Years ago I saw a huge one — possibly a foot long – in Mayberry Park near the river in the old days when you could be alone with your dogs all day in that park. This one is smaller. I’m not good at length estimation, but I would hazard 9 inches. He was where I’ve seen one other of his species in the past — the steep trail up to the higher grounds. He crawled around his rock to avoid me, but very slowly and he finally gave up and just posed. Here’s the best shot of him. When I recall how to create a Gallery in WordPress, I’ll put up the other pix.

Pleasant expression. Question: Does he like me?

BadaBing: Graceful in Defeat

Six weeks seemed like eternity living too close to this  mouse. When I thought it would never happen, he ended up in the CatchMaster Live Humane MultiCatch Mouse Trap with Clear Lid — $14.99. His lust for peanuts in the shell was his undoing. His name is BadaBing, after the mobster hangout in The Sopranos.

Every night I heard him crashing around in the kitchen. Thuds when he landed on the floor. He could disappear in a corner where I couldn’t see any opening, not even the penny-sized opening mice presumably can squeeze into. I was never ready for him to dart out and I screamed every time. Eventually he lost all fear or respect for me and would appear from behind the couch or in the pantry or behind the refrigerator, or once, he shot across the bathroom floor in front of me – that was indeed a dark night. My fear and dread increased with the weeks and months and I became super-aware of him; I could sense his presence by a crawling in my skin. It was as though my nerves picked up his little emanations.Daily he increased his range, lengthening the little paths he followed. But still it seemed to be just one mouse as indeed it proved to be.

Six years ago I had just one, but it was a female, and I found mounds of feathers, peanut shells and other debris under the toaster oven where she planned to nest. Her reign of terror ended when I adopted my Border Collie, Sadie. In fact, it ended the first night Sadie was in the house, so I thought my mouse problems were over.

Note: I do not kill animals if at all possible, but ethical or not, I don’t have a problem with predators killing. My rationale is that predators, such as dogs, are hard-wired to kill whereas humans have options. You can argue with me if you want to, but if you’ve ever had your house over-run with mice, as I did in 1974, you won’t want to repeat the experience.

But Sadie is an old gal now and proved useless against BadaBing. He stood glaring at me defiantly from the counter. I picked her up until the two were nose to nose. “Mouse,” I told her. No action. I told a friend about this and we concocted a character for BadaBing: dressed in a tight striped T-shirt and leather vest, hands on his hips, sneering at the world, “I pity the fool. . . ”

So I tried three models of humane mouse traps before investing in the CatchMaster.

Famed Havahart® Two Door Mouse Trap: $19.68

The famed Havahart was useless. The trip mechanism consists of  tiny metal rods delicately balancing on one another. BadaBing learned to get in and get the peanut or the cheese or the cracker and get out, tripping the doors shut behind him, but never trapping himself. I tried taping the bait to the floor of the trap, but he got it out of the tape every time.

Smart Mouse Trap - By Humane Mousetrap

 So then I tried the Smart Mouse Trap –shaped like a little house, which I found on Amazon.com. They tell you to insert a saltine which doesn’t work – the saltine crumbles — and BadaBing ignored this device entirely.

Victor® Live Mouse Trap $4.06

He also ignored the little gray traps, the Victor, you get at Ace Hardware that tilt over to close. Sometimes he’d tilt them from the outside just for fun, and I’d hear him laughing in the dark.

So I was as shocked as he was to come out one morning and find him in the CatchMaster. Now what? I didn’t want him to die, but I didn’t want him to come back, nor to bring his friends. So I set him free on the grassy slope by the local elementary school. He tried to hide in the trap and I had to shake it and lightly pull his tail to get him out. By now I felt nothing but pity for the varmint who so terrorized me so recently. For the first time, I saw his delicacy and helplessness.

CatchMaster Live Humane MultiCatch Mouse Trap

Are humane traps really humane? I would never use the glue strip or the classic snap trap. Nevertheless, just the act of relocation may signal his demise. Now an animal designed to live indoors is outdoors. He faces lack of feta or Havarti cheese. He faces cold, wind and rain (although I read mice can swim). Predators abound.

My best hope for him is that children will drop lots of candy where he shivers, alone and lost. Or that he’ll find a penny-sized entrance to the school and a warm closet.

Meanwhile, have I solved my problem, or will another mouse move in now that the alpha male (yes it does work that way) has lost his territory?

Karma is intricate, my friends, and the path is full of curves.

Wingfield Park, Reno, Nevada

The setting was so tranquil. It was, ironically, International Peace Day, and I was at sunny Wingfield Park on the banks of the Truckee River, with friends. The UN declared this to be a day off; a global cease-fire. But how can this be when we so easily misunderstand each other? Being the ghoul I am, I will check to see how many Afghanis and Iraqis and Palestinians died today. And on the local scene, I can describe this one little soul murder.

I was promoting TrailSafe, the organization I founded to promote humane treatment of pets and wildlife. The day was productive; I had three pages of signatures on my sign-up sheet, and numerous pleasant conversations. About one in the afternoon, a little girl I had met earlier came running up to me. A dog was in trouble, as the official animal person of the day, would I help? She was about third or fourth grade and she was breathless. A dog was down by the river, chained for at least two hours with no owner. She had already fed it a hot dog, but this animal needed more help. She added that it cringed when she approached, clearly had been mistreated. It had a cruel choke collar, and the collar was too tight. She couldn’t fit two fingers under it.

Here was sublime ego flattery. Had I not fashioned myself the savior of the animals, Saint Francesca of Reno? I dropped everything I was doing to follow the child down the broad stones to the riverbank where her aunt was waiting. I recognized the aunt from an earlier very pleasant conversation. She looked Hispanic, but spoke with no accent, and she had signed  up for TrailSafe without hesitation. Somehow she made it known that she was born again, also that a friend would soon give her a computer.

Now I was greeted as a heroine. I whipped out my Tracfone (cheapest plan in the USA) and called Animal Control.

The dog was chained to a rock about 15 feet from us. He was a good-looking German Shepherd cross, big, about 65- 75 pounds, all tan, no typical Shepherd markings, well muscled.  I was in no hurry to approach him. Although he had accepted the hot dogs without incident,  he was still big, chained and unknown. I tried to stop her, but the girl ran at him, with a third hot dog. She lunged at him, as kids do, which caused the momentary cringe on his part. The aunt and I yelled against the live band in the background and the river noise to see if he had tags. “No” she told us, “no tags.”

I reported all this to Animal Control, an organization I have come to know and trust. They are not out to steal anybody’s dog and will do their utmost to contact the owners. A friendly, handsome beauty like this animal would be sent to Humane Society if not claimed; and Humane Society has a no-kill policy.

After calling Animal Control, I approached the dog after all, partially because I thought I did see tags on his collar and partially to restrain the child who wouldn’t leave him alone. In fact he did have two bone-shaped tags: one for rabies and one for ID with two phone numbers.

The first phone number was no longer in service. I left a message on the second, a cell number, explaining the dog would be at Animal Control.

Just then the owner appeared, a  handsome young man in kayaking gear. I have to mention he was black because it pertains to the story. Naturally, he wanted to know what was going on, and the girl was blurting out her case: that the dog was there for two hours, and that’s when he got mad, but not scary mad, just articulate end-of-my-rope but still a reasonable person mad. He spoke loudly, but not roaring anger, just firm anger. He told us he was gone 15 minutes, not two hours. He was instructing some kids in kayaking. He was, in fact, a rated (I do not understand the rating system) kayaker. He had been swimming and kayaking with the dog all afternoon.

And that’s when he said “Why is my karma like this today?” because some kids on the other side of the river had said something to him about a “nigger dog.”

Then this. I had to tell him Animal Control was coming. I told him as fast as I could that they wouldn’t give him any trouble and they wouldn’t take his dog away and they would be delighted the owner was there. But he was freaked by now. Not at me. He heard me and he got that I meant no harm. But the N-word plus Animal Control was all he could take for one day. Then the aunt started yelling at him from her rock, thinking he was yelling at me. She was defending me, not aware I didn’t need any defense.

“Don’t yell at her! We asked her to come over here. She only called because we asked her to. Don’t you be yelling at her!” She was yelling.

He told her he wasn’t yelling. That he and I were having a conversation and she should stay out of it. But she wouldn’t. She said he should be grateful we cared about his dog that was out there chained for two hours. He told her it wasn’t chained for two hours and to stay out of it.

He was a man who knew his limits and the situation was pushing him way beyond. He picked up his kayak and unchained his dog and left after he and I exchanged some quick words to make it clear we had no beef with each other. It’s possible he left before he started to cry; no proof of that, just my feeling about it.

So all our good intentions led us astray. I cancelled the call to Animal Control and I caught the aunt as she was leaving the fair. “I’m colored, too” she said, still defensive, but she was basically OK, the child is basically OK, I’m basically OK. It’s the kayaker who was deeply wounded. He did not deserve such a day.

I made it worse a few hours later, after I was home, by calling the cell number from the dog’s tag again. This time I got a young man. “Were you kayaking today and we had an incident with your dog? I just wanted to make things better.” By then I was fumbling for words, had lost all track of my thoughts.

“You mean my dad? How did you get this number?”

“From the dog’s collar.”

“The first number on the tag is his; the second one is mine. I’m not in town.”

“Do I have the right person? Does your dad kayak?”

“Yes, that’s him.”

Now I was beyond bewilderment. How could the kayaker, who looked to be in his 20’s, have an adult son? Too much muddle already. All our karma gone nuts, exploded into senseless fragments, spattered against the walls.

“I don’t mean to make it more complicated. Just tell him he can call this cell number if he wants to talk to me.”

I hope he does call. But he probably won’t.  All I can do is observe International Peace Day and pray his karma tomorrow is better.

Click on thumbnail for full size image

Grisly staging

Click on thumbnails for full-size images. 

Female hip wound

Male leg wound

Male chest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Tragedy at the Trailhead” my March 7, 2009 blog gives the details. Now this sadist strikes again. A few yards further up the trail, I smelled corpse. On the slope to the south was a bag.

Stinking bag

 I approached with dread, knowing what I would find. A dead coyote  was wrapped in a sheet and stuffed into this bag. The forelegs were visible at the opening. The bag was Nutrebeef for Cows: Right Now Mineral for Cows which means I could possibly locate this executioner because only one or two locals keep cattle; there are no ranches here.

What is he trying to say with this display? His utter contempt for the graceful life he has brutally ended. Parading his potent masculinity, i.e. gun, to the world. A warning to all of us — anybody or anything he doesn’t like.

By contrast, ironically, symbolically and serendipitously as well as coincidentally, further up the trail I came upon a new dog grave. Locals frequently bury dogs up here, fitting remembrance of happy trails together. Witness the care put into this memorial.  Etched on the wooden cross the words: “Here lies the big dog” and mysterious numbers: ”9407″. The whimsical sculpture. The scribbles probably by a child in the family. A metal cross, possibly constructed by another child. Probably a tear-stained outdoor family funeral was held.

 

 

 

 

Again the glaring contrast. Horror for the wild dog; reverence for the pet. The best and worst of the human spirit.

More local dog graves:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gateway to Silence

Our first stop in Nevada, back in 1973, was an abandoned stone hut near Austin on Lonely Route 50. I was traveling with a man henceforth to be known as The Felon; a buddy of his and the buddy’s girl friend; two horses; two dogs. I was grateful to stay behind and tend the horses in a big abandoned corral loosely fenced with sagging wire while the others went to explore a nearby canyon.

Sadly I had no camera, so this generic desert picture I took at another time in another place will have to tell the story. In fact, where I stood was tall grass, not desert scrub, and a gentle wind blew. I faced a round hill to the north and a peace descended after months and years of self-inflicted conflict and inner noise.

For the first time in memory, I heard not others ranting at me, not the chorus of inner compulsions, but silence. The only sound was the pulse of my own life beating in my ears. I could see the red of my circulation in my mind’s eye; the rest was mercifully quiet.

I rested in that space, standing still, and Nevada had me from then on.

That was a benchmark moment.

We forget and we get back to “normal”. Today it happened again. I was hiking the usual route with Sadie. It was 6:30 AM on a misty, overcast morning and already somebody was shooting what sounded like an arsenal of various weapons off to the northwest.

I can only figure approximately where these random shooters are and I have no idea in which direction they shoot. They are the bane of my walks and I fully expect to be found bullet-riddled one day, the dog poking me with her nose, the murderer anonymous, unsought by the law, and long gone.

Nevada condones this random gunfire, another of the many holdovers from a past when the range was emptier. But the lone frontiersman today exists only in the imagination of guys (it has to be guys although here and there a sellout woman will go along with them) who in fact are too lazy to go more than a mile from their homes and who open fire wherever they happen to be. I’ve seen them shooting toward roads, across roads, toward houses.

Law enforcement told me when I complained a few years ago that nobody can be shooting if they can see a house from where they are. That would certainly apply to this morning’s gunman, but you don’t educate these guys; you avoid them.

Two possibilities: many of these pistol-whippers are lawmen themselves out for a little practice or — Armageddon freaks getting ready for the big day.

What must be noted is the dedication to the firearm that gets a man out of bed at 6:30 in the morning on a Sunday to be shooting into the cloudy dawn. There were soft pops; there were bursts of what must have been automatic fire; there were long pauses followed by big bangs.

So I was irritated. And scared. Sadie was scared, clinging to my legs; new behavior for her — was Roger’s soul informing her?

Anyway we veered way south to get as far away as possible. The mist partially cleared and weak sunlight filtered through. It felt like a new dawn. And then there it was — the silence. The shooter was gone. There was no traffic. The only sounds were the blood pounding in my ears, Sadie’s skitterings on the sand, my own boots crunching pebbles. I stood still and there was absolute silence except the weak occasional peeping of some bird in a nearby juniper.

It was the same silence and it re-greeted me after 36 years. There has been a ton of meditation and revelation and bliss intervening. But this was a special, absolute silence. It would not have been much surprise if I got back to the neighborhood and found everybody gone and me the only witness, as in The Twilight Zone.

There was no fear, no bliss, no sadness, no joy, no noise. Just silence. I did not need to analyze, nor cling to the moment, nor escape the moment. The world remained as it has always been, and yet anything could have happened. It was the moment of Becoming, the closest we can approach to Now. I did not need a lama or a rabbi or a guru or a sensei. It may or may not ever happen again.

Hear me, Master Card, that is priceless. I wish it for all of you.

Probably some gardener out there can tell me: squash or gourd? Summer or winter? Predatory or friendly? Picked too early or too late? Suitable for drying and gourd art?

After portrait time, I baked the first one with feta cheese, butter, raw sugar and cinnamon. Rind is too solid to eat; interior is wonderfully delicate flavor.

I need to show the latest off for a while, maybe take it places with me, before sacrificing it. When vegetables get this big, they’re more like pets.

Click on thumbnails to see full image.

Monstro One: dressed up

Contrast: ordinary mortal

Monstro Two

Monstro Two and relative

They say juniper takes 80 years to mature; so I won’t see it restored in my lifetime.

To make matters starker, the first time I went there and experienced the shock of the charred waste, there was also, inexplicably, a dead steer by the road where I parked. The dogs set to munching on it, despite the flies and rotting stink. Sadie gave up when I yelled, but Roger persisted until I got out the leash — my symbol of authority — and brandished it at him. Then he skulked back to the car, his only refuge from my fury.

Now, two years later, I can take it. This week was the first I could bear to take pictures. Click on thumbnails for full image. Sadie is in the pipe. The tree with the nest used to be the grandfather tree. Oddly, the hawk’s nest survived.