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THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016).

By Sheila on Wednesday, April 5, 2000 - 10:55 pm:

    Sometimes it stinks up here on the mountain.

    Once when I was living in Southern California, on another mountain, I spent the day with a friend who lived in Aldous Huxley's old house
    above Hollywood. Later that night, my beloved Ken arrived from Berkeley for a visit. In those days I wore long swoopy dresses for
    dinner. I had been cooking for some hours when Ken came in. I was wearing yellow plastic gloves because of the mincing and other
    culinary detail work. We talked about stuff and I said I had been to Huxley's house. Ken said "Was it a pilgrimage?" and I said No, and
    he said, "But, it was formal?". For an appetizer we had homemade goose confit. On toast points.

    Last Sunday Lucy was taken by a mountain lion, about ten thirty in the morning, shortly after I had let everyone out and counted them
    through the gate. At first I believed she had gone to a hidden nest, because I have been robbing the common nest of at least two dozen
    eggs a week. So I looked, everywhere. Then again. Then more looking. Calling, calling, finally finding the first remnants of the feather
    trail halfway up Buckhorn Peak. The trail ended under a deadfall where I couldn't enter even crawling on my belly. No blood, not a drop.
    No drag marks, and Lucy weighed over twenty pounds even though she was the smallest of the geese. Later I found more feathers,
    higher up. In the first search I had left a torn off part of my shirt tied on a Manzanita bush so I could find my way back. The second trip I
    took the hound dog, thinking of course he will find the cat's trail. To make a long story even more boring, he couldn't even find His Own
    Mom's Sweaty Shirt in the woods.

    Lucy's two mates, Leander and Gandini, are disconsolate. They spent the first day wing to wing, searching and calling for her. I don't
    believe they will ever mate again; they now stick tightly together and waddle forlornly where she used to be. The other African Goose,
    who is like Lucy but not Lucy, had been living a parallel life with her friend Blanche, the white goose, since they came over from The Bad
    Lois' house. Those two also kept together, near yet not too near to Lucy and her family. Now, two of Lucy's sons, yearling ganders, have
    adopted Not-Lucy, taking her away from Blanche and flanking her at all times. Blanche is now as sad and miserable as Leander and
    Gandini; but she has nothing to do with them. She lays her eggs, bathes alone, sleeps alone, eats alone. They honk to get out and
    dabble in the spring grass, which I mowed for the first time this year today. I've been thinking about the predator-prey relationship and
    how it gets skewed when we keep pets. Knowing the big cat had babies last year, and therefore won't this year, I figure probably the
    Mom is teaching the youngsters to hunt. A day after this happened, two mountain lions were killed in a suburb of Sacramento, after
    hunting in someone's back yard. There are many sightings, even down in the Valley. I know the hound dog tracks the cat some nights, I
    can hear him baying about three miles away. Using that "I've got it, this is the big one" tone of voice. It was very bold to come right into
    the yard and grab a goose, even the littlest one, who may have been reluctant to flee from where she was laying her eggs. I never found
    them, if that is the case.

    Last week four other people in the neighborhood saw a mother bear and two cubs down at the saddle of the peak. We live in their
    territory. But it was Lucy, and I cannot get over it. Nor can her family of geese. How now to protect them? I am giving some of the fertile
    ova to my secretary's daughter who lives over in the next County, up on Big Hill. Big Hill is Steven King-like; there are legends. We never
    go there alone for site inspections. One of the elders of the upland is now in prison for bad sex stuff. Prior to that he was on the Board of
    Supervisors. That's Big Hill.

    Mark, would you please put this with the other Lucy stuff? I haven't had access to that for a year now, and I want Lucy's tale to end with
    her beginning. Thanks,


By Antigone on Wednesday, April 5, 2000 - 11:07 pm:

    You write such kick ass stuff, Sheila.


By Spiracle on Wednesday, April 5, 2000 - 11:24 pm:

    sorry to hear she's gone, sheila..


By agatha on Thursday, April 6, 2000 - 12:37 am:

    i care. my condolences.


By Nelly on Thursday, April 6, 2000 - 02:00 am:

    Thank you for telling us.


By sarah on Thursday, April 6, 2000 - 02:52 pm:


    Sheila, i'm so sorry. lucy was very special, i know how much you and the others in your Wild Kingdom will miss her. remember though... you can't save them all, even though you've made it your life to try. we're never more powerful than nature... and that's a good thing. but you already know that.


    gosh. i'll miss your writing about her.


    i feel lucky to have one of her feathers. it's still laying on the altar i made many years ago on top of the antique unfinished two drawer dresser in my bedroom.


    tell us about the legends of Big Hill. the bad sex stuff. i'm sure they're a lot like goose fuck fests, only not as deafening.





By Sister of a Sorabji-ite on Thursday, April 6, 2000 - 09:08 pm:

    So very sorry to hear this. Just today received an e-mail about quails. Here it is because it is sort of on the topic and a nature story:

    "HELLO.......I have to tell you what "crazy" thing I am doing NOW! I have the incubator going and the Button Quail are hatching. So far a total of
    12....a dozen....one death.
    Four little buttons came this past Friday afternoon. FOUR...all at once. So far I had only been able to hatch one at a time. I only had one
    pair....the little hen could only produce an egg ever day and a half. So...as I would find them I put them in the incubator. The first came...then two days later another...then 2 weeks later TWO came one afternoon. Unfortunately, at this time one little dear died....I think it was from temperture changes. NOW COMES FOUR!! WOW....I was so excited...I watched them all peeping out their shells.
    I called Charles to come see ......"the miracle of birth". He looked while I told him about eggs....Easter.....Jesus......all sorts of lofty things.....(Don't forget...I am from North Louisiana and went to school with Jimmy, Jerry Lee...and the other notables that we could learn the art of lofty things). Charles only looked for about a minute...then was leaving the kitchen......I said to him...."Hey don't you even have some Hallelujah for my babies? (Charles is Protestant.) Charles looks at me and said " Are you going to make a Novena?" (I am Catholic.) I am going to raise the birds to be Mormons!
    The day after the four were born another straggler came making it five. On Sunday night I noticed an egg that looked like it had a pimple. Then on Monday I noticed it had a HOLE! I watched but the hole never got any bigger...but looking closely you could see the heart beating of the baby bird inside.
    Monday night another was born making it six. Then on Tuesday morning (yesterday) the hole was no bigger in the egg I was watching. That
    afternoon number seven peeped out.
    I asked advice online from one of the quail breeders and expert. He told me to help chip it out. But if I saw any blood veins..or blood to
    stop. I chipped a little tiny piece at the hole and saw blood. I went to bed. Number Seven was in the incubator getting dry and stable.
    Shortly before 5 o'clock this morning I heard a baby bird peeping and peeping loudly...all the other animals were still in the house. My bedroom is upstairs...the door was closed.....but I could hear the baby peeping. I came down thinking it was Number Seven. I moved Seven...but could see it was the baby bird stuck in the shell.
    I prepared for surgery......spread out a towel...got a lamp with a 40 watt bulb....dampened a paper towel and heated it in the microwave.....got a toothpick and started chipping away at the shell. Being careful to only chip the shell and not the membrane. Finally the baby stuck his foot through the membrane and
    unfolded like a butterfly still peeping. The membrane was stuck to it's wing and it could not move to chip out. The baby thinks I am his
    MOM. After nine hours in the incubator it was peeping louder and louder. So I moved it to the brooder where it started eating right away.
    I feel so special.....I think I am a surgeron....I have saved a life...I am really goo goo about this.....it is so special. I wish all
    little children could see that......I wish I had a way to have taken pictures. Stephen teased me that I should have set up a web cam........I really think that people would want to see....other
    "hatchings"!.......
    Well, now that I have bored you with all this.......SORRY...but I am so happy....happy with my little buttons. They are "cute as a button"!

    See the pics ...
    MOM

    http://infoseek.go.com/?win=_search&sv=M6&lk=noframes&nh=10&ud9=IE5&qt=button+quail&oq=&url=http%3A//www.finchworld.com/bquail.html&ti=Button+Quail&top=

    Some info...at the above site....with pictures....."


By J on Friday, April 7, 2000 - 11:14 am:

    Sheila,I feel your pain,at least I have the hope that Lucky my dog,might still be alive.I,m so sorry.


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