Paul B
NJRC Member
Pondering again
This morning like most mornings I took a walk to watch the sunrise and ponder the universe.
I really like to ponder and early in the morning there is no one out. I mean out of the almost 300 houses here in this development, I never see anyone at that time of the morning.
I am not sure why because that is the time that virtually everything happens. Of course those things are too small and insignificant for anyone to think about so I guess my mind is also small and insignificant. But I like to look at these small, common parts of life that affect us all and we rarely notice.
At the beginning of my walk I noticed something walking across the street far ahead of me.
It’s gait reminded me of an old girlfriend. As I got closer I noticed it was a large bird, but I was still to far away to make it out.
Thoughts raced through my mind to try to figure out what it was. An Emu? No, New York is a ways from Australia, maybe a turkey. We have a lot of turkeys here but this one walked different. A chicken? No, to big.
It was a "pheasant". I have never seen a pheasant here unless it was under glass, since I was a little kid. They used to be common in Queens NY and I used to chase them quite often. Over the years they, like most wildlife, were replaced by pigeons, rats, squirrels and Snowflakes.
(It was actually a peacock and I googled them and found out that peacocks are really like pheasants on steroids.)
I walked right up to him and noticed it had a few tail feathers ruffled so I assumed he got into a fight with his main squeeze.
I walked past him. This area is farms and wineries and to my left is a golf course and the only wildlife there are greens tenders but to my right is a defunct farm. That farm has not been in business as far as I lived here so it is basically a large area of weeds.
I thought about weeds and how we call them pests. We call a lot of things pests and we don’t like them, but if we look close, the weeds are much prettier and more interesting than grass.
If we don’t cut the grass it gets long, stringy and leans all different directions. Then it grows these crooked seeds which become heavy so the entire plant falls over. Quite ugly.
Most of the weeds are rigid and upright, standing tall. I would imagine an entire field of bright dandelions with nothing growing in between them would be kind of nice looking.
Here we have many kinds of farms and one kind is a sunflower farm. To me, those things look like giant dandelions.
But they sell sunflowers and they kill dandelions.
It's the same with parasites. We all hate parasites and also know them as pests that we want to kill. (Humans are always trying to kill something)
We want to kill them because they are tiny and we can’t see their faces. If we could see them and they looked like our Shih Tzu or Yorkipoo and if we could hear them scream when we exposed them to copper or prizapro we may not want to kill them.
Maybe if they were larger and cuter, sort of like Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt we may try to keep the parasites and grow achilles tangs to feed them.
We also hate bacteria which is weird because we are mostly made of bacteria. Some of us are more bacteria than others.
Bacteria, along with viruses and funguses also kill parasites. Poor parasites, they just want to live a quiet life and occasionally suck the blood out of our Copperband butterfly.
Speaking about funguses, during my walk I passed many trees. At the base of one tree was this huge mushroom. There is really no such thing as one mushroom and oddly enough They are one of the largest living things on the planet. Besides some Sumo wrestlers and a girl I once dated.
The part of the mushroom we see is just the tip of a giant organism that extends for many miles under the ground. They send out these tendrils that grow in all directions looking for food and they even communicate through this entire web. Sort of like our world wide web but they probably don’t text things like LMAO, OMG. or ROTFLMAO.
They probably send messages more like ONAMSIATPOM ( “Oh Nooooo. A Miniature Schnauzer is about to pee on me. “)
I continued past the mushroom and smelled something vile. It was the possum I saw two days before that was run over by a car, although it could have been an SUV or minivan.
Someone must have thrown it back into the woods as it was getting sort of "ripe". Flies were all over it as were maggots. Flies and maggots are another example of pests that we humans hate.
If it were not for flies and their offspring maggots, we would be living in mountains of dead things. Think of that for a while.
Speaking of flies, near the end of this road is a rescue horse ranch and I know when I am getting close by the smell of wet horse which is unmistakable. Almost as good as rotting possum but not quite as sweet.
As I watched the horses I noticed they kept “swishing” their tails back and forth. I think they have long tails for the sole reason of chasing flies because I don’t think it helps them swim.
I don’t know who designed horses but if I was going to make an appendage to shoo away flies, I think I would make the thing to shoo flies away from it’s "head" instead of it’s rear end where they probably won’t notice the flies anyway. Maybe give the animal three foot long eyelashes or nose hairs.
I started to walk back and I noticed a bit of fur just where the asphalt meets the grass. It was a dead fox that I also noticed the day before. This animal has been dead much longer than that possum and was mostly skeleton. I stopped and looked more closely now that most of the smell was gone. I could clearly see it’s spine and I noticed it had a little osteoporosis and maybe a touch of Gout.
I didn’t stay there long because I wanted to make breakfast for my beautiful wife who I assumed was still sleeping and certainly not dreaming of rotting possums, horses tails or my old girlfriends.
I looked up from my ground gazing and noticed a large deer in the middle of the road about fifty yards ahead of me. She stared at me and I stared back. As she was looking intently at me I was thinking how cool it would be if I could read her mind. Was she thinking of “me” as a parasite?
Was she planning how she could eliminate me as this was after all her street and I was a common pest?
I don't know.
The purpose of this post is the same as most of my posts. It has absolutely no purpose at all.
This morning like most mornings I took a walk to watch the sunrise and ponder the universe.
I really like to ponder and early in the morning there is no one out. I mean out of the almost 300 houses here in this development, I never see anyone at that time of the morning.
I am not sure why because that is the time that virtually everything happens. Of course those things are too small and insignificant for anyone to think about so I guess my mind is also small and insignificant. But I like to look at these small, common parts of life that affect us all and we rarely notice.
At the beginning of my walk I noticed something walking across the street far ahead of me.
It’s gait reminded me of an old girlfriend. As I got closer I noticed it was a large bird, but I was still to far away to make it out.
Thoughts raced through my mind to try to figure out what it was. An Emu? No, New York is a ways from Australia, maybe a turkey. We have a lot of turkeys here but this one walked different. A chicken? No, to big.
It was a "pheasant". I have never seen a pheasant here unless it was under glass, since I was a little kid. They used to be common in Queens NY and I used to chase them quite often. Over the years they, like most wildlife, were replaced by pigeons, rats, squirrels and Snowflakes.
(It was actually a peacock and I googled them and found out that peacocks are really like pheasants on steroids.)
I walked right up to him and noticed it had a few tail feathers ruffled so I assumed he got into a fight with his main squeeze.
I walked past him. This area is farms and wineries and to my left is a golf course and the only wildlife there are greens tenders but to my right is a defunct farm. That farm has not been in business as far as I lived here so it is basically a large area of weeds.
I thought about weeds and how we call them pests. We call a lot of things pests and we don’t like them, but if we look close, the weeds are much prettier and more interesting than grass.
If we don’t cut the grass it gets long, stringy and leans all different directions. Then it grows these crooked seeds which become heavy so the entire plant falls over. Quite ugly.
Most of the weeds are rigid and upright, standing tall. I would imagine an entire field of bright dandelions with nothing growing in between them would be kind of nice looking.
Here we have many kinds of farms and one kind is a sunflower farm. To me, those things look like giant dandelions.
But they sell sunflowers and they kill dandelions.
It's the same with parasites. We all hate parasites and also know them as pests that we want to kill. (Humans are always trying to kill something)
We want to kill them because they are tiny and we can’t see their faces. If we could see them and they looked like our Shih Tzu or Yorkipoo and if we could hear them scream when we exposed them to copper or prizapro we may not want to kill them.
Maybe if they were larger and cuter, sort of like Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt we may try to keep the parasites and grow achilles tangs to feed them.
We also hate bacteria which is weird because we are mostly made of bacteria. Some of us are more bacteria than others.
Bacteria, along with viruses and funguses also kill parasites. Poor parasites, they just want to live a quiet life and occasionally suck the blood out of our Copperband butterfly.
Speaking about funguses, during my walk I passed many trees. At the base of one tree was this huge mushroom. There is really no such thing as one mushroom and oddly enough They are one of the largest living things on the planet. Besides some Sumo wrestlers and a girl I once dated.
The part of the mushroom we see is just the tip of a giant organism that extends for many miles under the ground. They send out these tendrils that grow in all directions looking for food and they even communicate through this entire web. Sort of like our world wide web but they probably don’t text things like LMAO, OMG. or ROTFLMAO.
They probably send messages more like ONAMSIATPOM ( “Oh Nooooo. A Miniature Schnauzer is about to pee on me. “)
I continued past the mushroom and smelled something vile. It was the possum I saw two days before that was run over by a car, although it could have been an SUV or minivan.
Someone must have thrown it back into the woods as it was getting sort of "ripe". Flies were all over it as were maggots. Flies and maggots are another example of pests that we humans hate.
If it were not for flies and their offspring maggots, we would be living in mountains of dead things. Think of that for a while.
Speaking of flies, near the end of this road is a rescue horse ranch and I know when I am getting close by the smell of wet horse which is unmistakable. Almost as good as rotting possum but not quite as sweet.
As I watched the horses I noticed they kept “swishing” their tails back and forth. I think they have long tails for the sole reason of chasing flies because I don’t think it helps them swim.
I don’t know who designed horses but if I was going to make an appendage to shoo away flies, I think I would make the thing to shoo flies away from it’s "head" instead of it’s rear end where they probably won’t notice the flies anyway. Maybe give the animal three foot long eyelashes or nose hairs.
I started to walk back and I noticed a bit of fur just where the asphalt meets the grass. It was a dead fox that I also noticed the day before. This animal has been dead much longer than that possum and was mostly skeleton. I stopped and looked more closely now that most of the smell was gone. I could clearly see it’s spine and I noticed it had a little osteoporosis and maybe a touch of Gout.
I didn’t stay there long because I wanted to make breakfast for my beautiful wife who I assumed was still sleeping and certainly not dreaming of rotting possums, horses tails or my old girlfriends.
I looked up from my ground gazing and noticed a large deer in the middle of the road about fifty yards ahead of me. She stared at me and I stared back. As she was looking intently at me I was thinking how cool it would be if I could read her mind. Was she thinking of “me” as a parasite?
Was she planning how she could eliminate me as this was after all her street and I was a common pest?
I don't know.
The purpose of this post is the same as most of my posts. It has absolutely no purpose at all.
