Category Archives: Animals

A Bi-lingular Education

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image by Diana Parkhurst via Unsplash   

A Bi-lingular Education

If you’d like to speak of tongues, a creature that is singular
is the arboreal lemur that is said to be bi-lingular.
One tongue is used for grooming another lemur’s hide
to sort out all the hairs from the delicious bugs inside.
Bugs provide fine nourishment but hair of course does not.
That smaller underneath tongue traps the hairs that it has caught
and arranges their expulsion, while the top tongue gets to savor
all those juicy bug parts that deliver so much flavor
combined with all the flowers and the fruit that it is able
to gather to provide the meal for a lemur’s table.
So when it comes to dining, when lemurs eat, it seems
that it works much better when they work in teams.
They form a culinary guild with very simple dictums.
One provides the appetite. The other provides victims!

(All true, by the way!!!)

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Prompts today were lingular, victim, guild and team. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/03/05/rdp-tuesday-lingular/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/03/05/fowc-with-fandango-victim/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/03/05/your-daily-word-prompt-guild-march-5-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/03/05/team/

Moving House

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Moving House.

Did you notice that ring on the top of the storage space to the right of my poinsettia photos?  If so, you might have been curious about what it was.  Not just a ring of dirt from where I moved the pot.  This is what was going on! It reminds me of humans evacuating a hospital before a hurricane or after a disaster.  And yes, I did feel a bit guilty. But it looks like their backup plan worked just fine. (Click on the first photo to enlarge photos and read captions.)

Whe I returned from two months at the beach, I was amazed to find poinsettias blooming even more profusely than they had bloomed in december. Notice the ring on the top of the bodega to the right of the flowers?
It was partially soil from the bottom of the pot, but it was also hundreds of tiny ants
hurrying to move their eggs to safer ground.
Obviously, the bottom of the pot had been their nursery.
Now they moved in orderly twos
and ones,
every upwards.
following the line of the window edge
A few did not avoid the trap of a spider web.
But eventually, all had relocated in the light sconce above. When I went out six hours later, all was still. Not a sign of a tiny ant or egg, until I turned over the pot from the location I had moved it to. About 50 of the ants had re-relocated back to their former home. When I turned the pot sideways, they scurried around like mad, grabbing their assigned eggs and making off again. Hurriedly, I set the pot back down again. No time for a photo this time.

“My Paint Brush Bites and Kicks!”

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Another great film sent to me by my friend Gloria.  

Here is Gloria. She’s been hanging around on the beach with me for the past month but goes home in two days.

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And here is the uplifting, quirky, wonderful film she sent me. lf you need a lift to your day, have a look: 

https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/580789/horse-artist/?utm_source=eb

Cruel Tranquility

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Cruel Tranquility

Welp, I would not have chosen this ending to the story.
It is a sad conclusion—distressing, sad and gory.
The hummingbird, suspended in its helicopter flight,
was brought down from the air with one swift lethal bite.
It was my adorable kitten who stopped its blur of wings.
Tired of scratching posts and batting balls and chasing strings,
she chose a task more difficult—a target ever-moving,
an irresistible challenge but one hardly behooving
a tiny kitten noted for its playfulness and cuteness.
I fear I underestimated her extreme astuteness.
Now she rests in sunlight. Her quarry, limp and torn,
here upon my doormat, I survey, forlorn
over loss of this small creature—its sheer poetry of motion—
as well as this reminder that in garden, air or ocean,
one thing feeds upon another in a constant mortal chain
incredible in beauty, indivisible from pain,
even in a garden where I sought for peace to reign.

 

Prompt words for the day are flight, forlorn, adorable and welp. 

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/01/27/rdp-sunday-flight/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/01/27/fowc-with-fandango-forlorn/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/01/27/your-daily-word-prompt-adorable-january-27-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/01/27/yelp/

Basking

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Basking

Cats love of apricity is more than just a fluke.
It is a vital tendency and so we can’t rebuke
our cats for lying prone a lot in any ray of sun.
A cat’s in need of toasting as much as any bun.
If you can imagine a Kardashian without
the flash of any flashbulb, you will without a doubt
be able to imagine a cat without the rays
filtered through venetian blinds, or fully in the blaze
of a scorching summer sun. A cat can withstand all
the heat that we can give them, in summer, winter fall.
And if there is no sun at all, a cat can just make do
with the full attention of a surrogate like you!!!

(Enlarge all photos by clicking on any one.)

Prompt words for today are vital, rebuke, apricity and imagine.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/01/14/rdp-monday-vital/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/01/14/fowc-with-fandango-rebuke/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/01/14/your-daily-word-prompt-apricity-january-14-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/01/14/imagine/

Safe Perch

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I tried to capture this fellow in this pose several times but he’d flown away by the time I got my camera out.  This morning he granted me the favor of a last visit and stood still long enough for me to capture this shot and a number of others—first a few of his mate, whom he replaced when she flew away—and then of him. I’m finally home.  There is no place like it!!!

Turkey Talk

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jdb photo, 2017


Turkey Talk

All day long, I gobble gobble.
Strut my stuff over the cobble
proud and straight, without a wobble,
until a man comes with a hobble.
I’d tell the rest if I were able,
Instead, I’m laid out on your table!

Want to hear some more turkey talk? Go HERE.

 

Matt’s prompt today was “Turkey Talk.”

‘Ssss True

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‘Sss True

Ssspartan to the nth degree,
he may be lurking in a tree.
In shape he must exemplify
nature’s attempt to ssssimplify.

(No arms or legs to complicate
his lithe movement through glade or gate.)
Not limited by all those parts
that curtail our stops and starts,

his every motion unimpeded,
his conquestsss easily completed.
Under a rock, he may lie coiled.
In sssswiftness, he cannot be foiled.

Hands and feet may have their uses,
but they may lead to abuses.
Toes can stub and feet may catch
on bumps or stones. They are no match

for a ssssnake’s swift glide and ssssssting.
Limbs are not good for everything!
It’s true, a sssnake would be more harmlesss
if he had not been born armlessss!

 

My cats had this snake cornered near the kitchen door, proving me wrong  by demonstrating that some footed creatures are a good match for a snake.  Yolanda’s keen eyes brought it to my attention, and between us, we proved to be its friends. KItties were curtailed.  The serpent glided on to sssafety.

The prompt words today are Spartan, limit, glade and exemplify.  Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/rdp-monday-spartan/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/10/01/fowc-with-fandango-limit/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/glade/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/06/06/welcome-to-daily-addictions/exemplify

Breaking Her Diet

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Breaking Her Diet

I measure her cat food with care from the vat,
but she has such an aptitude, my little cat
for flushing out lizards and others like that.
With delicate paw thrusts, she gives them a bat
’til they barely know where it is that they’re at,
then unleashes her claws for a more severe pat.

Be it lizard or bird or scorpion or rat,
she defeats it as though it were merely a gnat
and lays it out nicely on my front door mat:
one scorpion sting less or a feather for my hat,
then returns to the stool where she formerly sat,
licking her chops, and that’s why she’s so fat!!!

 

The prompts were cat, aptitude and delicate.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/08/11/rdp-72-cat/

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/08/11/fowc-with-fandango-aptitude/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/delicate

If it fits, wear it!

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Don’t miss the video below!  It is priceless.  The kitten in the headset bag above is Annie, 16 years ago.

https://www.facebook.com/video/embed?video_id=10200387320826253