postaday2012 | Pat Bean's blog

Posts Tagged ‘postaday2012’

I’m Fond of All Birds, Even the Ugly Ones

Posted in Birds, Nature, Travels With Maggie, tagged california condors, judy liddel, pat bean, postaday2012, Zion National Park on January 6, 2012| 6 Comments »

“Birds are indicators of the environment. If they are in trouble, we know we’ll soon be in trouble.” – Roger Tory Peterson

Recent California condor hatchling born at the Oregon Zoo, which has released 10 condors back to the wild. -- Oregon Zoo photo

Bird Talk

Judy Liddel, an old-broad birder like myself, whom I met on an Audubon outing to check mountain bluebird boxes in Northern Utah quite a few years ago, wrote about California condors on her blog. http://tinyurl.com/6ra4lg4

Her writing took me back in time, first to 1983, when the first condor egg hatched in captivity, and then to 2002, when I saw my first condor flying in the wild. The latter incident, which occurred just outside Zion National Park’s east entrance, was like a miracle, as their population had gotten down to only 22 when it was decided to take all of them into captivity for their own protection.

My granddaughter, Jennifer, who was with me when I saw a pair of the condors circulating overhead, was startled by my reaction. I pulled over to the side of the road, hopped out of the vehicle with my binoculars in hand, and started jumping up and down with joy. It was a sight I had never expected to see.

My fascination with the condors began one night in 1983 when I was the editor putting out the Sunday morning edition of the Times-News newspaper in Twin Falls, Idaho. A story came over the Associated Press wire about the first California chick being hatched in captivity at the San Diego Zoo.

One of the California condors now flying free. The markers on its wings allow it to be recognized and tracked. -- Wikipedia photo

Given that there were no murders, earthquakes or other catastrophes going on, I used the birth as the lead story on Page One. With it, I ran an enlarged photo using the color separations AP had sent over with the article.

Would you believe that quite a few readers took offense. One even wrote that the sight of the bald-headed, wrinkle-skinned chick had spoiled their breakfast. In their defense, I have to admit the paper’s reproduction of the photograph (this was still years away from the instant digital process newspapers used later in my career) had not gone well. The chick came out looking like it had been drenched in witches blood.

The managing editor was also not pleased, but I stood firm and told him this was a historic moment in bird history. He frowned, but didn’t fire me.

I have been following the progress of the California Condor ever since that day, and am pleased to tell you that the original 22 condors remaining in the world, with the aid of man’s efforts to save them, have multiplied to about 400.

It delights me that my friend, Judy, was as excited to see one of these birds flying free as I had been at the sight. Thanks for the memories Judy.

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An Uncozy Murder Mystery

Posted in Books, Travels With Maggie, Writing, tagged james lee burke, kindle, neon rain, new orleans, pat bean, postaday2012, sleep rituals on January 5, 2012| 7 Comments »

“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.” – Mark Twain

New York Times best seller, "Neon Rain"

Travels With Maggie

Last night, after Maggie and I had crawled into bed in the childhood bedroom of my grown granddaughter, Shanna, where I sleep at my oldest daughter’s home because I can’t plug into an electrical outlet, I turned on my Kindle.

My neck started getting uncomfortable after I had read for about a half hour. But since I still wasn’t ready for the sandman, I switched to one of the audible books I had downloaded.

I had put off getting a Kindle for a long time because I loved the magic of holding a real book in my hand. It took all of about 10 minutes, however, before I decided the Kindle had just as much magic, perhaps even more so because if I decided I wanted a certain book, I could be reading it in less than a minute.

But back to last night. My choice of listening pleasure was “The Neon Rain,” a Dave Robicheaux novel by James Lee Burke. The book had

New Orleans' Bourbon Street in 2003 -- Wikipedia photo

been on sale through Amazon’s Audible.com and on a whim I had bought it since I had already used my two monthly credits.

While I’m a big fan of murder mysteries, I quickly realized this one, whose hero is a New Orleans homicide detective with a Vietnam past, is darker than the cozy mysteries I favor. Burke puts into words what the authors I usually read keep hidden behind closed doors.

His descriptive phrases are gritty and complete, and Will Patton, the book’s narrator, captures Robicheaux’s dark character completely.

New Orleans French Quarter -- Wikipedia photo

What kept me reading, however, was that Burke had created Robicheaux in both black and white, and made him likeable. Underneath the toughness was a gentleman with depth, and Burke’s descriptive writing captured both sides.

I recently watched the movie “Salt’ with my daughter and her husband. At the end, the three of us sort of shook our heads.

“Not really a great movie,” my son-in-law, Neal, said.

“That’s because there was never any one to root for,” I replied.

The fact that I can root for Robicheaux, and that Burke is a writer’s writer, will keep me reading/listening to the end of “The Neon Rain.”

I will, however, continue to favor my more cozy mysteries, where the object is to simply to figure out who-done-it. But I also recognize that it’s good to once in a while be jolted back to reality and the knowledge that there is a dark side to the world – and as Twain says, a dark side within each of us’

Thankfully, most of us keep that side hidden behind closed doors.

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On Grooming a Cocker Spaniel

Posted in Travel, Travels With Maggie, tagged cocker spaniels, dog grooming, dogs, pat bean, postaday2012 on January 4, 2012| 4 Comments »

Maggie relaxing in my daughter's chair after today's grooming. I can't help but notice after each grooming these days, her once pure black muzzle gets grayer and grayer. -- Photo by Pat Bean

“Anybody who doesn’t know what soap tastes like never washed a dog.” Franklin P. Jones

Travels With Maggie

My traveling companion, Maggie, is a cocker spaniel with thick, fast growing fur that needs to be trimmed and washed every 10 days so as to keep both her ear infections and allergies at a minimum.

My previous cocker could go six weeks between groomings, and when I owned her I had a steady paycheck coming in weekly and a great groomer who charged only $25.

The cost of sending Maggie to a groomer these days ranges from a low of $42 to a high of $53 – and I live on a pretty low fixed income. So Maggie gets home, or shall we say RV-groomed since that is our home.

When the weather is warm enough, and when my RV, Gypsy Lee is hooked up to electricity, it’s an outdoor job. I sit on my RV step with Maggie in front of me and the clippers plugged into an outdoor outlet. The wind usually blows the clipped hair away.

On cold days, I sit on my toilet seat with Maggie propped up a bin in front of me and then sweep and vacuum the hair up afterward. It takes about three days before the last few pieces are finally discovered and discarded.

One or the other of those procedures works everywhere except my oldest daughter’s home, where I have no place to plug in Gypsy Lee. Today, since it was too cool to groom Maggie outside, I used the small downstairs half bath as my grooming saloon. I sat on the toilet and put Maggie on a stool in front of me. With the door closed, her cut fur was confined and didn’t get all over my daughter’s house. Clean up was much easier than in my RV.

I keep the grooming routine as simply as possible, using only two clippers blades for the job, a No. 10 for her back, throat, face and ears, and a No. 4 for the lower body and legs. Neither Maggie nor I have much patience, so on a scale of 1 (great) to 10 (disastrous), the outcome is usually in the above 5 range.

Today’s might have actually been a 4. But that’s not what pleases me. Every single time I have groomed her in the past, which is over 200 times in the nearly 12 years I’ve had her, today was the first time I didn’t have to fight her to get her right ear groomed. It has been extremely sensitive all her life.

I suspect the reason for her cooperation today when I was working on that ear is the new medicine that she was put on two weeks ago to fight her most recent ear infection. That infection was an extremely painful one for her, so much so that if it couldn’t be controlled it might have ended with me losing her.

I felt like shouting for joy when I finished. Maggie just wanted her treat. She always gets one afterward – whether she’s been good or not.

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