Yee Haw!

A parade passes by on the city streets,
but who's in the store?
Cowboys to the rescue!
A working cow horse,
with barely a nudge,
moves 'em on out! ...
Rawhide!

...

Lullaby and Good Night

...
Top 20 Animal Sleepers and Why We Sleep

August 21, 2009
by
Discovery News'
Jennifer Viegas
on the beast in all of us.

Did you have trouble getting out of bed this morning, with the soft pillows and warm covers tempting you to snooze for just a little longer? We pride ourselves on being the most industrious animals, but we humans spend about one third of our lives sleeping.

The question is: why?

Sleep duration, then, is determined in each species by the time requirements of eating, the cost-benefit relations between activity and risk, migration needs, care of young, and other factors. However, unlike hibernation and torpor, Siegel said, sleep is rapidly reversible — that is, animals can wake up quickly, a unique mammalian adaptation that allows for a relatively quick response to sensory signals.

What is most remarkable about sleep is not the unresponsiveness or vulnerability it creates but rather that ability to reduce body and brain metabolism while still allowing that high level of responsiveness to the environment.

"The often cited example is that of a parent arousing at a baby's whimper but sleeping through a thunderstorm," he said. "That dramatizes the ability of the sleeping human brain to continuously process sensory signals and trigger complete awakening to significant stimuli within a few hundred milliseconds."

Eric Chudler, a research associate professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Washington, documented how long animals sleep.

Here are his top 20 sleepers with

percent of sleep during 24 hrs and number of hrs.

Brown Bat 82.9% 19.9 hr
Giant Armadillo 75.4% 18.1 hr
North American Opossum 75% 18 hr

Python 75% 18 hr

Owl Monkey 70.8% 17.0 hr
Human (infant) 66.7% 16 hr
Tiger 65.8% 15.8 hr

Squirrel 62% 14.9 hr
Western Toad 60.8% 14.6 hr
Ferret 60.4% 14.5 hr

Three-toed Sloth 60% 14.4 hr
Golden Hamster 59.6% 14.3 hr
Platypus 58.3% 14.0 hr
Lion 56.3% 13.5 hr

Rat 52.4% 12.6 hr
Cat 50.6% 12.1 hr
Cheetah 50.6% 12.1 hr
Duck 45% 10.8 hr
Dog 44.3% 10.6 hr
Star-nosed Mole 42.9% 10.3 hr

Human (adult) 33.3% 8 hr
African Elephant 16.4% 3.3 hr
Horse 12% 2.9 hr
Giraffe 7.9% 1.9 hr

1.9 hr!
What!?




...

An Arizona couple found bobcats in their yard.

We know why: they are losing territory as suburbia creeps further into wild areas.

Will McKinley, photographer

I wish them well.

The bobcats, that is.

...

Can I help it that I LOVE Horses?

No, I can't.

Horses to ride!

Horses to see at the Fair.

horse photographs: April May

Dogs, too! I LOVE Dogs!
Herding dogs!

Herding dogs watching other herding dogs.

Any dog's OK by me. Any horse, too!

......

Woe is Me...

...woe is my basset.









Such an old dog.

Such a patient dog.

Gopher Flats

If you know us, you know gophers.

Pocket gophers.

This year they're funning wild.
Moving the landscape; the lawn is no more.
(good riddance)

The wild birds are welcome; seed for all!
Well most of them.
(stupid starlings)

But the gophers are taking over and it ain't pretty.

Set to music, they're creeping me out.

Skittering Quail Chicks

..............

Oh, Happy Day!

........

I take T's and his beloved canine's

photograph before church

on Easter Sunday.

.......

T then tries to take an

Easter picture

of me with my beloved dog.

..

........

.......

But...

.....

Holly hogs the camera.


Opal's just about had it.

............

I give up!

Happy Easter.

............

Spring Babies

It's a special time for babies in the animal kingdom...

...and I can't get enough!

And best of all....

macaque
gorilla
manatee
pelican
penguin
orangatan
giraffe
otter
zebra
elephant
tapir

human





.....

Phooey...or

Resentments 1A

T said,

"You won't even know you're there.

The field trip will be over before you know it!"

But no, I did know it.
Aware of every footstep of it.

[

It dragged on on and the whole rest of the day dragged, too. Back at school that afternoon, reading groups dragged on. I have to change my mantra from the ever whining, "I wanna go hoooooome!" Final field trip facts? My feet hurt, my face hurt from sunburn (yes, I wore a hat, and used sunscreen and, but I didn't re-apply!) My nose twitched from allergy plant life. (is pollen a plant?) My self was tired from learning about such a variety of animal and plant life I could not believe! (I loved it, but don't tell anyone, especially the baby bird skull in the owl pellet.)

Emotional disabilities drive me crazy so why am I working in this job?! "Mrs. H, I'm gonna get a puppy. Big smile. I'm going to name it _____ ! (pick a cute dog name) Been sayin' it since August, but whatever. "Hey Mrs. H, my dad has 20 race cars and he's won about 200 races, even the Indy 500!! " This was in response to said child's question: Who is your favorite race car driver.

Mario Andretti.

Teeth. Give me a great big BREAK! First a root canal, then too much decay for a crown, then oral surgery, then stuff on the fake fake fake bridge (three fakes), then after weeks of healing go in for an impression for the fake tooth makers who must make a FORTUNE to make a fake bridge! Then back to yank off the fake crown (OW, I hate those little metal shocks like when you chew on tin foil!) Then the bridge is too low.(Dr. could pull cellophane right through my clenched teeth! How can an omnivore rip meat with that?! I probably chomped down for the impressions but forgot to do the weird little chomp-slide thingie I usually do when I really eat. Probably the stupid grinding at night has done it) Then yank out the bridge makers' lousy bridge (shock, OW!) Then shove the fake fake bridge back into the empty place in my head. (ow) Then come back in 2 weeks to finish up the bridge to nowhere. Then schedule the gum surgery....and the night bite guard fitting...then, it'll be time for another teeth cleaning and they'll probably find another tooth that's shot.

Dog pills are ridiculously expensive and yet the dog still is crazy and the other one is still leaking yeasty slobber and oozing from the ubiquitous bumps. Disgusting!

Money. Hate all of its ramifications!

Traveling. We never do anymore. Where's that promise to get back to Italy and France before our backs went out? Well at least it should've been before T jumped off of a big engine and injured his plantar fascia which takes years to heal if you don't get off it and you know darn well he won't so he's taking dramatic amounts of Tylenol and Alleve off an on (Thanks to my friend April's experience with sore feet, I knew to shove his head into the internet to figure it out because you KNOW he wouldn't go see a doctor!!)

Back to school: But not to back-to-school night which happened back in September. Parents blame teachers and teachers blame parents...but the parents usually win, cuz they might sue and they'll probably win, costing the school district thousands and thousands of dollars, so schools must placate parents. Thus teachers must assign teachers' aides to yard duty to watch that one single child at recess and lunchtime, which is cutting into that aide's break time. So the aide talks to the principal and suddenly questions about the aide's actual contractual hours come up and everyone realizes they don't really know if the 5 hours she's supposed to work each day include a paid lunch or not, in fact neither one even knows what the correct working hours are at all, i.e. 8:00-2:00 or 8:30-2:00 or 8:30-1:00 or what!!!??? And now the aide is worrying if her teacher could get in trouble even if it was all the aide's own fault for trying to jimmy the hours so she could get out early on early Wednesdays and early on Fridays so she could get the heck out of there!!!!!

Anyway...

Sincerely,

your friend, (who loooooooooooooooves parenthesis' and capital letters!)

The whining horseback rider. (notice, there are NO complaints there!)

p.s. Back to Shollenberger Park for one second. Who the heck okayed the asphalt plant to go across the road?! The backers would like to recycle asphalt and reuse it, which is admirable, but even though there are many promises that the asphalt fumes will be sealed in the super sealed airtight warehouses, oh, c'mon, who's falling for that. The minions have mobilized and I discovered tons of websites when I googled "Save Shollenberger". The major sticking point is that while the owners point out that it's a good 3/4 miles from the river, SWANS and EAGLES DO NOT MEASURE THEIR MOVEMENTS IN MILES!!!!

p.p.s. we saw turtles, a hummingbird, tree swallows snacking on minute airy bugs and mud nest swallows getting mud, turkey vultures, ruddy ducks, blue necked teal ducks, coots, Canada geese, red winged black birds lording (and squealing) over their cattails as well as the plain little brown mamas sneaking around below making nests, song sparrows, a good egg, pickleweed, black ringed stilts, avocets, least sandpipers, mallards, red shouldered hawks screaming, coyote bush, owl houses, a real dead owl and its soft feathers on and on and on, but don't tell anyone how much fun I had on a field trip cuz' you know I dislike field trips!!

...

Dogs, Cats, & Horses Love it!

....

Everyone's taking it easy

(even Dusty, the former lead sled dog)
at Rolling Dog Ranch.

Whether dealing with physical or nureological disablilities, the animals are living the high life. The owners, former corporate compatriots Steve and Elaine Marker, are doing all the work; making individualized dinners, giving special medical care, seeing to optimal sleeping arrangements and outdoor play times.

But all Callie cares about it pulling one over on Steve.
They discovered that blind Callie has a brain tumor. Otherwise she's in excellent health. When Cally got home from the clinic she methodically began grooming her "clients" like blind Briggs. She was put-out due to missing all her appointments.She'd spent the day in the clinic instead. She caught up after dinner with some "speed grooming." The Markers likened it to speed-dating.

All the Wobbling Brothers care about is happy times.

..
All Cash cares about is zipping,

although the blind colt recently discovered he could reach the green luscious grass if he lay down, head under the bottom rung of the pipe fence.

All Soba cares about is the run of the ranch!

Chuckle at the antics,

but don't chuckle at the disabilities.

The animals

(not to mention the Markers)

are truly a big happy family.

.....

O Day that Creepeth my Way

..............
......
Field Trips.

Don't like 'em.
Follow directions, children!

"Ok, Mrs. H!"

...

Lots of kids will be running around in a new place with unseen distractions and dangers.

I'm sure there have been children before our group who have fallen into the black goo. Into the muck that ducks so dearly love. It could happen. I did take CPR quite a bit ago, but kissing duck muck? Maybe in an absolute emergency.

Get up, dear!
Spit the mud out of your mouth.
Breathe!
"OK, Mrs. H."

Maybe I'll be sick on the day of the Field Trip. I'm feeling a little sick today. Headache, stomach ache, leg aches. Wait; those achy legs might be from riding Alan bareback AGAIN!

But truly, I am feeling not so good just now. Maybe if I can keep up the wooziness I won't be able to go to the Creeping up on Me Field Trip next week.

Only 5 days 'til the little class lecture about birds, muck, bugs, rivers.
(sloughs, anyone?)
Only 6 days 'til the bus ride.

Wait, I'm feeling a little asthmatic!
Maybe if I don't take my inhalers for the next week I could be coughing so much, it might disturb the Canada Geese and the Piliated Woodpeckers and the Mud Hens. Our fearless substitute could run around with the students just as well as I could. Maybe she doesn't have asthma and allergies that will be blowing around in the springtime air at the Field Trip. She's younger and athletic.

Unfortunately I'm pretty strong, too. And balanced 'cuz of riding.

But, I will have a lot of excuses. I wonder which one I'll use. You know time goes by so fast lately, that I'll be sooooo beyond the field trip after living through it, that I won't even know what hit me!

I'll keep you apprised.


.......
......

Yeah, yeah, I know..you're sick and tired of....

....
...Horses!

But too bad, this is my blog, so you're going to get horses.
...
Anyway.
I rode bareback.
Just grabbed Allan's mane and got on.

My balance isn't great in the saddle, so I was a little worried, wondering if this would precipitate a fall. 59 isn't a great age to fall off a horse.

Get this.
My riding was good.
Better.

I don't fully understand.

Maybe the saddle gets in my way. I slip and slide. The thick stirrups keep me from really feeling the horse's balance. In a saddle the horses' movements are too subtle. Is he shifting to the right? The left? Bending into the middle?

(lazy horses bend into the middle of the arena...they want to cut corners)

But on bareback, I get it.
Allan steps with the left leg and I know it.
He leans to the right and I know it.

We balance together.
I grip tight onto the horse, not on a heavy leather saddle, but onto the horse's sides.
I really know where he is going.

Many riders are afraid they'll fall off without a saddle.
I feel more secure.
I know where I stand.
Or sit, as the case may be.

I remember my first riding experiences at 15.
Bareback.
Just grabbed the mane and got on.
Rode roughshod all over Mount Tam.
...

...

That's enough about horses.

...

How about historical diagrams?

The following is a diagram for rodeo judges.

Some kind of referee type signal.

Maybe the cowboy fell off.

Maybe he won.

Who knows.

....
......
..........

I just hate extinction...

The Great Auk




Dating back to ancient man, Auks were finally clubbed to death over just a few years. They were large slow birds numbering in the millions. Fisherman used them for meat and bait. They had good feathers for dressy hats.

The Auks were tall, slow, 5 lb. flightless birds living on the northeast coast of North America. They swam effortlessly and nested on the bare ground,with their one egg.
The last pair were killed protecting their nest in 1844.
Why?
Because they were weird and that was scary.

We've still got some really good animals, but barely:
Sawfish.











Javan Rinocerous












Hopefully the biologists will find a way to keep them hanging around.

We always had pets around. Always.
Never were we without an animal or two. We even kept wild animals, which is now taboo. But, we got to watch baby birds grow up, jays, quail, ducks. A baby deer, chipmunks. Dad brought home a few fish that stuck around for a while. Even a baby octopus...spraying his ink in the bucket of sea water, furious at his predicament.

I couldn't get enough of the animals in our back yard and at the beach. Nor at the zoo or aquarium. Even animals at the neighbors'. A cat that purred as loud as a train. A huge furry St. Bernard. An aviary of parakeets. The common lizards that escaped from their coffee can was a downer, I must say. Reptiles scared me. A long, polished, cream and black striped king snake caused me to jump straight into the air! I found safety on the swing and watched his slow progress.

A voracious reader at 13, I read Earnest Thompson Seton's Wild Animals I Have Known, with its numerous, lush illustrations by the author. It had been my father's book, handed down to my brother, handed down to me. Even those many varied, chapters didn't fill my desire for animal stories.















But at 13 I read a book that fascinated and shocked me by Errol Fuller, The Great Auk. Finishing, I sobbed.

As a young adult I read Never Cry Wolf, by Farley Mowat. Exposing the ridiculous claim by Canada that agressive wolves were slaughtering the caribou; though how on earth wolves could use chainsaws to saw off the antlers mystified. Bought a record of humpback whale songs, playing it endlessly. And another with wolf howls. Read books about whales, ravens, pet sparrows, lions, elephants, dogs.

I can't get enough.

Extinction sucks.

.....

Can you whistle while eating crackers?

The answer is no.
I can whistle, not very loud, and definitely not while eating crackers.

Now, Bonnie the orangutan is some whistler!

She's 32 and shows off a low sweet whistle below. Evidently she's the first great ape...or the first we humans know about. Frankly, they are pretty intelligent animals and don't need any fancy tricks to get by. But to please someone, Bonnie got her whisle down. My whistling skills are pitiful in incomparison!

If you want a huge whistle just listen for my sister at one of her nieces'/nephews' graduations. Sit with her at these public celebrations and you'll need earplugs. I don't know how she does it...she just puts two fingers in her mouth and blows.

The kids could hear it as they walked across the stage. And they knew who it was!!
I found an example, of a loud whistle, though not of my sister's calliber, but loud nonetheless:

Wow that's a whistle!

BARNYARD

The arena is too wet from the rain.
We'll ruin it, gravel bed and all if we ride on it.
Picture six 1200- 1500 lb. animals stomping on it with their hard little hooves and steel shoes and digging in for a fast lope!

So I brushed Frankie instead.
I headed over in a warm flannel shirt and stiff never-been-used rubber boots.

The boots were soooooo stiff I worried I would not be able to find the brake.
I drove slowly and came to no harm.
Neither did the drivers around me, but I wore regular shoes home just in case. Do you ever wonder what weirdo drivers are doing out there in the crush. No, don't think about that just now. Anyway.

Frankie looks bedraggled and very muddy.
He had on his blanket which was covered with dusty dry muck.
His neck and legs were exposed and they were icky.

I squished and squashed into the pen and staggered precariously through the deep mud to get the horse, who just watched me come. You'd think he'd get it that I had the halter and lead rope and that means c'mon I'm gonna' lead you outta here so get your butt over here.

Carefully I place one booted foot before the other, making my way to Frankie while Allen and Frankie watch the show...would I accidentally grab the hot wire on the electric fence again?

No, once was enough, gosh that hurt!
I detest shocks!

The halter did not fit so I sucked the boots out of the mud and headed back for the other one hanging on the gate. Wasn't Frankie wonderful to come with me?

These horses are so incredibly well trained that they actually try to get their big heads into the halters by themselves. I stand there twisting the thing this way and that trying to remember which strap goes around the nose and which goes up over the ears and is it even right side out? Of course it's right side out, no one around here would be so incompetent as to twist the darn thing in the first place...now, did I just twist it? I can't remember and there's Frankie leaning in, nosing the halter, thinking "Can we get this going or what?" while I struggle with ADHD.

I have a student.
When you ask him a question, he stares into space for a while wrinkling his brow, mouth open, thinking hard. 3 minutes later he has an answer and often he's correct!

I wish I had three minutes here to decide how to get this halter on!

I finally sort of get it right and buckle the strap wondering why it, too, is so tight. Let me interrupt this story and get straight to the trainer's later comment: "You've got the chin strap on his cheeks. It needs to be under his neck." She didn't add: AGAIN! Wonderful woman.

So I get Frankie out of the pen and he takes a few steps, pulling my arm to it's limit so as to nibble fresh grass, which he is not allowed to do, but I can't stop him 'cuz I got to close the gate so Allen doesn't get out, although Allen just watches the action from his cement pad across the pasture! I grab the rope with my teeth (Gosh, I hope no one is looking!) and reach out for the chain and hook the gate. So embarrassing this incompetence when you think I've done this how many umpteen times! And anyway, like my teeth could keep Frankie here.

We clop to the barn. I hook Frankie up to the fence.
I get his filthy blanket off and start brushing.
Ooops, I'm supposed to pick out his feet first.

He's sooooooooo good about holding up his hooves while I bend over to scrape out the mud. Just picks each one up and lets me hold them on my knee and brush out the crap. Gee, that's a ROCK in there, poor guy. I forget to breathe and start to gasp at my exertions...I am holding up a horse here! BREATHE!

Now I'm hot, even though it's only 54 degrees, but it is sunny and and Frankie is so warm and toasty as the sun soaks in to his shiny-as-a-copper-penny fuzzy winter coat. And that horse hair is so soft. I'm so hot that off comes the jacket.

Then the curry comb...such a scratchy metal tool...wouldn't it hurt their skin? No they're too tough and anyway it doesn't really get through all that fur.

All the mud comes off crackling. Turns into dust in the wind. Then the brush: always start at the head, but he doesn't want me to do the ears so I massage the dry mud off with my gloved hands and move down the long muscled neck to the shoulders, then the back, then the tummy, then the haunches and finally the spindly (by comparison) legs.

I skip the mane and tail 'cuz I'm lazy. He's really very clean considering the wet poopy earth. Horse poop is pretty clean stuff: they are vegetarians you know. It's just digested grass.

Back goes the blanket, back goes Frankie, back shuts the gate and back go I. Back home to laziness.

It's just great to have the day off!

And I really do spend time thinking about dear old George and Abe. They are my favorite presidents. Though hearing President Obama's first news conference tonight, I think I may be adding him to the short list.

Do you think he likes gentle chestnut quarter horses on the older side?

Are polar bears OK?

I've been worried sick about polar Bears.

Seems like our big predators are just losing places to be big and preditorial.

So this news about polar bears and goose eggs might turn things around, but wait a minute...

POLAR BEARS AND GOOSE EGGS?!

Hint:

Less ice, fewer polar bears.

Less ice, more geese.

More geese, more goose eggs.

More goose eggs, more food for polar bears.

More food for polar bears....

..

Coppery Golden and Soft as Silk

................
Equine fur.
Lesson hoses deserve long smoothing pats for good roll-backs and spins.

Allan, the champion reining horse, is very patient when I'm as dense as a doornail. He tries to teach the skill-less, though he balks at my uncoordinated, rough kicks...he's too sensitive for that.

He knows to set his back legs and turn on the front like a crazy spinning top, 'round and 'round, faster and faster, 'til I'm dizzy, 'bout to fall off, but truly, undeniably safe in Allan's care.

Even when I'm pressing with the wrong leg and reining in the wrong direction, ("Use the OTHER right leg!") and confusing the patient horse.

He sits and contemplates my mistaken aids (cues) and tries to follow. Finally the trainer takes over, slowly directing my body for Allan's benefit and then; there he goes, spinning for the joy of it...blue ribbons on his stall for all to see.



.................

How to be Happy

Pachyderms are OK.

We can take a lesson From Tara.
Friendships are everything.



I always wanted a friend elephant.
To cuddle and hug and pat.

For now, a horse will have to do.
Allan put's up with me.
Next time I promise not to kick him.
He's a professional champion reining horse...

The ears going back register his irritation.
Kicking a reining horse is not necessary.
Just nudge him with your heels, no spurs, no kicks.

I hope he'll give me another chance.
I know he will, but I'd better prove myself if I want his respect.

He certainly has mine!

Frank the Duck is A OK!

T's thinking of trading in the dog for a duck: