All posts by Dale Connelly

The Baboon Congress

Fowl Ball

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Today’s guest post comes from Ben.

This just in:  

The chicken / duck / guinea population on our farm has officially spun out of control.
I’m not sure how this happened. Exact numbers are hard to come by, but here’s what I know we have:

14 Ducks of various breeds
20 some-odd Guineas
10 (or 13) pearl (maybe 15!)
4 light gray
11 white
43 Chickens (I think)

That makes roughly Eighty two fowl. Eighty two is too many, that’s for sure.

When birds of a feather get together, there’s often a bully in the group and there is always a disturbance going on. But not this time. They all get along so well, in spite of their different backgrounds and personalities!

The fourteen ducks are a mix of breeds; some mallards, a couple Indian Runner and a few cross-breeding results including the tall brown headed one with the white neck in this picture.

That’s Patrick. He was the duck hatched by a chicken and being all alone I put a Sponge Bob plush toy in the pen with him. (Patrick is Sponge Bob’s best friend in the TV show).

The Mallard ducks I got from the local Tractor Supply Company store this spring. They actually do fly but they know this is home so they don’t migrate. But how neat it must be to hang out on the ground with their other duck friends and then, just every so often, take off and make expanding circles around the farm. And then they circle back in and land and settle down again. Now that’s perspective.

Guineas are native of Africa. I suspect they’re always cold here in the winter. We’ve had guinea fowl for several years; pretty much since we started raising chickens. A neighbor told me if I thought I was going to have trouble with fox or coyotes or raccoons getting my chickens then, I should get guineas because they can fly a bit and get away from varmints. And they eat ticks.

I ordered 30 guinea chicks this spring; a variety of breeds. And for some reason this bunch is just calm and friendly. There were two older ones around and of course at first they had to establish their pecking order, but once that was done, calm all around. And they mix right in with the ducks and chickens. And this group isn’t so psychotic as they are sometimes, so it’s kinda nice.

By the way, guineas are indifferent mothers. They’ll lay a clutch of 20 or 30 eggs, the first 5 or 6 hatch and momma gets up and walks away. And the babies can’t ever keep up. So they’ll only survive if I happen to hear them and intervene. Or find a nest and put the eggs in an incubator. I’ve said it before, the real world is a tough place for baby animals.

About the chickens –  We seemed to have enough chickens last spring so I didn’t order any chicks. Although a momma chicken raised 5 of them in a side pen. And put a bunch of eggs in the incubator so they arrived at the same time as the guinea chicks and we got nine more from that.

Everyone seems to be comfortable with their status and company they keep. High scores all around for sociability and variety, but there’s one thing missing.

Productivity.

Sixty some chickens I’m getting 8 eggs a day.  Hmmmm, what’s wrong with this ratio?? I think it’s costing me $5 per egg when you factor in feed, water, electricity and heat lamps. Maybe they’ve forgotten there’s work to do.

What’s the secret to getting along with your neighbors?

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String of Lights

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I would be a terrible astronaut and a complete waste of oxygen on the International Space Station because I’d always be looking out the window at things like this, courtesy of NASA.

The Eastern Seaboard at Night.

NASA says: Boston is just out of frame at right. Long Island and the New York City area are visible in the lower right quadrant. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are near the center. Parts of two Russian vehicles parked at the orbital outpost are seen in left foreground.

Just imagine all the stuff going on down there. And think about what it takes to keep all those lights on. In case you’re still questioning what’s what, here’s another view:

A couple of things come to mind.

I can see where Philadelphia is near the center along the corridor of light that stretches from sparkling New York City down to the glimmer that is Washington D.C., but Pittsburgh is on the western side of Pennsylvania. So if Pittsburgh is the somewhat dimmer blob just above the center point of the photo, those farther flung smudges are probably Erie, Toronto, Columbus, Cleveland, and maybe even Detroit.

Here’s the other thing – the sure knowledge that two Russian space vehicles were over the Eastern Seaboard at Night would had had us all hiding in the fallout shelter 50 years ago. Today we look at those Russian orbiters and think how cool they seem in the lovely blue light. Back then, of course, the light would have been bright red, and Kruschev would have been gleefully pounding his shoe on the table.

Now, it’s merely a captivating vista.

Where is the window that you could gaze through for hours?

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A Flexible Calendar

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Today’s guest post comes from big idea man and dealmaker Spin Williams.

I love Leap Day because it breaks the mold and gives us a peek at the future!

And the future I see is one where we are freed from the tyranny of the calendar! At The Meeting That Never Ends, we’re recommending that our clients invest heavily in anything that tracks, catalogs and manipulates time.

The next big growth area is not energy or financial services or Greek yogurt. It’s Time! Giving people control over their time is what freedom is all about! And we believe the world is moving inexorably towards a future where time is totally de-regulated and completely governed by the market!

For example, back in the day you had to be present in front of your TV set to catch a particular program at a specific time. If you didn’t obey the clock, you were out of luck. Today, it doesn’t matter when you want to watch – your favorite televised experience waits for you and provides itself at the touch of a button whenever you are ready!

I believe someday it will be the same with our calendar. No more February, March, April proceeding in their uninspired sequence of orderly days, one after another. That tired old system is entirely predictable and far too constraining.

The calendar of the future will be self designed and totally changeable. Everyone will still get 365 and 1/4 days each year, and in that year there will be 52 Mondays, 52 Tuesdays, etc. But if you want to live all your Mondays in a row and get them out of the way, that’s up to you! If you want to sell all your Fridays to a rich person in exchange for a large amount of cash and an equal number of their Wednesdays, you can do that! Conversely, if you want to burn through all your 104 Saturdays and Sundays starting on April 4th and finishing on July 6th, be my guest!

If you do this, of course you will suffer terrible consequences, but self-inflicted misery is also the hallmark of freedom!

Bottom line – people are hungry for liberty and time is the last great dictator – a heartless oppressor who is destined to fall. Mark my words – this will happen! The smart investor stays ahead of mega-trends, so place your bets and get ready for the Temporal Spring!

It sounds farfetched but I recall when Spin told me punctuation was unfairly rationed and a free American should get to have as many exclamation points as he wants. That came true for him, through sheer force of will!!!!! Could he be right about the rest of it?

How would you arrange your deregulated calendar?

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Mutt Mart Markdown

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Yesterday afternoon we were feeling apprehensive about the impending snowstorm, so naturally we headed out to get a little fresh air and do some recreational shopping.
And there’s no place like the local Mutt Mart to smell and be smelled.

Some dogs prefer a straight ahead walk in the park or the pure recreational exhilaration of an off-leash area, but for us it has always been a retail experience that gets the tail wagging.

The Mutt Mart is bursting with exotic smells and a mind-blowing variety of high-end food. We are all about high-end. The great thing about the Mutt Mart is that not every dog goes there. I’m not saying we’re snobs, but we’ve investigated a lot of ends and just so happens we like the high ones best.

But yesterday we noticed that something has changed at our favorite store.
The gourmet snack aisle was remarkably un-busy.

Unlike human society, the canine world is obsessed with rank, so trotting up to the register with a bag of fully organic, corn-free, gluten-free, hypoallergenic, free-range chicken flavored Scrumptious Morsels is much sweeter when there are other shoppers standing by to watch and admire.

Where were they? Word from Bloomberg Businessweek is that many of the other Mutt Mart shoppers are rooting around for snacks in the backyard compost and drinking out of mud puddles. Our economy has tanked so badly, even the dog pamperers are cutting back, letting their precious pooches play with common toys, eat ordinary food, and wear shapeless, uninspired fashions. We saw a poodle wearing baggy sweat pants!

So it has come to this.

One could argue that this sort of extravagance should have been the first thing to go, though frankly it is much easier to cut back on someone else’s frivolous expenses than to slash your own. So let’s start there.

What should other people stop spending money on?

Uncategorized

Ask Dr. Babooner

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Dear Dr. Babooner,

I don’t ask for a lot, but every once in a while it would be nice to get some career recognition. I’m in the film industry. While most think it’s a very romantic place to work, I can testify that the little people are greatly undervalued and habitually overlooked. No surprise there, I guess. The business runs on self-absorption. Attention hogs dominate at every level.

My job is crucial – I’m a certified FCPVS for the Title Imaging Department of a major studio. I know most people don’t get film industry jargon – that’s how technically complex it has become! Basically I’m in charge of verifying many of the key trades that support the film financially, confirming that contractual recognition has been provided in an efficient and timely fashion.

That’s a little complex. To put it in simpler terms, I act as a check and balance on the filmmaker’s commitment to fulfill some basic obligations that are an important part of the cinematic process.

OK, here’s what it is: I proofread the final credits.

But that’s getting to be a bigger and bigger job! Have you seen how long the credits are in movies these days? They go on forever, with names and titles in tinier and tinier print – weird jobs like Second Unit Factotum and Libra Head Operator being done by people with crazy, unspellable names, like Marc Mnémosyne and Lygia Day Szelwach. And while almost no actual moviegoers stick around to watch the credits, entertainment lawyers do. The way people get credit on a film is laid out in very exact language in their contracts, and if the final credits have to be re-done, that can get very expensive.

So my job is super-important.

But last night at the Oscars, not one of those snooty actors, grandiose directors, worthless producers or tortured writers took even a moment to thank the FCPVS (Final Credit Proofreading & Verification Specialist) on their project. What a bunch of selfish ingrates!

I’m fairly sure I could do any one of their jobs, but I’m absolutely certain that none of them have the patience to do mine!

Dr. Babooner, how do I get the acclaim that I deserve?

Epilogue Magoo, F.C.P.V.S.

I told Ms. or Mr. Magoo that there is no guarantee that credit will ever be given where it is due. Insisting that someone thank you takes the normal gratitude process and turns it around. In a more typical sequence of events, grateful feelings well up naturally inside the thankful person as a direct by-product of your actions. These feelings build to such a degree that they must be expressed. By demanding acknowledgement without any of the other steps, you skip over any genuine sentiment and go straight for the payoff. While this approach may get you a little bit of lukewarm recognition, it is ultimately a hollow feeling that will leave you even more depressed than before.
And I’d like to thank B. Marty Barry, from whom I stole this answer.
But that’s just one opinion.

What do you think, Dr. Babooner?

Uncategorized

Oscar Buzz

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Today’s post is a series of messages that came in yesterday from from Bart the Bear, the wild animal who found a cell phone in the north woods. Everything has been translated from the original Ursus Textish.

Bart - The Bear Who Found a Cell Phone

8:17 am
Yo. Bart here.
Just woke up and it feels like I didn’t sleep at all. Is it early? Seems early. Can’t believe winter really happened, even.

8:32
This phone thingy keeps buzzing, like a giant silver beetle. I want to eat it.

8:55
The buzz happens every time a message arrives. All of them are “alerts”. I think whoever lost the phone set it up to do this automatically when there’s a certain kind of news. In this case, the news is that “Oscar” is coming. Sometime soon. Who’s Oscar?

8:59
Oh, THAT Oscar.

9:05
I used to watch the Oscars every year through a window at the Ranger Station. Then they moved the show up to February and I was sleeping through it. Saw lots when there were more drive-in movie theaters – Hollywood lost a lot of feral fans when those started closing.
Better catch up on the nominees.

9:10
Will need popcorn tomorrow night. Ship to “Bear in Woods, Nevis MN”.

9:12
How come a bear has never won best supporting actor? What about the bears in Grizzly Man? Or any of the Care Bears?

9:16
My favorite bear movie – The Bears and I – with Patrick Wayne, John Wayne’s son. Bear gets top billing. 1974 wasn’t that long ago.

9:30
Just saw the list of Best Film nominees. Why so many? And “The Artist” is silent? What year did I wake up in?

9:41
“Moneyball” is about baseball? Then why no Oscar for “The Bad News Bears” in 1976 or 2005?

9:45
Who decided it would be a good idea to re-make “The Bad News Bears”?

9:51
Why do horses get so much attention? They are pretty but not as smart as you think!

9:59
Feeling snoozy again. Oscar excitement wearing me out. Don’t let me sleep through t …

Poor Bart. I sometimes wonder if he’s a Hollywood bear misplaced in the north woods.

What type of movie star would you be? Best actor / actress material? Supporting? Character? One film wonder?

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A Lull In The Lull

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Today’s guest post is from Dr. Cozy Futon, lead rest-searcher with Physicians for Bedrest.

My Fellow Sleepless Americans,

Yawning? Please pull over and take a nap.

Millions of people are running, walking, driving and sitting around with such an overwhelming sleep debt, they are literally good for nothing. Their brains are addled by constantly being under the low-level strain of Internet surfing, tweeting and Facebook posting. They process information superficially and lash out at anything they don’t understand, which is just about everything, given their diminished state of mind. Bloggers are especially prone to this condition, which is why so many of them are perpteually cranky.

Occasionally, members of the restless masses will resolve to get more sleep and are surprised to find that after a few initial hours of quality repose, they wake up. Their inability to sleep 8 hours straight becomes a concern, then an obsession, and finally a type of mania. They lie awake at 3 a.m. filled with dread over lying awake at 3 a.m..

The result? Deeper depravation, sleep-wise.

On behalf of Physicians for Bedrest, I ask you to consider that perhaps you are merely a two-stage sleeper. As explained in this recent article from the BBC, there is historical precedent to suggest that humans are designed to sleep in two chunks separated by a couple of hours of wakefulness – just exactly the way you do on those nights when you find yourself playing computer solitaire after midnight.

Don’t believe me? There’s a book: At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past. Plan to read it in the lull between your two sessions of sleep.

Here’s a quote about the book and its author from the BBC story:

In 2001, historian Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech published a seminal paper, drawn from 16 years of research, revealing a wealth of historical evidence that humans used to sleep in two distinct chunks.

His book At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past, published four years later, unearths more than 500 references to a segmented sleeping pattern – in diaries, court records, medical books and literature, from Homer’s Odyssey to an anthropological account of modern tribes in Nigeria.

In many historic accounts, Ekirch found that people used the time to meditate on their dreams.

I’m enthralled with this idea of going to sleep, having a scheduled intermission, and going to sleep again. Like a play or a sporting event, it makes perfect sense to have an interlude in the midst of the enjoyment so you can process what has just happened, and think about what is yet to come!

Among the things Ekrich found reference to people doing “between sleeps” – going to the toilet, smoking tobacco, visiting neighbors, chatting with bed-fellows, reading, writing, praying, and sex. Not necessarily in that order. Of course instead of setting aside eight hours for sleep, you’ll have to reserve ten. But you won’t even notice the difference, and the halftime show could be spectacular!

What keeps you awake?

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Happy Birthday Fred Biletnikov

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Who is Fred Biletnikov?

He played professional football for the Oakland Raiders when I was growing up as a worshipful fan of his arch-enemies, the New York Jets.

Thus, in my juvenile universe, Biletnikov, a receiver, was an evil genius – a shifty Boris to Raider coach John Madden’s plump Natasha. Yes, football fans thought Madden was the wily one but I believed Biletnikov authored all my troubles. He was said to be too small and too slow to play professional football, and yet through cunning and guile he appeared in just the right place at exactly the right time for the Raiders to complete an impossible pass and put my beloved Jets in deep trouble or worse, send them home as miserable losers. Ugh!

As with most villains, it was easy to believe the worst about Biletnikov. He used a substance called Stickum on his hands – a goopy glue that, not surprisingly, made it easier to catch the ball. He’d slather it on his hands and other parts of his body too. Rumor was they had to bring out a new ball after every Biletnikov catch because the old one was too sticky for the others to use. John Madden said Biletnikov once caught a ball with his forearm. After Biletnikov retired, the league banned Stickum.

I despised Fred Biletnikov and at the same time, admired him in the overly dramatic way pro football loyalists view players. Here’s someone’s You Tube video of the display at the Biletnikov exhibit at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. You get to see him with action with his skinny frame and his dirty blonde hair peeking out from under his helmet. And you have to love the music – the NFL’s orchestral march version of “What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor”.

I’m grown now and don’t care about the NFL very much at all. I’m mature enough to want to wish my tormentor a happy birthday. It can’t be easy to be an old football player. The game takes a physical toll on top of the aches that nature delivers … naturally. But still, Bilentikov, why were you so intent on crushing my dreams?

Who was your childhood villain?

Uncategorized

A Sprout of Doubt

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What’s with these Russian scientists all of a sudden?

The week before last they were punching through the ice that covers prehistoric Lake Vostok in Antarctica, hoping to find microbes that haven’t felt the sunlight for millions of years. And now, at the opposite pole, they’ve grown plants from seeds said to be 32 thousand years old.

Clearly the Russians are on a not-so-secret mission to restore a world we all thought was long gone. Could this be a remnant of the old Soviet plot to re-animate Lenin?

Microbes first, then the narrow-leafed campion, followed by the Soviet Union itself? We have Comrade Ground Squirrel to thank for this development, so carefully did he tuck his treasured seeds next to the permafrost, chattering way to his Fellow Furry Travelers that this day of glorious resurgence would surely come. Others have harbored similar wild dreams of rising from an icy demise, as we know too well from the oft-told frosty end of slugger Ted Williams.

There is some hope in all this that anything cold and dead may yet return, as we learned from Robert W. Service and Sam McGee. And as I discover over and over when dinnertime arrives and I realize I’ve got nothing in the fridge that’s remotely edible. But in the deep freeze … that’s a different story. If those Russian scientists would take a look behind that huge loaf of garlic bread at the back of my icebox, I think there’s some chicken from 1979. If I smothered it with enchilada sauce, would anyone really notice?

What’s in your freezer?

Poems

Orange Marmalade Monkey Poem

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Trivia: When you Google “Orange Marmalade Monkey Poem”, Trail Baboon is the #1 site that comes up.

Number one. Who knew?

I discovered this quite by accident, and am delighted to know that we are first in the world in a competition we didn’t enter, and in a category that I never would have expected to win.

All credit goes to Clyde, who wrote a hilarious bit of verse about orange marmalade getting the upper hand and hitting his computer keyboard last Fall. The monkey part? That must be Google’s doing, factoring in Baboons and Blevins.

I take this as evidence that Clyde is the reigning poet laureate of orange marmalade, and no one has ever brought a monkey anywhere near the stuff. In rhyme, anyway. Until now.

This ought to be sticky enough to cement our #1 status.

A funny little monkey
For his breakfast in the glade
Topped a toasted piece of raisin bread
With orange marmalade.

A travel weary zookeeper
Whose flight had been delayed
Was surprised to see a monkey
Making breakfast in the shade.

“Toast is not a food for monkeys,”
said the keeper. “I’m afraid
that a monkey can get sickened
overeating marmalade.”

So he put the primate in a box
And shipped him, postage paid,
To a zoo where he’d be properly
And frequently displayed.

But the monkey became ill
In all the cages where he stayed.
And though they gave him monkey medicine
He got no marmalade.

He ate nothing then, for weeks.
With matted hair and muzzle grayed
Children gathered at his window
Just to watch the monkey fade.

Then one day a little girl with whom
The monkey had once played
Accidentally dropped her raisin toast
With orange marmalade

When the monkey took a tangy bite
a turnabout was made
and he hopped and ran and pranced around
his hospital stockade.

Now the monkey’s an attraction
Past his cage, there’s a parade
He makes raisin toast for all his guests
With Orange Marmalade

What phrase, as a Google search, would (should!) rank you #1?