Guest Blog by Katy Pye

Learning Acceptance by Example

Ginny’s blog piece about the gay-bashing video struck a deep chord. Bigots hate by dividing a person into irrelevant parts of genetic coding, like skin color or sexual nature. Parts unrelated to the quality and life of the person carrying the DNA. The only counter to mob hatred is the truth, often one example for one child at a time.

Ed and Bob 1947



I’m the product of a 58-year, gay union between my father’s brother, Ed, and his partner, Bob. While not our parents, “The Uncles” loved my brother and me as if we were their own children.

My parents were physicians but they never talked about sex. Nor about Uncle Ed and Uncle Bob living together, year after year. If their relationship, or what it implied, bothered my conservative parents, they never said. We were family. Inclusion was a value.

We celebrated family birthdays and Thanksgivings, chorused, “Christmas gift!” as my uncles disembarked in our driveway each Christmas Eve. My brother and I stayed with them in San Francisco once-a-year, delighted by exotic charms of the big city: toy shopping on Union Square, dinners in Chinatown, classical music, Grace Cathedral for Sunday service, rides in the Fairmont Hotel’s glass elevator with its stunning views. Dull for today’s kids, but it was a chance for us to be special and safely away from home.

When Ed and Bob grew up there was no “Out and Proud.” Gays and lesbians lived quietly and carefully. Ed was almost 80 when the dam broke and he came out to his sister, then the rest of us. He and I collected the family’s history. My uncles’ lives bulge the files, but there is little about being gay. Living openly was BIG for Ed and I was proud of his coming out and their new activism. He and I talked about his sexuality, but more important was their model of love and commitment.

The gay backlash my uncles faced was from the ignorant and socially frightened. Early in Bob’s psychiatric career, his boss announced he and Ed must live separately so any scandal in their lives wouldn’t reflect back on the institution. I’m not alone in claiming shy, gracious Bob rarely said an unkind word to, or about, anyone. He told his boss to, “go to hell, ” and retired 30 years later, an honored and beloved emeritus professor and director of Clinical Services within U.C. San Francisco’s Medical School.

During World War II, Ed knew being outed meant dishonorable discharge and an end to his career in social work. His first, post-war job, ironically, was with the Veteran’s Administration, counseling emotionally damaged soldiers. In the late 1950s, he pioneered state legislation, securing short and long-term support for struggling parents and their developmentally disabled children. For eleven years he was their advocate as the first director of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Regional Center. When he retired, his involvement in the Episcopal church kept him busy. He started a one-stop-shop at Grace Cathedral, helping the elderly navigate confusing government programs. He devised weekly, senior-centered markets where children from the Cathedral boys’ school sold bread and produce to local elders, some of whom had no family.

In the mid 1980s, Bob and Ed applied for an apartment in a San Francisco retirement home. They were rejected. No one used the word “gay,” but two men living together wasn’t allowed. They were turned down twice by an Episcopal home in a nearby city for the same reason.

           

            “What happens if you split up?” they were asked.

            “What happens when any couple splits up?” they answered.



Bob gardening at the nursing home



{Eventually accepted}they became the home’s first gay couple. Initially, shunned by some, Ed and Bob did what they’d always done--be themselves. They gave parties, inviting singles, couples, the whole darn building at times. Bob’s green thumb transformed the dull garden outside the large dining room windows so, three meals-a-day, everyone looked out on beauty and life. He gave tours and wrote in the newsletter about what was growing, volunteered to take care of residents’ plants when they went on vacation, even diagnose ailing greenery. Ed joined the home’s boards, rousting residents out of complacency. He helped start the first LGBT, low-income, retirement home in San Francisco, giving the “non-straight” elderly a decent place to spend their declining years. When Bob fell victim to Alzheimer’s in the early 2000s, he and Ed helped the hospital unit be more responsive to these patients’ needs.

Uncle Ed & Katy

Uncle Bob passed away in 2005 and in 2010 Uncle Ed created The Pye/Harris Legacy Project to continue funding their interests in the environment, developmentally disabled minors, and the gay and lesbian community. The first project is a set of four “Coming Out” films, each a series of interviews by gay and lesbian students with gay and lesbian elders. The purpose is to “reassure young, gay people they are not alone and that living with pride and dignity creates a powerful political statement.” The pilot film, “Coming Out in the 1950s,” (http://pyeharrisproject.org/) premiered to acclaim at the Frameline Film Festival in 2011. DVDs and a teacher/counselor curriculum were distributed to 130 middle grade and high schools throughout California.

Pye/Harris Legacy Project: http://pyeharrisproject.org/ 

THIS IS SO WORTH WATCHING / GR

A month ago, I sat by my Uncle Ed’s side as we eased toward his death and the end of 62 years, accepting and celebrating who they were, and we were as a family.

http://katypye.com/author/katypye/

Hyperlinks to use or not:

Ginny’s blog piece: /grorby/2012/06/adorable-children-singing-in-church.html

California’s Regional Centers: http://arcanet.org/regional-centers.html

OpenHouse-LGBT senior resources and housing project: http://openhouse-sf.org/




Baby chimp adopted

I'm sure some of you have seen these pictures but if you haven't I consider your life incomplete.

This baby chimp, born in a Russian zoo, was taken home to be raised by one of the keepers after its mother died, (or in a different version of the story, she abandoned her infant.) The keeper's mastiff had recently given birth and adopted the baby chimpanzee, too. 

(I will say the world needs another baby chimp born in captivity like it needs a hole in the ozone. . . however these pictures make it a better place.)

Thanks, Chet and Sherri

http://thechive.com/2012/01/10/a-baby-chimpanzee-is-adopted-by-a-mastiff-dog-amazing-30-photos/

Cat Love

I'm home from a lovely, relaxing week at my friend's 'cabin' near Yosemite. My computer is all clean, virus-free and happy.

The cats only threw up twice on the carpet I had shampooed two weeks ago, but they left me a half eaten rat to let me know they were sorry, or maybe was it to welcome me home. At least that's how I plan to interpret it. They could just as easily mean, 'leave us again and it will be a disemboweled possum.'

  

 

 This link is to a blog post I did for my friend Norma Watkins. She's the author of the prize winning memoir, The Last Resort.

 http://normatalksaboutwriting.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/lucinda/#comments

http://normawatkins.com/Norma_Watkins/Home.html

Adorable children singing in church: What could be wrong with that picture?

I grew up in the segregated south, the daughter of parents who believed whole-heartedly in the separation of the races. If this video used the n-word instead of "homo," there would hell to pay. There should be hell to pay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4LHw3KWS9A

I'm sure these whooping, cheering and hollering adults consider themselves Good Christians when, of course, they are neither .

 

Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other' doesn't make sense

any more.

Mevlana Rumi
1207-1273

POST SCRIPT
You can go to YouTube by following this link, subscribe, then flag this video as offensive. They say they review daily, so if enough people complain, perhaps they will remove it. I'm actually torn between having it removed, or letting it stay and hope it creates a backlash.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA22WSVlCZ4&feature=player_embedded 


The Bible contain 6 admonishments to homosexuals and 362 to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision. ~ Lynn Lavner

Homosexuality is god's way of insuring that the truly gifted aren't burdened with children.  ~Sam Austin

You could move.  ~Abigail Van Buren, "Dear Abby," in response to a reader who complained that a gay couple was moving in across the street and wanted to know what he could do to improve the quality of the neighborhood


War.  Rape.  Murder.  Poverty.  Equal rights for gays.  Guess which one the Southern Baptist Convention is protesting?  ~The Value of Families

What is straight?  A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains.  ~Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire, 1947

Odd couples



mfnmac053.naturkundemuseum-berlin.de See the crab's eye stalks?



One of the first classes I took when I went back to school was Biology 101. That was 1978, and I still remember how the professor opened the class. He told a gee-whiz biology story, and I’ve been hooked ever since.

It was an example of a symbiotic relationship between two unrelated organisms—in this case a hermit crab and a sea anemone. A symbiotic relationship is one that is often, but not always beneficial to each organism. Sea anemones, which are related to coral and sea fans, are usually found attached to rocks. Hermit crabs, on the other hand, scuttle about wearing someone else’s abandoned shell.

itsnature.org

Sidebar:

ocean.nationalgeographic.com

 A Symbiotic relationship is a close association of animals or plants of different species that is often, but not always, of mutual benefit

Mutualism advantageous relationship between species: a relationship between two organisms of different species that benefits both and harms neither. For example, lichens are a fungus and an alga living in mutualism: The fungus provides a protective structure, and the alga produces a carbohydrate as food for the fungus. The relationship between the hermit crab and the sea anemone is likely mutualism.

 .

Commensalism is symbiosis between unrelated organisms: the relationship between organisms of two different species in which one derives food or other benefits from the association while the other remains unharmed and unaffected.

Sea anemones are named after the terrestrial flower because they look like flowers, but they are meat eating animals. Anemones have a central mouth surrounded by tentacles with stinging cells, called nematocysts, that entangle and paralyze small marine animals that drift into reach of its tentacles. They do have some mobility, moving a few inches an hour.

My professor told how the hermit crab, using its little pinchers, teases an anemone off a rock, then lifts and places it on its shell. It needs to be gentle and careful not to arouse the anemones defenses.(I think there is a YouTube of everything. I couldn't believe I found this one of an anemone eating a hermit crab.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by1S-kZ4gN4 

AND

another of a hermit crab acquiring an anemone

http://animal.discovery.com/videos/top-10-odd-animal-couples-hermit-crabs-anemone.html

Once suitably situated, my professor told us, the hermit crab feeds itself by plucking bits and pieces of this and that from the rocks, but every so often, it tosses a little something up to the anemone. A true symbiotic relationship: the hermit crab wears a hat of stinging tentacles; the sea anemone gets fed on a regular basis. And who knows, maybe it enjoys the faster pace, waving its tentacles joyfully at its grounded cousins as its busy little ride trundles about.

Phylum: Cnidaria
Class: Anthozoa
Order: Actiniaria

Learn more:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_anemone

Postscript: I have to take my computer in for maintenance and will be offline for a week or so.

Clyde's Story

The school year is ending and I'm lucky enough to still be doing 2 or 3 classroom interviews a week. (Lucky because Hurt Go Happy was published in 2006--a long life for any book.) The calls come from teachers around the country who continue to teach it in their classrooms. This morning's call came from Ms. Romeika's 4th grade class in Pennsylvania. One of the questions asked during the hour we were on the phone was do I still like chimpanzees? I told them about this blog, and that if it were up to me every story would include either a chimpanzee, a horse, or a dolphin. Of course, it is up to me, but after awhile, who would read it?

Clyde's home for 40 years






However, since you asked . . . I've been saving Clyde's story. This was sent by Patti Ragan, Executive Director of The Center for Great Apes in Wauchula, FL. http://www.centerforgreatapes.org/

"It's hard to believe that chimpanzees are kept in such horrid conditions, but last week we rescued a 44-year-old male who has lived in an indoor dungeon-type cage in the Midwest for decades.

"We heard about Clyde a couple years ago, but did not know much about his owner or his situation until the owner himself, a man in his 80s, asked us to take him to our sanctuary. We agreed, and with the help of our colleague April Truitt and her husband Clay Miller of Primate Rescue Center, Clyde was moved to Wauchula last week.  

"Clyde is skin and bones. His cheeks are so sunken in that they are hollow. With very little muscle and no fat on his legs, you just see bones and tendons when he walks. Clyde is covered with bedsores, and every protruding bone where he sits or lies down has a large sore on it. And, a surprising thing is that after spending four decades indoors in a very small garage cage, his skin is mostly white. . .

 

"When our staff carried his shipping crate into our quarantine area, he was calm, almost motionless. For a long time he wouldn’t come out of the crate into the bigger nighthouse area. When he finally did, we saw that he was very shaky and could not walk well.

"The next day, we opened the door to the outside enclosure, and he slowly came out and sat for a long time before he walked unsteadily around the small area. He tried to climb up on a shelf, but could not do it. 

 


"Only one week here now, we have started to see changes in Clyde. He is fed 5 small meals a day, being careful not to overdo it with his starvation condition. He is beginning to walk with a little more fluidity, and he allows the staff to put ointment on his sores. Our maintenance team built staircases for Clyde so he can now walk up the stairs to get on the shelf and lie on a thick bed of blankets.

  

 

"We are finding Clyde sweet and intelligent, and his eyes are beginning to show a little more life and interest in his surroundings. In fact, just a few days ago, he “head-bobbed” to the caregiver (a sign of play) and put a blanket over his head while he kept bobbing. This was momentous for us! 



"Not since we rescued Linus, the orangutan, have I seen a great ape in such deplorable condition, but miracles happened for Linus, and I believe they can for Clyde, too. With a change of diet & nutrition… and with physical therapy, sunshine, and lots of patience Clyde can experience peace, dignity, contentment, and better health for however many years he has left." Patti Ragan


 To read more about Clyde and Linus and the other apes at the Center for Great Apes, follow this link
http://www.centerforgreatapes.org/

 

Clyde making a nest




a nap in the sun

 End note from Ginny. Clyde was a wild-caught chimpanzee. A question I often get during these interviews is would I like to own a chimpanzee? I did not hear that question from Ms. Romeika's students, which means they understood why I wrote Hurt Go Happy, and the suffering owning a chimpanzee would cause the chiimpanzee.

Postscript:
Lost in the River of Grass is the July selection for  http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/19451.YA_Reads_for_Teachers_And_Any_Other_Adults_
to join and get in on the free book drawing, please follow this link. I'm honored.

Sneezing Monkey et al

Sneezing Monkey Rhinopithecus strykeri



Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist responsible for the modern system of naming and classifying plants and animals, is often called the Father of Taxonomy. In his lifetime, Linnaeus, who would be 315 years old, named some 10,000 organisms. Modern scientists believe a good estimate of the number of living species on the planet to 12 million--give or take. We have identified about 2 million, and discover only about 18,000 new species every year. At that rate is will take another 500 years to find them all.   

One of this year's discoveries was the Sneezing Monkey in northeast Myanmar . . "(It) has a nose so upturned that the animals sneeze audibly when it rains. To avoid inhaling water, the monkeys supposedly sit with their heads tucked between their knees on drizzly days."

Another of this year's discoveries was a fungus that looks like a sponge. You can't say scientists don't have a sense of humor. They named it Spongbob Square Pants Fungus.  "It belongs to the family of Boli fungi that have pores instead of gills under the caps of the mushrooms. But this one looks very much like a sponge, both macroscopically and microscopically." (From an interview with Quentin Wheeler, an entomologist at Arizona State University and directs the Species Exploration Institute.)


Spongebob Squarepants Fungus Spongiforma squarepantsii (Photo: Thomas Bruns)



 

The Bonaire Banded Box Jelly Tamoya ohboya. (Photo: Ned Deloach)


Then there is this gorgeous box jelly which is unfortunately as toxic and venomous as it is beautiful. Apparently they found out the hard way and gave it the name Tamoya ohboya. O Boy Ya!

WOOD CHIP SCULPTURES

 A friend sent this to me, and since I've been out of town for the last few days and have over 130 e-mails to deal with, I'm stealing the story.

Sergei Bobkov, 53, has patented a unique technique for creating sculptures out of Siberian cedar wood chips.    
    

“It’s not very interesting to do what others can. To create something out of nothing in a completely new way is far more inspiring.” This is how Sergei Bobkov explains the unique form of art that he created. He says many people compare his artworks to taxidermy, because they both look so much like the animals they replicate, but Sergei believes they are as different as light and darkness. Whereas taxidermy is all about death, his wood-chip art symbolizes life.

     This resident of Kozhany , Russia , has developed his very own technique that prevents wood-chips from falling apart in time. After creating about 100-150 chips, from 2-3 inch long cedar stick, he puts them in water for several days. Then, making use of his surgical precision, he carves the chips into any shape he needs.

     Sergey has been doing this for some time now, but he has only created 11 wood-chip sculptures. That’s because just one of these incredible artworks takes around six months to complete, at a work rate of 10 to 12 hours a day, with no days off.  Sergei Bobkov focuses on wildlife creatures, and he studies their anatomy for months before starting work on a sculpture.

     Even though he was offered $17,000 for his wood-chip eagle, Sergei’s Bobkov declined, saying his art is not for sale.

Guest Blogger: Nona Smith



Missy





Point, Counterpoint

Karma, kismet, destiny, they say there’s no escaping it. I believe that’s true. My name is Missy Cat and here is my story.

 My brother and I were born in a shelter in Ft. Bragg, California.  Our mother, the slut, abandoned us at a tender age to start a new life of her own, leaving us to fend for ourselves.  Some experts believe that birth order is everything, and I’m the older sister. Which turned out to be a good thing for my brother because I’m the responsible, affectionate and patient one. And lord knows, he required patience.

But I was also a kitten in my own right, all girly- girl feminine with long fur, pale blue eyes, and the loudest purr you’d ever want to hear. And smart.  I’m very smart. Always have been. Especially in comparison to (nod of the head) you-know-who.  



Buster





I guess she’s talking about me. My name is Buster (middle name The) Cat. It wasn’t always so.  I started life as Oscar. That’s what they named me at the shelter where I was born.  They don’t often name kittens there, but I was special.  I was the runt of the litter. My Elizabeth-Taylor-blue eyes were crusted with muck, my sinuses filled with snot when I was born.  I was a mess.  But I was also really cute. I had latte-colored fur and chocolate brown ears and muzzle.  The staff made a Big Deal over me, even took turns taking me home so they could medicate me during the night and keep an eye on me when the shelter was closed.

He’s a Big Deal, all right.  Full of himself.  Entitled. Not overly bright.  He thinks he can get by on looks alone. I, on the other hand, figure stuff out. I know just where to patiently wait to catch the mice that come into my garage. I’ve trained my people to give me treats when they want me to come inside. But, wait! I’m getting ahead of my story. Let’s just say, I wanted to be more than a big sister.  I wanted a home of my own, far away from Oscar.

(Lick, lick, groom, groom, snuffle, snort.)  Whatever.

One day, the shelter was abuzz with talk of a “mobile adoption,” the staff all excited about finding some of us homes. My ears, always finely tuned, pricked up. This was my chance! When they loaded the van, along with some others of my species and a few noisy dogs, I was on it.  Oscar was not.  He was deemed too small and sickly to be ready for adoption.  Much to my delight, he was left behind.

They took us on a car-sickening ride to an empty lot in Mendocino where they unloaded us and stacked our cages three high. Tiny me, only eight weeks old, was on the top tier. It was a cold, windy day so I huddled in the blanket at the back of my cage, shivering.  People came by and poked their faces in at me. This was a new experience, and I was alarmed by it. One couple asked if they could hold me, so I was taken out of my cage and put into the woman’s arms.  She was nice enough, gentle, and she held me securely, but I trembled.  Perhaps I didn’t make the best first impression.

“She’s a cutie, but she’s too timid,” I heard the woman say. They put me back in the cage and walked away.

 Back at the shelter, (snort, sneeze) things were quiet.  Most of the staff went to that mobile adoption thingy, leaving me behind.  I was considered too sick to go along. Perhaps I’d overdone the sneezing, snorting bit. But, I was sure my sister would come back and tell me all about it.

Actually, that wasn’t my plan at all.  My plan was to never go back to that shelter.  Oscar and his sick kitten act were beginning to get on my last nerve. My idea involved getting myself adopted that day. So when oh boy! the couple that held me earlier came back for a second look, I knew what I had to do: I had to channel Oscar.  Be out there.  Demand attention.

 I gathered my courage together, loped to the front of my cage and, stuck my dainty paw through the metal bars, snagging the woman’s sweater. Maybe not the best execution of the plan, but I needed to get her attention.  I wanted to prove I was more than her first impression of me.

“Awww,” she cooed.  I made loud, purry-chirpy sounds. “She seems to have gotten used to being here.  She’s not as timid as she was earlier. Can I hold her again? “  My plan was working.

It was okay that I didn’t go to the mobile adoption that day. My staff at the shelter had little else to do so they played with me. Of course I had to sneeze a time or two to get their attention. They picked me up and cuddled me.  And I so deserved to be cuddled. I was adorable.  You can still see that, can’t you? Look at these blue eyes.  Look at my handsome nose. (Sneeze.)

I got adopted! I rode home (such a nice word) snuggled deeply into the woman’s arms, my purring motor going full throttle.  But once we arrived there, I got scared again.  I’d never been in so much space.  No cages to confine me, just freedom.  Whoa.  I decided the safest place was under some poofy cushions piled high in a window seat where I could look out but still feel hidden and secure.  I stayed there until I heard the pinging of something familiar: crunchy food nuggets hitting the bottom of a dish.  That was worth coming out to investigate

At the end of the day, when the van came back, the yappy dogs were put into their cages and the disinterested-acting older cats were put into theirs.  I waited for my sis, the know-it-all, sure she would tell me what I’d missed. But she didn’t return.  Wow. (Sneeze. Snort.)

“Poor Oscar,” said a staff person. “You’re going to be lonely now,” But she took me home with her and I wasn’t.

One dish of food led to another and not one of them had Oscar’s snot in it.  I had my own litter box, my own toys, my own people and my own name. They called me Missy, a name befitting the dainty thing I was. This was the home I’d dreamed about. I was petted, fed and played with during the day.  At night, the three of us sat companionably on the couch and watched TV.  When we went to bed, I slept in the middle.

My sister didn’t come back all night. Or the next. Or the one after that. It looked like she was gone for good and I was gonna be on my own from now on.

That was cool.  I could handle it. (Groom, groom. Sneeze, snort.)  Oh look!  My staff is coming to see what I need.  Maybe a little salve in my eyes, a little fresh food to keep my strength up.

My people were so proud of me they invited their friends over to meet me.  I was beginning to understand Oscar’s addiction to attention.

One day, they invited a neighbor over, Ronda. Ronda was known to be an animal collector.  She shared her house with five cats, three dogs---one with a severe over-bite—ten chickens, a mean rooster and a beta fish.  I was glad not to be living at Ronda’s house.

Holding me in the crook of her arm, she gushed, “Isn’t she adorable? I wish she had a twin.”

“Actually,” my people told her, “she has a brother.”

I had a bad feeling about this conversation.

Two weeks after my sister left, a lady showed up at the shelter asking for me. I had no idea my reputation had spread throughout the community. But there she was. She held me and petted me and made a big fuss over me. Frankly, everyone does. (Sneeze.) And then she asked to adopt me!

“He needs to finish this course of antibiotics and put on a few more ounces before he can be adopted,” my staff person told the woman. “But you can come back for him next week, Ronda.”

Whopee!  I was gonna have a permanent home. No more sleeping around night after night. I’d have one person looking after just me!

Pleasant days passed into pleasant nights.  I was living the dream I’d imagined when I was back in the cage with Oscar. I strolled from lap to lap, collecting caresses, purring, and feeling very fortunate in my new home.

It was sad to leave my staff at the shelter. They’d taken good care of me all my life. But…it was time for me to move on.  After a while, they’d miss me less.

Ronda came to pick me up in a car smelling of…something I couldn’t exactly place. But then, with my sinus issues, I still don’t pick up scents very well. She cuddled and cooed at me just like she’d done before, and I was thrilled to be going to a home of my own.  Or so I thought it would be.

When we arrived at her house, she scooped me up and carried me to the front door, bypassing three dogs (one with a severe over-bite,) ten scratching chickens, and a mean-looking rooster who chased us briefly.  Inside, there was the all-too-familiar scent of cat pee.  This was not what I’d expected.  And it got worse.

Life was good for me, what can I say?

Three days and two nights passed, nights during which I had to share the bed and Ronda’s attention with six or seven other creatures.  (Snort.  Sniffle. Sneeze.) On the third morning, Ronda didn’t get out of bed.  She didn’t feed me…or any of us…and had forgotten to give me my medication. (Sneeze, sneeze.)  I was worried. 

My family and I spent another agreeable day and now we were cuddled together on the couch watching Masterpiece Theater. Outside the night grew dark and the wind whistled. But inside we were warm and cozy. I was lap napping when a shadow passed the windows and the light from the motion detector flashed.  I woke to a tapping at our front door. One of my people rose to answer it. 

“I’m so sorry to bother you at this late hour,” said our neighbor, Eleanor. She carried a squirming, dirty towel in her arms.  “Ronda’s been taken to the hospital by ambulance.  I went over to make sure her house was locked up, and I found this, shivering in her backyard.” 

She pulled back the towel to reveal a pair of Elizabeth-Taylor-blue eyes and the chocolate-colored muzzle and ears of a kitten.  “I heard you have his sister.”

And so it was.  It’s true what they say: you can never escape your destiny.  Once again, I’m the big sister.

Snort. Sneeze. Groom, groom. 

Missy (left) Buster (right)



Al B. Tross

  

Laysan albatross by Ron LeValley http://www.levalleyphoto.com/ 



I've lived here for 20 years, and for as long as I can remember, starting in mid-November, we on the Mendocino coast of California wait for news of Al B. Tross' return to Point Arena. 



"Al B. Tross is a different sort of critter," said David Jensen, President of the Mendocino Coast Audubon Society. "He's unique among vagrants. To the best of my knowledge, he's the only Laysan Albatross anyone can see while still standing on the shore of this continent.

To read more, here is the Paul McHugh story about Al B. Tross

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/01/SPGUHNSF4U1.DTL

    

At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.

It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!

From the Rime of the Ancient Mariner

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

nhptv.org



  

In the early 1980s, I did an Earthwatch project http://www.earthwatch.org/ on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. The project used albatross decoys in an attempt to encourage the Laysan albatross to establish a breeding colony at the Kilauea Light Station. I see on Wikipedia that the project was a success, and it is now the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilauea_Point_National_Wildlife_Refuge 

The Laysan Albatross is best known for its gliding flight, awkward landings, and elaborate courtship rituals. These birds spend nearly half the year at sea, not touching land until breeding season. Though large for a seabird, the Laysan is small for an albatross. They may live more than 40 years. These birds are named for Laysan, one of their Hawaiian island breeding colonies.

Japanese feather hunters decimated many Laysan colonies at the turn of the century. Colonies at Volcano, Wake, and Marcus Islands have never recovered. Between 1958 and 1964, thousands of albatross were killed by collisions with antenna towers and aircraft strikes during landings and take-offs at Midway. Tens of thousands of albatross were intentionally killed in order to reduce such collisions. Today, eggs and birds continue to be removed at Hawaiian island airfields, in order to discourage nesting and ensure aircraft safety. On land, introduced predators, and lead poisoning from abandoned military buildings on Midway kills thousands of Laysans annually. At sea, the species is vulnerable to oil pollution, and the ingestion of floating plastics; tens of thousands also die in gill-nets, drift nets, and long-line fishhooks annually. Alternative long-line fishing techniques now being developed include weighing lines down, setting them at night, and using "screamer lines" to scare birds away.

 

Another beneficial human activity—the importing of topsoil and grass to Midway's Sand Island—has stabilized the sand dunes and increased albatross habitat. This coupled with the diminished human presence on Midway have led to increased Laysan populations there. At Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge on Kauai, protection by fencing and wildlife personnel has helped establish a breeding Laysan colony.

Source: http://birds.audubon.org/species/layalb 



Ron LeValley http://www.levalleyphoto.com/ 



Ron LeValley Albatross landing http://www.levalleyphoto.com/ 



Ron LeValley Midway Island Albatross Colony http://www.levalleyphoto.com/ 



Laysan Albatross & Plastics

The Problem

In the middle of the North Pacific Ocean, on a tiny island 1,000 miles from the nearest big city, many Laysan albatross chicks die each year because their bellies are full of bottle caps, toothbrushes and other plastic. One study found that 97.5% of chicks had plastic in their stomachs. Many people think that the biggest source of pollution in the oceans is oil spilled from ships, but most marine pollution is litter that starts out on land. By making changes now, we can reduce the amount of plastic that gets into our oceans in the months and years to come.

A Deadly Diet

Albatrosses fly hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles in search of food for their chicks. They look for squid and fish eggs floating on the surface of the water. Unfortunately, plastic floats, and Laysan albatross are particularly attracted to it. They eat it, mistaking if for food, then they fly back to the nest and feed bottle caps, lighters, fishing lures and other pieces of plastic to their young. The chicks starve to death, with stomachs full of plastic.

Trash Travels

Trash that's dropped on the ground doesn't stay put. Even hundreds of miles from the ocean, trash is washed by rain into city storm drains and out into streams and rivers that lead to the ocean. From there, wind and currents carry our trash far out to sea. Scientists estimate that around the world, up to one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles die each year from eating plastic. We can help keep trash from traveling by recycling and putting trash in trash cans.

Source: http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/oceanissues/plastics_albatross/

b-e-a-c-h.org A Laysan Albatross Chick full of plastic debris

Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung."

*
`Is it he?' quoth one, `Is this the man?
By him who died on cross,
With his cruel bow he laid full low
The harmless Albatross.

http://www.online-literature.com/coleridge/646/

 

 

hubil.free.fr Laysan Albatross Chick

The Sloth and I

A friend sent this wonderful video of sloths at a sanctuary in Costa Rica. You know how I hate being hot, but this (almost) made me want to go, especially since the older I get the more I think I might be related to this species. 

mrnussbaum.com



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL-&feature=related
If the link doesn't work, copy and paste it into Google or one of the other search engines.

Range and Habitat

This three-toed sloth species is found from southern Honduras through Panama and western Colombia through the Amazon to northern Argentina. It prefers tropical evergreen forests at low elevations that have continuous canopy cover.

Physical Description
The three-toed sloth has long coarse hair over dense underfur, a white face with a brown stripe on each side, a brown throat, and a body that is pale brown to yellowish. Each adult male has a unique pattern of yellow hair on its back with a black stripe through the center. As the name suggests, the three-toed has three toes on each of its front and hind feet. (Its relative, the two-toed sloth (Choloepus hoffmanni) also has three toes on the hind feet, but two on the front feet.)

Interesting Biology
The three-toed sloth is active during the day, unlike the nocturnal two-toed sloth, and so is seen more often. This sloth only eats leaves from trees and lianas (a type of climbing vine found throughout tropical rainforests. They have thick, woody stems and come in various lengths up to 3000 ft) (SRL.caltech.edu) but may feed on fifty individual trees of up to thirty species, eating leaves of different ages. Sloths live, feed, mate, and reproduce near the upper levels of the forest canopy. They move to a new tree often enough to balance their diet, or about once every 1.5 days. Home ranges of different individuals may overlap considerably and females tend to be more social than males, but usually one adult (or female with young) will occupy a tree at any given time. Sloths may use different food sources depending upon what their mothers taught them to eat.

Though large for an arboreal mammal, the three-toed sloth must also be light for its size to live in the treetops, so it has reduced muscle mass. They also have an enormous gut capacity-nearly 30% of their body weight! The sloth's diet of leaves is digested very slowly, so they need a large capacity. Sloths consume a significant amount of leaf material in a forest (about 2% of total annual leaf production in Panama). They have a slow metabolism, though, so they have thick fur to insulate them when their body temperature drops at night; their temperature peaks during the day when they bask in the sunlight.

About once a week, the sloth descends from its lofty living space, digs a small hole with its stubby tail, defecates and urinates in the hole, then covers it with leaves using its hind legs and return to its preferred heights. This ordeal lasts less than 30 minutes, but during this time the sloth is vulnerable to predators. While mortality of young sloths is high, individuals that survive to adulthood suffer low mortality rates; they are recorded to live as long as 9 to 11 years, and are thought to live as many as 20 to 30 in the wild.

Several kinds of arthropods live as adults on these sloths. These arthropods leave the sloth to deposit their eggs on the sloth's dung; the hatched larvae feed on the dung, pupate, and after they emerge as adults, fly in search for a sloth to live on. A single sloth may carry nine hundred or more beetles and three species of mites.

An adult female spends half the year pregnant and the other half rearing her single offspring. Young sloths can begin eating leaves when they are two weeks old. As the mother carries the young with her, she shows it which trees and lianas are fit to eat within their home range. When the baby is 6 months old, the mother suddenly leaves the young to her home-range and moves to a nearby range. The young and mother maintain contact through vocalizations, and the young continues to use this portion of her range for a while and then departs.

Diet
A three-toed sloth consumes large amounts of leaves from up to thirty species of trees and lianas; the particular species chosen by an individual sloth vary, and are largely affected by what its mother taught it to eat.

Sources http://www.anywherecostarica.com/flora-fauna/mammal/three-toed-sloth



  http://www.slothsanctuary.com/welcome/



Range of the Three-ted sloth Wikipedia map



I'll never complain about Squirrels again

I've left my last post up longer than usual because it's so important to get the message out to women (of a certain age) and the number of hits hasn't diminished. If you haven't read it, or have read it, but haven't forwarded it, please do. In the meantime, a little amusement.


A friend sent this series of pictures to me years ago.
I think it begs the question...

WHAT IS THAT ROPE MADE OF?

Post-menopausal hell for horses



Mare with urine collection bag



For a while, after the warnings about increased rates of breast and other cancers in women who took hormone replacement therapy, the use of Premarin and/or Prempro dropped. Enough that a few of the Premarin mare rescue facilities closed down. Not so anymore. Baby-boomer women by the thousands are entering the hormone-replacement therapy market. I was once one of them, but the minute I discovered that, Premarin, the brand I took, was made from horse urine, I switched to a plant-based synthetic.

Horse urine? Seriously?
PRE (pregnant) MAR (mare) IN (urine)

As you might guess, if you've seen this blog more than once, I didn't stop taking Premarin just because it was made from horse urine. I stopped because the production of it had to be torture for the horses. It turned out to be worse than I imagined.

A Premarin mare on the "pee line" is confined to a narrow stall that restricts all movement. She is fitted with a urine collection bag, and stays that way nearly full-time for six months of each and every year for as long as she is productive. She is provided plenty of food, but water intake is limited in order to concentrate her urine.



Mares in a pee-line


For those six months, she can't lie down, roll as horses love to do, or get any exercise. They are not groomed, which leaves them susceptible to sores and infections. The normal lifespan of a horse is 20 to 30 or more years. On average a Premarin mare lives 8 or 9 years.

 

If the mare produces urine well and can be impregnated again, she will return to the pee line. Once she is no longer productive, the mares are sent to slaughter, destine for dinner tables in Europe and Asia, often with her last foal at her side--especially if it is a colt. Only a lucky few are purchased at auction to be rescued and adopted.  

What happens to the foals of mares that return to the pee lines? A Premarin mare's foal is a 'waste product' of urine farms. "We are talking around 40,000 to 50,000 foals a year from the US and Canada. (The number would be higher, but there is a higher than normal mortality rate among these foals, usually due to exposure or starvation.) Those that survive are sent to feed lots and then to Canadian auctions that cater almost exclusively to the horse meat trade to be sent mostly to Europe and Japan."


The drug and You
by Kym Lambert

"Premarin is marketed as an "organic" or "natural" estrogen...well, yeah it's natural, if you're a pregnant mare! But mares have a multitude of estrogens that humans do not have, do not need, and can potentially be harmed by.  

The risks involved include but are not limited to increase in breast and uterine cancer, stroke and abnormal blood clotting which can lead to death, gall bladder disease, rising in blood pressure, gastrointestinal problems, (and) memory loss. Personally, as a soon-to-be menopausal (possibly perimenopausal as of recently) woman those risks seem too high for me...if it were the only replacement therapy you couldn't pay me to take the stuff.  

But it isn't the only option, there are alternatives! Safer for you, for the horses, and for the environment (you think that processing all that urine is without waste?). These alternatives are "synthetic" although many are made from plant estrogens and most more closely replicate the human hormones you are replacing than Premarin can.

If you are menopausal, post-hysterectomy, or transsexual and you are on Premarin please consider contacting your doctor immediately to change your therapy. If you aren't convinced that you are swallowing horse urine (and you are not alone, a woman told me a nurse who was on Premarin had no idea how it was made, your doctor might not even know!) then crush one of your pills and sniff it. Yup, that's what it is all right! You'll smell it. Talk to your doctor, make sure s/he knows that you do not approve of the torture and death involved."

What is the most important information you should know about

(an estrogen mixture)

WARNINGS TAKEN FROM THE PREMARIN WEBSITE

http://www.premarin.com/?source=google&HBX_PK=s_premarin&o=47364519|223603789|0&skwid=43700003252793214

• Estrogens increase the chance of getting cancer of the uterus.
• Report any unusual vaginal bleeding right away while you are using these products. Vaginal bleeding after menopause may be a warning sign of cancer of the uterus (womb). Your healthcare provider should check any unusual vaginal bleeding to find out the cause.
• Do not use estrogens with or without progestins to prevent heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, or dementia.
• Using estrogens, with or without progestins, may increase your chance of getting heart attacks, strokes, breast cancer, and blood clots. Using estrogens, with or without progestins, may increase your chance of getting dementia, based on a study of women age 65 years or older. You and your health care provider should talk regularly about whether you still need treatment with estrogens

WHAT YOU CAN DO

• Stop taking Premarin /or Prempro. There are synthetic alternatives. "In 1990, Wyeth had gone before the FDA requesting the label to their hormone replacement drugs be changed to include it to say their product protects against heart disease. Hormone replacement therapy skeptic, Cynthia Pearson, found not only did their claims appear to be too good to be true, but also "each time there was anything negative about the drug, a new claim arose to keep it alive." In every instance, Pearson continued to be unconvinced wondering how a drug was ever approved for women lacking a randomized clinical trial. It was not until 1991, after lobbying women's groups and criticism by congresswomen about the lack of attention paid to women's health that money was found, leading to the recently halted study." http://www.estrogen-replacement-side-effects.com/html/lawsuit.html
• There are numerous horse rescue sites, specifically for Premarin mares and Premarin foals. Simply Google Premarin Mare Rescue to find one near you.
• Forward this to friends who are on hormone replacement therapy.



Premarin mare and foal



I'm all smiles, too.

 

Lost in the River of Grass,

which is based almost entirely on the true story of an ill-fated day-trip of my husband's into the Everglades, has been nominated for Florida's 2012 / 2013

Sunshine State Young Readers Award!

 

www.ginnyrorby.com

A question of morality; Ours not theirs

In 1988, I read an article in the Houston Chronicle about Lucy Temerlin, a sign-language using chimpanzee raised as if she were human. The very next day, I began the 15 years of research that would lead to the publication of my second novel, Hurt Go Happy.

A few days ago a friend sent me this TED video. Frans De Waal is renown behaviorist who has been studying chimps at Yerkes in Atlanta for decades. I love TED videos. I've posted others, and I liked this one. It's about moral behavior in animals, specifically the ability of chimps, monkeys and elephants to show empathy, compassion, and work cooperatively. It's amusing in places, and the audience laughs. That's the part I hated. It lets us almost but not quite take the intelligence of animals seriously. I know. I'm overly sensitive about this, but all these strides in understanding how closely our emotions mimic the emotional state of animals were experiments done on captive animals. Caged animals. We are performing experiments that show that animals can suffer just as deeply as we can. Anybody with a pet dog knows that. So how much more testing do we need? THEY HAVE FEELINGS AND A MORAL CODE. SO STOP ALREADY.

http://www.wimp.com/moralbehavior/

Then a few nights ago CNN did a segment on removal of the last of the chimpanzees from the Coulston Foundation in Alamogorda, NM, to their new home at the Save the Chimp sanctuary in Fort Pierce, FL. The Coulston Foundation was where used up circus chimps, chimps from movies and commercials, and all the chimps from our space program were sent, and where, for the next 3 decades, biomedical experiments were conducted on them. (In Hurt Go Happy, the Coulston Foundation is the Clarke Foundation. My publisher made me change the name.)

There are series of videos, including portions of the CNN broadcast on the Save the Chimps site.

http://www.savethechimps.org/

Chimpanzees as medical test subjects (source CNN.com)

The United States is one of two remaining countries--the other being Gabon--that legally allow chimps and other great apes to be used in invasive biomedical research, according to the Humane Society of the United States. However, other countries still contract the services of research centers that use chimps, according to Dr. Thomas Rowell Director of the New Iberia Research Center in Louisiana.

There are more than 930 chimpanzees at U.S. medical research facilities, most of them used for hepatitis testing, according to a report by the Institute of Medicine issued in December. The report stated that chimpanzees are not necessary for most biomedical research. The institute recognized two possible uses for chimps: one for cancerous tumors that are already part of ongoing investigations, and the other for a hepatitis C vaccine.

A panel of experts advising the National Institutes of Health on how to implement the the Institute of Medicine's report is expected to issue its recommendations by the end of the year.



A wake for a dead chimp

My question is, if chimps suffer, feel pain, show empathy, work cooperatively, fall in love, and mourn their dead, what kind of society are we to still perform experiments on them?  Human?  Inhumane? Inhuman

 http://pcrm.org/news/doctors_federal_complaint_halt_transfer_alamogordo_chimpanzees_100922.html

The Birthday Party

When I first started writing, it was by hand on a yellow pad, often in the lower galley of a DC10 flight to London. I was a Pan Am flight attendant and senior enough to hold the galley position away from the passengers.

Recently, I've been entering some of my early stories into the computer, mostly ones I wrote for the now defunct Miami News. Oddly, I wrote these long before it dawned on me that my job was to write about kids and their special relationships with animals.

The Birthday Party

When I lived in Miami, I was on the Board of the Tropical Audubon Society, which sponsored educational programs in the Dade County schools. I often trooped along with our educational director, David Hitzig, to watch him teach the children about our South Florida animals. 

Corn Snakes thepetwarehouse.org



In addition to traveling daily to schools throughout the county, Hitzig also turned birthday parties at TAS’ Doc Thomas House into a learning experience. 

The children at one party I attended ranged in age from 4 to 7. Hitzig showed them a Red-eared slider turtle, a corn snake, an alligator, and Misty, the cross-eyed opossum. The children were encouraged to pet all the animals, and loved to put their hands in Misty’s pouch.

This particular day, David was putting Misty back in her carry-cage, when I heard a little boy whisper to the child on the bench next to him, “The bald-headed eagle is next!”



Baby Red-eared Slider home-pet-care.blogspot.com



Hitzig told them about eagles being the symbol of our country. He held Peace high above their heads, then lowered his arm so that Peace, for balance, spread her one full wing and the stump of her other wing.

           

“Did everyone see that she has only one wing?” Hitzig asked.

           

They nodded solemnly. Peace folded her wing and the stub and glared down at them.

    

“Not long ago, Peace was soaring high above the Everglades,” Hitzig told them. “On the ground, far below her, a man saw her flying. He raised the gun he was carrying, pointed it at Peace and pulled the trigger. Park rangers found her and brought her to us. I’m here today to show you what that man did to Peace. And I’m here so none of you will grow up to be the kind of person who would shoot and cripple an eagle.”



northrup.org

They all sat quietly for a moment and looked sadly up at the eagle. “Poor Peace,” a child said.

           

Hitzig thanked them and the children exploded into screams and chasing each other.



Misty lookalike  AP Photo



One child, a pretty little blonde girl with a long braid down her back, sat very still and watched as David put Peace back in her cage, then glanced at me with sad blue eyes. It was hard for me to believe a 4-year-old  understood what David had said well enough to look as if she were going to cry. I smiled to reassure her, but she looked away.

 

I saw her again as I was leaving. The other children were running and chasing each other, but she stood quietly and watched. A group rushed past where she stood and one of them tagged her. She laughed, clapped her hands together, hopped a few steps, then dropped her arms, and limped on twisted legs back to her mother. 

  

I realized then that that little girl understood exactly what it was like to not be able to fly, but forgot for a moment that she couldn’t. She understood that the spreading of a wing and a half is as full of hope as hops on twisted legs.





art.com



That was 20 years ago, and I’m hoping that that little girl and those other children, who are now young adults, grew up remembering that birthday party, and are still fighting for the right of eagles to soar.  



Our Hummingbirds by Ron LeValley

Last week Ron LeValley's Outside My Window featured these beautiful pictures of our northcoast hummingbirds, so I thought I'd share them with those of you who might not receive his daily e-mails. How to join this free, day-brightening list is at the bottom of the post.

Pictures and text by Ron LeValley

Male Anna's Hummingbird Ron LeValley

(The) male Anna's Hummingbirds have red on the throat (which we call a gorget on the hummingbird) and on the crown. The rest of it is colored green and pale gray. At least 10 of them showed up at our feeder during this influx. Check out the tiny feet!



Male Anna's Hummingbird Ron LeValley

We also had an influx of Allen's Hummingbirds. These are very similar to the Rufous, but have an obvious green back. They are also migratory, but don't go as far north or as far south as the Rufous, (which) nest inland from us, but are not common on the immediate coast.   

Male Allen's Hummingbird Ron LeValley Rufous Hummingbirds are smaller than the Anna's and are highly migratory, traveling from wintering in southern Mexico and Central America all the way to as far north as Alaska during the summer.

 

Male Rufous Hummingbird

 

Male Rufous Hummingbird Ron LeValley

Many of you have asked more questions about distinguishing Rufous from Allen's Hummingbirds. (The) Allen's has green on it back. Here is a Rufous with an almost all orange back. But note the tiny flecks of green in the back and on the shoulder. This is not unusual for Rufous to show some green. In fact, there are rare Rufous Hummers that can have substantial amount of green in the back. So how do we identify them? It's tough. Look at the outer tail feather on this bird. It is wider than an Allen's outer tail feather. And the shape of the second from the middle tail feather (the one lying on the wing) is unique. So I am sure that this one is a Rufous. Obviously it is hard to see this mark in the field. So I can't be sure that yesterday's (picture) was an Allen's, I can only make a good guess. If we are not sure, we call them Selasphorus sp. because Selasphorus is the genus of these two species.

(Note of explanation from Ginny. Remember mnemonic Kings Play Chess On Fine Grain Sand from high school biology? Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. Sp. is the abbreviation for species. The binomial, or genus and specific epithet, of the Allen's hummingbird is Selasphorus sasin and the binomial of the Rufous is Selasphorus rufus. Since Ron wasn't sure which it was, he referred to the bird by its genus and sp. indicated a single species (one bird) in that genus. Sp. because there was only one bird at the feeder. If two birds had been at the feeder, neither of which he could identify to species, he would have referred to them as Selasphorus spp. Spp. is plural.)

Rufous Ron LeValley

Just to complete the types of birds we had during this invasion, here is female Anna's Hummingbird. They are slightly larger than the Rufous and Allen's hummingbirds, but have no sign of the rusty-orange color on them. Not only did we get the Rufous and Allen's in large numbers, we had as many as 10 Anna's around the feeders as well. So this influx was not just of migratory birds.

To join Ron's Outside My Window group follow this link.

http://www.levalleyphoto.com

A wonderful wildlife picture arrives daily.

If you like these photos, you can purchase a copy by clicking here!
© Ron LeValley Photography 2012

I'm just worried about you and the long, hot summer ahead



Russian Gulch Waterfall

I wish I could count how many times I've been asked, 'what on earth made you move here?' This question comes as a first-time visitor tumbles out of their rental car at the end of the 4 hour drive from San Francisco, or Sacramento, or Oakland. We are equal distance from all of those cities, but it's the curvy, rolling, twisting, two-lane drive that either enthralls or makes them wish they'd never hung a left off the highway 101.

Honestly, I moved here so this Florida native would never be hot again as long as I live. Summer highs are in the high 60s, if the fog's not in, and the nights are in the 50s.

That really is the reason. Mendocino is cute, and the scenery is as breathtaking as it gets, but it's the climate that set the hook. Since then this place has grown on me like a partner in a marriage of convenience. I've fallen in love.

Over the last 21 years, I've done volunteer work for the local Audubon Society, the botanical gardens, College of the Redwoods, and other local non-profits, but there are just three that have had my complete devotion for the last 16 years: Teresa Sholars' Natural History class, Point Cabrillo Light Station

AND

the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference.

23^rd ANNUAL

MENDOCINO COAST WRITERS CONFERENCE

The Mendocino Coast Writers Conference will take place July 26-28 at the College of the Redwoods campus in Fort Bragg. The three-day conference features a stellar line-up of agents, editors, and writers in all genres, teaching the craft of writing at beginning and advanced levels, as well as the encouragement of a community of writers in a relaxed and friendly setting. Registrants will participate in an intensive writing workshop with the same teacher for three consecutive mornings, allowing ample time for writing and review in a small group environment. Afternoons will consist of lecture/discussion sessions on various topics from authors, editors and agents, including “You’ve Written the Essay – Now What?,” “Inviting Surprise in Poetry,” and “The Successful Ingredients of Teen Fiction,” with young adult authors Ginny Rorby, Jody Gehrman and Stacey Jay.  

Keynote speaker Robin Hemley, author of eight books of nonfiction and fiction and winner of numerous awards, will lead the morning Master Class in Memoir. Hemley has been widely anthologized and his popular craft book, Turning Life Into Fiction, has sold over 60,000 copies.

Liquid Fusion Kayaks http://liquidfusionkayak.blogspot.com/



Kim Addonizio, author of five poetry collections, novels, short stories and Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within, will lead the morning poetry workshop. “I believe that a rigorous attention to craft is the best way to achieve your vision in language - but that wildness is essential, as well.” 

Victoria Zackheim has edited five anthologies of personal essays, written for documentary films (Tracing Thalidomide, Where Birds Never Sang), and authored The Bone Weaver.  She will teach the morning nonfiction workshop, focusing on personal essay. Zackheim teaches essay in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and is a 2010 San Francisco Library Laureate.

David Corbett, author of four novels including Done for a Dime and Blood of Paradise, has been anthologized in Best American Mystery Stories (2009 and 2011) and nominated for an Edgar. He will lead the morning workshop in novel, emphasizing character development. An experienced teacher at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and Book Passage in Corte Madera, he is a mainstay at its annual Mystery Writers’Conference.

Steve Almond, whose short story collections include My Life in Heavy Metal and God Bless America, will teach the morning workshop in short story. Almond has published a novel and two non-fiction books, been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, and appeared in GQ, The Believer, and Tin House.

Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens is the only oceanfront botanical garden in the country



Elizabeth Rosner, novelist, poet and essayist, will teach the morning workshop for emerging writers. Her first novel, The Speed of Light, was translated into nine languages and won awards in the US and Europe. Rosner, the daughter of Jewish holocaust survivors, has explored the impact of her parents’ experiences on her own life in “emotionally autobiographical” work. She has taught college-level creative writing for thirty years and been published in the journal Poetry and the New York Times Magazine.

enlightphoto.com Attention Mendocino County Students & Teachers, Scholarship is open to any High School Student in Mendocino County: public school, private school, homeschool, alternative ed. Applications are due by May 1. Please pass this on to all young writers 9th - 12th grade. Countywide. Thank you!

For more information on registration, schedule of workshops and lectures, contest entry rules and deadlines, and presenter bios, please visit the conference Website at www.mcwc.org

or contact staff by phone and leave a message at 707-937-9983.

As long as I'm doing a little self-promoting...

http://www.teachmentortexts.com/2012/04/its-okay-to-reread-in-april-ginny-rorby.html#axzz1sPDS8Ls3



AND IN KEEPING WITH ALWAYS
HAVING AN ANIMAL IN THE POST?

COME JOIN US AND BEAT THE HEAT

Guest Blogger: Steven DeLuca & Roxy

Last week I got the notification for the June 2nd Cancer walk. I have done walks and runs starting out more than 25 years ago. (The) first time I was back from partying in San Francisco and my kids mom said "We are signed up for a run tomorrow to raise money for cancer."  She went 12 miles. I did 20. Bad for me was the travel and partying; good for me was running a marathon a month or two earlier. 

Anyway, I realized when I got that notification that a month or two ago I was technically a survivor which means I've made it five years. That doesn't mean it won't kill me in the sixth. And then today I got an envelope from the Veteran's Hospital with three little packets plus three pieces of wood like Popsicle sticks (Hate to say it but, you have to add another  'o' to the word Popsicle to know what they were really for.  (I was once shy about such things but by the time you get cancer and deal with the issues, well... you get over it.)

So, I get this packet and I ask myself WHY out of the blue are they sending this and I call and a guy, that is a clerk, can't tell me specifically but it has to do with blood tests I took a week or two ago.  Oh sh*t, I think but I don't say that because I don't talk that way, but I did want to know why they would send me that envelop, related to those tests, when I hadn't gotten the test results or an explanation. "I am not in a position of authority to discuss this with you," the clerk said, "but you should have received the test results first. I will have the doctor or the nurse call you ."

The last time that sort of thing happened they said, "Any hoo, it's malignant." Not really. They don't talk that way, but a cartoon I have in my cancer file has a patient on a table hearing it that way from his doctor. Maybe you have to be a New Yorker magazine reader to find that real funny, but I thought it a little funny.

So, my next thought, was sh*t. They want to see if there is blood in my "stool" a silly word for poo, don't you think? And what, pray tell, did they find in my last blood tests that are now making me wonder if, after 25 years of raising money for cancer, long ago and lately, will this be my last cancer march "to find a cure?"

The nurse called, "You have anemia, a little low, we just want to make sure." Well, it's been a little low for five years, so there. But I thought of my friend up the road, fifth time with Chemo, and a friend's son who recently died, and all the others I have known.

So, I am asking YOU, and if you do or don't, I have no emotional attachment to the results. I do know that some of you have your own causes and your own cancer organizations, but I'm asking that IF you have been skipping donating to causes lately, or for awhile, or feel moved to donate, I don't want to commit to X number of miles and then track you down... if you want to give, send a check to:

Cancer Resource Center of Mendocino County P.O. Box 50 Mendocino CA 95460



Roxy DeLuca



Say you are sponsoring Roxy DeLuca, Steven DeLuca's service dog. (I'm not sure if she gets
double credit for four legs or not, or triple credit for all the short little strides.) There is a prize for the person who raises the most. It's never me. But for her second year walking, or kayaking, I want her to be the only animal that raises some money for the Cancer Resource Center (the only one in the group that needs a "poo" bag by the way. Well, the only one that you would see, I'm sure some of the cancer walkers have their own.) Cancer really has hardly any benefits besides making you pay attention to what is valuable in life and ... well, we really do need to find a cure and your five dollars or whatever you want to send will help. For you, for your future great grand children. Thanks.
Steven DeLuca

http://www.crcmendocino.org/brrun/default.html



Roxy & Steven on the front page of the local paper last year.  "It was windy, rainy, she and I had heavy jackets on."



While we are on the subject of Great horned owls: Hamlet on her eggs by Ronnie James

Hamlet on her eggs threatening Ronnie 4/8/2012   Woodlands Wildlife is a small wildlife rehab facility specializing in birds, and is the home of Hamlet, a permanently disabled Great horned owl. This time of year Hamlet is busy responding to hormones stimulated by the changing length of days and nights. On January 14, the wild Great horned owls started coming up from the canyon to hoot and holler over Hamlet’s cage. They are trying to establish their territory and chase the caged interloper out of it. Hamlet just hoots back—telling the wild ones the same thing. They argue back and forth like that all afternoon and evening, then again toward dawn.  Despite having been misidentified by a veterinarian 25 years go, Hamlet is a large female Great horned owl with a paralyzed wing and foot. By February 21st she had built a nest in her cage and gotten more aggressive towards me. Though she has adequate nesting material and many places higher up, she always chooses to excavate a shallow depression in a corner of the gravel on the floor of her cage. Eventually 3 eggs appear. They are about the size of large chicken eggs, and she sits tightly on them. She has no mate, so the eggs are sterile—like all animals, including humans, owls produce eggs because their hormones tell them to. Official guidelines tell me to remove the eggs so she will stop being aggressive and get on with her life, but she's so content sitting on them. She coos and clucks softly to them, and defends them fiercely, so I let her keep them.  In nature her mate would bring her food while she tends the nest, but since she has no male to feed her, the job falls to me. I defrost several mice, warm them, and make the trip to her cage where a tricky little dance ensues as I try to keep my fingers out of her lunging beak. Hamlet will sit on the sterile eggs for 60 days, then her hormones will change and she’ll suddenly abandon the nest, not recognizing the eggs she defended so fiercely just the day before. It’s a great sadness to me to see this proud, handsome bird living alone in a cage. I wonder continuously if I have done her a favor by saving her life and giving her a home, but no answers present themselves.  You can read about Hamlet, Honey Bear, Jacob Otter, Rosie O’Coon and learn how we do wildlife rescue and rehab in our book, Touching Wings, Touching Wild available at our web site:   http://www.touchingwings.org/  Written for adults, it is also appropriate for young readers age 9 and up.   Ronnie James, Director Woodlands Wildlife

For more information on Great horned owls visit

http://www.owlpages.com/owls.php?genus=Bubo&species=virginianus