KIN FOLK AT THE DESERTED CABIN
Like
I said before, my name is US Grant I’m a banana squash. When I first began to
understand crow language correctly, there was an incident that happened across
the street in a log house that sits on the rise just above the Weber River in
Weber County, Ogden, Utah. The log house
has been empty ever since a neighbor the owner on his way to a job interview,
shut the door, closed the curtains. As best I remember, it has a plank roof,
nothing between the plank roof and a dirt floor. Just one room no more, and big
red Army Ants inside and out. A hand tip to remember is if they see you tuck in
your pant legs, because they will start streaming across the room toward you.
You know trouble is afoot on many, many feet actually. You know this partly
because seconds after stepping into the room you’ll likely see a raiding column
of female ants on the hunt for prey. Trailing behind are the male inceptions.
Clearly this is not going to have a happy ending. Army Ants are predatory ants,
fast numerous, and they are living a purpose driven life, the purpose being to
kill. Sure enough within a few minutes hundreds of termites bite the dust. Next
up on the ants list for this particular day is Soybean Aphids, chiggers, ticks
most anything will do. Protection against these ants is absolutely necessary or
you end up a color plate in the textbook of dermatology. At all hours you can
step into a swarm of the Red Army ants boiling out across the floor and even
underneath the floor in the Nazis style goose-step march. A tomato horn worm is
a large green caterpillar that if it hadn’t been eaten from the inside out,
would have grown up to be a Carolina sphinx moth.
Inside the dour room, there is often to be
seen a spotted ant bird staring at the dirt floor. Step back out of the swarm, and start looking
for the characteristic flitting and popping of the thrush-size Ant Bird, listen
for its vibrato peeee-ti peewee, because whenever there are big red army ants
out on a hunting raid, puckish Ant Birds are sure to follow, they have camera eyes that are good for spotting insects and eating them thus making orphans of their children thereafter
never seen in church.
Ant Birds skim off a percentage of the ant’s labor by snatching up grasshoppers,
beetles, and other leftovers of the predatory red ants. It’s the reversal of
the commonly held notion of parasites being little tacky things that plague
large poorly dressed hosts. Here the big vertebrates are being killed off by
insects a fraction of their size. And
the parasitic strategy is so irresistible that according to research in the Bug
Journal the Spotted Ant Bird antics, may be taking it professionally all the
way to the Hall Of Fame. Whereas the species has traditionally opted for a
mixed approach, filching from ant swarms and also finding food on its own. It
is increasingly dependent on army ants to scare up it’s every meal.
Life in a gutter thrives in less than pristine
urban water, including the Hornworm, which is exactly what it sounds like. In
the entry way a horrifying number of parasitic wasp larvae, tiny translucent
wormy things can be seen tunneling through the skin of their host,
Man,
this is really a weird gig; weirder still is the fact that the gig isn’t even a
live action movie but rather animated reality. No music is necessary for all of
this to ruin your lunch but the cheery Latin Brass and Drums Rancheros music
does somewhat enhance the pageantry of the parasitic Army Ant infestation.
If you
stumbled upon this cabin site by mistake, of course, the availability of an
exterminator might be comforting. The Ace Exterminator Company does promise
same day service. You might hire the exterminator to take out the Armadillos.
Armadillos transmit the pathogen Mycobacterium leprous.
From the
beginning the cabin has had quirks, like an outhouse, a three setter with a
mini hole for a child, and a knot hole in the center of the roof where you
could dangle a hand down in it and scare the heck out of guests.
Well, one fine
Sunday day morning I was out sun’in in my yard with Cry Baby my cat. I named her
after my X. I was taken’ in the sun, looking at the beautiful orange colored
Wasatch Mountains, listening to the quakes rustling leaves, a few blue hazy
clouds hanging above the mountains, and thinking of my childhood home yonder in
Denver, when suddenly a crow name is Doug Allen came flying by out of the blue.
He lit on the roof of the abandoned house and says to me,
"Hello,
U.S. I reckon I've struck something."
As he spoke, a
walnut dropped out of his mouth and rolled down the roof, but he didn't seem to
care, his eyes were glued on that knot-hole in the middle of the roof. Soon He
cocked his head to one side, shut one eye and put the other to the hole looking
like a cross-eyed raccoon peeking down a chimney. Then he glanced up with
bright eyes, gave a wink or two and gave his wings a little flutter which means
satisfaction in crow language. Then he says,
"It looks
like a knot-hole, it lies like a knot- it must be a knot hole."
Then he cocked
his head down and took another gander, and then he glances up, perfectly
joyful. He walks around the knot-hole three times to the left one eye on the
hole, then flapped his wings, glided down to the ground picked up the walnut
and hurried back then dropped the walnut in. All of a sudden he was paralyzed
into a listening countenance, and the queerest look of surprise took his face.
"Why, I
didn't hear that walnut hit the floor."
He cocked his
eye again at the hole and took another look, while scratching the back of his
head with his right foot. Then he says,
"Well, it's
too much for me, that's for sure...must be a might long way down. However I
haven't got time to waste, I'll go fetch another walnut so as to see what's
what."
Again he
dropped a walnut in and tried to flirt his eye to the hole quick enough to see
what become of it, but once more he was too late. He held his eye there as much
as five minutes, then raised up and sighted at the sky again, and says,
"Darn, I don't
seem to understand this thing no how, but, I'll try her again. “
He fetched
another walnut, and did his level best to see what become of it, but he
couldn't.
"Well I
never seen a hole like this one, must be a new kind.
About this
time his feelings began to get the best of him, and he broke loose cussing and stomp
‘in about on the rim of the roof. When he finally settles down and near had
control of himself, he walks up to the hole and peers in again for a minute or
two.
“Why, I know how
to take care of this little problem.You're a long hole, a deep hole, a
singular hole all together. I've started in to fill you and I'll be dammed if I
don’t fill yu even if it takes a hundred years."
With that said,
away he went for more walnuts. You never seen a bird work like that. He laid
into it like an illegal Mexican with a family to support back home. He throwed
walnuts in that hole for four whole hours or more never even stopped for lunch
or took a break. He'd just hove'em in and go for more.
At last, he couldn't flop his wings. He was
all tuckered out. He slid off the roof on his back, exhausted, falling to the
ground, sweating like a sun-burnt midget in the out-back. To top it off was
sitting on a medusa head pad. It is a spiky, grass like plant inedible for livestock
and wildlife. it’s all over the place and causing big problems, its getting
terrible, crowding out native grasses and grazing land. To help reduce the
spread controlled burning, and grazing during the annual weed’s early life
helps slow its spread,a losing battle all over the West, I would say.
Doug still
sitting on the medusa head pad barely had enough strength to lean back against
the log house. Then he mumbles, "I'm going to need some help."
Just then
another crow was going by, Stan Jacobson. He noticed Doug lying there half
conscious. Stan hurried a landing and asked if he needed a doctor. The suffered
told the whole circumstance.
"There
yonders the hole. If you don't believe me go look you yourself."
So Stan flew up
and took a look, then comes back and asks,
"How many
did you say you put in there, Doug?"
"Not less
than two ton."
Stan went and
looked again. He couldn't make it out either so he gave a few loud caws and
five crows came. They all stood around in a circle list nun while Doug told the
whole story. Then all the crows discussed it Roberts Rules of Order like, and
each one got off as many knuckleheaded inconsistent opinions as incumbents do.
A motion on the floor to accept the majority vote was made by Bill Arnold, and
seconded by Glen Anderson. The majority vote decided to caw in more crows to
gather walnuts.
Soon the whole sky was black. There must have been 10,000
crows brawling, jawin, disputin, cussin, and making my place a poopy mess. For
two whole days they dropped walnuts in the knot hole trying to fill it, but had
no success.
At last one old
wise crow by the name of John Stone started snooping around. The door was
standing a crack open caused by all those walnuts inside. As he happened to
light on the rusty door knob he took a look in. Of course, that solved the
sixty4-four dollar question right then and there.
“Come here,”
John says, “Come here everybody."
They all come
swooping down, and as each lit around the door, they took a glance at the
half-filled room of walnuts and army ants. The whole absurdity hit home. John
fell over backward almost suffocating with laughter and the lady crow next to
him. There's no sense in saying a crow doesn’t have a sense of humor, or crows
aren't on an equal to squash, except they have feathers and don't go to church.
Two days
later, while everyone was still fun ‘in, down the street came a neighborhood
butter cup squash Nosey Mary who lives in Dirt City just a few blocks up the
road, as does other critters. Nosy Mary
took a look inside and said, "This isn't funny."
Bye and bye all
the crows agreed, and one by one flew back to Mountain Home or from whence they
came.
Bye and Bye Rattlesnake
Jake nick named Rango a topnotch citizen from dirt city just up the road, comes
by. He offers free services at the Western Bands Showdowns, investigates
corrupt mayors, and helps prevent water shortages. When he lived in Portland
Organ a few years back,, they had no fluoridated water. Portland earned the
distinction as being the biggest city in the country to just say no. Many
Portlanders treasure their city’s quirky distinctiveness; others said it had
some of the worst tooth-decay problems in the nation. Thanks to Rango’s Portland
is florided. It was long overdue.
This is not
an issue for the faint of heart Rango told Randy Leonard, the public safety commissioner,
we have some business to make up from the 20th century. The politics of fluoride have always been
complicated. In some places opponents saw Communist plots. Opponents said the
science on fluoride, despite more than half a social policy and health policy
melded as residents and elected official debated whether the liberal social
goals that the city had become famous for, sometimes to parody. Fluoridation is
to be put into effect in about 3 months, which could make a public ballot
challenge difficult.
The
commissioner of public utilities, Amanda Fritz, a former nurse, said,
“Some complaints about the council’s work on
the issue are valid, including those of neighboring communities that said they
were not consulted. The way we get there does matter, but she added that
everything in her background as a nurse and mother combined with what she had
learned in preparing for the vote, convinced her that fluoridation was the
right course. Boosting the level to around 0.7parts per million, has been found
by numerous studies to help protect teeth from cavities. The Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention has called the introduction of fluoride in
municipal drinking water after World War II one of the 10 greatest achievements
in public health of the 20th century, up there with vaccination and motor
vehicle safety improvements some audience members held signs on their laps for
the cameras, in vigils of mute protest. “Public water public vote!”
DR.KARL WALLACE D.D.S.
DR.KARL WALLACE D.D.S.
