The Hapless Homemaker Strikes Again

 I started at the other end of the house and moved toward the living room.  That explains why my work table is overcrowded.  I also don't yet know where I'm going to stuff the sewing machines so they'll be invisible yet readily available.  Also, see those papers?  They needed attention, which would have interrupted the flow of cleanliness from end of the house to the other.

 This corner is behind the table you saw.  The box is filled with 4 x 6 cardboards cut from cereal boxes, to be used for mail art.  The three pictures are ones I made; the top one is an impressionistic view of Beargrass Creek; the second is a friendly sight for tired eyes; and the third I didn't so much make as cut up a woven pocketbook ten years ago and frame part of it.  The woman with the chicken on her head?  I found her in Philadelphia 20 years ago, and the lamp was beside the dumpster a few weeks ago, lightbulb included.

 I also cut all of the little tabs from the cereal boxes -- the ones used to establish the colors.  Some boxes have, on the inside strip that's glued in place to hold the box together, blocks of color down the strips.  I had a handful of them, and they wouldn't fit in the box with the tabs, so I looked around and found the vase with bow as well as some ivy I'd happened upon recently.  Surprising how nice the colors are, yes?  The tiny yellow box to the right is a clicker that makes Laramie stop what she's doing and find something better to do.

 My sweet little turkey with the sweet little mums, the centerpiece for our table on Thanksgiving.

I told you the kitchen was clean,and I meant it.  That blue thing is the top of the dog's water bottle, and the yellow things are the rubber gloves I'm required to wear and the mess in the far corner is the coffeepot, sugar bowl, two bags of coffee, and a jar of no-calcium Cremora to use each morning until the thyroid pill is absorbed in my system.  (Calcium negates its effect, as does iron.)  That's the tidiest my kitchen counters have been since I left South Carolina.

Varmint Watch

 This is a not-to-scale drawing of the trees in our neighborhood all summer long.  The orange lumps are bad-tempered squirrels.  Those little scumbags would cheep and click at the dogs every time they saw one. Yes, I know it's a mystic spiritual animal communication system; but I also know there aren't enough predators in my neighborhood for the number of varmints.
 
Therefore, this weekend there was a huge squirrel roundup, with professional critter wranglers stalking the grounds and roofs, installing cages and gathering up hundreds of squirrels, as well as assorted possums and chipmunks, all of which had taken to traveling in packs and shouting insults at the community dogs. We believe they all now live on a beautiful farm out in the country.  I'm cheering for the feral cats' side.

I can't believe I went to all the trouble of creating an authentic and also realistic drawing (except for the squirrels being orange).  One day you're blogging and the next day you're putting yourself out for other people who aren't visual enough to catch images on their own.

What I won at the Kentucky State Fair

The distant view of my photo with the green Honorable Mention tag.  It's second up from the bottom on the left and shows up not at all in a pile of other photos.

Now you can see more clearly that it's a brand new grocery cart lying on its side in a creek -- Beargrass Creek in Louisville, where I've been taking photos for several years now, many of which feature trash.  No photo-sopping was involved with this photo, so it must have been the time of day making the creek appear so blue, because I've never seen it that color.

I've been saying that I've never won a ribbon before, but I don't know if that's accurate.  I've had two pieces of art, both collages, both textile, win prizes in competitions.  The first was in an art show at the Duke University Divinity School, where I think I won third prize; and the other was in the annual Spartanburg Sidewalk Art Sale, where art is hung on the gates surrounding Converse College.  That time I won second place and also a check -- I think it was 2001.  But did I get ribbons, and if so where are they now?

I suppose I'll have to clean out the file cabinets to learn the answer.

Louisville Flood -- Bowling Boulevard

The same duck who took on the raccoon in earlier photos, with her ducklings safe.

Ordinarily, we walk over this bridge.

Occasionally, Koko and I walk under this bridge on the way to Brown Park -- without getting our feet wet.

It's never just the water in a flood. It's the amount, the speed at which it's moving, and the garbage, earth, and other matter it carries with it.

Louisville Flood

Draut Park / Beargrass Creek on Tuesday afternoon

Mama Duck Defends Her Ducklings from Nefarious Raccoon

My compadre and I went out walking with the camera Tuesday, after Louisville got 6.5 inches of rain between 8:00 and 9:15. Water, water, everywhere creates problems for wildlife. We noted the duck with her ducklings-- then spotted the raccoon -- he made his move to grab a duckling -- the duck responded with much quacking and flapping and fluttering -- ducklings disappeared into Beargrass Creek -- Raccoon finally veered off into the weeds.

Plastic bags gone wrong

Click on the photo to see how the squirrels near Beargrass Creek used plastic bags in constructing their nests. One of the reasons plastic bags cause such damage is that they're light and fly on the wind into the trees, where animals who never need to carry things home from the grocery store then use them in new ways.

Click the photo for a close-up so you can see more clearly.

Beaver in one of the Harbourfront Gardens

Beaver in one of the Harbourfront Gardens
Originally uploaded by elPadawan

Here's a photo that gives you an idea of the beaver's size. As I said, they're big animals, thick verging on square. Nothing cute about these guys.

Thanks to elPadawan from Canada on flickr.com for allowing this photo to be blogged.

Beaver

Beaver 1
Originally uploaded by annkelliott

And here's a photo of a beaver in Canada. It looks just like the ones we have in America. (Actually, I've only seen beavers from a great distance, and they're larger than you might suppose. They're at least twice as big as possums and solid, the way a cow is solid.

The photographer says in the accompanying text that the beaver population in Canada was nearly wiped out in the 1930s (I'm guessing they were being trapped for their fur) but they've been restored because of conservation efforts. She happened upon this one while walking in a local park.

Busy as beavers on Beargrass Creek

The beavers are back in the part of Beargrass Creek that runs through Draut Park in St. Matthews.
I think the tree was supposed to topple over at this point. The beavers weren't counting on the surrounding trees foiling their plan.
So far I haven't seen the beavers, just the evidence of their presence. It's just as well; I hear they're mean if they feel threatened and also that they have strong teeth. Well. I guess that second part is obvious.
And here is the dam that their hard work has created.
And a close-up of the waterfall.

You do understand that we live in a city; that everything around us is built up; and that this is the same creek about which I do the sewage-in-the-water posts? I am often amazed at the intersection of humans and nature.

Or nature and nature, for that matter. I've had an email from my dad today in which he said there are no birds on the island, that they throw out bread for them to eat (as they have done in the winter for years) and the bread just lays there in the driveway for days. They also saw no raccoon kittens around this fall. The culprit? Most likely the bald eagles that nest on the island.

Stormy weather

Benjamin Franklin, Craftsman
Originally uploaded by kerrins_giraffe
I came across this photo of the young Ben Franklin at his printing press in a flickr.com search. Be sure to click on the link so you can see kerrins_giraffe's other photos.
Ben came to mind because it's raining this morning. On the horizon are the freezing rain and ice storms that have already hit the middle of the nation. The quantities of pollution in the Ohio River and our creeks and streams will increase all week, and it will be four days after the rain/snow/ice ends before the water is again safe.

The severity of the CSO problem across the country sent me searching out a quotation this morning. I thought it came from Nathan Hale but it was the charming Ben Franklin who said, on the occasion of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, "we must all hang together, gentlemen, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

A similar situation faces us with the out-of-code and/or now-antiquated infrastructure. As long as we prefer to drive on paved roads rather than dirt and to have sewage taken away through pipes rather than floating down the creeks we walk beside, then we must be willing to pay for their improvements.

It's easy to whine about the prospect of taxes going up. Personally, though, I'm willing to pay -- oh, let's say double what I'm paying now in taxes to keep the effluvium off my shoes, my floors, my dog, my grandchildren...

With our infrastructure problems, either we'll all hang together or we'll all be hung out to dry separately.

Fauna tracks II

More fauna tracks at Beargrass Creek Preserve Park in St. Matthews, Kentucky.

These photos were taken in November, 2007. Yes, those are shopping carts -- two of them at different locations in the creek -- and yes, that is a shoe floating upside down in the murky water.

Autumn sights at Beargrass Creek

These pictures are from November, 2007.

Beargrass Creek in November

The rain in November changed the look of Beargrass Creek Preserve Park in St. Matthews, Kentucky. Visit earlier posts to see the park during the drought.

Fauna tracks

Photos from St. Matthew Beargrass Creek Preserve Park taken in August and September -- the tracks assorted fauna leave behind.