Follow the Dirt Road In Your Soul to Humbug Mountain
Rattlesnakes Under Glass
What smells with its tongue, has an endless supply of fangs and announces someone's at the door with a rattle rather than a bell?
If you guessed a rattlesnake you’d be right but I’ll bet there’s a lot about these slithering, but not slimy, creatures you don’t know. Visiting the American International Rattlesnake Museum in Albuquerque helped me separate fact from fiction.
Owner Bob Myers claims he has the largest collection of different species of rattlesnakes in the world.
"I used to be a biology teacher," he said. "I tell people I wanted to get into something safer so I opened a rattlesnake museum."
The best way to deal with a snake is to ignore it and keep on moving. The only time Myers was ever bitten was when he had the snakes outdoors for a National Geographic photo shoot.
"I let my guard down and I guess the snakes were upset. I learned my lesson, not to do what National Geographic tells me."
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Which breed bites most?
Should We Do Anything About Pit Bulls?
From Boise’s CBS affiliate, KBCI Channel 2, we have another report of a pit bull attack - this time, the dog’s own family. (It's not the dog in the photo - that one is a sweetie up for adoption.)
And again, we have neighbors who know the dog saying “it was only a matter of time.”
What wasn’t reported on the local news to much extent is the fact that the boy in the family was apparently teasing and otherwise provoking the dog. Update: The dog has been euthanized at the Idaho Humane Society.
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Do you have information?
Two Elk Poached in Goose CreekThe Idaho Department of Fish and Game wants to know who shot two mature bull elk and left them to rot in the Goose Creek drainage south of Oakley.
The incident probably happened mid-March.
About three years earlier, two other bulls were found shot and wasted in the same drainage, about two miles north of the Utah border.
Anyone with information about this crime is encouraged to contact the Fish and Game office in Jerome at 208-324-4359, or the Citizens Against Poaching hotline at 1-800-632-5999.
Callers to the Citizens Against Poaching hotline may remain anonymous, and may be eligible for cash rewards if the information leads to a citation or a warrant. A conviction is not necessary.
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Prizes Prizes Prizes
Contest: Name My Dog
I went to the Idaho Humane Society (nee The Pound) over the holiday weekend. I went with the intention of checking out the stock for a future adoption, not to pick up a new best friend that day. But zing went the strings of my heart; I fell in love with a yellow mutt and brought her home that day.
According to her papers, she’s part border collie, part lab. She’s 13 months old, 48 pounds heavy, no plaque on her teeth, her coat is very soft, and she’s super friendly. She’s got it all…except a name.
This is where you come in: Help me name my dog.
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Column: Savagemama
How a Baby can Turn the Family Dog Into, Well, a DogLast summer Eliza was born and our poor dog Imogene has had to take a back seat both in terms of time and affection. I tell her to be quiet when the baby is sleeping, I won’t let her lay on the rug because she gets muddy paw prints on the baby’s blanket. Dinnertime is no longer the begging free-for-all it used to be, I usually tell Imogene to get out of the kitchen because she is just one more thing in my way. She stays outside most days now; she sleeps in the laundry room instead of our room. We’ve even talked about having her sleep in the garage.
Imogene’s status has shifted without any of us meaning for it to happen. She’s still the baby dog but there’s new angel-faced girl in the house. Lately it seems as though we’re treating Imogene differently. We’re treating her like a dog not the go-everywhere-we-go companion she’s always been and somehow that’s strange.
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Where Xutos picks the wrong bowl
Fishing for Some Air to Breathe
I always wanted a bird. Grew up with dogs. Never much liked cats. This morning, however, I settled for some fish.
Petra and I wandered into a fish store after a quick trip to the pediatrician. I’d thought about getting her a few fish, but hadn’t told her that was the plan. Just in case.
So we walked into the fish store. It smelled like fish. There were large tanks everywhere and I was immediately pleased with myself for not getting her 2-year-old expectations up about owning some fish.
I looked at the price lists posted on each tank and had total sticker shock. The fish in this store were like $30, $26.50, $85. Really cool fish, but c’mon. I’ll pay $25 for an Idaho fishing license. I’ll buy wild salmon for $11 bucks a pound once in a while.
But when I was a kid fish were, like, free.
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Roadkill Dept.
Blizzards Take Wildlife Toll, Too
On Christmas Day, after opening presents, we walked outside to find the snow piled high and still coming down. Lying in front of our garage, in the snow-free space where one of our cars had been parked, was a buck with about 10 points. He looked up at us as if to say, "You got a problem?"
He's not the only animal seeking shelter from the deep snow and frigid temperatures that have beset the state over the last few weeks, particularly in the blizzard-ravaged southeast. The Colorado Division of Wildlife said today that 41 elk have been hit by trains between Trinidad and Aguilar during a four-day period in early January.
“When the snow gets that high animals look for anyplace they can stand where it’s blown clear and they aren’t buried up to their chest,” said Travis Black, a wildlife manager from Lamar, in a statement. Once on a road or a railway, the animals often have trouble escaping oncoming vehicles because of the steep snowbanks on either side.
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Kelly, Wyo.-based biologists caught an 18.5 pound golden eagle over a month ago. Records show the eagle may be the heaviest golden ever caught in the wild in North America. [more]
Don We Now Our Invisibility Cloaks
Homo for the HolidaysThe sacred imagination is an ancient thing. An archaeologist in Botswana recently uncovered evidence that seventy thousand years ago, the Sanpeople worshipped a snake god. The archaeologist, Professor Sheila Coulson from the University of Oslo, found a stone, six meters long by two meters tall, in the shape of a python in a cave in the Tsodilo Hills. Buried in a pit beneath the snake’s mouth were more than 13,000 artifacts, mostly red spearheads that had been trekked to the site from hundreds of miles away and burned in some kind of ritual.
On these ritual occasions, did Mr. and Mrs. Snakeworshipper expect their daughter Patience and her girlfriend Sarah to pretend that they only shared a hut back in Pythonburg to save on wattle and daub? Probably not. Homophobia is a comparatively recent phenomenon. We know that in the animal kingdom, mammals, birds, fish and reptiles often engage in same-sex relations. Ten percent of rams have no interest in mating with ewes. They prefer to consort with their fellow rams. Male penguin couples have raised borrowed eggs; same-sex swan couples have mated for life. So much for the homosexuality is against nature and the barnyard argument. Birds do it. Bees do it. Sheep, dolphins, and giraffes do it. Why are human beings expected to pretend that we don’t?
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Buck Fever
Once I Had a Not-So-Secret LoveFall is upon us. The weather has turned chilly, the days are getting short, and everywhere, Idaho lesbians are defying national stereotypes and loading up to shoot Bambi. And Feline. And Bambi’s father, his mother, his grandparents -- the whole extended Bambi family. Some of us are hoping to shoot Uncle Buck. We have tacky dreams of tacky antler chandeliers and tacky horned hat racks. We are the lesbian hunters of Great White North. Look out, Doug and Bob MacKenzie. [more]
