Dreaming Roy C

I'm currently reading a book about precognitive dreams; it's called Precognitive Dreamwork and the Long Self: Interpreting Messages from your Future. I stumbled across it at the employee bookstore, and was excited to find it. I recognized the author, as he previously wrote a book called Time Loops, which I haven't read, but which received a lot of high praise.

Anyway, the book has gotten me thinking about a few dreams I've had over the years that turned out to be true. I've documented a couple of minor instances previously; see my Cherry Cordials Alert and Darkhawk posts. In this post I want to share another instance that might not count as precognitive, but I still found it quite funny.

Close to two years ago, on the night of May 28, 2021, I dreamed that I was at a conference. I asked the man next to me what his name was; he replied Royc. I looked at his nametag and saw it was spelled just like that: Royc. When I woke up the next morning, my first thought was "How funny, there was a typo in my dream. It left out the letter 'e' in Royce."

Out of curiosity, though, I searched the web for "royc", and the first results were about a soul singer named Roy C. I listened to the first song of his that appeared in the results... and it was one of the funniest songs I'd ever heard! I listened to a few others, and found another song that was hilarious! I don't know why I didn't blog about this at the time.

So, if you don't mind a bit of adult humor, let me recommend these two songs by Roy C. The first is called "Peeping through the Window":

And the second is called "Infidelity, Georgia":

I hope you enjoy them as much I did.

As far as the book goes, we have precognitive dreams thanks to quantum physics, where sending information back in time is entirely possible. From what I understand so far, my future self was so entertained by these two songs that it sent Roy C's name back in time via my dreams to ensure that I discovered them!

Death of a Rabbit

Last week my trail cam captured a rather grim video: a coyote chasing down a rabbit in our backyard. Fortunately, the final seconds of the chase are shrouded in darkness, but it sure seems like the coyote is closing in on and about to catch its prey. If you turn up the volume you can hear what is, perhaps, the cry of a rabbit as it gets caught. I know it's the circle of life and all, but man, I feel bad for that rabbit.

Here it is:

And a few days later a coyote wandered up close to the trail cam, in daylight hours. It may be the best coyote sighting my trail cam has recorded:

I just searched for "do rabbits make sounds" and the first result includes this text:

The sound of a rabbit screaming will send chills down your spine for two reasons. First, it sounds eerily close to a terrified child. Second, rabbits only scream when a predator is chasing them down or they are dying. It is never a false alarm when a rabbit screams.

Sadness.

RIP little rabbit.

Snow Totals

This winter has finally turned snowy! We've gotten several rounds of snow the past week and a half, with the biggest coming on Saturday, when we got nearly 6 inches! I've been dutifully measuring snowfall each day and reporting my totals to CoCoRaHS (I've mentioned this citizen science project a few times in previous posts). It's fun to see how my measurements compare to others in the area.

When it comes to weather around Chicago, Tom Skilling is the go-to meteorologist. He's the chief meteorologist for WGN TV, and has been the most popular weather forecaster in Chicago for pretty much forever. He's basically a celebrity, known for his love of weather. That really comes across in the WGN weather blog, where he has an "Ask Tom" article each day, and generally geeks out with all kinds of weather information.

For example, here is a fun fact: Today on the WGN weather blog, I learned that this January Chicago received only 18% of possible sunshine, making it the cloudiest January on record! The records began in 1894. It's also the 2nd cloudiest month ever in Chicago! That's the kind of geeky weather fun Skilling provides. (Here's a not-so-fun fact, though, that I learned today: Tom Skilling's brother was CEO of Enron during its accounting scandal and spent over a decade in jail.)

I mention all of this because sometimes Skilling will report CoCoRaHS totals on the weather blog, and sometimes my measurement makes the report. It's very cool when it happens. This morning, though, one of my co-workers said that during last night's TV forecast, Skilling showed McHenry as having gotten 11.1 inches of snow in the last 9 days. My co-worker wanted to know if that was from my snow measurements. I didn't know, so I looked up my data, added up the totals, and discovered I had exactly 11.1 inches! It really was my measurement!

I eventually found the video of the forecast, but I couldn't find a way to link to it. So instead, here's a screenshot of Tom Skilling himself pointing at my snow totals for the last 9 days!

How cool is that!

Cat Cubes and Soccer Excitement

For at least the past month, if not longer, every time I've gone to the store to buy pet supplies I've seen these little collapsible cat cubes for sale. When collapsed, they form a small cat bed:

When expanded, they form a little cube that cats can curl up inside:

Even though I really wanted to buy them, I resisted. It's a slippery slope because there are so many cute cat accessories out there that I want to buy.

Fortunately, my patience paid off. I went to the store the weekend after Thanksgiving, and there was a big display of these cat cubes with a sign saying they were 60% off. My will power collapsed, just like the cubes, and I bought two.

Shortly after I got home and set them on the floor, both cats went inside:

Now they sleep in their cubes on a regular basis, and it is adorable. As I typed this, I realized I hadn't seen Chili in a while. I went upstairs and he was curled up in his cube. I am so glad I bought them, and extra glad I got them on sale!

Finally, I am happy to report that Jalapeno has become a soccer fan thanks to the World Cup. He was really into the France-Poland game this morning! Here is a short video of his enthusiasm:

Cornquistos

About a month or so ago I was vacuuming the house in preparation for Wendy's parents coming for a visit. I don't remember what I was thinking about, but I must have been a bit hungry, because I turned off the vacuum and said to to Wendy: "Isn't there some kind of crunchy, cheesy snack called Conquistadors?"

Wendy was using her laptop right then. She did a quick search, and discovered that there's not one called Conquistadors, but there used to be one called Cornquistos:

That's exactly what I was thinking of! I have no idea why it popped into my head while vacuuming, but it did, and it led to a trip down memory lane.

First of all, Cornquistos came out in the 1980s, and are no longer made, which is a bummer. They had a crunchy corn shell with Mexican-flavored fillings, like nacho cheese, taco, and picante. They're similar to Combos, which are still made, but Combos use a pretzel shell and are not nearly as good, according to Cornquistos fans.

Secondly, there are a couple of memorable commercials for Cornquistos. One uses the slogan "The corn crunch with fillings that say... Olé!":

And the other commercial, which is where I must have gotten the conquistadors confusion, features CORNquistadors on an airplane, on a quest to bring Cornquistos to the United States ("One crunch and you're conquered"). Click the link below to watch it; I couldn't get it to embed properly.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x926s4

The funny thing is that I don't even remember if I liked Cornquistos! But I figure I must have, and I wish they were still made so that I could try them again.

Anyone else remember them?

Backyard Turkeys

In a recent blog post I wrote about 2 wild turkeys Wendy and I saw last month during a walk around our neighborhood. It turns out that was just a prelude to even more turkey excitement! (I've already shared most of the pictures in this post with family and friends, but I wanted to document it on my blog for posterity.)

A couple of weeks ago, we had unseasonably warm weather for early November. It was late afternoon, and I was working from home with all the doors and windows open so I could enjoy the weather. At one point I decided to look out the window, and I saw two wild turkeys in our backyard! They were eating the food from our bird feeder that had fallen to the ground.

I ran downstairs, grabbed my phone, and starting taking lots of pictures and videos. Our cats were super interested, as you can imagine! The turkeys were right outside our basement window. At times they were only a few feet away from myself and the cats.

They hung around our backyard for nearly 30 minutes! At one point they walked up onto our deck; one of them flapped its wings to sort of fly/jump up the deck steps. I ran upstairs to get a better angle, but I think I scared them off the deck. Then they wandered into our neighbor's yard for a bit, and I thought they were gone for good, but they wandered back into our yard again. After a while they disappeared to the side of the house and were gone for good.

Here are some pics of the event, starting with some very interested cats:

A cat-turkey stare down!

I really liked this picture, because if you look closely, you can see cats, turkeys, a squirrel under the feeder, and a bird at the feeder: 

And finally, here's a video of the turkeys:

It was a very memorable afternoon!

Leaves

The weather was so nice today that I decided to take the afternoon off and rake the leaves that had overtaken the yard. I took these photos before I started:


And about 2 and a half hours later I took these photos:

Now I am quite tired!

Turkeys

A couple of Fridays ago, Wendy and I went for a walk around the neighborhood during lunch, and we saw 2 wild turkeys!

I was super excited to see them, because I've never seen turkeys in our neighborhood before. For Wendy, it was a routine experience, since she often sees turkeys on her commute to work.

I don't know why the turkeys crossed the road, but I do at least have video evidence of them doing so:

Exciting!

Trees and Trail Cams

Trees

The past week or so we've heard the first acorns drop from the trees, bounce off the roof, and land on the deck. It's a sure sign that summer is nearing the end and fall is right around the corner. And with fall, leaves. 

Last year was unusual because the majority of leaves fell remarkably late. Our trash company comes by twice each fall and vacuums up any leaves that we rake to the curb. Because the leaves fell so late, we barely had any for them to collect both times they came by. I assumed they would make a third pass at some point, so I raked the leaves to the curb once they finally fell. As the days went by with no sign of a leaf-vacuum truck, I started to question my assumption. So I called to find out what their plans were, and they said they would not make a third pass, but they were still accepting bagged leaves as part of normal trash pick up for a few more weeks.

Being rule followers, Wendy and I spent an entire day bagging leaves. It was a lot of work. When we finished, we had 27 bags of leaves sitting by the curb! Trash day came and thankfully they took them all. However, the next week the trash company sent a brief, strongly-worded statement to our subdivision stating there was a limit of 8 bags of leaves per household! Well, at least our leaves were gone!

As it turned out, we didn't need to bag the leaves. Enough people in the county complained about the leaves that our township rented a leaf-vacuum truck(!), and made a pass through all the township roads. I think they visited our neighborhood sometime in late December, but I don't recall for sure. Anyway, it was rather frustrating that our bagging effort wasn't necessary!

It will be interesting to see what transpires this year with the leaves.

Trail Cam

I can't believe it was only last year that I bought my trail cam. It feels like I've had it for years. Perhaps that's a sign of how ingrained in my daily life it's become. For example, there have been many evenings in the last year and a half, where we think we hear something outside (or smell something, in the case of a skunk!), or our cats are looking out the basement window with great interest, and we take note of the time, so that when I check the trail cam the next morning, we can see if there was an animal in the backyard at that moment.

Well, not a single time has it ever happened that I found a video of an animal at that moment. Not once, until this week!

Thursday evening the weather was very pleasant, so we had all the doors and windows open. Shortly before 11pm, we heard our neighbor's dogs start barking, and keep barking for a while. The neighbors came out and yelled at the dogs to stop. Wendy looked up at the clock and said "It's 10:55pm. We should remember that to see if their dogs are barking at an animal on the trail cam." That was a good point; it hadn't occurred to me.

And sure enough, she was right. The next morning I checked, and at 10:51pm there was this video of a coyote running through our yard. Mystery solved!

Animal Speak

Several months ago I got this awesome book called Animal Speak:

It's an incredibly thorough guide to interpreting the signs of nature through the animals you encounter. What does it mean when a fox crosses your path? Or a particular type of bird keeps catching your attention? Or you dream of a certain animal? According to the author (Ted Andrews), "nature -- in the guise of animals -- is a means by which the spiritual links to the physical." Throughout the book he examines "the symbolic and mythical aspects attributed to animals and how that should speak to us personally."

He also says:

When we learn to speak with the animals, to listen with animal ears and to see through animal eyes... it is then that the animals are no longer our subordinates. They become our teachers, our friends, and our companions.

Usually around this time of year I write a post about all the animals I've seen around our neighborhood. I'll do that again in this post, but include comments from Animal Speak to see what can be learned.

Fish Kill

On Tuesday, March 8, I went for a walk around the neighborhood during lunch. I noticed a surprisingly large dead fish on the shore of the pond:

Then I looked further along the shore and was horrified to see hundreds upon hundreds of small dead fish along the edge of the pond:

At first I didn't believe they could all be fish, so I started to get closer for a better look. I didn't get very far, though, because the stench was overpowering. That answered my question. It really was a bunch of dead fish. Apparently fish kills like this occur when there are large temperature swings that affect the oxygen levels in the lake. A few days before this it was unseasonably warm, so that likely explains it.

I think our HOA must have hired a company to clean up the mess. Several times I saw buckets, shovels, and large plastic bags sitting by the edge of the lake. The awful smell lingered for weeks, even after the dead fish were gone.

I haven't found much mention of fish in Animal Speak, other than a reference to fish and water symbolizing intuition and the creative element of life. There was an entire chapter, though, on signs and omens. People around the world "have held strong the idea that the changing aspects of Nature reflect changes that are likely to occur within their own life." In other words: "The divine forces speak to humanity through Nature and its varied expressions."

The book cautions that there's a difference between omens and superstitions. Reading omens is based on reason and a strong knowledge base of the environment and animals within it. Superstition is based on irrational fears. Having taken many walks around our neighborhood over the last decade and a half, I know from first-hand experience that a fish kill like this is unusual. Given what happened with both my dad and Wendy's grandfather right after this event, I can't help but think it was an omen.

Hawk

Exactly one week later, on March 15, I was in the kitchen and heard a loud thud from downstairs. I looked around the corner and saw a hawk right outside the basement window!

It must have flown into the window and been momentarily stunned. Fortunately, it was stunned long enough for me to grab my phone and take a picture. It flew off shortly afterwards. Later, Wendy did some bird sleuthing and determined this is probably a Cooper's hawk. It eats other birds, so it makes sense that it would be around our backyard bird feeder!

Animal Speak says that, in general, hawks possess great visionary power that "awakens our vision and inspires us to a creative life purpose". Also: "the ability to soar and glide upon the currents is part of what hawk can teach." There are many different species of hawk, so the book picks only one to look at in-depth (the red-tailed hawk). It encourages study of the specific species you encounter, but it does mention Cooper's hawk briefly, saying that since it mostly eats other birds, it "reflects the old idea that what you eat, you become." 

Skunk

Around the same time, on March 12 and March 14, my trail cam finally recorded video of a skunk! I've smelled their presence numerous times over the years (and once I even caught a skunk in a chipmunk trap!), but it took almost an entire year for my trail cam to record one:

According to Animal Speak, the skunk is an animal of great respect ("Just look at how people respond to it") and it can teach us to give and expect respect by recognizing and asserting our own qualities. "The skunk does not get out of the way of any animal... It is self-assured and confident in itself." Skunks are fearless, but very peaceful, and always give warnings before spraying. Those warnings include:

  • Stamping its feet and turning its back on you.
  • Raising up its tail
  • Looking back over its shoulder.

However: "Once the skunk has seen you over its shoulder, it is too late. [It] can spray 12-15 feet with tremendous accuracy." It can also "repeat the spraying five to six times before it must build up again naturally."

A skunk can also indicate a need to use or study fragrances and aromatherapy. Since skunks are mostly solitary animals, they can also represent a need to balance attracting people and spending time alone.

There's a great deal more about skunks in the book, but it concludes by saying "When skunk shows up as a totem you are going to have opportunities to bring out new respect and self-esteem... Remember that people are going to notice you. How they notice and remember can be controlled by you. This is what skunk can help teach."

Cardinal

It's fairly common to see cardinals in our backyard and at the bird feeder. What is slightly unusual is that a couple of weeks ago, as I went outside for a walk during lunch, I saw two male cardinals in one of our trees, chattering away at each other:

Animal Speak says "That which you most notice when out in nature has spoken to you." So what do these two cardinals have to teach? The book summarizes these birds as "Renewed vitality through recognizing self-importance". It also says that while most female birds are quiet, the female cardinal joins in on the whistling with the the males, which is unusual. "This reflects that we should be listening to the inner voice (the feminine) more closely for our own health and well-being."

Also noteworthy is that cardinals eat many weed seeds and injurious insects, such as the 17-year cicada. This "can reflect a need to be more careful about your diet, that what you are eating may be injurious to yourself and affecting your overall vitality." It did not escape my attention that I saw these two cardinals right after eating a Jimmy Johns sandwich for lunch!

"When [cardinals] appear as a totem, they do so to remind us to become like them. Add color to your life, and remember that everything you do is of importance."

Wrapping up

I could go on with the coyotes, raccoons, rabbits, and turtles I've seen recently, but I'll wrap up this post here. I'm not done reading the book, so there is still much more to learn. I'll end with this quote, which I quite like:

Humanity has lost that instinctive tie to the rhythms and patterns of Nature, and with that loss has come a loss of the reality of magic. Nature tries to show us everyday that all forms of life can teach us. As we learn to listen to Nature, we break down our outworn perceptions. We find that magical creation is the force of life inherent in all things. And it is this, above all else, that Nature teaches to those who will learn from Her.