A Bite Most Deadly

Some folks are afraid of spiders, others snakes. Lightning puts the fear of God in many of us, and so do earthquakes, tornadoes and dark moonless nights. Living in the country presents many special worries, like the threat of wildfire or the potential for flash floods. More cars collide with wild animals on rural roads than city lanes and the chances of eating a poisonous mushroom or contracting the deadly hantavirus are much greater off the beaten path. But there is no threat so terrifying in rural places, or as fatally serious as rabies.

Growing up, I learned to keep a wary eye on grape arbors and tall, dark hedges of lilacs lest some crazed bat should emerge, grab hold of my hair, bite my scalp and infect me with rabies. Older cousins planted a terror of rabies in my pre school mind with accounts of the terrible vaccination shots in the belly that bat bite victims had to endure and how, more often than not, the bitten person went crazy and was committed to an asylum, ranting and raving and foaming at the mouth.

Continued at... A Bite Most Deadly

Michael Hofferber
Rural Delivery
Out There
Pet Supply
Artwork: Mad Dog by Mike Savad

A Fruitful Year

It was the final day of the season for the Fallins' roadside produce stand and Mae Fallin was ready to close up.
             
For three months Mae and her husband, Vern, had stood behind their tables of melons and corn and apples and squash. Thousands of their homegrown tomatoes and watermelon and peppers passed through their hands this long, hot summer, sold to customers from Boise and Twin Falls and Pocatello and even New York.
             
"The customers from New York were a nice little family," Mae recalled. "They had been to Alaska and were heading home taking the back roads when they saw our stand."

Continued at... A Fruitful Year

Michael Hofferber
Rural Delivery
Melons
Farm Supply
Artwork: Mae Fallin with squash (photo by Michael Hofferber)

Bird Wars

Some farmers enforce their property rights with shotguns; others use feral cats, cannons, balloons or plastic owls. If they don't, birds can eat them into poverty.

This is the time of year when sparrows, starlings, pigeons and other overwintering fowl start making a pest of themselves in barns and feedlots. Feed lines in dairy barns are black with birds and the backs of the cows are often slick with their excrement.

An adult starling, according to some reports, will eat one-and-a-half times its body weight in feed per day if given the chance. Wintering flocks numbering 2,000 birds will consume a ton of feed a month or more.

Continued at... Bird Wars

Michael Hofferber
Farm Supply
Pest Control
Artwork: Starlings by Will Borden

Harvest Song

Summer's back is broken. The hot, dry winds of August gave way this week to steady rain. We haven't had a soaking like this since June, or May.

There will be more hot days this year, without doubt, but in these mountain valleys October is already in sight, and November too. Spring is often a latecomer, but autumn is ever anxious, showing up at the door weeks before he's due.

I see autumn in the meadows and pastures, where ryegrasses and wild wheat have reached maturity, their tops all yellow and bent over with the burden of seed. The goldenrod is blooming now, taking the place of monkeyflower and penstemon.

Continued at... Harvest Song

Michael Hofferber
Growth Spurts
Holidays and Notable Events
Artwork: The Harvest at Arles by Vincent Van Gogh

Where Did Dogs Come From?

In the space of just a few thousand years, dogs have changed their shape and behaviors to fit into almost every known human environment and endeavor, from Huskies pulling sleds in the Arctic to Border Collies herding sheep in Scotland and Pekinese warming laps in midtown Manhattan.

"Dogs may well display the greatest range of shapes of any mammal that has ever existed," note biologists Raymond and Lorna Coppinger. "As reproductive adults, they may have a greater range of sizes and shapes than any vertebrate species that ever lived."

And yet, at the molecular level not much has changed since dogs branched off from the family of wolves. The DNA makeup of wolves and dogs is almost identical.

Continued at... Where Did Dogs Come From?

• Michael Hofferber
• Rural Delivery
• Out of the Past
• Dogs:  A New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior and Evolution
• Artwork: Saut En Longueur

When Cowgirls Rode the Broncs

Before there was Venus Williams or Nancy Lopez or even Billie Jean King, there was Lulu Belle Parr and Bertha Blancett and Lucille Mulhall.
   
The true pioneers of women's professional sports gripped reins instead of golf clubs, rode wild horses and bulls instead of thoroughbreds, and competed in dusty arenas rather than on grass courts. America's first female pro athletes grew up on farms and ranches of the West, like Lorena Trickey of Oregon, who started competing as a bronc rider to support the family after her parents died. They were cowgirls competing head-to-head with cowboys in rodeos all across America.

From the late 1890s through the 1920s, cowgirls like Dorothy Morrell and Tad Lucas were popular stars of big-time rodeo competitions like the Calgary Stampede, the Pendleton Roundup and the World Series Rodeo in Madison Square Garden of New York City.

Continued at... When Cowgirls Rode the Broncs

Michael Hofferber
Rural Delivery
Out of the Past
Cowgirls of the Rodeo
Artwork: Cowgirl with Horse

Full Bloom

As spring gives way to summer, most of the blooms of April and May wilt before the feverish efflorescence of June and July. Gone are the tulips and daffodils and lilies of cooler days and longer nights.
   
Have you ever wondered why the tulip drops its petals just as orchids are unfolding and while pansies and petunias go on blooming? Is it the heat of summer that makes them fade? Or some aversion to longer days?

Blame it on plant genetics. Flowers don't die off; they are deliberately strangled by the rest of the plant.

Continued at... Full Bloom

Michael Hofferber
Rural Delivery
Science and the Garden 
Artwork: Orange Parrot Tulip