Tuesday, July 02, 2013

Nature Report

Jeeze, I need to get that horrifying last post down the page... If I go under a bus in the next few years, I'll be remembered as the Guy Who Bitched about Bugs in 2012, No Matter How Justified the Bitching Was.* Can't have that, no sir, no sir....

The family of deer who visit the downhill lawn daily to snack upon the milkweed and thistles that I've cultivated for their delectation have managed to whelp this year. Just this morning, two fawns, about the size of terriers, cute little white spots freckling their backs, cavorted. The thought balloons over their heads read, "Holy shit, I'm a deer! Woah! Check it out! I'm a deer! Watch this! (Boing, boing, boing) Betcha never saw that before! (Boing) Wow, it's so cool being a deer! How great is this!"

The buck we call Missing, Presumed Dad, has grown himself a fairly impressive set of hatracks on his coconut. Sure, they're still fuzzy and juvenile-looking, but they're harbingers of the time, not far off, when he'll be yclept King of the Forest, to all but his harem, who already know him as Old Too-Tired-to-Get-It-Up. They're an iconoclastic bunch, that harem. Watch out for 'em. Be burning their bras next thing you know.

Funny thing about ol' Missing, though, is that maybe three years ago, he himself was one of those little terriers. The Great Circle of Life rolls on. He don't say nothin', which clearly implies he must know somethin'.

In other news, Freddie and I had a whee of a time the other night when Mr. Rat Snake (you may remember, this guy) showed up in the screened porch, trying to get at the Eastern Phoebe babies nesting in the windchimes on the unscreened porch (the evil old dumbass). I poked at him with an old cane I keep around for the purpose, and he gave a fine display of a rat snake trying to get the hell out of whatever he'd gotten himself into.

This prompted Freddie to ask, How do snakes actually move, anyway? That wiggling, multi-s-shaped performance they put on just doesn't seem to be a very efficient means of locomotion. I thought for a bit, and realized that nothing in my vast experience could answer that burning question, so we hit Google (also with an old cane I keep around for the purpose).

The answer may surprise you. Sure did me. I thought it was just God's will.

What's even more surprising is that we've known this for approximately 0.15 seconds of human history. I guess there just isn't a whole lot of grant money lying around to study herpetological boogieing.

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* But it would make a fairly memorable tombstone, I do confess it.**

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** Epitaph: He Really Didn't Like Stinkbugs Very Much, and We'll Miss Him For It.

4 comments:

Will Divide said...

Again with the snake. Ugh.

Kevin WOlf said...

Sometimes I think we have no nature here, so it's nice to get an update proving it still exists. Somewhere.

Tom Slack said...

Might be more grant money around this than you think:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VLjDjXzTiU

krim penghilang flek hitam yang ampuh said...

telepon anaknya