Winter Visitors

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1994. All rights reserved.

Among the most common sounds of winter in the country, along with rustling leaves and crackling fires, is the scratching and scurrying that can be heard inside walls and rafters of almost every rural dwelling.

These are the sounds of the house mouse, mus musculus, one of the least welcome of guests and most difficult to dissuade. This uninvited visitor will eat, or chew on, almost anything and defecate everywhere. He contaminates food, causes damage to structures and property, and  carries dangerous diseases.

Introduced by 16th century pilgrims in the holds of their Atlantic-crossing ships, house mice followed the progress of Europeans in the New World, traveling in wagons and rucksacks and saddlebags and trains and trucks and planes across the continent and back, occupying pantries from Maine to Malibu.

Grayish brown with a naked scaly tail, the pointy-snouted house mouse puts down 50 droppings a day, on average, and gives off 300 squirts of urine in between. Messy, ugly, and presumptuous, this uninvited guest inspires desperate measures.

Continued at... Winter Visitors
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Home and Garden Center
Artwork: Hairless Mouse - Mus Musculus.

Solar Reflections

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1994. All rights reserved.

If all the Earth's fuels -- petroleum, wood, coal, etc. -- were lumped together and burned at the rate the sun emits energy they would last, at best, four days.   

What a bounteous source of power, this sun! Would that I could pry open my truck's gas cap and pump it in: fill it up with light, please!
   
The promise of solar energy has been homilized since I was in grade school. By now, we imagined we'd be driving solar cars and flying in solar planes. Photovoltaic cells were going to make conventional fuels obsolete.

Continued at... Solar Reflections
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Energy Farming
Artwork: Frost-Covered White Birch Trees with the Sun Rising Behind.

How America Lost Its Marbles

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1995. All rights reserved.

I used to carry a small canvas bag with me everywhere I went. Inside that bag was my prized shooter, an oversized aggie with distinctive caramel-colored swirls, and an assortment of smaller clearies, puries, clays and jaspers.
   
We played for keeps on the playground of my youth, circles scratched in the dirt, knuckles drawn, shooters poised. I can still hear the loud CRACK! of a successful shot and remember the agony of watching helplessly as some 10-year-old sharpshooter cleared the ring of my last target marble.
   
The size of my marble bag reflected my fortunes. Some days it bulged with booty; other times I had only my shooter.
   
I no longer measure my worth in rounded bits of glass. It's been a long time since I was on my knees in the dirt taking aim at a purple-tinted brandie. But it saddens me that no one has taken my place at the ring and that few schoolchildren these days have any interest in the game.

Continued at... How America Lost Its Marbles

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Out of the Past
Out of the Past blog
Outrider Reading Group
Artwork: Playing marbles.

What The Snow Reveals

Snow conceals, but it can also betray.

Consider the tracks of mice, or wolves, or lynx -- so rarely seen. But here in the frozen dawn the secrets of their passage are plain to see, recorded like marks on a blank page.

You can read how the hare bounded from the forest cover, paused briefly to listen and stare intently (at what?),  then was off again. And you can follow the tracks of a lone elk that staggered back and forth across the hillside, searching some  remembered comfort before collapsing beneath the weight of hunger or disease, or both.

Continued at... What The Snow Reveals

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

Rural Delivery
The Nature Pages
Artwork: Lynx Tracks in Snow

Out of Line

In the town where I live, there's just one streetlight with one color: red. It flashes the same in all directions at a four-way stop where one state highway crosses another. The traffic bottles up when a freight train passes through, blocking the north-south lanes. I've seen cars backed up five, maybe six deep...

Queued up in one of these small-town traffic jams the other day, I started to reflect on the lines I've waited through and the ones I missed. I used to work in midtown Manhattan, you see, once of the most densely populated places on earth.

In the town where I live, there's just one streetlight with one color: red. It flashes the same in all directions at a four-way stop where one state highway crosses another.

The traffic bottles up when a freight train passes through, blocking the north-south lanes. I've seen cars backed up five, maybe six deep...

Queued up in one of these small-town traffic jams the other day, I started to reflect on the lines I've waited through and the ones I missed. I used to work in midtown Manhattan, you see, once of the most densely populated places on earth.

We called it waiting "on line" rather than "in line," I suppose, to show that we were individuals and not anonymous segments in a line. Either way, I spent a lot of time waiting.

Continued at... Out of Line

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1998. All rights reserved.
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Outrider Reading Group
Artwork: People Waiting On Line

Signs of Trouble

Our goldfish died, both of them in less than a week. That's an ominous sign.

Goldfish, you see, are a symbol of prosperity and good fortune. According to feng shui, the ancient Chinese art of channeling energy, a pond or bowl with goldfish swimming in it will help attract luck and success. A goldfish bowl near the entrance to a home invites happiness to enter; an aquarium near the cash register of a business brings wealth in the door.

When the fish turn belly up on the surface, that's not so good. We'll be getting Prozac offers in the mail now and that knock at the door won't be Ed McMahon. Our bank account and the Dow Jones average are bound to continue their downward spiral.

Continued at... Signs of Trouble

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 2003. All rights reserved.
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How To Do It Books
Artwork: Goldfish

Livestock Getaways

No matter what the enclosure or how strong the fence, there's always an animal or two in every flock or herd or pen of livestock that's going to find a way out. Call them Houdinis, or call them some expletive, but please don't call them heroes.

That's what some folks called a pair of pigs in England who made a daring escape from an abattoir near London.  An abbatoir is a slaughterhouse or "knacker's yard" as the Brits call it, where pigs, cattle, sheep and other livestock are prepared for market.

The "heroic" pigs squeezed under a fence, swam across a river and took refuge in a wooded area west of London. Local authorities were notified, a search was organized and the tabloid press caught wind of the event. Television helicopters with live coverage beaming worldwide joined the pursuit.

Continued at... Livestock Getaways

by Michael Hofferber. Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
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Husbandry
Farm Supply
Artwork: Hog Slammer

Beware of Bambi

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.

Recently, a woman at Wallowa Lake in northeast Oregon was attacked by a deer just outside her home while taking her toy poodle outside for a walk. A doe blind-sided the woman, knocking her off her feet and then repeatedly struck her with its hooves.

"It just kept coming back," the woman told a reporter. "I thought I was going to die. It could have killed me. It was bizarre."

Continued at... Beware of Bambi.

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

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Out There
The Nature Pages
Artwork: Trophy Buck Deer With Big Rack