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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (69767)	1/5/2009 6:19:27 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

September was bad for us - we lost our sheep to a pack of roving, quasi-feral dogs. Our old Australian Heeler, Birkenstalker, is becoming quite the senior dog, and after our ovine apocalypse he was retired to a pampered life of lounging around the house by day and sleeping in the laundry room (a dog in the same house as me ... who says marriage isn't about compromise!?) during the dark hours. The Other with whom I share this household then went and got a new, large, impressive dog from our local shelter ... some sort of mastiff-y beast of a bitch whom we now call Sara. (My tentative suggestion to name her "Life" got rather negative family reviews.) However, Sara has this dee-luxe doggie palazzo made of chain link, hay bales and tarps, completely proof against inclement weather, canine commandos and anything up to a softpoint .308, I'd wager. This means that the paddock is unpatrolled at night for now. We made an effort to humanely trap one or more of the killer dogs, but all we did trap was a forlorn-looking fox. She was so put out at having been outfoxed by an assembly of rusty wire that she didn't even help herself to any of the two pounds of pretty nice flank steak hung over the trip plate. I snapped a coupla pix of Mme. Renarde (French for fox) and set her free. A month later, I had occasion to sit on our porch at two-something in the morning. It was a night free of cloud or moon, and I liked to sit in our rusting Ab Chair (exercise? Lol! But it makes a great binocular astronomy platform.) with the Big Guns - a pair of 20x90 binos; everybody says that these are way too big to use handheld, but I do just fine, thank you. The Ab Chair adjusts wonderfully in azimuth and elevation, and it allows me to positively brace my elbows - which takes nearly all the residual shake and shimmy out of the sight picture. This is very good for hunting the elusive Big Game of the deep sky: objects with low surface brighness, notably galaxies. In any case, I was startled half out of the Ab Chair and a deep meditation upon NGC 185 because there came a strange sound from way too close - inside the hundred-yard line and no doubt aboubt it. This somewhat unearthly vocalization was a loud hoarse coughing bark. It sounded kinda sorta like a big dog with a bone in his throat - or perhaps some monster cat working out a hairball the size of a truck tire. (Our corner of Rednekistan does host a durable legend, with downright lyrical visual-contact reports, of a cat the size of a full-size domestic pickup, two-wheel drive variety.) Three mighty horking barks, then silence for two minutes. Then three more saurian coughs from another corner of our back forty. The fox was back, and it was enjoying the new territory with freshly-repaired fences. But until I pegged that sound as fox-fer-shur, I very quietly freaked. Then I lay down the binos, stood at the railing (for improved binaural direction and range estimation) and enjoyed Mme. Renarde providing me a virtual map of the property using active sonar. The weather is bad now - freezing, high clouds andor fog, nice weather coinciding with a full moon, rendering stargazing a non-option. Last night, I was delayed in being allowed to sleep because two owls settled into the oaks within a hundred yards of my bedroom window and told an endless series of "Knock, knock" jokes to each other. cheers all, js

To: KLP who wrote (69767)	1/6/2009 6:30:40 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

We have all sorts of wild animals in the woods around here. This winter, I sighted deer in my front yard twice, once a six point buck, once three does, and also two does in the middle of the road. We also have owls in the woods, the ones who go "hoo-hoo-hoo-hoooooo." I am fairly certain I saw a coyote walking down the nearest big road very late at night a couple of years ago but apparently just passing through. Mind you, this is in a county with over a million residents. The local governments take the Clean Water Act seriously so all stream beds are parks, and since they connect, the animals have protected corridors to migrate.