In the jungle (actually, it's a local state park) death comes quickly at the end of my camera lens. You want flies with that?

When walking through the woods, or life, remember to look down every once in a while. You might be surprised by what you see there.

Ever hear someone talking about "eating like a bird"? The assumption is that birds don't eat very much. How else do birds stay "light as a feather"?

Well, I'm here to tell ya that the birds who frequent my backyard eat like pigs! I am constantly filling the feeders with seed and suet and they make quick work of consuming it all.

As much as the birds eat, the squirrels eat even more! They eat the bird food and chow down on ear after ear of the corn that I put out for them. Well, the last thing I want on my conscience is a dray of fat squirrels! From here on out, the squirrels are going to have to work for their dinner.

As you can see in the video below, the early results are good!

Full screen viewing is recommended. Click the little, white full-screen widget before, or after, the video starts playing.

The wily squirrel is out early in search of his prey.

Today I said goodbye to my long-time canine friend and companion, Pixel. Pixel, a Miniature Pinscher, has been by my side for more than 15 years. I wish there were some way I could look up how many miles we walked together over the course of her life. When she was healthy, there were saturdays when we'd spend more than 10 hours walking in a local park. She loved to explore.

Though Miniature Pinschers are considered a "Toy" breed, there was never anything toyish or small about Pixel. She could jump like a frog and navigate the backs of furniture like a mountain goat. Right up until the last year of her life she could vertically jump the 24 inches required to get up on my bed. She would never just drop off the edge of a piece of furniture to get down either. Instead, she would take a running leap and try to get higher as she left the surface of the item. This gave her the appearance of flying, like some sort of super dog, and a super dog she was.

She was also my miniature guardian and protector of property. She guarded my backyard like a border patrol agent from Hell. Any beast that didn't belong there was going to feel her wrath and, if it was small enough, would likely end up as lunch.

I will never forget the day she took on a raccoon that was at least 1.5 times her size. The back door of my house leads to my garage and in the garage is a door that leads to the backyard. We went out to the garage and, when I opened the door to let her out into the yard, a raccoon was sitting right there on my patio in broad daylight. Before I got the first half-second of the word "noooooooooo" out, Pixel was nudging the raccoon off the patio. The raccoon then rolled on it's back, grabbed Pixel, and started rolling all over the patio with her in his clutches. I could hear her yelping so I knew this was not a good situation. The closest thing to me was a patio chair so I picked up the chair and began trying to stab the raccoon with the leg of the chair. This did not work. I retreated to the garage in search of a better weapon and found a broom. I had visions of teeing up that raccoon like a big, striped, furry golf ball but, when I got back out to the patio, what I saw was Pixel chasing the raccoon toward the fence, nipping its back every several steps. The raccoon climbed up and over the fence while Pixel sat down at the raccoon's departure point and looked at me as if to say, "no problem, that pesky bandit is gone now." I could not find a scratch on her after that, so her yelping must have been more out of fear than anything else.

That, in a nutshell, is how she lived her life. 

What follows is a slideshow of images I put together to keep her in my memory forever. 

Goodbye ol' girl, I will miss you dearly...

To see this video in a larger window, visit vimeo.com by clicking on the blue video title in the video window. If you don't have a fast Internet connection, turn HD off.

Music - Coming Home by Kendra Springer <http://www.kendraspringer.com/> and <http://www.jamendo.com/en/artist/Kendra_Springer>. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license. See <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/> for details.

Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore, so do our minutes, hasten to their end.

~William Shakespeare

I thought it made more sense to bury the ashes so she now rests in the golden light of the setting sun.

The other day I was researching something on the web, the exact subject escapes me now, when I came across this article about beautiful words and phrases. Being a part-time speaker of the english language, I found the information interesting.

From a purely phonoaesthetic (how something sounds) point of view, it seems that a lot of people believe that "cellar door" is a lovely set of nouns. And no, I'm not making this up. There are articles on Wikipedia and in the New York Times that cover the subject in some depth.

Maybe it's because I grew up in the northeast US, where cellar doors are quite common, but I don't hear anything particularly melodious in that combination of words. Oh sure the combination is better than, say, Muskrat Love, but cellar door doesn't exactly move me. I do wonder, however, if some marketing guy came up with the name of a particular biscotti I remember from childhood, Stella D'oro, based on the supposed beauty of cellar door. At least Stella D'oro flows better off of (and, now that I think about it, on to) the tongue! Still nothing stirs within me when I hear these supposed golden nuggets of language.

Then, a couple of nights ago, I was watching TV and someone was reading the text of a Marine's Medal Of Honor citation. In those words I did hear a pair of words that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Though I suppose that this combination is not particularly beautiful in terms of its phonoaesthetic value but maybe I'm more of a believer in semantics, the meaning of words. In any event, I was so intrigued by this combination of words that I immediately searched out the text of more Medal Of Honor citations to see the pair in written form. It turns out that, in Medal Of Honor circles, the wording is actually common. I guess that's what I'd expect in texts that describe a group of such uncommon individuals.

I know, I know... You're probably wondering just what the heck is this pair of words that has captured my imagination so thoroughly? Well, I wanted to make you wait in order for you to get your brain into a state of anticipation so that, maybe, the words I'm about to show you would stick there for a while--a period at least, perhaps, as long as this Memorial Day holiday weekend.

Conspicuous Gallantry

That's it, that's the combination of words that has me smitten with the english language this week because it so efficiently describes the US armed forces. Twenty characters, if one counts the space, of text but one huge freakin' concept. So huge, in fact, that some of you may not be able to reconcile its grandeur in your heads. That's OK, I can't do math in my head so I use Excel or a calculator. The video below shows, visually, the concept of conspicuous gallantry. Think of it as a concept-to-action calculator which is going to help you mentally sum the immensity of those two words.

And finally, to the men and women of the US Armed Forces, who consistently display acts of Conspicuous Gallantry, my sincere thanks. Though the good deeds done by you are not readily conveyed through our sometimes lazy and ignorant news media, you have the thanks of a grateful nation.

Every May 1st is Save The Rhino Day.