2009 April Archive at Beside the Stream

Archive for April, 2009

A Market Update

Published by Alice on April 29, 2009 in market. 3 Comments

We got in the first shipment of non-perishables, and have started stocking the store. We planned the layout before everything arrived, and have adjusted it since then.

We’ve had these two ladies working since Monday, stocking and arranging. Shelley on the left was supposed to take a two week trip to Mexico today, but the Swine Flu intervened. (I’m sorry for her that she couldn’t go, and glad for me that she has to stay.) They’re both old pros at grocery work.

The coffee section is almost done–I have to get some low profile pulls for the drawers, but it’s otherwise complete.

I spent $500 on trays and baskets for the produce cooler–yeeks! I normally get much more of a kick out of that much money. See the wood stands? One was here, our carpenter Michael fabricated the other, and now I have to trick them out for produce display.

Someone recently asked me how it was going, and I said: It’s horrible. It’s really hard, and we haven’t had a break in months. She was taken aback, and sorry that she asked.

Note to self: Don’t Complain, or, I’ve seen a hard life, and this ain’t it.

PS. Tomorrow–three days after they start eating–the chick’s bottoms have to be attended to (we can look forward to that together) (or not).

A baby Bactrian camel

Published by Alice on April 28, 2009 in Colorado women. 4 Comments

I brought my camera and tripod to Dolores, hoping to get a shot of the Bactrian camel. This time the gate was open, and a woman was playing with a baby camel in the back yard. I asked if I could come take some pictures, and she said yes.

He’s Xander, short for Alexander. He’s 2 weeks old, and he’s motherless. He’s a bottle baby, and Susie has been feeding him every two hours at the start, and now every three.

His Mom died during the birth. He was a big baby, and she had a prolapsed uterus. The vet came, cut an artery by mistake, and the mother bled to death.

All this poor motherless camel wants to do is nuzzle. Here they’re posing for a portrait, but little Xander just wants to suck on Susie’s hair and shirt.

He’s at least 100 pounds and just a baby too.

He wants his mother so badly you can feel it, and Susie is doing her best and more.

And that’s not all. You can’t have two male Bactrian camels in the same place, so she gave the father away to a couple in Ridgeway who have a female Bactrian… plus the couple were both vets. While I was making up my produce order with the produce manager in the Dolores market, that old camel (who I’ve admired for years) left forever,

leaving this beautiful creature behind. I rubbed his humps and his neck, pulled out some tufts of camel hair, but all he wanted was Susie.

And as a parting shot we have the rare sight of little Xander scratching his front hump on the rear view mirror (what a wonderful world).

26 chicks arrived!

Published by Alice on April 27, 2009 in birds. 4 Comments

The chicks arrived this morning. I got the call from the Post Office at 6:40 AM, and went to pick them up directly.

The box is so flimsy it looks as though the truck driver carried it on his lap, and it is steadily peeping. They must have been cold, because when I put their box on the heated seat for the ride home, they ratchet up to a peeping racket.

I ordered 25 chicks, and they sent 26 of my order, and one surprise chick. The surprise chick was dead (surprise!) and I had to check the receipt to find out which type of chickens I ordered: they’re Brown leghorns with rose combs.

As chicks, they don’t look anything like their adult incarnation. I got a mixed run, where the males and females aren’t sorted so I don’t know how many of each I have. The hens lay white eggs, so if I fall in love with the females I can keep them for eggs. May be.

The chicks are striped like little chipmunks, and they are very busy. They’re in a little paddling pool with wood chips on the bottom, and I put their chick mix on newspaper so they can find it easily (they’re a little baby-ish for the feeder just yet). Their drinking water has a little sugar in it, and an electrolyte additive that came in the box. They’re regular chow hounds, and are drinking up a storm.

According to the Murray McMurray catalogue, the brown leghorn’s ”dark color and quick actions … make for a good range bird where there is danger of predators. They are real hustlers, range far, and look out for themselves very well.”

They hatched on Friday afternoon, and this Monday morning they had their first food and water. They’re all having a ball, and I think that box of Murray McMurray’s Hatchery chicks is the best package ever.

Because right now, of the 28 lives in my office (me, Jessie and the chicks), 26 are brand-y new.

Now that’s Spring.

Visiting a really big nursery

Published by Alice on April 26, 2009 in gardening. 3 Comments

I think Manning’s (down in New Mexico) has eight greenhouses, and they’re each really large. They supply all of the garden centers for the region, and since I tag along on a friend’s wholesale account, plants are shockingly inexpensive.

A big fat geranium? $3.12.

Super deluxe hanging baskets, with bunches of flowers growing through a moss-covered frame… the kind you can’t ever afford? $11.50!

This is an oddly specialized machine, built to fill little pots with planting soil.

These are the ladies who transplant,

and these are the smallest size starts, which get transplanted up and up

until you have tables of blooming Gerbera, each with their own water line.

At wholesale prices, you could fill your car for an insignificant amount of money, but it’s a tough economy these days. I went down to set up a commercial account for the grocery store… so they wouldn’t let me use my friend’s discount, so I paid $91 instead of $45.50 for a carful. Meanwhile, it’s too cold up here for these greenhouse plants to be outside, so they’re in the back hall for a few weeks,

beautiful as can be.

Two Mallards and a Great Blue Heron

Published by Alice on April 24, 2009 in birds. 2 Comments

I stopped by a pond where a great blue heron was standing and a pair of mallards were swimming. Nothing happened for five minutes or more, and then another pair of mallards came honking by and the male took off.

There is one great blue heron left of the tree trunk, a male mallard taking off from the water and a female swimming on the right.

With a couple of strong beats, he

circles around to clear the underbrush

and leaves.

Jessie enjoyed her first swim of the season, and looks forward to helping get a better heron picture another time.

A Black Widow Spider and a parable

Published by Alice on April 22, 2009 in insects. 8 Comments

I got back from Washington late, and there was a big black widow spider walking across the kitchen floor. It’s a female–the males are much smaller–so I put her in a bottle to photograph later.

The next morning I took her outside and let her crawl onto a rock, but she moved so fast that I thought I’d better photograph her inside so I could catch her when she ran away.

She’s shiny black with a high round body, and she’s kicking up her heels to get out of that jar.

Here she’s running over the carpet in front of the door. (embarrassingly dirty carpet) (how odd that Bob and Sam didn’t vacuum!) (not). Black widows live around here, and spin cobwebby nests that are very creepy. They’re fast and surprisingly dangerous. “The black widow spider produces a neurotoxic protein that is one of the most potent venoms known. … Local pain may be followed by localized or generalized severe muscle cramps, abdominal pain, weakness, and tremors. Large muscle groups (such as shoulder or back) are often affected, resulting in considerable pain. In severe cases, nausea, vomiting, fainting, dizziness, chest pain, and respiratory difficulties may follow.” References note that deaths are rare, and usually restricted to kids and the elderly.

I intend to kill this spider–she’s too dangerous to have around–but I can’t get a photo of her hourglass unless I drug her.

I use ammonia fumes to knock her out. This slows her up quite a bit but I still can’t get to her to lie on her back: she keeps flipping herself over. I grab her back leg with a medical clip and pin her down.

At this point she has been gassed and lost the last segment of her rear hind leg.

What a mean thing to do to a spider.

Gagging on ammonia fumes and tortured, I put a penny next to her to see exactly how big she was.

The females are supposed to be 1/2″ to 1″ across (including legs), and this girl is nearly 1 1/4″. She’s dusty now, and can’t run away any more… but she’s dragging herself off to the garden.

So I kill her.

{I’m not a bad person; I just did a bad thing}
or,
{If I do it, it’s not torture}.

Alernate Title: Flirting with moral bankruptcy in less than 20 minutes.

Another famous non-Native Indian, and a fake speech

Published by Alice on April 20, 2009 in beaver. 4 Comments

Here is the photo I posted a few weeks ago of a Scots-born Indian who took the name Grey Owl;

he was one of Canada’s first conservationalists.

An Italian-American who said he was an Indian starred in one of the most successful public service announcements ever.

Remember the crying Indian television ad that was first broadcast in 1971? “People start pollution,” the voiceover intones. ” People can stop it.” Iron Eyes Cody wasn’t originally an Indian any more than Grey Owl was. Born Espera de Corti to Sicilian immigrants, some of his earliest acting credits listed him as Tony de Corti. He soon changed his name and claimed to be part Cherokee and part Cree; he rarely went out in public without his fringed buckskin jacket, beaded moccasins and wig.

Given the tradition of spaghetti westerns, it’s no surprise that some of the Indians on television were Italian. But this final bit of fakery is a big disappointment to me. You know Chief Seattle’s beautiful speech about land from 1854? It’s quite long, but an oft-repeated clip goes:

“The earth does not belong to us; we belong to the earth. All things are connected, like the blood which unites one family. Mankind did not weave the web of life. We are but one strand within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.”

Chief Seattle did make a speech to his people in 1854, but it was in the Salish dialect and the only English record of this speech was a recollection published in 1888. The speech we know as Chief Seattle’s–and the basis of the 1991 best-selling children’s book Brother Eagle, Sister Sky: A Message from Chief Seattle–was a speech written by a screenwriter in 1971. It’s by Ted Perry, who was the screenwriter for a 1972 film about ecology called <Home>. I think that’s a big boo hoo; I really do.

Elk in the Spring

Published by Alice on April 19, 2009 in elk herd. 1 Comment

There was a herd of elk by the road. They were lounging around for quite a while, so I went home and got my camera and tripod.

I wish they weren’t so afraid of me, but all they do is run away.

They ran and ran,

and I kept following them (which they don’t like).

There was only one male still carrying a rack; everyone else had dropped theirs.

Sorry for wasting your calories by making you run, Glad you made it through the winter, and Good Luck birthing those calves.

Winter again.

Published by Alice on April 16, 2009 in snow storm. 2 Comments

Yesterday was Spring, but today we have lots of Winter.

Been there. Done that.

Where do the butterflies go when it snows?

These regular blankets of snow make for a long Spring and it’s nice to have the moisture,

but I think it’s fair to say that some of us enjoy the snow a whole lot more

than others.

A lion in the neighborhood

Published by Alice on April 15, 2009 in what they eat. 7 Comments

These photos were taken on April 5

by Rick Hagar, who was hiking in the woods behind me on a familiar trail.

The rule for mountain lions is to make yourself big so the lion doesn’t see you as prey. That’s what Rick did.

The lion was around for about 10 minutes. If Rick had bolted, he would have been dinner. He said this cat was really big.

Trust a man to hike alone. I rarely hike without a friend, and I never go out without a dog. Jessie might not work very hard, but if there was a lion around he would definitely have to eat her first (I should be more respectful).

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