I thought I wouldn’t be able to get any pictures to illustrate this podcast, but a brief lull in the rain allowed me to get these. They don’t do justice to the color because of the mist. But I dared not wait because if the predicted heavy rains bring high winds, there could be little magic left to photograph.
Read more →To set the scene, here are a few pictures of my library, the Silsby Free Public Library in Charlestown, New Hampshire. And exterior shot The original reading room View from inside the turret
Read more →Not surprisingly, one of the casualties of high-speed transmission of news has been the decreased concern about fact-checking. Perhaps this explains the trend toward “creative nonfiction” with its greater wiggle room than the stricter standards that used to apply to journalism. I’m the first to admit that blatantly false statements regarding basic animal facts that are so easy to check in this age of high-speed connections and electronic data bases strike me as particularly egregious errors. But I also realize that those who make them may feel the same way about false statements related to their particular area of
Read more →Have you ever heard of IQ tests? What about the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking? If you answered “yes” to the first and “no” to the second, don’t feel bad. As a society, we place a much higher value on IQ-test lateral (or linear) thinking than the ability to think outside the box. The question I ponder in this podcast is whether we impose a similar standard on our companion animals. And the subplot: is lateral thinking another term for compliance?
Read more →What can I say? I like sheep the best of all farm animals. There’s something about them that always makes me smile. Maybe it’s because so many people think they’re dumb and I know they’re not. Or maybe I like them for some reason that’s so abstract or possibly strange (?) that I don’t even know it myself. Whatever, because the idea of sheep in general makes me smile, the idea of sheep treating themselves for parasites makes me laugh out loud with appreciation for their highly developed body wisdom.
Read more →I seem to have birds on my mind lately, even though I referred to them twice as a species instead of a class in this podcast. I could try to fudge my way out of it saying that avian taxonomy (i.e., naming) is in a state of flux. But the truth is that for and the most part, that’s more genus and species stuff with a some bickering regarding who’s a bird and who isn’t. Or I could blame it on the little bird—seriously!—who fluttered at the window while I was recording this. But I won’t. There was just
Read more →One thing I forgot to note about the studies mentioned in this podcast: the human and canine participants were well-trained SAR professionals. It’s possible that those poorly trained animals who belonged to equally poorly trained, naïve and well-meaning or attention-seeking folks who showed up at Ground Zero didn’t fare so well. Also, shortly after I recorded this podcast, I received a journal that probably unintentionally contained one photo and one poster that expressed the divergent views mentioned in it. The photo showed a trained SAR worker engaging with her dog at Ground Zero in a more upbeat, confidence-instilling manner.
Read more →After I finished this, I realized that my jays probably have more faith in me than I deserve. There was another incident here several years ago when the result was solely because of their own skill with no help from me whatsoever. The week before that particular event, I happened to look out my front window just as a hawk intercepted a jay, brought it to the ground, and killed it so fast there wasn’t a sound. About a week later, I was doing dishes and looking out over the valley below the house through the bay window above
Read more →When I was working on this podcast I came across a quote by former government official John W.Gardner: Life is the art of drawing without an eraser. Now I think we can add an electronic line to that: Life is the art of living without a delete key. And that goes for our relationships with animals (and the whole planet, come to think of it) as well as other people.
Read more →I received a little more help from Ollie than usual when I was recording this podcast. Normally when I’m recording, he trots beside me as I make the circuit around the center chimney to help me organize my thoughts. But the day I recorded this, something more exciting captured his attention. Later when I edited it, I had to listen to Ollie’s editorial comments when he heard his contribution. For those who wondered about the identity of the strange aerial sound that set him off, it was a very small aircraft flying low in the early morning fog. Given
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