Back in May our son called us and told us of a litter of semi-feral kittens outside his apartment in Oceano.
The mother had gotten hit by a car, and he’d heard the little ones mewing in the bushes.
When he got them from the bushes, the majority were dead, and the two still alive were just barely hanging on.
We took them in and forced them to take ‘kitten milk replacer’.
We force-fed them as they were dehydrated and wanting to give up and die.
After a couple of days they were able to crawl around a bit, and their eyes had filled out again
(they were sunken into their skulls, they were so dehydrated).While feeding the striped one which the neighbors named ‘Tony’,
I would tell him of the great life he’d have if he lived,
of all the little creatures he could catch,
of the trees he could climb and the animals he could see
Gradually, they grew stronger,
and were adopted by our female Chihuahua Chica,
herself an orphan we rescued.
I hate to anthropomorphize animals, and ascribe human traits and compulsions to them,
but it seemed as though Chica received the ‘mothering’ she never got by giving it to the kittens
and the kittens had a nice warm tummy to snuggle to and knead with their paws.
I suppose in so many ways we give out what we never got but wanted
and it is in giving we receive what we need through substitution
Here’s photo of Tony and Chica a week or two after we introduced them
he’s her size now, just four months later.
And they are still close, it is touching to see the way they snuggle together.
Chica has some odd facial characteristics, she looks mean but is actually very sweet
That’s merely a cowlick on her face… not a scar
but I kid people that she got her head caught in a mechanical cactus-picker
but there is no such machine, we pick our cactus by hand
Alligator Lizard in the air
Tony seems to have learned a lot from our little ‘talks’
He’s been bringing lizards into the house now.
Here are two Alligator Lizards he has brought into the house in the last few weeks
We give the lizards a little talk, warning them to stay clear of the kittens
then we let them go back into the cactus garden from whence the kittens got them
I suspect lizards don’t taste good, our mature cats ignore them
the kittens play with them for the fun of it, but don’t eat them (as far as I know)
You can see that this lizard has already lost his tail.
It’s pretty rare to find a mature one with an original tail….
but when you do, they are impressive
Alligator Lizard in the air
The animals here like this place as much as we do.
Here’s a video of Chica and Tony together.
It’s cute, but has no audio….
If anyone owns the rights to some nice music you’d like us to put into the video,
let us know
We’re interested in making our videos more appealing by having nice music
Painted Ladies, the small butterflies that resemble the large monarchs have made a huge pilgrimage to the Central Coast the last couple days. Huge volleys of them roam the countryside, I see thousands crossing the highways before me. On my travels along the coast I have had my windshield splattered with yellow spots from their fragile bodies as I drive heedless and full of wonder through these little colorful denizens of the fields and vales.
They make their yearly pilgrimage from Old Mexico to the hills of the American West at this time. And this year with the huge amount of rain and the recent warm weather their numbers that have survived the trek this far are beyond any I recall ever seeing.
At this moment the world waits as a Pope lies dying in a dark room in the Vatican. This Pope, a deeply committed man, the idol of my deceased grandmother is soon to pass from this world. He will come into the arms of a loving Creator and will sit at the feast tables of the New Jerusalem. My thoughts and prayers go out to him, and to all who regard him with the high level of respect he has accrued throughout his papacy. He is a refined man, yet a common man, one of the men of the earth. Born into a common family in Poland, he worked with his hands as a young man, and never lost his touch and connection with the common man. On the wall in my grandmothers room to this day is a photo of the Pope. A photo of a strong man, firm of face and rugged in body and spirit. His connection to the peasants of Eastern Europe is perhaps what drew my grandmother to him. She was also of common peasant people of Eastern Europe, and the Nazi and Communist invasion of her homeland was the same as what the Pope encountered. Yet from both families, triumph from the ashes and smoking ruins of a devastated Europe was the end result. True, none of our family made it to the height of power and influence of the Pope, but when you come from starvation and nothing, to get to the point of even a warm house and plentiful food is a high achievement.
And now, with butterflies stuck in my grill, and the sad news on the radio, I travel these lonely roads; alone, but not lonely. I am surrounded by the awesome beauty of these coastal hills, the verdant green, rolling on in wave after wave of velvet-lining over geologic formations squeezed and folded by seismic forces. The Pope came as a seismic force into our lives through Poland from God, and the butterflies come with the soft flutter of wings through Mexico from God. And my tires roll on, through the day, a continual succession of miles eaten up by rubber as my life continues, and the butterflies and the Pope die.
Our hopes and prayers go out to those who’ve lost their homes and had their land razed by the fires. We’ve known several people who’ve lost all they had in brush fires in the past. And while they bemoan the loss of ‘things’, they are happy to have lived.
Looking into the eyes of someone who’s lost every single thing they own, and have them tell you they are just happy to be alive…. it brings to-home that we come into this life feeble, toothless and helpless…. and we’ll leave it that way also. What you have doesn’t count so much as what you’ve experienced… the life you’ve led, and the hope that next year you can go on living. It’s sad to lose your ‘stuff’, but a real tragedy is to lose hope in the future, to lose hope in humanity, and to lose hope in yourself.
‘One Way Donkey Ride’
~Mary Black~
There you may stand in your splendor and jewels
Swaying me in both directions
One is the right one, the other for fools
How do I make my selection?
The city lies silent in the warm morning light
The sand is as golden as saffron
Oasis of love, sweet water of life
God bless the poor ones who have none though they have tried
Someone is drowning down there in the flood
But this river will dry by tomorrow
Is it ocean or stream, this love in my blood?
Bringer of joy or of sorrow?
The end of the journey must soon be in sight
Birth is the start of the swansong
Oasis of love, sweet water of life
God bless the poor ones who want some, but are denied
No one is given the map to their dreams
All we can do is to trace it
See where we go to, know where we’ve been
Build up the courage to face it
While we fumble in the darkness where once there was light
Roaming the land of the ancients
Oasis of love, sweet water of life
God bless the poor ones whose patience never died
While we stumble in blindness where once there was sight
Searching for trees in the forest
Oasis of love, sweet water of life
God bless the poor ones who have none though they have tried
God bless the poor ones who want some, but are denied
God bless the poor ones whose patience never died
God bless the poor ones on that one-way donkey ride
‘Sadeness’
~Enigma~
Lyrics to Sadeness :
(Curly M.C./F.Gregorian/David Fairstein)
(Latin) Procedamus in pace
In nomine Christi, Amen(Let us go forth in peace
In the name of Christ, So be it)(Latin)Cum angelis et pueris,
fideles inveniamur
(We shall find the faithful in the
company of angels and children)
(Latin)Attollite portas, principes, vestras
et elevamini, portae aeternales
et introibit rex gloriae
Qius est iste Rex glorie?
(Lift up ye heads o ye glorious gates,
and be ye lifted up ye everlasting doors,
and the king of glory shall come in.
Who is the king of glory? )
(French) Sade dit moi
Sade donne moi
(Sade tell me
Sade give me)
(Latin)Procedamus in pace
In nomine Christi, Amen
(Shall we proceed in peace
In the name of Christ, Amen)
(French) Sade dit moi
qu’est ce que tu vas chercher ?
le bien par le mal
la vertu par le vice
Sade dit moi pourquoi l’ ‘evangile du mal ?
quelle est ta religion ou` sont tes fide`les ?
Si tu es contre Dieu, tu es contre l’homme
(Sade tell me
what is it that you seek?
The rightness of wrong
The virtue of vice
Sade tell me why the Gospel of evil ?
What is your religion? Where are your faithful?
If you are against God, you are against man)
(French) Sade dit moi pourquoi le sang pour le plaisir ?
Le plaisir sans l’amour.
N’y a t’il plus de sentiment dans le culte de l’homme ?
(Sade tell me why blood for pleasure?
Pleasure without love?
Is there no longer any feeling in man’s Faith?)
(French) Sade es-tu diabolique ou divin?
(Sade are you diabolical or divine?)
(French) Sade dit moi
Hosanna
Sade donne moi
Hosanna
Sade dit moi
Hosanna
Sade donne moi
Hosanna
(Sade tell me
Hosanna
Sade give me
Hosanna
Sade tell me
Hosanna
Sade give me
Hosanna)
(Latin) In nomine Christi, Amen
(In the name of Christ, Amen)
[ Sadeness Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/ ]
In the winter of ’65
We were hungry
just barely alive
By May tenth
Richmond had fell
it’s a time I remember
oh so well
Now I don’t mind choppin’ wood
and I don’t care if the money’s no good.
Ya take what ya need, and ya leave the rest,
But they should never have taken the very best.
Like my father before me
I will work the land,
And like my brother above me
who took a rebel stand.
He was just eighteen
proud and brave
But a Yankee laid him in his grave,
And I swear by the mud below my feet,
You can’t raise a Caine back up when he’s in defeat
Tony and Rocky have been getting out a bit more lately. One day last week, we found them climbing in the oak trees in front of the house.
It scared Vickie a bit… they got twenty feet and more up, and their inexperience shows… they were on little twigs as small as a pencil…. I wandered under the trees ready to catch them if they fell. We had a pretty good time. It made me laugh, because just three months ago, when we got them, we were concerned when they crawled out of their little box we kept them in. We were worried they might fall six inches… but they were little itty bittie things then. Now they are starting to toughen up a bit.
It’s a bit sad in a sense having animals…. we can’t take them to the vet like we’d like…. our animals will get torn up by some wild critter, and there’s not much we can do other than to doctor them ourselves the best we can. I try to assuage my guilt by rationalising that these are all animals that wandered in from feral parents, or were found orphaned somewhere and we rescued them… if we had not taken them in, they’d have died long ago. One thing I’ve noticed about our animals… they are all really tough and durable survivor-type creatures. If they were not, they’d have never made it as far as to our door.
Often I will watch our critters doing their thing in the wilds…. and I have to say, they really do have a good life. They have plenty of little things to stalk, deer and foxes and other animals to watch (and be aware of). Our animals for sure do not live in gilded cages.
Here’s some photos of these little kittens in the tree.
“Once,
Long Ago,
Something Was Made,
That Would Change the World”
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
“Standing like tanks on the brow of the hill
up in the cold wind facing
in stiff battle-harness chained to the world
against the low sun racing
Bring me a wheel of oaken wood
a rein of polished leather
a heavy horse and a tumbling sky
brewing heavy weather
Bring a song for the evening
clean brass to flash the dawn
across these acres glistening
like dew on a carpet lawn
In these dark towns folk lie sleeping
as the heavy horses thunder by
to wake the dying city
with the living horseman’s cry”
~Ian Anderson~
‘Heavy Horses’
45 Degrees outside…. chicken baking in the oven to warm the house…. soon I will go out and pull leaves off the yukka plants. But now, with the odor of herbed chicken, knowing that potatoes are baking, and soon we’ll fry green beans and squash in butter on the stove…. all is well.
And we can listen to the beauty of Loreena McKennitt…. merged with the stunning visuals from Lord of the Rings….
It is in mixtures that we often find the most value…..
A red painting is just a red canvas…
but mix in blues and the other colors, artfully applied, then you have a painting
The chicken is just a chicken… but add the potatoes, and the beans, the herbs and the fats… and you have a meal.
Nothing is whole just on its own… everything needs the complimentary elements that complete it, and make it whole.
Both of my parent’s families farmed with livestock. My dad used to plow with mules as a kid in Missouri…. my mom’s family used the heavy European horses on their large farm in Hungary. My great grandfather would cut trees in winter, and haul the lumber to Budapest on his wagon pulled by horses. One time while loading lumber onto the wagon, he was late coming home…. his wife sent my twelve year old grandmother to the woodlot to remind him to come home before dark…. she came upon the wagon overturned upon the ice-glazed shoulder…. him crushed under the load, and already frozen solid.
Yes, farming and rural living does have its dangers.
The song ‘Heavy Horses’ by Jethro Tull is an homage to the large work horses… and a sad realization that the end of an era has come….
But yet, one day the big horses may once again be of value in farming….
If history teaches us anything, it is that nothing ever stays static, what happens now will not likely remain so…..
Dang, we’re a bunch of rabble-rowsers here in the states. Since the inception of this nation…. we’ve had a problem with authority, while at the same time we fight and die to preserve the institutions that keep ‘The Man’ in power but at least a little from just rounding us up wholesale in giant Pogroms such as you see in so many places. We suffer a dichotomy from our own love of the nation and people, and the same forces that keep us a bit secure yet ever-suspicious of those who hold the reigns of power…. sometimes our own personal feelings rub a bit with the authorities…. but what’cha gonna do?
My mom is from Hungary and went through some of the issues with the Nazis and later the Russians…. in either case they just ‘went along with the program’ until they could get the hell out of there. My dads’ family has been here since the late 1600′s, and some from before as Native Americans…. they fought against authority from the beginning, even while they were being rounded up in Scotland and Ireland in the ‘Clearances’ and sent here to ‘The Colonies’. There’s been folks from my family that have died in every war this country ever fought.. as Forest Gump said…. “He had a long family history to live up to”. Family lore has it that my granddad Lilburn and his brother used to run moonshine into Saint Louis in the prohibition days. I don’t know how much of that is true…. but knowing my family… I kind of believe there’s some credence to it. I’m sure he only did it part-time though.
You can see the video here…
embedding disabled by request.
It’s a great video.
Copperhead Road (Steve Earle)
Well my name’s John Lee Pettimore
Same as my daddy and his daddy before
You hardly ever saw Grandaddy down here
He only came to town about twice a year
He’d buy a hundred pounds of yeast and some copper line
Everybody knew that he made moonshine
Now the revenue man wanted Grandaddy bad
He headed up the holler with everything he had
It’s before my time but I’ve been told
He never came back from Copperhead Road
Now Daddy ran the whiskey in a big block Dodge
Bought it at an auction at the Mason’s Lodge
‘Johnson County Sheriff’ painted on the side
Just shot a coat of primer then he looked inside
Well him and my uncle tore that engine down
I still remember that rumblin’ sound
Well the sheriff came around in the middle of the night
Heard mama cryin’, knew something wasn’t right
He was headed down to Knoxville with the weekly load
You could smell the whiskey burnin’ down Copperhead Road
I volunteered for the Army on my birthday
They draft the White-Trash first,’round here anyway
I done two tours of duty in Vietnam
And I came home with a brand new plan
I take the seed from Colombia and Mexico
I plant it up the holler down Copperhead Road
Well the D.E.A.’s got a chopper in the air
I wake up screaming like I’m back over there
I learned a thing or two from ol’ Charlie don’t you know
You better stay away from Copperhead Road
I’ve been a bit pre-occupied with the nearby La Brea Fire, which is finally going to be put down due to the efforts of the firefighters and the co-operation of the weather. We’ve gotten a rare occurrence… rain in August. We’ve had no rain since May… now while a firestorm is raging… in comes some rain to dampen the fire. I can relax a little now.
Now I can listen to one of my favorite songs without breaking into a sweat and starting to catalogue our possessions and plan escape routes.
The original lyrics are from the Marshal Tucker Band….
but I do like the banjo and mandolin in this version by the Roundhouse band.
Plus, the stunning visuals in the video are great.
‘Fire on the Mountain’
~Marshal Tucker Band~
Took my fam’ly away from my Carolina home
Had dreams about the West and started to roam
Six long months on a dust covered trail
They say heaven’s at the end but so far it’s been hell
And there’s fire on the mountain, lightnin’ in the air
Gold in them hills and it’s waitin’ for me there
We were diggin’ and siftin’ from fiveto five
Sellin’ everything we found just to stay alive
Gold flowed free like the whiskey in the bars
Sinnin’ was the big thing, lord and Satan was his star
And there’s fire on the mountain, lightnin’ in the air
Gold in them hills and it’s waitin’ for me there
Dance hall girls were the evenin’ treat
Empty cartridges and blood lined the gutters of the street
Men were shot down for the sake of fun
Or just to hear the noise of their forty-four guns
And there’s fire on the mountain, lightnin’ in the air
Gold in them hills and it’s waitin’ for me there
Now my widow she weeps by my grave
Tears flow free for her man she couldn’t save
Shot down in cold blood by a gun that carried fame
All for a useless and no good worthless claim
And there’s fire on the mountain, lightnin’ in the air
Gold in them hills and it’s waitin’ for me there
Fire on the mountain, lightnin’ in the air
Gold in them hills and it’s waitin’ for me there
Waitin’ for me there
Europeans often say we in the US have no history to our country and culture. I disagree completely.
My dad was a youngster in the early forties when his great grandfather was on his deathbed on a farm near Troy Missouri. Each day the family would gather dressed in black, and they would all sit around the bed quietly. The boys of course were restless and fidgety. One thing that always impressed my dad about the old man, who was born in the 1850′s was his revolver he kept hanging on the corner post of his bed. He’d kept it there always, even when civilization came to Missouri at the turn of the century. My dad says it was a huge gun… he was of course young and small.. and just like the snowdrifts over my head I recall as a child… when you grow up the scale of things changes.
My great great granddad had told my dad that in the old days “life was cheap. Men would get killed in the saloons and alleys of Saint Louis, and every morning a wagon would roam the streets to pick up the men who had been killed overnight and thrown into the streets.”
We’re all descended from people who’ve gone through hell.
When I was a child,
I talked like a child,
I thought like a child,
I reasoned like a child.
When I became a man,
I put childish ways behind me.
Chica was a rescued little puppy when we got her almost two years ago. No information on her past was available… she was tiny, emaciated, nearly starving and full of worms. But she had more energy and life from the beginning than I have ever seen in my life.
Perhaps due to early separation from her mother, she had a tendency to want to suckle on anything she found…. blanket corners, towels etc.
Then we came by two little dehydrated kitties who’s mother had been killed. We had to work hard to save them… they had to be bottle fed for a week or two, then we switched them to lapping milk replacer, and then slowly to finely ground wet cat food.
Chica the orphaned Chihuahua took pity upon the poor little kitties, she would often nestle carefully with them in their little box…. she’d gather them to her and treat them as if they were her puppies. Now they are very close…. and the kittens are approaching her size. Within the next few months they will greatly outclass her in size and jumping ability.
A surprising side-effect…. Chica is no longer suckling on anything she sees….. she has advanced to the next stage of life thanks to the little orphaned kitties. And she has taken the trauma she went through at losing her mother too young, and given herself as a replacement mother…. hopefully the good she is doing will help the two kitties grow up with little trauma at having lost their mother so young.
Here’s a little video showing how close Chica and Tony are
Matthew 23:37
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
who kills the prophets and stones to death those who have been sent to her!
How often I wanted to gather your children together
as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings,
but you were unwilling!
