Sunday, July 12, 2009
In Defense of Pets
This post is ill-considered. I mean, it responds to only one part of what's probably an important, interesting and maddening discussion that I didn't read.
By the time I found the thread, it had come around to whether it's OK to eat your pets.
Caleb Stegall of the Front Porch Republic bloggers responds to the question with something of a screed about the entire concept of "pets." His perspective, which I share in part, holds that pets are an indulgence of the modern commercial age--a kind of symptom of a kind of mental illness. He cites as evidence the still-brisk trade in pet-related products and the results of surveys that indicate people tend to see their pets as members of the family or as surrogate children.
By contrast Stegall, who describes his home as a "ramshackle farm," host to an array of domestic stock and wildlife, makes a distinction between pets and the kinds of animals he prefers:
He had me at Wendell.
But I think Stegall is missing something. He speaks about animals from a position of rare privilege these days. Specifically, his life as a "son of the prairie" is one that still holds a place for working animals and livestock, not to mention wildlife.
On ranches, farms and in rural landscapes generally, animals tend to have more complicated lives, closer to the kinds they've lived for millennia. Animals are arguably more capable, tougher and smarter---and more interesting and beautiful, in my opinion---in these settings. It is a matter of necessity for them.
Working animals and livestock share their lives, livelihoods and home places with people whose work depends on them. They have to justify themselves in some way, and they frequently have to fend for themselves as well. A farm dog can't afford to live as a pet any more than a farmer can afford to sit around the house all day himself, just eating and sleeping and pooping.
So I'm saying, of course Stegall disdains the idea of "pets." And as a self-made working man at home in a rural setting, he can judge the owners of pets likewise.
But in terms of percentage of American animal owners, Stegall is nearly alone. Most of us keep pets.
While I sometimes indulge in eye-rolling at "useless" designer animals (my hawk and dog have real jobs!), I can't bring myself to dismiss the persistent impulse that lies behind breeding, buying and coddling of "mere" pets.
Many people without access to the kinds of activities that benefit from (or simply require) working animals nonetheless have the same instinct or tropism toward animals that humans have always had. Animal companionship of some kind is nearly (universally?) a human norm. Some percentage of adults may feel perfectly at ease without animals, but it's a rare child who is not drawn to them, who does not literally reach out to every animal she sees.
I think it's a good impulse, something to be preserved and encouraged---although without the shaping influence of work and some significant experience of life and death, a generalized "love of animals" is easily perverted and exploited: Like any instinctive impulse, our natural affection for animals can leave us vulnerable to hucksters and charlatans.
For this, the city folks and suburbanites will continue to fall prey to big box retail schemes and PETA's direct mail campaigns. Those in rural settings, who still know animals as working, semi-autonomous partners, will continue to be marginalized.
But so long as people still yearn toward animals and desire to keep them close, we can have the upper hand on that tiny, shrill minority who would destroy all domestic animals and refuse our communion with the wild ones as well. This fringe element, fueled by the stolen money of millions of misguided animal lovers, is far stronger than Stegall may imagine. In truth, his best friends and allies (and mine) remain among the very passionate pet-owning American majority.
By the time I found the thread, it had come around to whether it's OK to eat your pets.
Caleb Stegall of the Front Porch Republic bloggers responds to the question with something of a screed about the entire concept of "pets." His perspective, which I share in part, holds that pets are an indulgence of the modern commercial age--a kind of symptom of a kind of mental illness. He cites as evidence the still-brisk trade in pet-related products and the results of surveys that indicate people tend to see their pets as members of the family or as surrogate children.
By contrast Stegall, who describes his home as a "ramshackle farm," host to an array of domestic stock and wildlife, makes a distinction between pets and the kinds of animals he prefers:
"...we have had at various times, and usually at the same time, domesticated cattle, hogs, poultry, goats, rabbits, dogs, and cats. Roaming wild we regularly encounter deer, turkey, coyotes, fox, coons, possum, all manner of water fowl, birds of prey, songbirds, turtles the size of your leg, snakes and sundry slithering beasts large and small. As for our domesticated animals, each has been useful, which is what distinguishes them from mere pets. Cattle, hogs, chickens (meat and eggs); goats and rabbits (4-H projects and cash sale); dogs and cats (security and pest control).
"Usefulness fructifies in a certain elegance and beauty, which in turn bears fruits of conviviality and yes, companionship and even love between man and beast. In the words of Wendell Berry . . . man’s flesh is magnified in the flesh of another."
He had me at Wendell.
But I think Stegall is missing something. He speaks about animals from a position of rare privilege these days. Specifically, his life as a "son of the prairie" is one that still holds a place for working animals and livestock, not to mention wildlife.
On ranches, farms and in rural landscapes generally, animals tend to have more complicated lives, closer to the kinds they've lived for millennia. Animals are arguably more capable, tougher and smarter---and more interesting and beautiful, in my opinion---in these settings. It is a matter of necessity for them.
Working animals and livestock share their lives, livelihoods and home places with people whose work depends on them. They have to justify themselves in some way, and they frequently have to fend for themselves as well. A farm dog can't afford to live as a pet any more than a farmer can afford to sit around the house all day himself, just eating and sleeping and pooping.
So I'm saying, of course Stegall disdains the idea of "pets." And as a self-made working man at home in a rural setting, he can judge the owners of pets likewise.
But in terms of percentage of American animal owners, Stegall is nearly alone. Most of us keep pets.
While I sometimes indulge in eye-rolling at "useless" designer animals (my hawk and dog have real jobs!), I can't bring myself to dismiss the persistent impulse that lies behind breeding, buying and coddling of "mere" pets.
Many people without access to the kinds of activities that benefit from (or simply require) working animals nonetheless have the same instinct or tropism toward animals that humans have always had. Animal companionship of some kind is nearly (universally?) a human norm. Some percentage of adults may feel perfectly at ease without animals, but it's a rare child who is not drawn to them, who does not literally reach out to every animal she sees.
I think it's a good impulse, something to be preserved and encouraged---although without the shaping influence of work and some significant experience of life and death, a generalized "love of animals" is easily perverted and exploited: Like any instinctive impulse, our natural affection for animals can leave us vulnerable to hucksters and charlatans.
For this, the city folks and suburbanites will continue to fall prey to big box retail schemes and PETA's direct mail campaigns. Those in rural settings, who still know animals as working, semi-autonomous partners, will continue to be marginalized.
But so long as people still yearn toward animals and desire to keep them close, we can have the upper hand on that tiny, shrill minority who would destroy all domestic animals and refuse our communion with the wild ones as well. This fringe element, fueled by the stolen money of millions of misguided animal lovers, is far stronger than Stegall may imagine. In truth, his best friends and allies (and mine) remain among the very passionate pet-owning American majority.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Revolutionary Update
The latest monthly garden report reveals troop-strength at historical summer lows.
The legions of tomatoes, once proudly at attention, are now "at ease" and nearly falling out of formation. In fact, two recently went AWOL.
The sunflower looks to have enjoyed a little too much R&R.
And the beans are just plain going to seed.
But there is hope yet for the Rebellion. A few new recruits were drafted by my uncle during a trip home a couple weeks ago. I've given these bush beans the barracks formerly occupied by the lettuce, none of which survived the last solar assault.
And though the tomato plants have seen their finest hour, they have a few surprises left. We ought to have enough for a few salads yet.
The legions of tomatoes, once proudly at attention, are now "at ease" and nearly falling out of formation. In fact, two recently went AWOL.
The sunflower looks to have enjoyed a little too much R&R.
And the beans are just plain going to seed.
But there is hope yet for the Rebellion. A few new recruits were drafted by my uncle during a trip home a couple weeks ago. I've given these bush beans the barracks formerly occupied by the lettuce, none of which survived the last solar assault.
And though the tomato plants have seen their finest hour, they have a few surprises left. We ought to have enough for a few salads yet.
Labels: The Revolution
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Unreachable
The South is a land of near horizons. Everything sits in the foreground. Trees, rivers, buildings, and people are always in sight. More of the same lies behind, but you can’t see it from here. So distance is skewed; places merely out of sight seem very far away.
Southern heat compounds the phenomenon. Our sun seems closer to Earth. Hot air touches your face and reaches into your clothes at every crossing between air conditioned corridors.
In a heat wave as we’ve been having, we spend our days indoors and too much time together. By midsummer each year the charming closeness of Southern life begins to grate.
But around noon, yesterday, the bottom edge of a passing front reached Baton Rouge to temporarily drop the humidity and whip up a breeze. It was a little taste of April, complete with wispy white clouds and the pale green backs of leaves turning against the wind. The kids and I broke out of the house after dinner to celebrate with a ride to the park.
I packed two canned lemonades, some plastic cups, a book and my wristwatch into the panniers on my bike. The girls threw on their shoes and helmets and rushed to the edge of the driveway to wait for me, kicking at the ground, as I gathered my things.
We found the park filled with engine noise. Eight young teens on four off-road vehicles spun donuts and leaped the creek bed in rapid single file. They raced a circuit around the several-acre wooded park, carrying the sound of their fun with them. Foul mouthed boys at full holler. My girls stuck close, dragging their feet in the playground sand and following the boys with their eyes and ears until their last decibel disappeared into the neighborhood.
“Can we check on the Fairy Home now?”
This is something I haven’t seen, a thing they discovered on a past visit—it’s a little hole in the base of a tree, near a bush, by a big log. It was their first secret place I never saw.
I told them to go ahead but to keep me in view. As they crossed the creek bed and passed the first line of trees, my girls grew smaller in my sight. They passed together into patches of sunlight and into shadows and finally vanished.
Our little neighborhood park grew suddenly huge. It was panoramic, an IMAX experience full of color and movement, too big to take in without turning your head. After five minutes, feeling silly, I stood up.
There, running. Two tiny figures sprinted across impossibly small distances beneath the oaks at the far border of the property. They made no sound but were probably laughing and hurling ultimatums at one another. Together they ran a third of the park’s circumference, about half a mile, before slowing to a walk. The sound of their voices reached me then, unintelligible but discernable from the calling crows and the whistling kites. They came back in to say the Fairy Home was gone.
My girls are mostly faces to me, I keep them so close. I direct them into their seats for dinner with a hand on their shoulders. We meet eyes across tables or board games or the living room sofa. But they have legs too and have learned how to use them. They’re good runners now, and for a while in the rare vastness of our little park they were unreachable.
Southern heat compounds the phenomenon. Our sun seems closer to Earth. Hot air touches your face and reaches into your clothes at every crossing between air conditioned corridors.
In a heat wave as we’ve been having, we spend our days indoors and too much time together. By midsummer each year the charming closeness of Southern life begins to grate.
But around noon, yesterday, the bottom edge of a passing front reached Baton Rouge to temporarily drop the humidity and whip up a breeze. It was a little taste of April, complete with wispy white clouds and the pale green backs of leaves turning against the wind. The kids and I broke out of the house after dinner to celebrate with a ride to the park.
I packed two canned lemonades, some plastic cups, a book and my wristwatch into the panniers on my bike. The girls threw on their shoes and helmets and rushed to the edge of the driveway to wait for me, kicking at the ground, as I gathered my things.
We found the park filled with engine noise. Eight young teens on four off-road vehicles spun donuts and leaped the creek bed in rapid single file. They raced a circuit around the several-acre wooded park, carrying the sound of their fun with them. Foul mouthed boys at full holler. My girls stuck close, dragging their feet in the playground sand and following the boys with their eyes and ears until their last decibel disappeared into the neighborhood.
“Can we check on the Fairy Home now?”
This is something I haven’t seen, a thing they discovered on a past visit—it’s a little hole in the base of a tree, near a bush, by a big log. It was their first secret place I never saw.
I told them to go ahead but to keep me in view. As they crossed the creek bed and passed the first line of trees, my girls grew smaller in my sight. They passed together into patches of sunlight and into shadows and finally vanished.
Our little neighborhood park grew suddenly huge. It was panoramic, an IMAX experience full of color and movement, too big to take in without turning your head. After five minutes, feeling silly, I stood up.
There, running. Two tiny figures sprinted across impossibly small distances beneath the oaks at the far border of the property. They made no sound but were probably laughing and hurling ultimatums at one another. Together they ran a third of the park’s circumference, about half a mile, before slowing to a walk. The sound of their voices reached me then, unintelligible but discernable from the calling crows and the whistling kites. They came back in to say the Fairy Home was gone.
My girls are mostly faces to me, I keep them so close. I direct them into their seats for dinner with a hand on their shoulders. We meet eyes across tables or board games or the living room sofa. But they have legs too and have learned how to use them. They’re good runners now, and for a while in the rare vastness of our little park they were unreachable.
Monday, July 06, 2009
Bombers in Ft. Collins
Yesterday, Connie and I drove up to the Ft. Collins - Loveland Airport where the Collings Foundation had an exhibit of three flyable WWII combat aircraft: B-17, B-24 and a rare two-seater variant P-51. You can see the B-24 in the pic above.For a nominal fee you could walk around and clamber through the two bombers all you wanted. No touching the P-51. For a tax-deductible fee of $425 you could take a half-hour flight in one of the bombers. We had to pass on the plane rides.
Here's a little closer view of the B-24's nose art.
This pic is taken inside the bomb bay of the B-24.
Here's a shot of the P-51. Sure wish I could have moved the orange cones a little. This is a two-seater trainer version of the plane, and I believe this is the only P-51 I've seen in person that doesn't have a bubble canopy. It's not clear in this picture, but there is a maintence technician on the other side of the plane who polished aluminum the entire time we were there.
The B-17 was taking off for one of the half-hour rides just as we got there and later I was able to take a few pictures of her landing.
The piston engines, so rare in aircraft these days, give off that distinctive throaty roar.
Here's a better view of the nose art. This is a model "G" B-17, which is usually discernable by the distinctive "chin" turret you can see slung under the nose. You can plainly see the Norden bomb sight (that I posted about here earlier) in the nose bubble.
Here's a shot inside the cockpit. I was a little surprised by how few modern instruments had been added.
Finally here's a picture of Connie in the waist of the B-17. You can see one of the two 50 caliber waist guns on the right.
Clambering through these cramped monsters gives you a whole new appreciation for the brave men (like Steve's father ) who flew them under fire.
Passerina amoena
This little lazuli bunting has been tormenting me for the last six weeks or so. A dazzling bright blue bird, he is extremely shy and tends to come up to the deck right around dusk, when light conditions are very dicey for a decent shot. Yesterday's effort is the best I've been able to get so far.Why I have Been Busy
(In addition to paying (I hope) work:)
Growing a bird from a fuzzball to an almost real bird:
Growing a pup:
Teaching the pup about birds:
The bird (female3/4 Barb 1/4 Taita) is a natural chatterbox; not a food screamer-- just vocal. Names have been selected by friends from all along the Barbary's vast range; Lataat (Arabic) by Sir Terence Clark; Boltushka (Russian ) by Vladimir Beregovoy; Purchane and Waradj (Persian) and Farfaji and Lafasan (Turkish) by Dr Monika Dahnke. Daniela Imre thought "Balalaika".
I'm still considering--any votes or suggestions?
WE have also been gardening-- pix to come...
Growing a bird from a fuzzball to an almost real bird:
Growing a pup:
Teaching the pup about birds:
The bird (female3/4 Barb 1/4 Taita) is a natural chatterbox; not a food screamer-- just vocal. Names have been selected by friends from all along the Barbary's vast range; Lataat (Arabic) by Sir Terence Clark; Boltushka (Russian ) by Vladimir Beregovoy; Purchane and Waradj (Persian) and Farfaji and Lafasan (Turkish) by Dr Monika Dahnke. Daniela Imre thought "Balalaika".
I'm still considering--any votes or suggestions?
WE have also been gardening-- pix to come...
Labels: Dogs, Falconry, Raptors, rural life
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Cheers to the little guy
I am one of those people (as I suspect are many who read this blog) who roots for the underdog. I laughed out loud both times in the last year as I watched a small and fierce kestrel harassing and hitting a large red-tailed hawk, making the much bigger bird flee. I like cheering for the little guy.
So it was an unexpected pleasure when Jim and I encountered a sandhill crane strolling through a hay meadow this weekend as it crossed some invisible line and became subject to an intense attack. The army the crane first encountered was a lone and furious female red-winged blackbird. This small bird nearly jumped up and down on the crane’s head, harassing it and trying to get it to leave from what was obviously her nesting territory. The distressed female was soon joined in the attack by a male blackbird, and within a matter of minutes, by several other blackbirds.
The crane, an adult male, ducked and twisted to get his head away from danger, but also attempted a few beak stabs at the more aggressive smaller birds. The crane hurried its stroll through the meadow, finally getting out of dangerous territory, and the blackbirds went back to their business. I do admire cranes, and now I have an added respect for the lowly blackbird as well.
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Independence Day
Happy 4th, y'all!
Grow some veggies. Eat some meat. Blow something up!
Revolt in your own way....
Thursday, July 02, 2009
An Interesting Exchange
Somehow the humble web log comment manages to provide a space for good exchange that 10 million listserves, chatrooms and newsgroups have failed to create.
Just maybe, the feature offers the right mix of specific audience and topic. The rolling in of subsequent posts may also limit the natural life of a comment thread, deterring the worst of the trolls and sending them elsewhere to do more lasting damage.
Anyway, sometimes a vigorous exchange in comments leads to actual learning and even enjoyment.
Recently journalist and hunter Holly Heyser blogged about a Turkish sporting channel's effort to unite that county's hunters in a defense of wildlife. This led in comments to a continuing exchange on the culpability of hunters in the condition of animal suffering. One correspondent is a vegetarian wildlife rehabilitator with anti-hunting sentiments. Another is me.
So I'm learning some things about our critics I didn't expect, and I'm enjoying the chance to spell out my own beliefs. Rather than re-post the conversation here, I will simply invite those interested in the topic to follow along.
Just maybe, the feature offers the right mix of specific audience and topic. The rolling in of subsequent posts may also limit the natural life of a comment thread, deterring the worst of the trolls and sending them elsewhere to do more lasting damage.
Anyway, sometimes a vigorous exchange in comments leads to actual learning and even enjoyment.
Recently journalist and hunter Holly Heyser blogged about a Turkish sporting channel's effort to unite that county's hunters in a defense of wildlife. This led in comments to a continuing exchange on the culpability of hunters in the condition of animal suffering. One correspondent is a vegetarian wildlife rehabilitator with anti-hunting sentiments. Another is me.
So I'm learning some things about our critics I didn't expect, and I'm enjoying the chance to spell out my own beliefs. Rather than re-post the conversation here, I will simply invite those interested in the topic to follow along.
