Rhubarb wishes it to be known that, despite his pose, he never had any doubt that he was not on the menu.
He also wishes it to be known that at no time did he sample the wine in that bottle behind him*, despite vigorous marking of the bottle as his via cheek rubs.
* Mr. Goldkitty maintained a diplomatic silence on the question of what relationships he might have had with any other bottles of wine, past or present.
There are at least four deer in our neighborhood.
A few days ago, a small family group–Mom and two spotted* kids–came by. They ambled up the side of the house toward the street. A few seconds later, I heard a car drive by and all three deer came running back down the side of the house and around the corner of the fence.
* Pun intended. Their hides were spotty and I did spot them. Not sorry.
Less than two minutes later, this one showed up.
We’re calling her “Where’d Everybody Go Dude”, because she looked all around the area, clearly expecting somebody to turn up and hang out.
When nobody put in an appearance, she decided on a solitary breakfast.
I left her to her meal and went to prepare my own. And then I heard fowl language. (Sorry.)
Sure enough.
I got to the window just in time to see one of the Turkey Gang peck Where’d Everybody Go Dude’s hind leg, chasing her from the scene.
With the evil intruder vanquished, the newest members were allowed to come out and familiarize themselves with the gang’s turf.
The lion may lie down with the lamb, but there’s no sign of impending peace between the poult and the fawn.
The day after Thanksgiving, we had a…well, “invasion” implies conflict, and there wasn’t any. “Visitation” is a bit better, but it suggests an element of social interaction that was entirely lacking. Let’s go with “encounter”.
The day after Thanksgiving, we had an encounter with some of the neighbors.
They spent half an hour or so wandering around the backyard.
We almost never see them on our side of the fence, yet there they were.
Sachiko peeked out the window to see if there were any birds at the feeders and promptly hid behind my legs.
At that, she comported herself more bravely than the rest of the security force, who apparently all clocked out and went upstairs to have a little lie-down on the bed.
They left as quietly and peacefully as they had arrived.
Was it a celebration of having survived another Thanksgiving? A wake for those who didn’t? A plea for some leftover stuffing and gravy?
Perhaps it was all of these.
Yes, the turkeys are still hanging around the neighborhood. If decades of Thanksgivings haven’t scared them off, a few coyotes aren’t going to do the trick.
And besides, there’s safety in numbers. That is, after all, why birds flock and herbivores herd.
And the turkeys have it down to a science: we’ll often see a few birds hanging out away from the main flock, keeping watch. Human miscreants do the same thing, assigning a member of the group to keep an eye out for the authorities while the rest of them get on with their anti-social activities.
That made this seem like just another day in the neighborhood.
Until I looked again.
No sign of the rest of the flock. No other lookouts.
This lone turkey seems awfully well positioned to watch our house. Was he casing the joint in preparation for a future prank? We have had mass turkey landings on the roof before (they’re not graceful fliers or landers; it sounds like a box of bowling balls being dropped on the shingles). And Halloween is coming: the traditional time for tricks.
Still, the bird was on public ground–or, more precisely, public tree–so it’s not like I could chase him away.
And it’s probably just as well I didn’t, because a little later, I found this charming little scene.
That’s Watanuki, head of our internal security force, trying out a new role as an in-home recycling adviser.
I’m still not sure if ‘Nuki is having a mid-life crisis and trying out a new career or if he’s just bored and looking for new challenges.
But either way, it seems he’s more responsible than we thought. During this time of transition, he’s obviously contracted with the turkeys to keep a skywatch on the house.
Now that’s security done right.
As Thanksgiving approaches, the neighborhood gang is out in force.
They do it every year; a kind of ongoing, silent (usually) demonstration of solidarity with their domesticated brethren.
Not everyone is with the program, though. Did you notice Tom? Here’s a better look as they continued down the street.
Yeah, up there at the top of the picture. There’s always one guy who goes his own way.
Maybe Tom is in a world of his own. Maybe he figures he’s got enough problems of his own, staying out of the jaws of the local coyotes; who cares what happens to a bunch of domestic turkeys he’s never met? Or maybe he’s a Wild Supremacist, actively promoting the elimination of lesser sub-species.
Regardless of his motivations, he does eventually join back up with the rest of the gang.
At which point, of course, they all give him the ol’ hairy eyeball and break the silence of the march. As best I can tell–I’ve forgotten most of the Turkeyish I learned in school–the commentary boils down to something like, “Geez, Tom, you are such an effin’ turkey!”
To which Tom, of course, replies maturely, “Takes one to know one, guys.”
Warning for the sensitive-at-stomach: this post includes images of Nature, red of tooth and claw. Well, one image and it’s more like beak and talon. But you get the picture.
We’ve discussed the sorts of birds that show up in the backyard before. And, as we’ve seen, we do get the occasional visitor who doesn’t fall into the core categories of “Jays, Doves, and Little Twitter Birds”.
For instance, there’s this one, who’s often seen above and around the neighborhood.
We’ve never seen her* at the feeder; but she does sometimes get her dinner from the yard. Hang on, let me adjust the colors and zoom in a bit.
She’s much better about ridding the yard of gophers than MM and Tuxie. The meezer prefers Little Twitter Birds, and her sidekick is more interested in krunchiez.
* As usual, I’m guessing about gender identity and pronoun preference.
But the other day we got some impressive first-time visitors to the feeder.
There were actually two of them. Quite handsome and surprisingly well-behaved. Perhaps they figured if they were impolite, I’d pick up the seeds?
Even though they hung around for almost an hour, Sachiko was the only member of the security squad to notice them. She alternated between banging on the window, demanding to be allowed to attack, and–when they looked up at her–fleeing in terror.
Frankly, I think the latter reaction is by far the more sensible. They only outweigh her about four to one, and those beaks and talons are much longer than her teeth and claws.
Continuing our irregular series of posts featuring feline body parts left behind…
Watanuki is still the leader in this category, but Tuxie can do a rather respectable job of it, too. The other day I spotted him just outside the fence. Well, except for his tail and one leg.
I was fairly sure something had distracted him as he was leaving. It took a couple of minutes, but eventually the distraction got far enough from the fence for me to see it.
One lonely turkey. Which is fairly unusual, actually. When not going about as a flock, they most often travel in pairs or pairs of pairs*.
* I’d say “quartets,” but the Turkey Trot doesn’t lend itself to arrangements for four.
I’ll admit I still don’t understand the relationships among our various neighbors. I’d have expected wary detente or restrained hunger between feline and foul, but both of them seemed no more than casually alert. I’ve seen MM and Tuxie show more hunger at the sight of deer, which they would have even less chance of bringing down. On the other hand, the deer seem more afraid of the turkeys than they do of humans.
Politics make strange bedfellows, indeed. And when the politics are inter-species, there’s no telling who’s going to wind up in your bed. Or which body parts the negotiations will cost you.
That’s Short Attention Span Theater, by the way.
So the highly-anticipated battle for sidewalk dominance between the Wild Turkeys and the Jehovah’s Witnesses fizzled out. Tension was building nicely, with the two groups staring at each other across the intersection. And then the turkeys turned into chickens.
No, not literally. I may be coughing and feverish, but the fever isn’t that high.
The birds dressed their ranks, forming into four files of five birds behind their leader… You know, I’m not even convincing myself here. Actually, the whole flock milled around for a few minutes, then made a sharp right turn into a side street, avoiding conflict entirely.
Just as well. Had the turkeys not backed down, things would have gotten messy. Call it a victory for moral principle (you do know that Jehovah’s Witnesses are conscientious objectors, right?)
Also not happening: despite all the coughs I’ve left under my pillow, the Lung Fairy hasn’t left me a cent. Maybe I should try putting my head under the pillow?
No, the brain reboot hasn’t happened either. You might have guessed.
I did watch some baseball Tuesday. I hadn’t expected it to be educational. Foul balls flying into the seats have been part of the game since its beginning, but with bats–and fragments of shattered bats–finding the seats more often, there’s a good argument for putting up protective netting.
Turns out the Japanese have come up with an approach that satisfies both fans seeking protection and fans who prefer the traditional mode. There’s netting running dugout to dugout, giving protection to fans in the highest risk area. But there are also seats in front of the netting: seats that come with a helmet, a glove, and a warning card describing the risks of sitting in the section.
Try that in the US and half the helmets would be broken and three-quarters of the gloves stolen by the All-Star Break.
In the sections beyond the netting, where there’s typically more time to react to a foul ball, the ushers are equipped with whistles, which they blow when a ball is headed toward their section. Imagine the lawsuits arguing that either the whistle wasn’t blown soon enough, or that the constant whistle blowing ruins fans’ enjoyment of the game.
A shame, really. That’s the kind of compromise I could support.
What I can’t support is the term “extra bases” for a double. I heard that a lot Tuesday. A double isn’t extra bases. At most, it’s extra base. Singular. And even that’s arguable.
Do the math, people. Yeah, right. I did the math for you. Blame any errors on my cough syrup.
Anyway.
According to MLB’s statistics, there were 42,276 hits during the 2016 regular season. 27,539 of those, just over 65%, were singles. So yes, singles were arguably the default hit, and a double would be “extra base”.
But there’s another way to look at it, one just as valid. Throw in the 8,254 doubles, 5,610 home runs, and 873 triples, and we find that the average hit in 2016 was worth a smidge over 1.6 bases. So that double? Yeah.
“Looks like an extra four-tenths of a base for Ortiz.”
Sure, it sounds a little odd. But we’ll get used to it, and it does far less violence to the English language than awarding multiple extra bases to a guy who’s clearly not even going to try to stretch his line drive off the wall into a triple.
Just so you know, I’m part of the majority these days. Specifically, the majority of people who had their flu shots this winter. Turns out this is one of those years where the vaccine was significantly less effective than we all hoped–according to my doctor, sixty percent of those who got their shots also got the flu.
On the bright side, that means forty percent didn’t get it. I regard you lucky minority with envy.
I tell you this not because I’m advocating against flu shots. Quite the contrary. I’m well aware that some years are better than others, and we just drew the short straw this time around. I’ll get my shot next year, and the year after, and so on until medicine comes up with something better. Hell, I’d get my shot even if I knew 40% was the best it could do. It’d be worth it to have a shot at being in that group.
Nor am I telling you this because I’m looking for sympathy or because I’m announcing a temporary suspension of civil libertiesthe blog. Posts will continue. They just may not be hugely coherent.
Yeah, go ahead and get it out of your system. “How can we tell the difference?” I know there’s at least one wiseass out there thinking exactly that. I’m going to ignore you with dignity.
Right now my attention span compares unfavorably to Sachiko’s. She’s seamlessly shifting between watching birds at the feeder and sleeping in front of the heat vent. That’s about one and a half more things than I can do right now. And I can’t even blame it on drugs. No, this is all on my body, too busy diverting resources to the battle against the viral invader to spare anything for linear thought.
Look, it’s so bad, I can’t even turn on a ball game until I finish the blog post. If I were to turn it on, I’d bounce back and forth between the computer and the game, appreciating neither and–
Excuse me. I was watching a flock of turkeys walking up the street. They’re about to collide with a crew of Jehovah’s Witnesses. This should be interesting. My money’s on the birds winning right of way.
Unless the Witnesses make a fort out of their copies of The Watchtower. Then maybe they can stand off the birds by hiding inside and playing loud music. “All Along the Watchtower,” maybe? Hendrix version, naturally. Turkeys, being contrary souls, would probably prefer the original Dylan version.
Where was I?
Oh, right. Who needs coherency anyway? Other than laser manufacturers, that is. An incoherent laser is just a power-hungry flashlight.
Sorry. I’ll shut up and go watch some baseball now. See you Thursday when I just might have finished rebooting my brain.
Some things don’t change much at all.
The spider’s had to rebuild her web a couple of times, but she’s still hanging around in front of the house.
And hiding on days when I have the good camera handy. I presume she’s concerned about having her picture out on the Internet in this age of facial recognition.
Yuki still thinks Rhubarb is the greatest pillow known to felinity.
And snoring. Not surprising with his head at that angle.
The turkeys are still terrorizing the neighborhood. This shot was taken shortly after they held off the dog next door while stealing everything edible in his yard.
And they’re beginning the preliminaries to their mating rituals. It is that time of year.
Rufus is still negotiating territorial rights with Watanuki.
And there is much staring.
Koi Scribblings 