Spring Attacks!

Posted on May 15, 2016 by Professor Taboo

Oh the carnage, the humanity, the bio-economy of it all! The constant mating everywhere! The constant devouring everywhere! Does it ever end!?

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Daughter’s amaryllis ferrari

It was a very mild winter. Many don’t remember winter being so non-existent. Then came the abnormal rainfall. Many Central Texas lakes and rivers had been well below normal water levels for several years due to drought. Not this Spring! Texas endured record flooding across much of the state. That’s the good news and the bad news. If you are an avid gardener or farmer, it’s bad news — the insects normally killed during cold hard freezes in winter, all survived. If you are a bird, a frog, a pond goldfish, a field-mouse, an armadillo, a rabbit, a skunk, a cat, a grey fox, a raccoon, a ring-tail cat, or a white-tailed deer, no winter means TONS of food everywhere! And if you are a birder or Naturalist (me), it is wildness galore and heaven on Earth for you and all creatures! So as it goes… “it is the best of times, it is the worst of times.“

Our mild winter, our Christmas, and a sign of things to come began with my daughter’s gift of Amaryllis Ferrari. For about two months it constantly flowered with a total of nine blooms throughout the 8-weeks. On a sidenote, my apologies for the substandard quality of my pictures and videos. It’s my LG camera-phone’s fault.

In late March I cranked down the Martin-house in back overlooking the Guadalupe River valley and Kerrville. I cleaned it out in the hope that Purple Martins would move-in before the common Sparrows, like they’ve so often done. For about a week the two bird-breeds fought fiercely over the 12-unit two-story house. As I watched the battling and wing-flapping, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the many times our neighbors complained about my high school rock-metal band practicing in our downstairs garage. It was so loud at times we shook the living room and kitchen floors above us. Upset and not at all proper fans of quality high-fidelity music, Mom and my sister sounded strangely similar to this yelling and screaming…

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.“

By the end of April and several back-to-back fronts seemingly every 10-12 days bringing more rainfall, the entire property lit up with golds, pinks, yellows, indigos, crimsons, and every possible types of greens and textures imaginable. This year, instead of two sets of lantana camara, we have three sets. And surprisingly, the once strictly yellow-blooms have turned to a mix of pinks and yellows. How is it possible when we did no transplanting? Then it hits me.

The evil, insatiable Odocoileus virginianus.

This outdoor caretaker, this gardener, this beautification security guard (myself), has a few thoughtless nemeses roaming about at night. The most villianest of them all is Odocoileus virginianus and it knows no limit to its diet! If it’s colorful, green, and designed for human admiration and enjoyment, it’s on the menu! But their insatiable appetite is only half their evil doings. While lounging and munching during the moonlit darkness, as I slumber they leave their calling-card… EVERYWHERE! If you walk the lawn with your head up so as not to bang your head on bird feeders or Live Oak branches, then you will certainly step in Odocoileus virginianus evidence, or shit warmly left behind for a morning reminder of who is ultimately in-charge outside. Yet, there’s a silver-lining to these animal bowels: transplanted lantanas!

Our family’s 12-acre property and ranchita home has a surrounding lush St. Augustine lawn, a waterfall with pond, and many spectacular plants and native herbs carefully placed and landscaped. Because I have no desire to patrol at the godforsaken midnight, 2:00, or 4:00 a.m hours, I have brilliantly constructed protective cages around our plants or tasty menu items! There is another downside.

Thriving from nature’s touch and my superb care, our stunning plants quickly outgrow my short-sighted fixed protections, sticking through the wiring offering-up their appetizing blooms to my ever-present, always hungry 4-legged nemeses, who then ironically and quite unintentionally shit more flowers for us… sort of. The deer must loiter long enough for full lantana recycling, or mobile intestinal planting. There’s another thinly silver-lined benefit — thinly in the most invisible sense. Excited neighbors mention they now have “wild native” lantana growing in their yard. Hmm, nothing like sharing the bowels of beauty with everyone!

“It is the best of times, and it is the worst of times.“

They have 4-6 broods a year and are taking over the neighborhood. I speak of the bull-headed pigeon-offshoot, the white-winged doves. Even their newborn offspring begin nesting a few months after leaving their parent’s nest! Eat, nest, eat, shit, lay eggs, eat with bigger flock, mate like it’s going extinct, eat, shit more, lay more eggs, eat more, repeat. Essentially I’ve described the incredibly vigorous head-bobbing life of the white-winged doves. Their cooing sounds like a bunch of yawning bored unintelligent dinner clubbers. We had enough! Time to take action on the other nemeses.

Some wonderful person invented a deterrent called bird-shot for .22-caliber long rifles. The ammo isn’t too powerful — I used it to hit white-tailed deer in the ass when sneaking up to the St. Augustine grass and bird-feeders in daylight until they figured out I meant serious daytime business… until I was in bed in the middle of the night, when the All-You-Can-Eat buffet begins. The sting on their buttocks makes them scatter… far! Oh the pleasure I would receive watching them kick-up their hind legs when the pellets stung. Admittedly, I felt all-powerful, King of this hill and my Kingdom and all who dwelleth within. Hear me roar.

Then a magnificent natural event took place.

While shooting the bird-shot at the thousands of white-winged doves over running our baths and feeders, I wounded one of them. He or she tried to fly away, but could only hobble hop in the grass. Another ww-dove came out of the tree tops to be with it — its mate? And then as quickly as it came down it flew back up! I thought how odd. Before I could think of why, WOOOSH! From some nearby tree our familiar red-shoulder hawk in seconds swooped down and tackled the wounded ww-dove, pinning it to the ground within its sharp talons! As it sat on top of the dove, our Martins and Swallows dived-bombed the hawk three or four times, the hawk’s head ducking each time, but unrelenting of its catch. A minute or so passed and the gorgeous bird launched, carrying with it the meal for its family.

“It is the best of times, it is the worst of times.“

It wasn’t long before when that hawk took natural liberties upon our soothing well-designed and maintained waterfall and pond complete with leopard frogs and Goldfish. Two years prior we placed four goldfish in the empty pond. Two were male and fully vivid orange. One was a spotted female Koi, the other an all-white albino Koi. Today, we have some 40-50 fish living happily in our pond I maintain daily. See following video…

One early morning as I was sipping my coffee, out of the corner of my eye through our 11-windowed living room I glimpse a huge brown shadow fall from our rooftop into our pond. As I turned to see what it was the red-shouldered hawk flapped its 4-foot wingspan several times on the water surface, then once it snagged its prey it carried off our albino Koi which had grown to 6-inches in length. She was pregnant too because the all-orange males were both mating her with unending voracity the previous week sometimes wedging her against the rocks splashing water in all directions. In fact, all the fish were having orgies everywhere in the pond! When spring sprung, so did all the raging hormones it seems. But our pure-white albino Koi was no more; sushi for the red-shouldered. As the red Claret-cacti flowers in the header image above alludes…

“It is the best of times, and it is the worst of times” depending where in the food-chain you exist.

If it weren’t for my 6′ 0″ frame and build, I might be on the menu too. However, before I get to that, allow me to share a few images of how vivid spring has arrived or attacked, along with a cat (Foster) that when outside is constantly twitchy-jumpy from all the overstimulating wildlife 24-hours a day. When it becomes too much, well… you’ll see how he copes:

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Cat torturer

One of this spring’s entertainment packages enjoyed by Foster-the-cat is the neck bending flybys — looks like torture sometimes — from the new resident cliff swallows nesting in our back porch. They’re a bit anti-social. They do not welcome Foster hanging around. Some days when he wants to lie in stealth around the pond for incognizant leopard frogs sunbathing on the warm rocks, he rudely interrupts the cliff swallow couple! They are trying to make a risk-free mud home atop our music speakers. HAH! They seem to want what everything else is enjoying: LOVE. It seems to be the trend — to follow suit with all the other rampant mating orgies which proceed from sun up to sun down and beyond! The cat leaps into the air with delusions of grandeur that maybe, just maybe the gods of trajectory and velocity will smile upon him. Foiled! Foiled again! Why can’t I have wings! Perhaps this is the view from Foster’s perspective providing us evolved humans with endless springtime entertainment…

And so to borrow from Dickens with slight modification…

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times,
it is the age of wisdom, it is the age of foolishness,
it is clearly the age of birth, death, and near-death!

It is the epoch of belief, it is the epoch of incredulity,
it is the season of Light, it is the season of Darkness,
it is the spring of hope, it is the orgy of feasting.
We have everything before us, we have nothing before us,
we are all going direct to Heaven,
we are all going direct the other way–

In short, the cycle was so far cycling,
that some of its noisiest authorities
insisted on its being received,
for good and evil when spring has FULLY sprung!

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

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And Now Something Different

Posted on March 12, 2016 by Professor Taboo

Too often this life, planet, and all of us living on it can get overwhelmingly serious and downright depressing, right? With the circus that has been our 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign and our two Keystone Cops political parties, I thought it was now time to laugh. In general laugh more at all the utter ridiculousness that makes up this paradoxical existence some struggle to embrace. It is said that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Therefore, without further ado I give you a slide show of some of my favourite images and memes that always remind me of what a funny wonderful life we have — they also pander shamelessly to my Bohemian decadence. I hope a few make you laugh.

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Did you find one or two that you liked most? Comment about it/them below or share one of your own favorites! I’d love to see them. 😉

Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

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A State of MinE

Posted on February 26, 2016 by Professor Taboo

Steve Dunwell – Getty images

In Texas we are known to do things big. We tend to favor and flavor life robustly and then give our opinions about it, solicited or not, whether one likes it or not. It is a state of mind and a State of mine. And yes, whether I like its earned reputation and personality or not, doesn’t matter to Texans too much either. That’s also the meaning behind the Lone Star.

As such, I pay my humble tribute to my great, robust, opinionated Lone Star State because I can. I am an eighth-generation Texan — which means we were here well before the state was stolen away from Mexico — and have much to share about it. I will list a few definitions, and explanations of how we speak and what it means, or could mean. I feel this is an accurate self-portrayal, albeit parody, of my beloved rural Texas minus the guns, the horns, the beseeching “Lord in Heaven” for sure, and the Good ol’ boy yee-hawing.

The Meanings of Inept, Useless
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Common: having or showing no skill; clumsy.

In Texas: 1 – He/She could screw up a two-car funeral. 2 – He is such a numbskull, he bought a suit with two pairs of pants, then burned a hole in the jacket. 3 – If she’d been cooking for the North, the South would have won the war!

The Meanings of Slow

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Common: moving or operating at a slow speed; not quick or fast.

In Texas: 1 – He’s so slow he could gain weight walking. 2 – He was behind the door when brains were passed out to the room. 3 – If it gets any greener (stopped at a traffic light) it’s goin’ to grow!

The Meanings of Dead, Deceased

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Common: no longer alive; not moving.

In Texas: 1 – He/She gave up their fiddle for a harp. 2 – The devil’s comin’ round with the bill. 3 – He/She swallowed the wrong pill. 4 – His/Her moving picture went dark.

The Meanings of Poor

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Common: lacking sufficient money to live at a standard considered comfortable or normal in a society; of a low or inferior standard or quality.

In Texas: 1 – Broker than the Ten Commandments. 2 – He lives on the other side of across the tracks. 3 – We’re so poor we can’t go window shopping or ‘draw’ breath in the bank.

The Meanings of Unacceptable

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Common: not satisfactory or allowable; intolerable.

In Texas: 1 – Like hugging a rose bush. 2 – I’d rather play leap frog with a unicorn. 3 – I’d rather pick cockleburs out of a skunk’s ass. 4 – I’d rather use sandpaper than toiletpaper. 5 – He got caught in his own loop South.

The Meanings of Fast, Brilliant

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Common: moving or capable of moving at high speed; exceptionally clever, quick-witted, or talented.

In Texas: 1 – He/She gets there in one-half less than no time! 2 – Movin’ like he was goin’ for the luncheon after Sunday service. 3 – She’s a walking encyclopedia inside a labotomy lab.

The Meanings of Advice, Tips

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Common: guidance or recommendations concerning prudent future action, typically given by someone regarded as knowledgeable or authoritative.

In Texas: 1 – Never call a man a liar just because he knows more than you do. 2 – Never sign anything by neon! 3 – There’s never a good time to have your gun jam. 4 – Just give me the bacon without the sizzle. 5 – Don’t jump off your horse and saddle to kill the rattle snake without your rifle outta the sleeve on the saddle.

The Meanings of Immoral, Wild

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Common: not conforming to accepted standards of morality.

In Texas: 1 – They’ll wrap around you like a sweet-potato vine. 2 – He was born on the wrong side of the blankets. 3 – They’re hitched but not churched. 4 – His lips ain’t no prayerbook. 5 – They ate supper before they said grace.

The Meanings of Yonder

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Common: at some distance in the direction indicated; over there.

In Texas: 1 – If ya leave by daybreak, you and your horse will arrive as the biscuits rise or the dinner-bell sounds. 2 – He’s bored and yonderin’ (as in daydreaming; drifting away and yawning).

The Meanings of Celebration

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Common: the action of marking one’s pleasure at an important event or occasion by engaging in enjoyable, typically social, activity.

In Texas: 1 – Let’s shoot out the lights. 2 – We’ll go to town… or at least the far pasture. 3 – Let’s hallelujah the county! 4 – Throw your hat over the windmill. 5 – Let’s wear our Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes! 6 – We’re gettin’ happier than gophers in soft dirt.

I have all of my 35 or more cousins in Texas, but these three cousins grew up in a rural town outside of Austin. We spent a lot of time together growing up. They loved to hunt many sorts of wild game on huge thousand-acre ranches. On this particular all-day hunting trip, having walked around for miles, tired and hungry and having not shot anything but the wind with each other, they wanted to get back to the truck immediately for my Aunt’s excellent home-cooking. There was one problem. They’d moved so many times they weren’t sure if the truck was one way or another.

They argued, not rude or abhorrently, but each not trusting the other’s sense of direction. It also did not help they laugh and talk with each other making none of them a stealthy hunter in the least. Greg, the heavier slower walking brother was certain their escape was that way about a mile or two because of where the Sun moved all day and was now nearer the westerly horizon. Clay wasn’t so sure and wanted to one-up Greg as brothers do. “Due to the fall season,” Clay explained, “shorter days, and Earth’s rotation,” he claimed with an irrefutable tone “if we walked faster (glaring at Greg) this direction we’d find the truck a lot sooner.” Billy, the more tired and hungry brother, and argueably the one with more common sense, was not going to be outdone by either of them and said “Well, if the Sun is over there Greg, and the Earth is rotating faster than you walk, and Clay you say the truck’s in front of us, then why not we just sit here arguing until the truck comes to us?“

Ah yes. My beloved state of Texas. Nothing like it or us cowboys inside it, anywhere in the world. We are indeed in some state of mind.

Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

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Of Time and Love

Posted on January 11, 2016 by Professor Taboo

Every so often I stumble across or revisit some exceptional writing, verse and prose, that latches itself to heart and soul here and again, reminding me how perfectly life, time, and uncommon love can reassure. These two I share are favorites when heart is full, or heavy, or alone.

Isn’t it true
however far we’ve wandered
into our provinces of persecution,
where our regrets accuse,
we keep returning
back to the common faith
from which we’ve all dissented,
back to the hands, the feet, the faces?

Children are always there
and take the hands,
even when they are most terrified.
Those in love
cannot make up their minds
to go or stay.
Artist and doctor return most often.
Only the mad will never, never come back.

For doctors keep on worrying while away,
in case their skill is suffering or deserted.
Lovers have lived so long with giants and elves,
they want belief again in their own size.
And the artist prays ever so gently,
let me find pure all that can happen.

Only uniqueness is success.
For instance let me perceive
the images of history.
All that I push away
with doubt and travel,
today’s and yesterdays alike, like bodies.
—- Letters from Iceland, W.H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
—- The More Loving One, W.H. Auden

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Do you have a favorite Auden piece? Share them below. It isn’t enough to just gaze. Let’s taste and savor up the emotions Auden stirs. Please.

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

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Build for Life, Not for Fixes

Posted on October 17, 2015 by Professor Taboo

My previous post was a bit of a fumbling crash-test-dummy wreck. After four long days of intensive care, in quadriplegic static-slings (in stasis?) and frequent bed-pans, I begin my rehabilitation in this way. Luckily, perhaps miraculously, I had a wonderful female human being, who despite my masculine Homo erectus “verbage” — I think she called it, but repeatedly with an odd angry French accent — she foolishly remains my friend and offered this TEDxAmericanRiviera video that literally explains to my kind… “what it’s all about.” Even better, the presentation is by a woman who knows something about it.

As prescribed, I watched so intently the highly impatient German nurses kept giving me eye-drops while grumbling what I couldn’t quite make out was “Nicht-Augentropfen, aber Fett Einlauf in den Arsch!” If I’m honest, it sounded a little frightening. Does anyone have that translation?

Without further babbling, I present Sheila Kelley…

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The proverbial light-bulb — admittedly more like a flickering miniature Xmas-light — lit up bright, and shown through various unmentionable orifices cared for by my German nurses… it was truly an Ah HAH painful moment, but with one minor tweak I would offer. It is this: instead of the exact quote from Joseph Campbell, I’d perhaps say…

“Woman is life and Man is the servant of life.
The Male’s job is to protect [that service
so that Woman may freely give more life.]”

— currently, Professor Baboon

You see, some/many women can protect themselves quite well. There’s no need for us men to prematurely step-in, unless she asks us to do so. Then the VALUE of collaboration, protection, service, all varieties of love, and the culturing between Woman and Man that Sheila Kelley is urging, is increased exponentially as BOTH are more empowered equally. Well, at least that’s my take to her fantastic presentation.

My dear female rescuer then sent me on my way with a reminder, “Before marriage, a man yearns for the woman he loves. After marriage, the “Y” becomes silent. And we are excellent housekeepers. Every time we get a divorce, we keep the house.” I believe she called that The V Empowered. She said one day I’ll understand, if I don’t real soon.

Addendum — I’ve since realized that I should have clearly indicated in my last paragraph (above) that we/my friend and I, were joking-about/mocking local social norms; i.e. not uber serious and purely between the two of us, laughing about my own personal history with women/ex-wives and by default my neophyte entry into sexism vs. feminism. I see now she was comfortable with/about me to do that but may not have done it publicly with strangers — one man who you know pretty well, versus several unknown men and women. But I don’t know now if that was the case. I do see today how my last paragraph could easily be taken offensively by those who were not present. My sincere apologies.

Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

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Addendum #2 — My blogging-buddy Swarn, at Cloak Unfurled, has given me permission to link his outstanding, poignant, gut-wrenching TRUE post, “The Long Silencing of Women“. I felt it was an excellent addition/temporary-conclusion to this, my crude male attempt on the subject of Feminism-Sexism. He agreed. Many thanks Swarn! It is well worth the read.