms

There is a pretty little farm just north of the Topeka exit of the Kansas Turnpike. I've always admired how orderly, pristine, and beautiful it is.

I imagine that a farm this perfect must have exotic imaginary creatures like giraffe lambs and hawk wolves that dance around to the sound of flute music from live swans. The cows probably give milkshakes and the chickens lay cadbury eggs. The Easter Bunny lives there and raises candy chicks and chocolate bunnies, while magic cowboys ride golden unicorns and the Budweiser clydesdales do special tricks with dalmations jumping back and forth from their backs while they run equine obstacle courses.

I haven't visited yet to confirm all this, because I can't find the mystical lane that leads to the silvery entrance gates.

Sun Pillar

A sun pillar is formed when high thin clouds containing falling ice crystals reflect the light from a sunrise into a perfect column.

This sun pillar was very pretty, but none of the pictures I took did it justice. It lasted about 20 or 30 minutes while I was driving, and it was beautiful the whole time.

Turkey Wash

It looks like the turkeys are miserable, but they must like swimming in freezing water when it's snowing out.

That's why they call them turkeys.

Climbers

You have to be an animal to like climbing up the side of a water tower.

Snuff Lake

It appears that the message here is if you feed the Geese, you'll sleep with the fishes.

Glide Path

We were watching geese and ducks land on a mostly frozen lake and I got an up close view of the final approach. It's amazing how quickly they slow down and come to a landing. It was like watching the planes land at O'Duck International Airport.

Reflective Waterfowl

I love the way the thin layer of water on top of the ice makes a mirror-like finish that the ducks and geese are reflected in.

They seem to like to sleep with their beaks tucked under their wing, just right on the wet ice. I always wonder how their feet don't freeze.

Goodbye Longhorns

We love the cows across the street from where I work. From the days that there was still a small barn and goats in the field next to the cows' field, through the days when there was a wildflower meadow next to us (before the Seese Machine shop went up) we have been fortunate to work in an office that is on the boundry between city and countryside.

Nick often remarks on seeing hawks flying, and if you drive north down the road, there are still horses in the field to the left, cows to the right. Here I am, stuck in the middle with you....

Sharon announced an ominous discovery yesterday. The property that the cows are on is for sale. Big signs just went up. I'm guessing that within a year or two, we'll be looking at the back of a building and a big parking lot, and the two lines of trees will be knocked down so they can plant a row of twig trees in the 3' wide strip of grass that is at the far edge of the parking lot. I'm so proud of the way we pave over everything. Isn't progress excellent?

For some reason, this little house up on Douglas (the next street over) still has a little barn and runs cattle in the field behind them. Not just any cattle, some pretty mottled longhorns of various pretty shades of brown. These cows are fun. We often see them playing in the field, romping around in big loping strides, head and tail bouncing high like a 1000 pound seesaw. They chase each other and do little cow dances, twirling around and looking like they are chasing their tail.

I guess we'll trade that in for another faceless office building that will no doubt enhance the quality of life in our city to a degree we cannot even imagine.

The first green of spring

We went for a hike in the woods on Saturday and found something unexpected.

Green leaves budding out!

This was a viney plant, which I understand are the most cold resistant and hardy towards winter weather.

To be honest, we don't know whether this is something that just never lost its green, or was sprouting out in new growth.

This morning, my wife asked me to go into the laundry room, look out the window, and tell her if I thought that the Bradford Pear was budding out. It certainly looks like it.

2007 had a beautiful early spring that was cut short by a late and protracted freeze. We were quite worried that the trees themselves might actually be leafless that year. They did indeed have a freezing die-off, but a couple of weeks later, they started budding out again. This made spring actually come almost a month late, but it didn't appear to have a lasting effect.

This winter has been wet & dry over and over, warm and cold over and over. I don't remember ever seeing such an erratic weather pattern in winter before.

Saturday morning was around 60 and then by Sunday afternoon it was bitter cold. Today almost reached 60°, and tonight is supposed to get down to 10°. How's a tree supposed to know what to do.

The nightly herd

Across the street from our office is a field and some trees. There are large round hay bales in the field. This time of year, the sun is setting behind our office each day around the time that we are leaving. This makes a nice reddish golden glow on the trees, field, and bales.

Each evening this week, there has been a herd of deer in the field. They look really good in the glowing sunset light. Three nights ago, I saw a group of 4 right across the road from where our parking lot exits onto the road, and a large group of 8 down the road a short while. Last night, the large group was in the field directly across the road and I stopped to take some pictures of them.

The light level is so low that the camera gets that little hand symbol in it meaning that it will take a picture, but if you move at all, the picture is blurred. So I took about 20 pictures and this was the best one. I put it on maximum zoom, which makes it even worse as far as being blurry.

By the naked eye, I did not notice that this deer was a buck until the first clear picture of him came out. Then I started following him around until I got a good picture. The rest of the herd had some young deer in it, and they were playing the deer equivalent of tag, darting around and coming back and nipping another little yearling, then doing it again.

The buck kept looking at me. They were aware of the traffic going past on the road behind me, but did not do much unless they heard a noise. Even then, the noises didn't spook them, but just made them look closely.

The herd kept moving, and eventually I decided to go home. Maybe I'll bring a tripod and see if I can get a really awesome picture or two.

Close Encounter

This owl was in a tree only 30' away. I noticed it suddenly, after walking past the tree it was in while talking loudly.

It sat politely for us to take some pictures and admire it, and flew away only after we turned to walk away.

Then a pair of deers stood politely 30' away and let us look at them without being spooked.

There must have been something in the air.

Spider case

Winter does not kill spiders, they just get in their wooley blankets and sleep through the cold. I think I woke up a little one there in the foreground.

The Travel Bug

This bug doesn't crawl, but he travels everywhere.

Winter Fungus Find

I don't know what I expected, but finding this dinner plate sized fungus in the middle of the winter wasn't it.

Going Geocaching

It's a perfect bright sunny day for geocaching.

The Ice Storm

I took a trip to southeast Kansas Friday. As I got close to Pittsburg, I could tell that a monster ice storm had struck. The trees were stripped for almost 30 miles. Crews were still out 2 months after the storm.

It's just nature's way of pruning the trees.

Winter Horses at Sunrise

There is something majestic about horses in a field, and with a beautiful sunrise behind, it's hard to beat.

Frozen World

Can you imagine being a fish in the winter? What is it like to have the ceiling of your world turn solid? What do they eat under the ice? How do they handle the cold.

In one way, it's like they are secure under their blanket. It certainly is a beautiful view from above from us air breathers.

Bird Washing

I found myself bird watching some bird washing yesterday.

I was outside a plant, waiting to go inside, and noticed a nearby puddle was a hotbed of activity.

It was nice yesterday for a winter day, almost 60°. The birds were flying in and out and really reveling in their little bath ritual.

Have you ever watched how it works? They dip headfirst in the water and scoop up some water with their head and shoulders, then they raise their head, making the water spill down their backs while they vibrate their wings this certain way that makes the water cascade over all the surfaces of the wing and torso.

They really seem to enjoy it, too. The only thing that makes them stop is the crowding and distraction from other birds. The water was very cool, I'm sure, probably from snowmelt rather than rain. It was also probably very clean, right there in a yard with mowed grass right up to the puddle's edge.

After I went inside and came back out, there were several Canadian Geese around the puddle. You don't see them washing themselves off unless they are swimming in a lake. Puddles are a bit beneath their dignity.

Red Fox

Andrea has seen a red fox twice in our backyard. I've seen one back there maybe twice in all the years I've been here. She saw it twice in one week. We'll have to get a good pic of it if we can. This pic is from the web.

Wikipedia calls them a "catlike canid" meaning that they are in the same family as dogs and wolves, but they look more like a cat. They can't bear their teeth, apparently. The article says they are common, but we are at the southern boundry of their range. There is some debate as to whether they are native to North America or were brought here, but they are all over Eurasia. They were introduced into Australia, but that is not a good thing, apparently. They think the foxes are resonsible for the extinction of 10 native species.

All I know for sure is that they are beautiful creatures. I hope to see one, and I hope we can get a good picture of them. Figuring out where their den is and seeing some pups would be too much to ask.

Animal Tracks

I love it when it snows and you can go out and follow the animal paths. I've tracked down where the kittens go when they run off, as well as what's going on next door.

I bought a book a long time ago called Animal Tracks and it has always interested me. This guy shows you how to identify the animals and some of their activities by their tracks (and their scat as well).

You can see where people have come and visited and looked around next door, but the really interesting thing is all the turkey tracks. You can tell that these wild birds are really acting domesticated. They walk down sidewalks, hang around by the pool out back, and scratch up huge areas under the oak trees to get at the acorns.

There are also a lot of deer tracks, but I haven't spent as much time as I'd like to find out if there's anything different or unique.

Snow is the only way a tracking novice can compete with the real professional trackers, or an Indian.

Possum in the Path

We went nighttime geocaching for the first time the night before last.

This is where people hide containers, mark the coordinates, post the location online, and let people try to find it.

This one was in Fleming Park, near our home and was supposedly marked by little reflectors. We found the reflectors and started down the trail.

This is a path that used to be a road before Lake Jacomo was built (I guess they build the dam and the lake fills itself, but you know what I mean). I used to go out there years ago and could still see the centerline stripes in the road on the cracked but in tact pavement.

This time was different. Armed with bright Maglites (the 4 D cell sized variety) we went into the darkened woods. It was the last warm day, 65° at sunset with the promise that the next day temperatures would plunge. We had a very cold streak and snow for the weeks preceding our little walk, and the warm temperatures turned the ground into a mush the consistency of oatmeal.

Walking down the path, the little artificial reflectors weren't the only thing that shined in our flashlights. A possum was walking toward us with bright shiny green eyes. We closed to within 25' before the distracted little creature figured out we were there. This is only after Andrea said something like "Hey little possum!" I wonder why the bright light in the darkness didn't clue the animal in before that point. He finally turned tail (effectively disappearing in plain sight without those shiny eyes) and moved quickly into the undergrowth.

We found the cache, after much tramping through the mud. It brought back memories of the times I would tramp around in the woods in the Army, as well as the days almost 15 years ago when I first started exploring those paths in the woods.

Minke Whale in the Amazon

There was a Minke Whale found in early November almost 1000 miles inland in Brazil, up the Amazon. It was 12 tons, 18 feet long.

They are not sure why it got lost and disoriented, but people tried to help it return to the ocean. Their efforts failed, and the whale ended up dying 800 miles from the ocean a week after it was spotted.

No one is sure why the whale went so far up river, but they did mention that they thought it was a youngster.

Oh deer!

We found two deer carcasses, pretty much picked clean while we were out in Blue & Gray park this weekend. Some hungry coyotes must have had a good meal!

Wild Bees

I have always loved bees. Ever since I saw my first plastic hive in a Nickersons or Smuckeys restaurant as a kid, I've been fascinated. These restaurants near highways and interstates would put a hive in a big plastic enclosure inside the store with a hole to the outside world. The bees didn't seem to mind, and you got to look at them through the plastic, doing their incomprehensible bee things.

I heard that the bees just live through the winter, but I always wondered how that worked. This last weekend, I got to see it first hand.

We were looking for some hidden treasure in the woods (a geocache) and we thought it was in a hollow in a tree. So when Andrea looked inside, she saw that there was a beehive in there. I could have reached in with a finger and touched any of the bees. It was really cold out, too. You always hear that insects cannot survive the winter outside, but you always wonder where they go. Here's one example.

Bees are seriously endangered right now. A few years ago, they were attacked by mites called vampire mites that were killing them off at a horrible rate. More recently, they are being wiped out by a virus. They call the condition chronic wasting or hive collapse syndrome. Bees are very important to the world, they pollinate plants and help keep crops growing and producing. There are other insects that pollinate, too, but the honey bee is the only insect that will pollinate any plant. Their lose would be irreplacable.

Pet Heaven

I listened to a podcast of a touching story about a man than uses his pet border collie to help hospice patients. These are people with cancer or other diseases that are not expected to live. Jon Katz is the owner, and he tells about some of the ways that Izzy makes the people feel better for a little while.

The story is at http://www.slate.com/id/2180065/ if you want to read it. It's better in podcast form, with the guy reading it to you.

The final story tells about a man that says goodbye by saying "Izzy, thanks. See you on the other side." The man died right after that, it was the last time they saw him.

It got me wondering if most people believe that the pets that they had in life are going to be in heaven with them when they die. It's a nice thought. Do they remember you after so much time? Our lives are measured in decades and theirs are only measured in years. I started thinking about all the pets I've had and some of the pets that I've known and how cool it would be to see them all again.

What do you believe?

Feline Possessions

You probably never thought much about what a cat can own.

There was another chapter in the Cuppy and the Atomic Ball saga that made me think about this.

I knew that the Atomic Ball was missing, I knew Cuppy was frustrated, but I couldn't find it. She would come over and touch my arm and talk to me, so I had figured out that much, that I was supposed to find the ball.

I had already looked in all the usual suspect places, under furniture on the first floor, with no luck. I knew that sometimes she dropped the ball down the stairs to the basement to chase it, so we went downstairs to see if we could find it down there. She kept making a funny noise and "pointing" to an empty bookcase. I moved some shelves and there was no ball behind them so I figured this was not the place. Cuppy kept at it, and finally, I decided to show her it wasn't the right place. I was going to pull it out from the wall to show her, and when I moved the bookcase, I discovered that it had a hollow place under the bottom shelf that could only be accessed from behind, and there was the ball!

I was marvelling about how the cat must have been able to smell the ball or something. When I walked by Cuppy with the ball in front of her and she had a very content look on her face. That's when I realized that she owned the ball. It was hers. In fact, it's her only possession. So in a way, it's very important to her. I would even say that she understands that it's her ball, and only because of the ball, does she understand the concept of ownership.

This is something I would not have expected from a cat.

Cuppy and the Atomic Ball 2

Cuppy kept coming up to me and stretching out one front paw and touching my arm. If I tried to pet her, she got irritated and shook me off and moved away. She's been doing this for a couple of weeks.

This corresponds to about the time when she lost her atomic ball again. Last night when she touched my arm, I remembered the deal and started looking for her ball. She often knocks the ball under the couch and ends up on her back, clawing around reaching for it. She kept knocking the ball into the same place, over and over and eventually scratched a hole in the underliner on the couch. We discovered that she had pushed the ball up into the inside of the couch through this hole once before.

I thought this might be what happened, so I lifted the couch up and tried to get the ball to roll over to the hole and fall out. It did not fall out, but Cuppy seemed to understand what was going on and kept trying to get into the couch, so I assumed it was stuck inside the couch. I lifted the couch up on its end and got a flashlight and was looking through the hole, as well as reaching in and feeling for the ball.

Cuppy came up and pushed herself into the hole, dug around for an moment, and came out with the ball! I'm not sure how she did it. It was like a cat magic trick.

Here she is looking quite satisfied with herself.

Local man performs Heimlich on son's dog

The following is an entry submitted by my brother, Steve:

I know it may not exactly make "veterinary history," but I have just successfully performed the Heimlich Maneuver on my son's yellow Labrador retriever, Ray.

Ray has only been with us a little over a week, but everyone, especially my son, Kyle, has fallen in love with him. He's not the smartest animal I've ever known and he's proving a challenge to house train, but I have a soft spot for him as well. He's a born natural when it comes to fetch, so I purchased squeaky tennis balls for him as well as a blue one of similar size without the fuzzy outer covering.

Kyle and I were sitting in the family room around the fire place when it happened. I got Ray's attention with the ball and he laid down next to my chair to play with it. After a few minutes, I heard the familiar sound all dogs make when they need to vomit. I jumped up in order to carry him to a room with tile or concrete, then noticed that the ball was missing. He began making choking noises and I ascertained that he had swallowed the ball. "God, he's choking." I said, as my years of training took over.

I picked him up to a standing position and felt his throat. Sure enough, it had an enlarged swelling, just above the trachea, that was ball-shaped. First, I shoved my hand in his mouth to see if I could get a hold of it. All I could feel was the back of his throat. I positioned my right fist just below his zyphoid process (if dogs have that) just below the sternum and glanced over at Kyle. He was up on his knees on the couch with a very concerned look on his face. All I could think was that I couldn't let my son's dog die right in front of him. I had to keep my head.

Grabbing my right wrist with my left hand, I plunged my fist up and into Ray's thoracic cavity. He attempted to get away from me, confused as to why I was attacking him, as he attempted to disgorge the obstruction on his own. I gave him a few thrusts, then stuck my hand in his mouth to see if it had come free. After two series, I felt the first hint of panic. It wasn't working. I decided to thrust harder with nothing to lose. After one more attempt, Ray's demeanor changed, as if the ball had come up into his mouth. Again, I stuck my hand to the back and was barely able to get my thumb and middle finger around the slippery ball. I removed it and immediately tossed it in the trash can.

Ray was obviously traumatized, as was Kyle. I immediately sought to console both at the same time. Ray was beside himself, wondering what had happened and why I had been so mean to him. Kyle was beside himself because he didn't need the stress of losing the dog he loves. They're both okay now. I've decided to dispose of all non-edible toys that are tennis ball-sized or smaller. I'm sure he couldn't swallow a tennis ball with it's furry exterior, but I'm not willing to take that chance.

After we had all settled, I had Kyle take the attached photos of Ray, the ball, and myself. Even though it had almost killed him, Ray still wanted the ball back.

The Ice Dragon of Winter

Our recent ice storms came at us like an ice dragon.

The weather channel confirms this.