Posted on 03/02/2012 9:17:36 AM PST by Short Bus
Our raccoon is gone.
It moved into the old dog house on Thursday, and seemed injured, ( car accident?), so we fed and watered it, and left it alone. Saturday morning it was on our deck. Sick, and shivering. One of the front paws looked damaged, and it was having trouble using it’s back legs. His nose was a bit mucky. Yes, we started to worry about rabies.
We gave it food and water, and brought a straw filled smaller dog house to him. He slept in it most of the day.
The OSPCA guy arrived around 6pm. The raccoon did not have rabies, but had been in a fight, had a massive maggott infestation in his anal glands, (possibly the most disgusting thing I have ever seen, but no wonder he couldn’t use his back legs!), and had a bad spring cold.
He said they would take it to a vet, to see if it could be saved.
It’s probably dead by now, but at least it would have been painless, as opposed to dieing on my deck. :-(
Heh. I guess spring is here.
OK. So fill in the blank.
“When I was a child, I used to play in the _____”
...swamp.
With silver bells,
and cockle shells,
and a little manure,
just to be sure
Which is why you aren’t bothered by mosquitos.
But what part of the swamp?
The mud? The water? On the old log? In the trees? With the leaves?
Yeah it sound like his run is done. Sad.
Oh, that’s too bad. At least it wasn’t a skunk!
Following in the footsteps of Sally and James, Frank has started making personal friends of insects and other crawly-things. He and Vlad just came inside, and Vlad said, “Frank has what looks like a venomous caterpillar on his shirt.” “Venomous caterpillar!” said Frank. “No, it’s just a harmless inch-worm - go back outside and put it in the tree.” “I will name it ‘Friendly Inchworm’,” said Frank as he went back out.
At least he doesn’t think the ants are Crunchy, like James did (under a bad influence) ...
Is that a quote from something?
I garden you know. ;-)
Bob said there was no dirt when he was young, and I can’t imagine a world like that. What would a world with no dirt look like?
*shudder*
Yes.
All of it.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, and yes.
. . . . Before There Was Dirt . . . by NicknamedBob. (Put your mouse cursor over my name!)
When I was a little kid, a real long time ago,
We didn’t have a lot of things that you have come to know.
There was no clothing fashion, because no one wore clothes,
We spent our time just looking ‘round, and saying, “Look at those!”A boy without a pocket means a boy without a frog.
We had a sort of clubhouse. We called our place “the log.”
The grown-ups never scolded us, we didn’t have the words.
I got a lot of credit then, for coming up with “birds.”We summered in a place they called the briddish isles,
The briddish folk who lived up there seemed generous with smiles.
The little hopping critters that had grown their feathers out,
Seemed happy, so I called them brids, a word that went about.The word got twisted round a bit, and so it came out bird,
But we were very language poor and needed our new word.
The job of giving names to things was one for senior folk,
And I was so much younger then, they took it as a joke.But still the word got out and I got better known,
And in a way because of it, I got one of my own.
They gave me tufts of feathers, and tied them in a knot,
A rumper-sticker that said Bird-On-Board was something else I got.After a while just B-O-B was stuck upon my rear,
And when I left somewhere they said BOB has been here.
We traveled around the world back then, or what we knew of it.
Some places seemed to be real nice, and some we quickly split.There was one place that many thought was very fine and grand,
They dug their caves in nice soft rock, it was a holey land.
The sun shone down too brightly there, some guys became a pain,
Or maybe it was something else that drove the folks insane.There was a kid who lived down there who played a game on sand,
His hoard of aggies proved he was the best one in the land.
Methuselah, he called himself, and challenged me to play,
I could afford to lose a few, and think I made his day.I haven’t seen him lately. I think he may be gone.
Young kids like him could never seem to keep their britches on.
It wasn’t that he seemed to be the nervous type,
He just needed to be patient, and then to get more ripe.I used to like a place that was a little North of there,
We still had warmer weather, and breezes filled the air.
A peaceful fishing village, somewhere they broke a dam,
We left some really bad words there when we went on the lam.And so we wandered on a bit and learned to cope with life.
I grew somewhat stronger when I first encountered strife.
It was the prudent thing to do, to turn the other cheek,
One cheek too many though, could mean that you were weak.I learned how to handle, those ones who’d be my foe,
It wouldn’t do to travel on, with nowhere left to go.
You make a man respect you, and he can be your friend,
And if he cannot live with that, you bring it to an end.On the whole I’m peaceful, and settled in my ways,
And I didn’t really hanker for the more exciting days.
So I stayed pretty busy, avoiding getting hurt,
And life was pretty good to me, before we dealt with dirt.Life was so much cleaner then, before the dirt arrived,
We strolled about the planet. Our numbers grew. We thrived.
We didn’t have much in the way of automatic toys,
But we had girls to chase, and they had all us boys.And so our numbers went on up, more people every day,
The “planning” folks were not around to interfere that way.
Some had funny notions, and lived the way they wished.
Others took it easy. They hunted and they fished.The animals around us seemed to give us lots of room,
Except for certain hungry ones, and meeting them was doom.
Some of us didn’t like that. We set out to fix their wagon.
We came back wearing nice warm skins. The others left, tails draggin’.Without the dirt, we didn’t know, about the bathing reason,
We thought the little odors were, someone was not in season.
The animals didn’t look on us in “fawning” admiration,
They actually avoided us with our protective odoration.It took a long time to discover which ideas beat the others,
Some folks lived on other’s work. Most treated men like brothers.
In the marketplace of thought, many notions came to flower,
And you never knew which one would be the flavor of the hour.We all had lots of time to sit around and think,
My suggestions fell quite flat, because like me, they’d stink.
But I got better as I went, and sometimes had a thought,
That could have saved us trouble if the others would have bought.My plan for building Stonehenge was to make it as a star,
With North and South along a line that went so far,
And lines to mark the point to which the sun would make its way,
In winter’s slow migration up until the shortest day.Too bad the guy in charge did not see things my way,
Or folks would not be looking on, and scratching heads today.
But he insisted circular, and folks began the work,
My stellar plans were set aside. He was a circle jerk.I left that merry England, and others left there too,
It wasn’t all so merry then, too many folks were blue.
The pyramids were much more fun, the competition brisk,
We raced those stones on up the ramps and didn’t mind the risk.I laugh to think about the thoughts that we used “rays.”
Life was so much simpler then, it’s how we filled our days,
With building competitions, instead of fighting wars,
Why else would we pile up stones, without a trace of doors?We’d clap an arc of wood upon each face of cubic block,
And then we’d get it up to go, by pushing up the rock.
Then toss a rope around it, and take it for a stroll,
Let me tell you, we knew then, just how to rock and roll.Someone asked of getting sick. We had a simple plan.
My way of dealing with it was, avoid it if you can.
If you called attention to yourself, when feeling ill one day,
Others would take notice soon, and go the other way.It wasn’t a matter of cowardice, or feeling no remorse,
It’s just that lacking training, there was no other course.
The wisdom of the action, can still be proved today,
For how could AIDS be what it is, if folks weren’t turned wrong-way?Political Correctness, was not so big a deal,
We knew it wasn’t only wrong, we knew it wasn’t real.
When you reward someone, for doing something dumb,
You just create a person who’ll be nothing but a bum.The old ways were not always the best way to abide,
But we learned before we threw them out, to set them side-by-side,
Before we tossed out customs, where errors may have lurked,
We tested them to see results, and find which system worked.So when did dirt arrive? I guess you ought to know,
It’s been a thing that’s bugging me, since oh so long ago.
It was the stupid insects, those little robot bums,
“They’ll do the work of twenty men, and all of it for crumbs.”Another bright idea, at least it wasn’t mine,
The first designs were clever, and seemed to work out fine.
But when the bug got busted up, it wouldn’t go away,
Instead the parts got smaller, and turned the dust to gray.And every time you’d smack one down, or step upon a few,
You’d find a nasty substance, encrusted on your shoe.
You think they get recycled? Just trust me when I say,
The very first bug ever made, you’re walking on today.The knowledge of unmaking them was limited to few,
The scrolls at Alexandria told us just what we should do,
So naturally, disaster fell, and no one knew quite why,
But I can tell you this, it was some stupid firefly.I miss those simpler times when we all could get along,
We had our bread and wine, and in the evening, we had song.
Our musical devices could plunk out a pretty tune,
And more personal fulfillment could be found behind a dune.But every day since I’ve been born has been a joy to me,
And I still get real excited with each new thing that I see.
I’ve still got time ahead of me and I’ve worked out all the math,
And I’ve even gotten used to knowing when to take a bath.
I know. We wanted to help it, but there was nothing we could do.
Either way, it’s not in pain anymore.
Mary, Mary,
quite contrary,
how does your garden grow?
With silver bells,
and cockle shells,
and a little manure,just to be sure
LOL! Thanks for sharing these wonderful moments TC. *smile*
(Put your mouse cursor over my name!)LOL!
You are making me feel like a Supreme Court Justice...
You expect me to read all that?
One word.
I was asking for one word.
“When I was a child, I used to play in the _____?
Ahh.
Mary was presented as being quite contrary from the beginning, so I never liked her.
It is filled with Easter Eggs.
“When I was a child, I used to play in the _____?"
“When I was a child, I used to play in the shade ."
Frank also has some Friendly Ants. (It’s that time of year ...)
At least he hasn’t introduced them to any important guests yet. Sally once wanted our priest to admire all her kitchen buggies.
I’m so sorry to hear about your raccoon. You were very caring and did what was best for the little guy. I look forward to the rainbow bridge. I bet you’ll have a lot of friends there.
“I can distinctly remember the time before dirt.” Hate to rain on your parade, but I was officially declared “The Ancient” in my kung fu class. I was even older than my sifu. (This is probably my only distinction.)
Shade.
Hmmm. That’s deep. I’ll have to ponder that.
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