Why I Don't Have Pets.

I hope the neighbors remember to feed my dog while I'm gone...

Who's made of welded rebar? Is it you? I think it is!

There's No Place Like Home...

In Oregon. Miss Cali. Nuff said.




I once had someone tell me that he knew me before he met me because of this song. I always thought that was a wonderful thing to say.

Mushrooms I Will Not Be Eating.

Sometimes nature is easy to figure out. Take these mushrooms, for example. Red means run, son.

Ever wonder how early humans determined which foods were poisonous and which ones were edible? I have. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Amazon basin, and the tribe I worked with there ate a very particular kind of cassava root. I mean, they ate some form of this root with everything. They ate cassava bread spread with cassava poi, they ate fried cassava bits with salt like popcorn, they processed cassava into a kind of granola to have with fruit for breakfast... They even had a pretty appalling method by which they fermented the stuff to make an alcoholic beverage which, while foul-tasting and disgusting, will send you for quite a loop, I have to admit.

My point is this: While there are lots of varieties of "sweet" cassava that are non-toxic, this particular sort of cassava that I'm talking about is what's called a "bitter" cassava - which means that it's highly poisonous in its raw state. Like, touch-the-raw-root-lick-your-fingers-and-die poisonous. However, there is a very long and complicated process by which the root can be cured that renders it edible. This process involves submerging the root under water for a few weeks, boiling it over a fire for a certain amount of time, drying it out for several days, mashing it up with a mortar and pestle, etc. etc. The method is exacting and specific, and if at any time in the process someone decides to cut a corner or two, the consequences could be deadly.

So what I’m wondering is, how did these tribesmen ever figure out how to process this root to begin with? I mean, how did that go, exactly?

Tribesman #1: Joe ate some of that root over there last month. Killed him pretty dead.

Tribesman #2: Really? Dead, huh? Well, maybe he should have tried to soak it in the river for a week before he ate it. I doubt it would have killed him if he’d have done that.

T1: No, Tim tried that a couple of weeks ago. He wound up just as dead as Joe.

T2: Really? Huh. That is so hard to believe... Oh, you know what? He should have soaked it for a week, then boiled it for sixteen hours. That’s where he went wrong.

T1: No, no... Remember Alan? He tried soaking first, then boiling. I thought it was a sure thing, too, but...

T2: Alan tried soaking then boiling, and he still croaked? Wow. That’s a head-scratcher... I mean, what comes after soaking then boiling? I don’t know... Maybe... maybe...

T1: I’ve got it!

T2: What?

T1: We’ll mash it.

T2: We’ll mash it! Yes! Of course! Genius! Soak, boil, then mash! That’s bound to work, don’t you think?

T1: I don’t know, but it’s worth a try.

The Power Of Flowers.

You have to be careful hiking in these parts because you never know when you might stumble across someone’s pot garden.

I've seen some pot gardens in my time, but there is something especially nice about these pots in this garden.

Mendocino village is brimming with beautiful landscaping, but this might be the best.

For me, it's all about the totem poles and antlers. Antlers are to a garden what a cowbell is to a song. More cowbell? More antlers!

The flowers aren’t half-bad, either. And the bubbles only add to the magic.

Alan bought this property in 1979. Upon the lot sat a shed with a dirt floor and a dilapidated chicken coop. Oh, and a giant blackberry thicket over eight feet high.

Fast forward thirty years. According to Alan, he and Roxy can’t leave a nursery empty handed. That’s three decades worth of plants. The first step is admitting you have a problem, folks. Although I’d hardly call this a problem.

This garden contains over fifty different kinds of plants and flowers. And one cat named Scooter, not pictured. According to Alan, Scooter is a snob around strangers.

Alan also says that, “Flowers fill a part of heart and soul like nothing else.”

He’s got that right.

VelociRaven.

This is a somewhat macabre post. I know, I know. Hard to believe that Emo McGothy over here has a dark side. My point is, if you’re sensitive to things like animal predatory behavior, then maybe you should skip this one. Me? I guess that sometimes I like to start my week on the sick side. There are some nice photos of birds, though, so if you think you can stomach it, it might be worth your while. Still, consider yourself warned.

These are the culprits. Before I get to the ghoulish bit, let me say that I have a profound fondness for ravens. They’re clever and beautiful, and if you’ve ever interacted with ravens, you know that they have a strong sense of self and are quite funny. For instance, these two ravens have trust issues with peanuts. There’s a stump out by my barn, and I regularly leave peanuts out for the forest critters. This worries these two ravens to no end. From their perch in the tree, they have a long talk as they look down at the peanuts on the stump. After a while, one of them swoops down to scout things out while the other keeps watch. As the lookout shouts encouragement from the tree, the scout walks around and around the stump. I counted seventeen laps once. Seriously. Finally, the scout, mustering all of his courage, jumps up and strikes the top of the stump with his talons. He doesn’t take a peanut - rather, he repeatedly jumps up from different angles and knocks at the stump with his feet before taking cover and observing from a few feet away. If he determines it’s safe, he’ll call the lookout down so both can feast on the peanuts. Often, however, he’s so nervous about the whole thing that he and his partner will fly off without taking any peanuts at all.

Of course, I thought this behavior was hilarious, but it also made me really curious as to what had these ravens so uptight about my peanut offerings. One day, I mentioned the odd peanut dance to one of my neighbors and she started laughing. She told me that outdoor cannabis growers set rat traps around their weed patches and bait them with peanuts. Ravens have learned to strike at the traps in order to spring them and steal the peanuts.

See? Smart birds, right? And charming. Yeah, well, stick with me...

I’m not sure who the victims were in this tragedy. It could have been any of the forest sparrows or robins or finches who nest in the redwoods around my house. All I know is, this morning when I woke up, it sounded like Bird Armageddon out there. I walked outside just in time to see one of the ravens swoop right over my head with a baby chick in its beak - legs kicking, desperately cheeping away the last moments of its life. The other raven was still raiding the nest and cawing out in delight. Meanwhile, all of the other species of birds within a quarter-mile of my place were having a collective bird meltdown. Very grim. Especially considering that there’s some perfectly good peanuts on that stump over there.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about how birds and dinosaurs are related, which puts their grisly behavior in perspective. I mean, the similarities are striking - especially so now that scientists have concluded that some dinosaurs had feathers.

Birds are kind of like velociraptors in miniature. You can really see it in the claws. And in the eyes.

There they sit, on a bench, the portrait of innocence...

Or nonchalantly sipping nectar from your feeder...

When all the while they’re plotting against you with that T-Rex brain of theirs. It makes me wonder what it would have been like when gigantic, winged creatures dominated the skies, flying from tree to tree raiding the nests of other prehistoric creatures. Maybe even prehistoric monkey creatures.

Because let me tell you, after watching those ravens raid that nest, I honestly believe that this mallard would eat you if he could. Which will doubtlessly be my nightmare for tonight - sitting helplessly in a nest awaiting my fate at the beak of a giant mallard who has already gulped down half of my siblings.



Yet I don’t think nature is cruel. Rather, I think nature is indifferent. For example, most of the time I wander through life completely unaware of the havoc and destruction I visit upon the heads of not only smaller creatures, but perhaps even upon the heads of entire universes to which I am the greater (and completely oblivious) host. Is this havoc intentional? Malicious? No. How can it be malicious if I’m destroying existences I cannot possibly be conscious of? Yet there it is, happening every second of every day. And if I proceed through my days completely indifferent to the tragedies I cause, it’s not that hard for me to imagine that whosoever serves as a host to my own itty, bitty universe proceeds through his or her life completely indifferent to me and my tragedies.

I pondered a little over what it means to react to something as if it’s a trap, even when it’s not. Maybe the lesson is that it’s a good idea to be suspicious of good fortune, especially when such good fortune is offered without any apparent catch. To the ravens, I guess that the sparrow babies are simply a safer meal than those suspicious-looking peanuts on the stump. After all, those things are really freaky.