Some snaps

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 27
5/09/09
17:52

Just some pics from the weekend. Plenty more can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vangoat

Airika's been on a 6-year mission to lure Orioles to the yard. Finally, she sniffs success.



We checked out our eagle only to discover he had a baby. The snap sucks because the baby's head is elusive and I had to take what I could get. He's yellow like a Muppet.

Tick...Tick...Tick

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 26
5-7-09
22:10

When we moved to Minnesota last August, I probably hadn't seen a tick in 20 years. As a kid, bumping around the woods, high-stepping through cricks, playing hide-and-go-seek in corn fields, ticks were a relatively common occurrence. See one, burn its ass and flick it off. Whatever.

Then, I started working, got a driver's license, stopped digging mud bogs just for the hell of it, and more or less became civilized. And once I moved to the city and woods and scrubland turned into parking lots and expressways , even the idea of ticks just became....eew.

An now I find myself in the goddamn tick capital of the world. They're everywhere up here. Literally the DAY the grass peaked through the snow, Tulip the Dog showed up with one of the little assholes hanging to her neck. A couple weekends ago, when some friends from Ohio were visiting and we actually had reason to venture out of doors, nightly tick-checks were a must. Last night, I found two on my head. During my morning 'period of contemplation' in the bathroom, I found a bloodsucking bastard on my hand, which I then accidentally flicked onto my pants. Awesome. Nothing like screeching like a smacked baby while in a quiet office shitter.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm squeamish when it comes to bugs. And spiders...let's just say that two of my favorite hobbies as a kid were flicking field spiders into the pond just to watch them try to swim before the bass snapped them up, and going after the same spindly jack-offs with matches and a can of hairspray. And what is a tick but a spider that drinks your blood? Christ on a bike, that's creepy. Just the idea that you could unknowingly spend a whole day eating for two, and your dark passenger might look like a black widow crossed with a water balloon...makes my balls try to hide up behind by spleen. Rotten little parasites. Two words that really never needed to be thrown together: Vampire Arachnids.

Just didn't want you to think it was all cute deer and party hats up here. Sometimes, you have to dig another living thing's head out of your ass cheek. Garrison Keillor never talked about that.

The Sweet Sounds of Spring

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 25
5/06/09
19:10

Last night, just after midnight, I was jerked awake by the sound of howling coyotes. No big deal. We hear coyotes all the time. They usually aren’t howling right outside our bedroom- I mean, just on the other side of the wall, six inches from my sleeping face- but whatever. Wild carnivores are just part of the deal out here. Back to sleep I went.

Take me to your Oreos or the railing gets pooped on.

Not even an hour later. Thump. I jerk awake. Ah. Just the raccoons jumping to the back deck. From the roof. See, they’re too smart to just use the stairs. No, they have to make it complicated, like a game of Mouse Trap. They scale one of the big elm trees, leap to the roof, then drop down to the deck railing, where they skitter around, overturning anything that might contain bird seed or Oreos. One of them usually leaves a present. And by present, I mean a turd. But the ‘coons are nothing new. I block out the sound of their nails on the wood, and even the school-girl screeches of the bastards arguing with each other over who gets to squeeze out the steamy ‘coon dump on my porch doesn’t beat out sleep.

One of these buttholes will soon drop a dog-sized stink link.

Another hour or so. Tulip the Dog, from her pillow in the corner of the bedroom, lets loose with a mighty, droning dog groan. I get up, make sure Dawn of the Dead hasn’t broken out (and that I didn't just hear my old dog's death rattle), and then stumble back to bed.

Not even a half hour later. Bats. Again, just on the other side of the bedroom wall. Chittering in such a high pitch that I can only hear it at certain angles. Sounds like someone rubbing two pieces of old Styrofoam together. At certain head tilts, it sounds like they’re actually inside the house. Not being a huge fan of the rabies, I get out of bed, flip on the lights, determine the place free of winged rodents, take some aspirin, mash the pillow over my ears and fall back asleep. Until 5 a.m., when the birds wake up.

Nature, you are a noisy, ill-timed bitch.