A couple of Decembers ago, I wrote about the cat cubes I bought and how adorable it was when Chili and Jalapeno curled up inside them. Unfortunately, they have not done that in a quite a while. Recently, though, we put some cat beds in the bay window, which faces southeast and gets a lot of sunshine. The cats now love sitting there; it's become their favorite spot in the house, especially on sunny days:
There was some excitement a week or so ago, when I noticed a possum in broad daylight in our backyard, eating the seed that had dropped from the bird feeder. The cats were super interested!
Since possums are nocturnal, I wondered if maybe it was sick, but after some research I learned that it's not uncommon for possums to be seen during the day, especially during harsh winters when food is scarce. That was most likely the case here, as an arctic blast had just come to an end. I could see the possum shivering, and I felt bad for it, so I put out some wet and dry cat food for it, which it enthusiastically ate up before eventually wandering off.
While all this was happening, a rabbit stopped by to see what was going on:
All this talk of animals reminds me of a blog post I never got around to writing. For my birthday this past summer, Wendy booked us a visit to a local alpaca farm! We got to feed and pet the alpacas, and take lots of pictures and videos with them. It was very cool.
Here's a video of an alpaca chewing the cud. Wendy was quick to notice the figure-eight pattern its mouth made:
The last alpaca we visited was very, very friendly and enjoyed lots of pets. At one point, though, he stood up on his hind legs, and it was kind of terrifying to realize just how big of an animal he was!
Coming back around to cat beds, at the alpaca farm we bought a small mat made of alpaca fleece that was advertised as a pet bed:
The cats really liked it at first, but then they started biting it and pulling it apart, so it went into the closet. I will occasionally get it out and use it as a mat for me when I'm using my standing desk. It feels very luxurious!
]]>For a long time (I've forgotten how long, exactly) we've subscribed to the Northwest Herald, which is the local newspaper in our neck of the woods. It's been a fine newspaper. You could tell they were cutting back on costs over the years, like when they switched to a smaller paper size, and when they stopped producing a Sunday newspaper, opting for a Saturday paper instead. We subscribed to the Saturday-only paper.
Last summer, when we took a trip to Kentucky, I put a hold on our newspaper delivery as usual. After our vacation, our newspaper didn't start delivery again. I didn't take any action at first, thinking it was a fluke and delivery would start again soon. But it didn't start again. So I called customer service and was told they would "send an email to upper management" about the problem, and credit my account for the missed delivery. That seemed fine and dandy.
Except the paper still didn't get delivered. So I called again, and they said the same thing about upper management.
But the paper still didn't get delivered. So I called again, and was told the same thing about upper management. Surely, this time would fix it, I thought.
I was wrong. The paper still didn't get delivered.
I don't know how many times we went back and forth like that, but none of it helped. At one point I got an email from them asking me to fill out a survey. I did. And l gave them negative ratings and left them a nasty note explaining my problem. I didn't hear anything back immediately.
At this point I devised a new strategy. I decided to stop calling and complaining, so they would stop crediting my account for missed deliveries, so they would charge my credit card again. Then I would file a dispute with my credit card company, hoping they would get involved and finally get the attention of the paper's "upper management". It took about a month for all of that to play out (can I play the long game or what?). And I never got a newspaper during that time. When I filed a dispute with my credit card company, they instantly refunded the charge from the newspaper, but that was it. I was disappointed; I was hoping for more fireworks.
A few days later, though, I was contacted by the newspaper. They were finally following up on my negative survey response. (Did my dispute with the credit card company actually help? The timing makes me think it did, but I don't know for sure.) They put me in contact with one of their customer advocates. This was a friendly man who apologized for the issue, and explained they recently switched to a 3rd-party contractor for deliveries in my area, and they were having a lot of problems with that contractor, he said. A lot of problems.
Since I hadn't called to complain in a while (due to my credit card strategy), he wanted me to start calling him directly when I didn't get a delivery, so he could have evidence that would "hold the contractor's feet to the fire", so to speak.
At this point, I should mention that what started as failed deliveries over the summer had now dragged on into the fall.
So I started a new cat-and-mouse game, following his suggestion. Every Saturday morning when I didn't have a paper, I would leave him a voice mail stating that fact, and then I would call customer support to request redelivery. They would routinely say the paper would be redelivered by 1pm. AND IT NEVER WAS! So I would call the man back after 1pm and leave him another voice mail saying I never got a redelivery. Then he would call me back Monday morning, confirm I never got a paper, express dismay and disappointment, and then credit my account.
THIS. WENT. ON. FOR. WEEKS.
Finally, one week I got a newspaper delivered. Unbelievable! Finally, the problem was solved. Except the next week it wasn't delivered. And not the next week, either. Or the next week.
I forget how many weeks it went on like that, but finally in mid-November I reached my limit. I'd gotten precisely one paper delivered in over 4 and a half months. I called customer support to cancel. When they asked why, I explained I hadn't gotten a newspaper in months.
They replied that they could "send an email to upper management".
I don't remember if I laughed or scoffed or threw the phone out the window. It probably wasn't the last one because I still have my phone.
But, anyway, I canceled, and decided to try a subscription to the Chicago Tribune instead. So far they have delivered my newspaper every day it's supposed to be delivered, and it's wonderful. I love it.
This afternoon I got a phone call from the Northwest Herald retention department. They stated right up front they wanted to win me back, and asked why I canceled. I said because they didn't deliver my paper for 4 and a half months no matter how many times I called to complain. The woman was stunned, quietly exclaiming "4 and a half months?! That's a long time." Yes. Yes, it was, I said. And then I added, with a fair amount of frustration: "I'm not coming back." She said she understood and thanked me for being honest.
I hung up the phone and now I've written this blog post and my rant is over.
]]>A few nights ago the trail cam recorded video of a deer in our backyard! This is the first time we've gotten video of one, so I was quite excited.
In his book Animal Speak, Ted Andrews describes deer as symbolizing a "gentle luring to new adventure":
I've written about two other encounters with deer on my blog:There are many stories and myths of deer luring hunters or even kings deep into the woods until they are lost and begin to encounter new adventures. One such example is found in the tales of King Arthur... Sir Gawain follows a white hart to many adventurous encounters.
Fun!
]]>A couple of weeks ago it got really hot around here, like 100 degrees hot, which is rare, and an 80-degree dew point, which is even rarer. One of my coworkers remarked: "No need to go to Florida, because Florida came to us." During one of those days I looked out the window and saw 3 little birds standing in the empty bird bath in our backyard.
"Okay, okay," I said. "I get the hint." I went outside and filled the bath with water. The next day, also a hot one, I looked out the window and saw 4 little birds splashing away in the bath. I was pleased for having done a good deed. Later, Wendy and I both saw a chipmunk on the bird bath getting a drink.
Chipmunks and birds weren't the only animals interested in water, though. A few days later, the bird bath was knocked over during the night, and there were some clear paw prints left on the surface:
After some online searching, I decided they were raccoon prints. The trail cam didn't have anything on it, but it faces away from the bird bath. Anyway, a few minutes after taking the above picture, I looked out the window and saw 2 birds standing on the deck railing, looking down at the empty bird bath. "Okay, but give me a minute!" I said.
A few days later, the bird bath was knocked over again during the night. The trail cam did show a raccoon in the yard, likely confirming my suspicion. This time, I re-positioned the trail cam so it shows the bird feeder and the bird bath in the same shot. The bath has not been knocked over since.
Then, in the early hours of Saturday morning, Wendy and I were awoken by a terrible screeching sound from one of our cats. We got up and hurried downstairs. The thought that ran through my very groggy head was that somehow an animal had gotten in the house and was attacking the cats. When I got downstairs, I could see the cats on the floor, warily looking up at the basement window. When I flipped on the light, I saw the faint shape of a small animal just outside the window run away. The cats seemed fine, but both had very puffy tails. If I hadn't turned on the light immediately, my eyes might have adjusted to the darkness and I may have gotten a better look at the animal.
It took a while to fall back asleep after that excitement. The next morning there was nothing on the trail cam. I'm guessing they were scared by another cat wandering through our yard, just outside the window. It might have even been the same cat that showed up on the trail cam in May (see this post).
Anyway, all of this excitement has reminded me of other backyard events that I've written about over the years, most notably:
Our backyard has been the source of a number of interesting events -- and blog posts!
]]>Today marks the end of meteorological summer. Here's a look back at some of the photos I've taken the past few months.
These giant pancakes declared Hopkinsville, KY as the Batter Capital of the World:
The pond near our house, at sunset:
Some sandhill cranes we spotted in the same pond:
While walking around our neighborhood I was spotted by an Alert Cat:
The Fox River as viewed from the Fox Bluff Conservation Area:
A strange sculpture from a sculpture garden in McHenry County:
Another sculpture from the same garden, this one in the middle of a labyrinth:
Looking towards the end of the Infinity Room at House on the Rock:
Looking down into a room at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin:
A poster of some fun pictograms in the restroom of a diner near Madison, WI:
A monstrous, 2.5 pound heirloom tomato we got from our CSA farm share:
And finally, Jalapeno from on high:
This post presupposes that:
If you don't meet the above criteria, this post may not apply to you.
To stop believing in UFOs, follow these steps:
Those are the steps that worked for me. Your experience may be different.
Here are 60 seconds of Jalapeno enjoying this morning's Wimbledon match:
]]>
On September 3rd, 2001, eight days before the 9/11 attacks, I dreamed that I went outside and saw dark storm clouds in the distance. Then an American Airlines plane appeared, flying very low. Suddenly, it swerved and crashed into the woods. I ran inside and called 9-1-1. When I went back out, emergency crews had arrived and were finding body pieces in the wreckage.
I completely forgot about the dream until 2 weeks after the 9/11 attacks, when I suddenly thought: didn't I have a dream about an airplane crash recently? I looked in my dream journal and there it was. To be honest, it freaked me out! Was it really possible I foresaw the 9/11 attacks in a dream?
I finished reading the book Precognitive Dreamwork and the Long Self by Eric Wargo, which I mentioned in a recent post.
The author lays out a whole framework of how precognitive dreams are possible and how they work. One of the key points he makes really helped resolve the freakiness I felt with my 9/11 dream. After spending years studying precognitive dreams he and others have had, Wargo suggests that when you have precognitive dreams, what's happening is that you're sensing your reactions or thoughts about a future event. You're not actually seeing future objective events. Essentially, you're remembering your own future thoughts: memory, he suggests, can work both backwards and forwards in time! For some reason, I find this idea much more palatable than being able to foresee the future.
Wargo builds upon the work of J.W. Dunne, who published a book about precognitive dreams in 1927 called An Experiment in Time. When both Dunne and Wargo studied their dream journals, they discovered numerous precognitive dreams. Dunne (and Wargo, too) challenged his readers to do the same. Wargo even says you should assume all your dreams are precognitive.
That's all well and good, but I have a dream journal going back a number of years, and my dreams that could be interpreted as precognitive are very few and very far between. I linked to a couple of them in the previous post mentioned above. So, to convince myself that I rarely have them, I sat down with my dream journal a few weeks ago and started looking for any evidence of precognition. And I could not believe it, but I found one I'd had just the previous week! To say I was stunned is a bit of an understatement.
In the dream (which I had on April 12th), I was eating pancakes with syrup at a table, for breakfast. Somehow, I accidentally knocked my plate on the floor, and maple syrup got all over the carpet. I got really upset, but then started cleaning it up. At the end, I noticed a Christmas tree in the kitchen with a lot of unopened presents.
Four days later, on April 16th, Wendy was making pancakes when the bowl suddenly tipped over, and pancake batter got all over the counter and floor. She got really upset, but then we both started cleaning up the mess. I very rarely dream about pancake accidents, and we very rarely experience them in reality. And yet, my dream preceded the actual event by 4 days.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized this dream followed several patterns Wargo identifies in his book. For one, it is extremely easy to not notice precognitive dreams if you're not looking for them. He likens it several times to the River Lethe from Greek mythology. In my case, I probably would never have noticed this dream was precognitive if I hadn't been reading a book about them and looked through my dream journal for examples.
You'll notice one big difference is that I had the accident in the dream, whereas Wendy had the accident in reality. Precognitive dreams 1) are symbolic representations, and 2) are never specific enough to take action to prevent them. There are some deep sections in the book that explain this. According to quantum physics, sending information back in time is allowed. But any information sent back in time will always result in a future where that information is sent back in time. It's called the principle of self-consistency. Wargo suggests there's nothing I could have done to prevent the pancake accident. If there was, I never would have dreamed about it in the first place. (He stresses this means it's not your fault if you have a precognitive dream that comes true.)
Another pattern is that a big sense of relief (what he calls thoughts of "I survived") are often the target of precognitive dreams. That's exactly what happened here. When Wendy had the accident, she initially gasped and then was silent. I was in the living room and got up to see what happened. Part of me was worried I would discover she'd cut herself and blood would be everywhere. So when I saw the bowl had spilled, and batter was everywhere, I was greatly relieved. It was a mess, yes, but we could clean it up. No first-aid or hospital trips were required.
And finally, let's talk about that Christmas tree. When I first had the dream, I thought "That's weird. It's April, why am I dreaming about Christmas?" Well, the book claims that precognitive dreams often contain a symbolic representation of your thoughts about the dream when you later realize it's precognitive. I think the tree and unopened presents were a sign this dream was a gift I hadn't opened yet, and foreshadowed my excitement when I later realized its value (like a kid at Christmas).
Now I want to dig deeper into my dream journal to see if I can find other precognitive dreams. Wargo points out these dreams often have "calendrical resonance", where you have the dream a few years before the event, on or about the same day. He mentions an astronomer who dreamed he discovered a peculiar exoplanet around a specific star, and 9 years later to the day discovered an exoplanet, with the same peculiar properties, but around a different star!
There are some things in the book I don't agree with, like Wargo's suggestion that all dreams could be precognitive. I now want to dive deeper into the Edgar Cayce readings, to re-familiarize myself with what Cayce says about dreams. He had a decent amount to say on the subject, and helped a number of people interpret their dreams. I was a little disappointed Wargo didn't cover it in the book, even though, funnily enough, he mentioned someone who had a precognitive dream about giving a talk at the Edgar Cayce organization.
Lastly, Wargo says he now believes that precognitive dreams have a sort of social orienting function, which draws us to the reward of human connection. He encourages readers to share their dreams with others (hence this blog post), and says that the precognitive dream itself may be unimportant. What is important is what the dream leads you to do, or the connections it helps you make.
So, let's just say I found this book extremely interesting.
]]>You might recall that part of why I got a trail cam a few years ago is because food in the bird feeder was mysteriously disappearing in large quantities over a very short time frame. See this post. I was hopeful the cause was a Sasquatch, and that I would get proof of its existence. After several years of watching the trail cam videos, it pains me greatly to say that the food disappearance likely has nothing to do with Sasquatch, and everything to do with birds.
Having accepted this fact, I check the trail cam much less frequently these days. I did check it this morning, though, and of the 28 videos it had captured in the last 12 days, here are the notable ones.
First up, a couple of ducks have discovered the food that falls underneath the bird feeder. I think this is the first time I've seen ducks here.
Next is a black and white cat that briefly made an appearance. It walked right in front of our basement window. I can't help but wonder if our black and white cats (which are inside-only cats) saw it.
And finally, there's this hilarious video. Not only did the squirrel fail to climb the pole, but it also got a rather rude surprise from a chipmunk!
]]>
This morning I saw two sandhill cranes waiting to get into a local rec center. I didn't have the heart to tell them that it's closed on Friday, though.
It's always fun to see (and hear) sandhill cranes!
]]>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!
]]>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.
]]>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!
]]>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:
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?
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!
]]>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!
]]>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
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!
]]>
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:
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.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.
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:
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.
Last week we drove down to Kentucky to see Wendy's family for Christmas. It was cloudy for most of the drive; towards the end the sun finally made an appearance and I was surprised how much it lifted my mood. It was just nice to see a bit of sunshine.
A couple of days ago, while running some errands around town, I heard the song "Sunshine On My Shoulders" by John Denver:
That perfectly describes how I felt seeing the sun on the drive to Kentucky!
Yesterday the new year greeted us with close to 4 inches of snow. When I shoveled the driveway this morning, the sky was clear and the sun shined brightly. I thought again of the John Denver song, especially the line "Sunshine nearly always makes me high". It occurred to me that it's pretty much the polar opposite of the song "Rainy days and Mondays always get me down" by the Carpenters.
This afternoon, as we took down the Christmas tree, I streamed some John Denver songs through the speaker, including "Sunshine On My Shoulders". Great music!
In other news, we've adopted two kittens! They are 5 months old, both male. We're keeping the names they had at the shelter: Chili and Jalapeno. Wendy has nicknamed them the "Spicy Pepper Boys", which I quite like. So far Chili seems to be the more outgoing of the two, and Jalapeno the cautious one.
When we adopted our previous cat, Gordon, he was 6 years old. This is our first experience with kittens, and I don't think we realized just how much energy they would have! The first couple of days we alternated between "They're so cute!" and "What have we done?!"
They've just about fully explored the lower level of our house, and identified the best running lanes when sprinting all around. It's so funny when they spot each other from across the room. They'll crouch down and stare intently at the other one for a few seconds. Then they'll wiggle their butt, run full speed, and jump up and attack each other mid-air. Yesterday one of them landed in the trash can! It was hilarious to see the confused look on his face, with his head and paws sticking out of the trash!
Bird Feeder
A few posts ago I wrote about the trapped bird and how I bought a new bird feeder called the Squirrel Buster Plus. Unfortunately, it just didn't work out, and I have no idea why. The birds seemed to like it at first, and ate a decent chunk of the food in it, but then they just stopped coming by. Week after week went by without any birds, which turned into month after month. It was kind of depressing. I never had this problem with the old feeder.
So a couple weeks ago I bought another SquirrelAway bird feeder, which is what the old one was (this post was the first time I mentioned it). Here's what it looks like:
As you recall, the problem with the old one was that two times a bird got stuck in it (the first one died, detailed here). But that didn't start happening until after squirrels managed to grab hold of the feeder, gnaw on some of the port holes and make them wider. I'm hoping that birds won't get stuck on the new feeder with normal sized holes, and that the baffle I installed on the pole a few years ago will prevent squirrels from ever gnawing on it again.
The day after I put out the new SquirrelAway feeder, the birds were back in full force, and I was happy to see them! For whatever reason, they seem to really like this feeder, and as I type this I see a cardinal eating away at it. So, hurray! The birds are back!
Trail Cam
I didn't check my trail cam for videos Saturday morning because it was cold, wet, and snowing (we got almost two and half inches of rain that night before a cold front moved through). When I checked it this morning (Sunday) there were 11 videos on it. Normally when it captures a bunch of videos they're almost all of rabbits, patiently hopping around our backyard and eating away at the grass. So I asked Wendy to guess how many of the 11 were rabbits. She guessed 8. I guessed 10.
It turned out to be zero! There were 6 videos of raccoons (some quite fat) and 5 videos of coyotes. Here are some of the better ones:
A fat raccoon:
A curious raccoon:
Coyotes:
Bike Ride
Finally, the weather today was sunny and upper 40s, so Wendy and I went on a rare December bike ride around our neighborhood. We rode for 3 miles. I bundled up with a jacket, ear muffs, and gloves. It was cold, but still enjoyable. A week or two ago I went for a bike ride at lunch because it was in the 50s. I may actually have another chance this week, because Wednesday the predicted high is 62.
]]>A couple days ago Wendy was reading through old posts on this blog, and she came across this post from several years ago, where I mentioned we had gotten a lot of rain and that the pond near our house was the highest I'd ever seen it. Here's the picture I included in that post, which was taken in May 2019:
How times have changed! Our section of northern Illinois is currently having an "extreme drought" that's lasted most of this year. We didn't get much snow last winter, then had a dry spring, summer, and now fall. Here's what the same bench and pond look like today:
The pond is now the lowest I've ever seen it!
Last week the Illinois State Climatologist blog had an interesting post comparing this year's drought to the severe drought years of 2012 and 1988. I was surprised to learn that this year's drought hasn't been as bad. There are several reasons for it:
The article points out we got a decent amount of rain in October, but we're still up to 10-inches below normal. The long range forecast predicts a warmer and wetter winter for Illinois. The more precipitation we get before the soil freezes, the better shape we'll be in next year.
In the meantime, I'll continue my daily precipitation measurements for CoCoRaHs. Just for fun, I ran a report comparing my measurements for the months of March-October in 2020 and 2021. In 2020 I recorded 31 inches of precipitation. In 2021 I recorded 18 inches! Here's hoping for more rain.
]]>I don't like horror movies, and it's all because of The Exorcist. I watched it during college and it scared me out of my mind. For the most part, I swore off horror movies after that. There are a couple of exceptions, though. One is Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, which I always enjoy watching. (Funnily enough, one of my coworkers says The Shining is what made him stop watching horror movies.) The other exception is vampire movies. For whatever reason, I still enjoy watching them. Here's a list of some of the more obscure vampire movies I've watched.
We Are the Night (2010)
This is a German lesbian vampire movie. I watched it years ago, and while I don't remember much about it, it was really good. From what I recall, the music and cinematography are excellent, and the movie drives home what is lost when one becomes a vampire.
Vampire's Kiss (1988)
A young Nicolas Cage stars in this movie. I kind of love Nicolas Cage because he's so crazy, and this is one of the craziest movies of his career (he famously eats a live cockroach in this one). He plays a man who thinks he's been bitten by a vampire, and thinks he's slowly turning into one, but really he's just going insane. It's kind of sad. Parts of the movie haven't aged well (his character continually harasses his secretary), but overall I really liked it.
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
This is directed by Werner Herzog, who has made some fantastic movies in his career (e.g., Fitzcarraldo). I cannot describe, though, how bleak and depressing this movie is. If you are ever in the mood for bleak and depressing, this is the movie you MUST WATCH. A lonely Dracula leaves Transylvania and brings death and the plague and lots and lots of rats everywhere he goes. I think I liked this movie, but I'm not actually sure. It is so depressing.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)
An Iranian vampire movie. It moves along at a glacial pace, but has an awesome soundtrack to make up for it. A young man falls in love with a lonely woman. What he does not know is that she's a vampire who's been terrorizing the town at night. She tries to warn him she has a darker side, but the two fall in love regardless. Gradually, the young man realizes who and what she is, and their relationship is put to the test. An excellent movie.
Ganja & Hess (1973)
I saved the best for last. With a black director (Bill Gunn) and an almost all-black cast, this offers a much different take on vampires. It is slow, meditative, and very surreal. One reviewer described this as a "scholarly" movie, and I think that fits. An anthropologist (Hess) is stabbed with an ancient knife that turns him into a vampire. As he adjusts to his new blood lust, he falls in love with a woman (Ganja) and turns her into a vampire so they can live together forever. Religion figures prominently in the movie, with several scenes at a black church. There is also a lot of emphasis on the blood references within Christianity; by the end it's almost overwhelming. I loved this movie, and kept thinking about it for weeks afterwards.
]]>Here are some notable videos from my trail cam over the past few weeks:
Fox videos
Two foxes in the same video! This is the only time that's happened.
A nice closeup view:
This is rather rude, but funny:
Raccoon videos
The family of raccoons is back! The little ones have grown a lot since the previous video.
A few weeks later they return again, this time for a nice closeup.
]]>
Three years ago I posted about a bird that died at our bird feeder, with its head stuck in the food hole. That was very weird. A couple of weeks ago, in the evening as it was getting dark, Wendy looked out the window and saw a bird at the feeder with its head in the hole. She looked again a while later, and the same bird was still perched in the same position. "Is that another dead bird?" she asked.
We both watched the bird for any sign of movement. Suddenly it flapped its wings, so it was alive! But it also didn't change its position. Its head was still in the hole. We realized then that the poor thing was stuck, and we had to do something to help free it. Otherwise it would stay stuck until it died. Probably just like the bird from 3 years ago!
We went outside and tried to figure out what to do. The bird made no effort to fly away, so it was clearly stuck. I got a stick and tried to gently nudge the bird from side to side, hoping that would help. But it didn't. All that happened is that the bird flapped its wings every so often. I needed another course of action. So I went inside, got some gloves, and very gingerly took hold of the bird and tried to gently pull it out. This was terrifying, because I was afraid I was going to hurt it. But I couldn't get the bird out. It was really stuck in there. A couple of times as I held it, the bird squawked at me, at which point I immediately let go. I needed to try something else.
At this point I took the feeder off the pole it hangs on, and tried turning it this way and that, thinking that maybe a different angle would help the bird get free. But that didn't work either. I tried again to nudge it with a stick, but still no luck. Wendy was watching all of this, holding a flashlight for me, and offering suggestions and moral support. The only other thing I could think of was to remove the bottom of the feeder, which was held on by screws. I didn't think it would help, based on where the bird's head was stuck, but I couldn't think of anything else to do, and neither could Wendy.
So I set the feeder on the grass, went inside, and got a screwdriver. When I came back out, I walked up to the feeder and started to kneel down. The feeder was sitting slightly unevenly on the grass, and as I was kneeling, it suddenly lost balance, and started to tip over. Wendy gasped, and I watched in horror as the feeder seemed to tip over in slow motion.
When it hit the ground, somehow the bird popped free! It flew a foot or two off the ground, hovered for a few seconds, and then flew off above Wendy's head, at which point she screamed. I watched it fly to the very top of one of our trees. It's flight path was slightly wobbly, but only slightly, and it was able to fly to the top of the tree.
Wendy and I both breathed a huge sigh of relief! The bird was free and seemed to be mostly unharmed. We were so worried it would be badly injured, or that we wouldn't be able to free it. I'm not sure how exactly it popped free, but I'm so glad it did. I decided right then and there to throw the bird feeder away. One dead bird and almost another one was enough, so into the garbage bin it went. When we got back inside, Wendy said "That was stressful!" Yes! Yes, it was! (I'm exhausted from just typing up the story for this post.)
The next morning I got to relive a few scenes of the trapped bird, because my trail cam dutifully recorded videos of the event! It didn't get any particularly good videos, though. There's one of me nudging the bird with a stick, one of me looking at the feeder while Wendy holds the flashlight, one of me taking off my gloves to go inside and get the screwdriver, and one of me watching the bird fly away right after it got free. I was hoping it would get a video of the bird popping free, but it didn't.
Here's the best screenshot I could get from the videos of the trapped bird (it's on the left):
Later that evening I started looking online for a new bird feeder. I found two different feeders on Amazon where someone left a review saying the same thing (a bird getting stuck) happened to them! One of the reviews even had a picture of it. This is crazy; I never knew such a thing could happen!
Eventually I did buy a new bird feeder, the Squirrel Buster Plus from a local wild bird shop. It took several days for the birds to get used to it, but they're now starting to use it more:
I sure hope this one goes better!
]]>In my recent post about Wildlife, I mentioned a bunch of different animals: raccoons, ducks, fish, foxes, toads, and turtles. But I did not mention egrets, despite seeing them frequently at the pond near our house. The main reason I didn't is because I couldn't get a picture of them. They often hang out along the shore of the pond, but every time I got close enough to take a picture, they would fly away as soon as I pulled out my phone.
Finally I realized I should get my phone's camera ready in advance. A few days later, while I was out walking, I saw an egret on the shore in the distance. I pulled my phone out, started the camera app, held it up for a picture, and kept walking towards the bird. Once I got close enough, all I had to do was press a button. It still flew off when I got too close, but at least I got some semi-decent pictures:
A couple weeks ago, I was out for a walk in the evening, and I noticed an egret with a fish in its mouth! I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture. Apparently it was too focused on dinner to fly away this time.
As I was looking at my phone and taking this picture, I heard a crunching sound. I looked up, and it had swallowed the fish!
]]>Last summer I wrote about some new trails we explored, which included the Long Prairie Trail. That's become one of our favorite trails to ride; we've gone there a couple of times so far this summer. It runs east/west for 15 miles. At the western edge, when the Long Prairie Trail ends, the Stone Bridge Trail begins. A couple weeks ago we rode a portion of that trail for the first time, and we really enjoyed it. There were several noteworthy things from the ride.
Turkeys
First up, are turkeys! There were a couple of turkeys out for a stroll on the trail. As we rode by, they quickly moved off the road and into the bushes. I tried to take some pictures, but they mostly turned out blurry. This zoomed-in photo is the best I could get:
Kind of fun!
Deer
Next, we saw a couple of deer on the trail, well ahead of us. One of them had very impressive antlers! We stopped to watch them from a distance, and they watched us back, suspiciously. When I took out my phone, they started to run away down the trail and then into the woods. Here's another zoomed-in photo, which is the best I could get:
We rode a bit further ahead, and then stopped again because we could still see them through the trees. From the glimpse that I got, they looked enormous! A few seconds later they ran further into the woods, out of sight. I wish I could have gotten a better picture, because they were much larger deer than I'm used to seeing. The photo above doesn't do them justice.
I think we were really lucky to see them, too, because other bikers appeared a minute later. They would have scared off the deer had we not done so first. Anyway, it was very cool!
Stone Bridge
Finally, the trail took us over a stone bridge, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.
After we rode across it, we parked our bikes and went down a very steep and twisty walkway. Here's the view from halfway down the walkway, looking towards the bottom and then looking up towards the trail:
At the bottom was an observation platform, with a display stand that had lots of history of the bridge and the area. Here's the bridge as it is now, and what it used to look like back when the trail was a railway:
After returning to our bikes, we rode back to our car and drove home. It was a fun trip!
]]>A few days ago my trail cam recorded a family of raccoons marching through our back yard in the wee hours of the morning. It was kind of cute:
Last night, I went for a walk around the neighborhood. I saw a mama duck watching a bunch of little ducklings frolic about in the water. It, too, was kind of cute. So I took a picture, but as soon as I pulled my phone out the mama duck turned around to look at me, so the final picture wasn't as cute as I'd hoped:
Several weeks ago, while on a walk around our neighborhood, Wendy spotted an unusually large fish in the pond by our house. I recorded this video of it:
Several blog posts ago (here), I posted a video of a fox jumping over our neighbor's fence. Since then we've gotten 2 more videos of that happening. Here they are:
Finally, a month or two ago I went out for a walk shortly after it stopped raining. Walking down our driveway, I was startled by a splash in front of me, and then I saw this big toad:
Those are the notable wildlife encounters I've had recently. Haven't seen any big turtles so far this year, but one of our neighbors said they saw one sitting in our driveway early in the morning about a month ago.
]]>Saturday morning Wendy and I went on our first trail ride of the season.
It was sunny and warm, with highs in the 80s. Great bike riding weather. Instead of getting on the trail close to McHenry and riding north, we drove north, got on the trail, and rode south. The advantage to this is that we get the hard part -- a long, gradual uphill climb -- out of the way first. Then we have a much easier and more enjoyable ride when we turn around and head back.
Distance: 6.03 miles
One of the nice things about working from home is being able to go on a bike ride around the neighborhood during lunch. Thanks to those rides, my season total is at 43 miles (last year my total was 205 miles).
Saturday evening, a little after 10pm, I made some tea (mango ginger, delicious!). While it was steeping, I stepped out on the deck to look at the stars. After a couple of minutes, I noticed what I thought was a plane flying overhead. But then I saw another one behind it, and then another, and another... and I quickly realized it was a chain of Starlink satellites that just happened to be flying overhead right then! I yelled to Wendy to come look. We stood and watched as dozens of them slowly flew by. They were easily visible, as bright as any of the stars. Three or four would be evenly spaced, followed by a slightly larger gap, and then another three or four evenly spaced. I would guess we saw about 50 of them total; we lost count around 30 or so. It was kind of a crazy sight, but cool.
We looked up more information about them afterwards. A new batch of Starlink satellites was launched on May 15; that's probably what we saw. They stay in a chain formation for a while, but over time they spread out to their own orbits. The satellites are owned by SpaceX (Elon Musk's company) and are used to provide Internet access.
And finally, as of today it has been 2 weeks since my second dose of the vaccine, so I am now fully vaccinated!
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