Animal Planet

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The other day Flat Stanley heard the house bird, a cockatiel, singing and clucking most melodiously, not at all the screech she reserves for when no one's home, or the cheeping sounds she makes for a few days before popping out an egg. Curious, FS visited the bird cage to see what was going on. FS understands the temptation to anthropomorphize animal behavior. In this particular instance, however, FS argues that the bird was feeling good. Pretty darned good. In a pre-afterglow kind of way, if you catch the drift.



Note the bird's pleasant, smiling demeanor.



In other news, FS visited a worm farm a week or two ago, properly called a "vermiculture operation." The worms live in climate-controlled bins. Their job is to eat and poop. The job of their human caretakers is to eat and poop, too, but that's another part of the story.



Did you know that 1,000 earthworms weigh about two pounds and can eat about one pound of food waste in a 24-hour period? The SO WHAT is that after they digest what they've eaten, they poop, and the poop is like black gold, or fertilizer on steroids, for plants.

The only other thing worms in a vermiculture operation need besides food and moisture is someone to harvest their poo.

Curious readers may wonder what worms eat. They eat food waste and other kinds of waste. They like poo. Pig poo, cow poo, people poo. The worm in the photo is feasting on people poo. Once the vermicast (worm poo) is harvested, it goes to a pile to be dried. What do you think is growing in that pile?


What do you think those plants are, class? Let's think about it for a minute. Worms eat poo, and maybe even small seeds. What seeds to people eat lots of? Think about it for just a minute . . .



That's right! Tomatoes! People eat tomato seeds, which pass through the digestive track unharmed, travel to the city sewage treatment plant, get fed to worms, pass through their digestive track unharmed and . . . bingo. The result is a pile of vermicastings made from worms fed on people poop. The pile is clean enough to pass muster with the Dept. of Environmental Protection. The bad people-pathogens are destroyed, and any plant lucky enough to get close to it thrives.

Only one problem with this pile of poo: People are so disgusted at the notion that the worms that pooped it were fed on people poop that they won't buy it for their gardens.

Sustainability: It's good on paper, as long as it's not in your back yard. Salad, anyone?
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Bold Yellow Balls

Yesterday, this little yellow ball appeared about 10 feet away from FS and spouse recently moved our yard chairs. It is nestled atop a violet. Bold little bastards.

Obviously they no longer fear discovery.

Hold your loved ones extra close tonight . . . tomorrow may be the end.

Score!

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Left at 4:30 this morning to drive 250 miles for a 10 am meeting in western NY. Submitted preliminary project proposal to local RC&D for approval. Amount to be determined, probably will be in the neighborhood of $400-600K. Scope of proposed project to include 10-15 farms with manure management problems in PA and NY. Got a thumbs up and the group assigned a sponsor.

YES.

Next step: Get the PA group to approve, then begin scoping out project for the actual application. Oh yah, who's worth the money? WHO? WHO? Me, that's who.
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Little Yellow Balls

A few months after their high school graduate left for bootcamp, Flat Stanley's neighbors solved the mystery behind an on-going shortage of boy's gym socks by cleaning out his room: Under Chris's bed and in his closet were enough barely-worn white socks to account for his entire senior year. It was a once-and-done deal. They found the socks, washed them, gave them away, and moved on.

At Flat Stanley's house, gym socks weren't a problem. One son only needed one pair, to be replaced when he wasn't looking. The other son supplied his own white socks, selected by his girlfriend. When each kid moved out, FS and spouse hosed out their rooms and threw away everything too big to wash down a drain.

Six or seven summers ago, somebody around here had a pellet gun. The ammunition was a million beebees. FS vaguely remembers strong, fast teenage boys leaping over the fence, sleuthing around corners, ducking and rolling through ambushes and causing some collateral damage to innocent landscape.


FS's house has been cleaned a time or two since those days. Rooms emptied, walls painted, furniture rearranged, old toys thrown out. It's reasonable to think that the vestiges of childhood occupation would by now be long gone. No more legos or broken slinkies, the RPG cards are history, Monopoly and Risk are in the give-away pile. Even the last of the green soldiers have been unearthed from their strategic locations in the yard, window sills, and special niches and been granted retirement or honorable discharges.

The beebees are another story.
FS assumed they were plastic, but this was probably incorrect. More likely they represent a reproductive stage in the life cycle of ancient race of galactic conquerors. They could be an alien invasion waiting for an invisible ray to hatch them open. They'll open in waves. The first wave will immediately contact The Brain. Pinky will be right there with him, of course.


The really insidious part of this monstrous plan to invade and take over planet earth isn't the way the enemy eggs look like a child's toy. Yes, that's clever enough. The truly diabolical aspect of this plan is how the eggs themselves reproduce.

Flat Stanley finds them hiding under furniture in rooms recently emptied, swept bare and re-furnished. They turn up in underwear drawers. Medicine cabinets. The glove box in a car not even owned when the original settlers arrived. In the garden at the roots of an old rose bush. The stump of a tree. Under the grass mat covering a sidewalk that has been edged two or three times a year for years.

It's only a matter of time before these little aliens have amassed enough to take over the world. Last week FS put out three trash cans full. She noticed that the neighbors on either side each had one trash can full of these eggs. This morning one showed up in FS's coffee. It is the end of the world as we know it. Prepare.
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the mouths of babes

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Wise words of advice from one granddaughter to her stepsisters:

"You know, when someone calls you names or is mean to you, the best thing to do is turn around and walk away...

...because they might have a stupid last name like yours, too."

L, age 8 1/2, speaking to R, 8, and A, 5
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Tag, You're It.

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The dealio is to go to your Pictures file and then go in the first folder and pull out the tenth photo to post and write about.

Take a gander at Flat Stanley's tenth photo:

This is the entrance to Brendonk, a concentration camp located in Belgium and used by the Germans to house prisoners during WWII. Flat Stanley visited this place two years ago as part of a graduate class called "Origins of Democracy." This was the only concentration camp we visited. The class was comprised of about 20 young 20-somethings, a coupla professors, and one geezer (FS).

FS's fellow students were a stunning group of people. The trip was awesome. This particular tour, sobering. Everyone: Younger, older, rowdier, more studious — everyone toured this facility with the tension produced by an hour or two of holding back tears in public. The interior of the prison was heavy, gray, concrete, low-light, metal drinking troughs, uneven brick floors, wooden bunks in compressed cells. Oppressive. The tour guide was an historian who had conducted extensive interviews with a man who had been held there. This prison was, overall, hailed as a fairly good place to go, as prisoners were not executed en masse or exported to gas chambers.

The head of this prison was a man, an ordinary man, who was generally not well-liked and looked down upon by his neighbors. Once installed as the head, he and his wife took hold of their new-found power and used it to become inhumane. They had a pet dog they would use to attack, bite, torture and kill prisoners. It is amazing and scary and sobering, FS thinks, that under different, "normal" circumstances, this couple would have bumbled through life and never have done anything remotely as monstrous as this.

On to a happier topic, photo #15:



Same trip, Venice. What is a trip with a bunch of college students if one can't take a moment to kiss some real fine ass? FS stole the idea from some cute girls she saw doing the same thing. The awesome background is the Doge's Palace at St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice. No, not Florida. Italy. Italy, you know? That big boot-looking thing you see on maps next to France?

Over and out, FS, World Traveler
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Sorrow and Grief and Grace

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Flat Stanley attended a funeral service Saturday for the 22-year old son (Eric) of an acquaintance who's a really good guy. Lots of people were invited, for the dad is part of the organization FS has been heading this year.

Most everyone entered the church hoping the family would hold it together. Nobody wants to be the person who breaks into uncontrollable sobs. It's especially bad when you've never met the deceased, but, as most people present had children that age, most people present were tense.

The family held it together with incredible grace. Eric had come to a sudden and violent end, cause unmentioned. The eulogies included references to addiction, anger, being troubled, and even, "Eric would never intentionally bring harm to himself or others." Was it drunk driving? A drug deal gone bad? A robbery? Bar fight? Suicide?

The preacher was on track with the family. He told the mourners, "Don't blame yourself for Eric's bad decisions, or for not having done enough to help him, for when you do, you take away his credit for the good that he did." And Eric did do good. His dad read to the mourners a portion of a note from a friend who had also struggled with addiction. Eric, it turns out, had made a significant impact on the lives of others, even when he was, in the end, unable to live with his own condition.

It was a mighty experience, sharing grief with this group of strangers and near-strangers. Afterward we accepted the invitation to go to the family's home. It was obvious that they wanted this as part of the day. They asked for flowers in the funeral announcement. "It might be selfish," the announcement read, "but we have decided that we want flowers." FS had a great time at their house and exchanged email addresses with a fascinating lady.

About those flowers: Well, hey, yes, we could have donated $60 to an addiction recovery group. But if flowers helped this loving family celebrate the gift of their son, then FS and spouse are glad to have been a part of that.

Twenty-two and addiction and depression. That's a lot for a young person to handle. May Eric rest in peace and his family hold on to joy.
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