Red Mosquito

Carl Sandburg wrote:There is a wolf in me . . . fangs pointed for tearing gashes . . . a red tongue for raw meat . . . and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fox in me . . . a silver-gray fox . . . I sniff and guess . . . I pick things out of the wind and air . . . I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers . . . I circle and loop and double-cross.

There is a hog in me . . . a snout and a belly . . . a machinery for eating and grunting . . . a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fish in me . . . I know I came from salt-blue water-gates . . . I scurried with shoals of herring . . . I blew waterspouts with porpoises . . . before land was . . . before the water went down . . . before Noah . . . before the first chapter of Genesis.

There is a baboon in me . . . clambering-clawed . . . dog-faced . . . yawping a galoot's hunger . . . hairy under the armpits . . . here are the hawk-eyed hankering men . . . here are the blonde and blue-eyed women . . . here they hide curled asleep waiting . . . ready to snarl and kill . . . ready to sing and give milk . . . waiting—I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.

There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird . . . and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want . . . and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.

O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart—and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where—For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.

tragabigzanda wrote:Dam.

spike wrote:A damn beaver got one of our trees at the lake. I’d put chicken wire around our one birch, as they really like those, but didn’t think about this one out front.

spike wrote:A damn beaver got one of our trees at the lake. I’d put chicken wire around our one birch, as they really like those, but didn’t think about this one out front.

spike wrote:

spike wrote:A damn beaver got one of our trees at the lake. I’d put chicken wire around our one birch, as they really like those, but didn’t think about this one out front.

It appears the tree the beaver got is down now. That fucker better take the rest for his dam so I don’t have to chop it up.

spike wrote:My neighbor called to tell me that the beaver is going after another tree by our boat launch, where we stage our pontoon for the winter. Going to have to head up there tomorrow to determine if she’s in danger.

doug rr wrote:

spike wrote:My neighbor called to tell me that the beaver is going after another tree by our boat launch, where we stage our pontoon for the winter. Going to have to head up there tomorrow to determine if she’s in danger.

bring a baguette

spike wrote:

doug rr wrote:

spike wrote:My neighbor called to tell me that the beaver is going after another tree by our boat launch, where we stage our pontoon for the winter. Going to have to head up there tomorrow to determine if she’s in danger.

bring a baguette

I called him back for more detail. I guess if you leaned on the tree, it’d come down, but they’ve chewed at it from the channel side, so it wouldn’t fall onto our tooner.

spike wrote:

spike wrote:

doug rr wrote:

spike wrote:My neighbor called to tell me that the beaver is going after another tree by our boat launch, where we stage our pontoon for the winter. Going to have to head up there tomorrow to determine if she’s in danger.

bring a baguette

I called him back for more detail. I guess if you leaned on the tree, it’d come down, but they’ve chewed at it from the channel side, so it wouldn’t fall onto our tooner.

Went up this morning to assess things. The bigger tree it got at came down overnight, but luckily not on our boat. Hopefully it comes back and takes the rest of the tree this week so I don’t have to haul it out of the channel this weekend.

E.H. Ruddock wrote:Got bit by a baby snake. I don't think it was poisonous, it looked like one i found earlier in the garden where i was working, but i couldn't tell because it crawled away really fast. So far no swelling and i feel ok. If you don't hear from me later, i hope the new PJ album is everything you guys hope it will be