Beware of Bambi

Lions and tigers and deer, oh my!

Danger lurks in our forests and other wild places. Grizzly bears and alligators and mountain lions have been mauling humans for ages, and fear of their claws and jaws bites deep into our consciousness. Somewhere inside, we all remember cave bears.

But while most of us retain a healthy respect for wolves and cougar, the urbanization of humankind has diminished our awareness of vicious raccoons, angry squirrels and the mostly deadly critter of them all -- deer.

More people perish in the U.S. from close encounters with deer each year than with bears and sharks and snakes combined (bees are the next most deadly creature). Many of these deaths are the result of collisions on roadways, but deer are also killing people with their hooves and antlers.

Continued at... Beware of Bambi

by Michael Hofferber
Rural Delivery
Bambi: Iron-On Embroidery Patch

Rural Delivery: Small Souls

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.

More than 90 years ago the author Anatole France wrote a novel titled 'Penguin Island' in which a blind monk baptizes a flock of penguins, mistaking them for a group of small people.

The monk's error creates a crisis in heaven, as God and his advisors debate whether birds should be given souls. They struggle with the pros and cons of the idea before finally accepting Saint Catherine's recommendation that birds be given souls, but only small ones.

Personally, I've never thought much about the souls of birds or fish or reptiles. Like most folks, I suppose, I've accepted the idea that these are "lower life forms" incapable of the kinds of thoughts and feelings we have in common with mammals. We humans stand at the top of the pile, according to our philosophies, with dominion over all the other creatures.

Dominion, however, implies responsibility. We can have our way with animals, but are we really free to do with them as we like?

Continued at... Small Souls

Rural Delivery
The Nature Pages
Artwork: Nature's Harmony

Confessions of a Latter-Day Luddite

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 2003. All rights reserved.

In my good dreams the phone is not ringing. On my best days the starter goes unturned, the monitor is blank and nothing gets scanned. I walk or ride a bike whenever practical, pay cash mostly and disconnected the cable TV long ago. Pollsters and marketers lurk in the dark alleys of the media. If it has a magnetic strip, it can't be trusted.

Machines are maddening; technology is terrifying. And yet I work all day at computers and make a living through their connections to the Internet. They allow me to be rural but not rustic, connected but not hardwired.

I am what you might call a Latter-Day Luddite..

Continued at... Confessions of a Latter-Day Luddite

Michael Hofferber
Rural Delivery
Out of the Past
Out There
Artwork: Rustic Tuscany by Liz Jardine

In the Quiet

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1998. All rights reserved.

Coming home after a trip to the city, I look forward to the warmth of my loved ones, the comfort of familiar faces, and the joys of country living: open space, good neighbors, unpaved land. But what I often crave most is the sound of this place, or rather the lack of sound. The silence. The quiet. The peace.

Here on the porch, I hear the drip of meltwater in the drainspout, the chirp of juncos at the bird feeder, the sound of a pickup truck on a far‑off section road, and the occasional bellowing of a cow or barking of a dog.

Days and nights in the city reverberate with alarms and whistles and recorded noises of all kinds, from disembodied voices to loud syncopated beats. The hum is nearly constant, like being at the seashore next to a continuously pounding surf. The waves roll in, one after another, day after day, until your body starts to expect them and your ears stop hearing them and you wouldn't be able to sleep nights if they were taken away.

Continued at... In The Quiet

Michael Hofferber
Rural Delivery
Artwork: Solitude

In Praise of Older Trucks

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1998. All rights reserved.

This was another one of those bone-chilling mornings.

The thermometer dropped below zero again and the windows were all frosted with ice around the edges where winter tries to ease its way inside. Only the woodpile and baseboard electric, it seems, are holding back an ice age.

Outside, the frigid air made my whiskers stand out straight. The snow underfoot was crunchy, like Rice Krispies, and the bucket seat of the Oldsmobile was stiff and unforgiving. I tried the ignition.

Is there any sound so unwelcome as the empty clatter of a starter on a dead battery? The dentist's drill, perhaps. Or a wailing infant at 2 a.m.

Continued at... In Praise of Older Trucks

Michael Hofferber
Rural Delivery
Artwork: Old Fashioned Truck

Dark of Winter

In the dark days that follow the winter solstice, the last of December through the middle of January, I anxiously track the growth of daylight for reassurance that the tide has indeed turned and that winter will eventually give way to the brightening of early spring.

At this latitude of approximately 45 degrees, daylight grows ever so slowly at first, just a minute more each day until the middle of January, when it starts to grow by twos and then by threes at the month's end.

What I always find curious, and faintly disturbing, is that the day does not grow evenly. The sun sets a minute later each day for the week following the solstice, but it rises the same time day after day.

Continued at... Dark of Winter

Michael Hofferber
Rural Delivery
Artwork: Winter Awakening

Winter Lights

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 2003. All rights reserved.

Drive away from the city at night, a couple dozen miles or so, and turn up an empty rural road. Continue until the glow of civilization recedes and the nearest farmstead or outbuilding security beacon fades from view. Then stop the truck. Turn off the lights. And step out into the darkness.

If the skies are clear, the great swath of the Milky Way will unfold overhead. And if there's a moon, a shadowy landscape may appear. But mostly there will be blackness, a void where our vision will not penetrate, and an immense loneliness.

Some folks never meet the night; they spend their lives beneath streetlights or behind headlights and well within the city limits. To them, night must seem like a shadowy time between dusk and the morning alarm. But out here in the country there is true darkness. If you've gone camping in the wilderness or spent a night midwifing a cow on a remote pasture or had your rig break down miles from town, perhaps you have seen it and felt its chill.

Continued at... Winter Lights


Michael Hofferber
Rural Delivery
Artwork: A Cold Winter's Night