ospreys – The Hermits' Rest

You Can’t Un-Invent War

If you could un-invent something, what would it be?

I saw this question and said, well, this is like going back in time and changing one thing, only to realize the consequences are horrible. Like the butterfly effect?

I first thought I’d un-invent guns. Then I thought that would be too complicated. What about hunting for food? But there are other ways to hunt. I don’t know. Maybe just un-invent automatic weapons and weapons of mass destruction.

Then I mused, well, we wouldn’t need those horrible things if there were no wars. If people lived together peacefully we’d not be fighting all the time.

We could just look at pretty horses. Ahh. I love watching Drew.

But people fight. It’s part of being human. And so much of civilization arose because of conflicts between groups of people. They lead to innovations, migrations, and of course heterozygous vigor. Maybe we’d be a very different species if it weren’t for these tendencies to want to eliminate “the other.” We aren’t alone. Other mammals, birds, insects, etc., do it.

People fight, and horses get annoyed. Drew is not pleased at how much work Tarrin made him do.

So. Screw it. I wouldn’t be able to make war not exist. And if our current weapons went away, we’d have something worse, or just go around poisoning each other. We may do that anyway, clever humans as we are.

I don’t like humans as a concept, I’m afraid. Or in real life, as a whole. I do like the urge to be kind, help each other, and create communities, which I hope is as strong as the urge to eliminate people unlike ourselves. We will see, maybe sooner rather than later.

My apologies that the blogs haven’t been very interesting this week. I’m lacking in writing inspiration. Tomorrow will be more interesting, I’m sure.

Drew had a hard afternoon. He was really scared by construction noise by the tack room when I tried to groom him. I ended up taking him to lessons early so he could relax a bit. It worked. He was only a little squirrelly for me, and Tarrin helped him stretch.

Daily Birds

It was a glorious and beautiful day today. Hard to believe it was 12° yesterday and 70° today. That’s Texas for you. I truly enjoyed standing in the woods surrounded by sparrows, chickadees, and titmice being their most cacophonous selves. Here’s to the tiny birds of the woodlands and their big voices!

The other bird is an intriguing mystery. Every time I go to Tarrin’s Merlin hears an Osprey. I don’t hear it, and I certainly haven’t seen it. I guess there are enough large ponds nearby to support one?

What I did see was this downy woodpecker.

Slow News Day, Featuring Creatures of the Sky

I may have done less today than I have any day since visiting my dad and just sitting around with him. I got enough movement in, but barely. Every time I went to go outside, a band of showers passed through, but that’s okay, because the clouds were pretty. I’ll miss beach clouds.

Luckily, I got on a roll with the ole technical writing, so I got a lot done as I looked outside at rain. I enjoy those breaks I take to help with eye strain. I looked up one and there, practically motionless outside my window was a beautiful osprey. I guess it was the same one I saw before, but it was so close I could see its feathers.

Looking east. No osprey picture available since I was working.

I had plans to go see the Barbie movie, but we are now going tomorrow, since tickets are half off. That sounds good to me, so instead I finished last night’s movie and watched two more.

My “cinema” friends like Anita will probably enjoy picking out themes and cinematic techniques in the documentary I watched about two women who fell in love in a concentration camp and found each other afterwards. Nelly and Nadine (also the film’s name) were very interesting women, and the super 8 home movies they made showed glimpses of a 50s gay and lesbian world few knew about. I was proud that I made it through the concentration camp parts.

I promised creatures of the sky. Here’s a 27th floor bird grasshopper.

I then switched gears and saw Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, which was as good as I’d hoped it would be. The movie was set at very close to the time I was Margaret’s age, so everything was eerily familiar. The sets were 70s fun.

I couldn’t find the other movie I was looking for, so I watched Somewhere in Queens. The New York Italian culture is like visiting a foreign land to me, but I enjoyed glimpsing into Ray Romano’s vision.

These guys enjoyed peanuts again. I had three at once.

I guess I’ve gotten enough out of Amazon Prime on this trip. I wish I could use it more at home. Bandwidth. Ugh.

By the way, I haven’t been eating out. I’ve made myself weird dinners out of the supplies Lee and I bought when we got here. I’d sure be cheap to feed if I lived alone, since in addition to cheese, I could live off Tasty Bite curry packages, rice side dishes with vegetables thrown in, hummus, and Progresso soup. Throw in cans of tuna and I’m set.

More than you wanted to know, but it was a slow Suna news day.

Swamp and River Day

Every time we come to South Carolina we make sure to go on the Waccamaw River cruise. We were going to go tomorrow, but the forecast calls for rain. So I took the afternoon off and we went today.

We were surprised to see the odd little zoo that used to be on the road to the launch area was gone. No more zebras. All I saw were more wild turkeys. The zoo owners were getting very old and having trouble finding workers, so the animals went to another zoo. The peacocks just moved over to the boat area.

As usual I took a lot of pictures of plants and animals, including some I hadn’t seen there before. I just love swamp plants. And I keep finding new (to me) dragonflies, too.

Thanks for bearing with me on all my nature photos. I know they are endless. Anyway, off we went on the tour. We sat in back to be far away from the captain spiel. There weren’t many birds, just a blue heron and lots of ospreys. We saw two ospreys enjoying their fish catches together.

There weren’t many turtles and we only saw one alligator (I spotted it). That’s because there was a very light rain, which was quite pleasant. I didn’t sweat at all!

I just enjoyed looking at the cypress, tupelo, oak, and pine trees, along with many flowers. It was a wonderful reminder of what the world looks like when left alone. It also helped me remember how small we humans and our problems are.

We drove around and looked at housing developments and such, then had dinner at the nice German-Austrian restaurant near the condo. I had cabbage rolls. They were huge.

I forgot to mention that Bella the dog was still there at the boat place.

We actually didn’t have to leave the condo to see cool wildlife today, though. An osprey was flying around the building right up close to us, and we got to watch a pod of dolphins cruising in the ocean, right from the balcony. Add all the pelicans and fish crows, and that’s good nature watching!

Ok, now send someone you like a text!

Finally. Nature Cruise.

I stopped work at noon today, because I had triumphantly solved problems and published a new video upgrade. It was time to head back to the Waccamaw River cruise I went on last year.

We had as much fun as last time. I got to take pictures of lots of plants and beautiful flowers, like spider lilies, swamp roses, and pickerel weed.

I found some insects, and many water plants trees.

But the best things were passing by many osprey nests and seeing the mothers and babies together. We saw males chasing each other, too. What a fun time of year to take the cruise.

Of course they were looking for alligators. It’s fun to see wild ones. We found three nice sized ones. One jumped in the water for us, and one gave a swimming demo. They are beautiful ancient beasts.

You might enjoy watching one of them swim.

Living the river life.

Mostly, though, I just looked at cypress and Tupelo trees and appreciated being away from people. It’s memories of times like this that keep me going.

We had a nice dinner at Murrell’s Inlet again. I enjoyed the view of birds and Goat Island. I sure love a good marsh.

And back at the beach? More birds, though perhaps not the fanciest.

I tell you what. Water is soothing and never the same from one day to the next. Of course, where you live is the same. Just keep observing. It’s a fine hobby.