STRIVING FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY

Having spent 7 months crossing the United States, enjoying its parks, its beauty, great stretches of  barely inhabited land, fields full of grain, tree fruits, nuts, berries, beautiful lakes, bridges... what a great country this is. Puzzling, though, we sometimes  parked  near a pond or woods and did not see or hear a bird or an insect. Strange. Not even a mosquito.

 Sightings of wild animals in the South and West were better, but even then, mostly in protected parks. In the East where population is denser, we saw squirrels, chipmunks, foxes, and deer. Frogs only in protected gardens.

 
 Underneath all this visible beauty survival is precarious for jaguars, Florida panthers, many birds, whales, turtles...the list seems endless. But one danger, we can do something about easily. The Center for Biological Diversity offered this thoughtful science to hunters, and gun users everywhere. Lead ammunition puts humans and wildlife at risk. That surprised me.

California condors were brought back from the brink of extinction starting with efforts in 1996 at a tremendous cost. These majestic birds began dying at unusually high rates since their heroic rescue. Scientific studies traced it to lead poisoning from hunting and fishing. Condors are carrion eaters and just one abandoned lead ridden carcass or gut pile can poison several birds and cause death. Other scavengers, Owls, hawks, eagles and vultures are impacted. Small birds  mistake lead pellets or fishing tackle for grit or seed. Birds at risk  include pheasant, grouse, songbirds, waterfowl and wading birds, as well as golden eagles, sandhill cranes, trumpeter swans, peregrine falcons, all are poisoned by lead if they encounter it. People who eat deer and elk or other game shot with lead ammunition are ingesting tiny fragments of lead from shattered bullets. Fragments  too small for the human eye to see.  Lead is a neurotoxin that affects children at very low levels.
For hunters and fishermen, its an easy fix. Choose lead free bullets and tackle. Lead ammo has been banned in California. It doesn't ban hunting or fishing, just the lead. So, if you get a chance to support a vote for banning lead bullets in your state, support it. Then we can always appreciate these gorgeous beauties.
 

COPING WITH HARD TIMES PART 5

Coping with hard times today is a world event, as it was before and during World War II. Brunhilde Overstreet, 70, of Sonora remembers those difficult years in West Germany between 1938 and 1944, living in a barn, watching bombs fall and destroy people when the war was going on. "My mother took her jewelry to the mountains to sell for money for food. Old clothes were cut down...we had no garden because we couldn't get seeds. We lived on plants and herbs grown wild. We made tea with mistletoe. One time, all we had was large-kernel corn, the kind fed to animals. It smelled awful and took hours to cook. We lived cold-it was easy to etch flowers in the ice on walls. It was not easy. (Subscribe to "friends & neighbors" at tcfan.net)
Margot Osborn of Murphys also lived through the war years in West Germany as a little girl. Her family lived in a cellar and they ate mostly wild foods. Without electricity, her mother stole coal for the stove and peaches and apples from a nearby orchard during the spring. "We ate wild rabbit with potato peelings and oatmeal. I had bad teeth because we didn't get enough milk. My mother had sold her silver on the black market when we got desperate, where you could buy very little, a bit of sausage and cheese. My clothes were one skirt and one pullover that I got from an aunt. In 1947 my father got a job working for the British in Bonn and he would bring home powdered chocolate in metal boxes. We' d have a treat and sell the rest. Then the Marshall Plan helped us recover. West Germans worked together to rebuild stone by stone, the bombed out buildings."
People who experienced those hard times never forget and we can learn from them as we and our children face thinner times today.

WAYWARD COWS AND ABANDONED HORSES

This is Suzy, sweet and kind and sharing and fun! Her other strong trait is an empathy for animals. I was gone for two months, and what happens? Suzy finds a wandering cow. First it is in Brian's yard. Then its on the road. Next the pasture at Gonzalez'. The whole neighborhood has seen the wayward cow except ME of course. Its a smart cow. It gathers where the grass is greenest. (Of course, I'm missing my camera right now.) This isn't the first time she has guided a lost pony, sheep, dog, cat or cow to its rightful owner. Then, the worst happened. A horse was down on the road. Suzy held its head and tried to make it comfortable. It was extremely thin. It hadn't had its teeth floated and couldn't chew so it was starving. Its hooves hadn't been filed and it couldn't walk comfortably. She got it up and tried to walk it to her barn, but it collapsed. The Deputy from Animal Control and Suzy stayed and held vigil until a horse trailer arrived. The horse died before the vet could treat it. Suzy burst into tears and speculated that with the economy in the tank, so many people not working, they just turn their horses loose. Her message is: THAT DOESN'T WORK!! The horse suffered and died. Please, let someone know, 4-H, or Suzy Hayes on Pennsylvania Gulch Rd. at 728-8949. People will take your horse in and care for it until a new owner can be found. Amen!

LUNCH AT GARDEN CAFE, FINAL DENTAL WORK

Today we made our final trip into Mexico to
take care of my dental work. YAY!!! Yesterday we had lunch at the Garden Cafe with Bob Gambol and his companion Hilda. Both are ex-marines. Bob back packed the world at age 55 and visited 168 different countries over a period of six years. Hilda, just got off one segment of the Appalachian Trail. She intends to hike the whole thing-its over 2,000 miles. She is in her 70's. What an interesting pair they are. And here in Yuma, you find that residual taste of the Old West, the modern and the decidedly different. I'm learning that people who choose alternative lifestyles, are interesting, cantankerous and contrary. More about Bob to follow as I am currently working on his manuscript. I have another victim on line as well. And, this photo of an old clock fits the craziness of the old west. It hung across the room from the bar. When the drinkers looked in the mirror, they could tell the time because the numbers, as you can see, are printed backwards. Some drinking somebody thought that one up I suspect.
Until manana.

Planet Earth, Local Herons On The Road

A Fabulous 14 hour video entitled Planet Earth provides an extraordinary view of our living quarters and the fact that we share it with so many creatures and places of great beauty. Its been a joy to see many birds as we roamed. The most spectacular at this time of year are the sitings of blue and white herons. The pictures don't always do them justice and the smaller birds are the back-up chorus that we hardly ever see fit to photograph and so often take for granted, even the loudmouth crows. Egads! The Matzek's have a few loudmouthed members if I do say so myself.
Cedric Puleston's family are bird people from way back and if you go to
http://puleston.osprey.bnl.org/OspreyFund/ospreycam.php
The ospreys are now hatched in his Grandmother's backyard. The fledgelings have left but if you click that link at Brookhaven, NY you'll get a number of interesting cameras for birds that you don't have to register to see. There are live cams and some not so live for kestrels, great tits, barn owls, peregrine falcons, black storks, gentoo penquins. Too many to list.
We are still at Pio Pico Thousand Trails. Pio Pico was the Governor of Mexican California. He owned this property as a Spanish Land Grant. Interesting man of mixed decent, African, Mexican, Indian, Spanish and European. When California became a state an assigned a new governor, Pio Pico fled. His land got promptly gobbled up.