Gee, that headline makes it sound like a kung-fu movie. Actually, it’s a fox playing in someone’s hard with a dog’s toy–while the poor dog, stuck indoors, has to watch. Do you get the impression that the fox knows the dog is there, and is rubbing it in?
Foxes are wild animals that adapt rather well to not-so-wild environments. I once saw a fox trotting up the sidewalk in my neighborhood. As soon as he saw me, he made himself scarce.
Oh! This one almost slipped right past me. But not to worry–Christmas has to work all year round.
The Carol of the Bells, sung by Libera–I dare you not to bob your head and tap your foot. Glory to God in the Highest!
New York City’s “Human Rights Commission”–hint: if your city, state, or county has any kind of “human rights commission,” your city, state, or county is over-budgeted–now has a list of 31 different “genders” that the poor sods doing business in the city had better “acknowledge,” or else ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXR6Yjpypmo ).
Hey, they’ve got categories that you never heard of, whose meaning you’d never be able to figure out. They’ve even got “agender,” defined as “someone without any gender.”
What are these wackos even talking about?
Anyhow, you can now get in big trouble for failing to “acknowledge” some chowderhead’s made-up stupid “gender” that you couldn’t define if your life depended on it.
That’s what happens when Democrats run things.
Yes, you could win an autographed copy of this gorgeous book, when it’s published next month. Isn’t that cover just the berries?
All you’ve gotta do is post the last comment of 2016 on this blog. Everyone is eligible, even if you’ve already won a comment contest earlier.
What is not eligible, of course, is any comment that is abusive, blasphemous, profane, a commercial message, or just too asinine for words. Other than that, anything goes.
And don’t forget–I’m on Eastern Standard Time, so if you live in a different time zone, take that into account.
The Toledo Zoo is working to re-establish America’s biggest salamander in the wild, through captive rearing and release.
Hi, Mr. Nature here–and I am a hellbender fan. You’ve gotta love a salamander that starts out looking like a little black newt that you might buy in the pet store, yet can grow to the size of your hand and forearm. In fact, it has a close relative in Japan that can grow to the size of a 12-year-old boy.
But the hellbender needs to live in cold, clear, clean, swiftly-running water, and streams like that are getting hard to find. Progress, you know! Gotta build them condos everywhere! Happily, a lot of private property owners in Ohio are getting behind the zoo’s efforts to conserve the giant salamander.
Some salamanders are gorgeous in bright colors. The hellbender is not. Some salamanders are cute. Most definitely, the hellbender is not.
What the hellbender is, is just way cool. Only God could create something as cool as this. If you find this animal ugly, maybe even a bit scary–well, it’s still way cool.
I am glad conservationists are working to actually conserve this salamander.
If only our leaders who call themselves conservatives would actually try, at least, to conserve our culture… we might have a chance.
I’m not quite ready to stop posting Christmas music. Christmas must live and work all the year long, in our hearts.
Patty found me this Celtic-style rendition, by Blackmore’s Night, of I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing. It ought to loosen you up pretty good.
Now I have to go to the nursing home to visit Aunt Joan, but this is the last day of the year, and I’ll have more blog posts for you.
Has i got a brillent Idear “or” waht??? Man I knew bean in Collidge all theese yeers it wuld make Me “a” reel Interllectural!
My idear is to make A yeer twicet as Long “as it” is now and iff thay doo that “al sortes of” grate things goin to hapen. 1) We will al be yonger, insted of 28 i wil bee 15. 2) Yiu wil bee Abel “to get twicet” as mutch done In a yeer as yuo used to. 3) The govverment thay wil save tonns of Money$$ on Socale Secority becose No one wil live longg “enogh” to colect!! 5) Whe wil save tonns of Paper becose callenders thay wil last twicet as long!
I knowed i was havvin a Idear wenh I “looked in” the mirrer and seen My Moth Antenners thay was standin strait Up thay alyaws does that Whan i havvin a Idear and then i Get hunngery i wondar Iff i “can” fined a t’shirt for suppar.
Mail carriers expect to have trouble with dogs; but here’s a cat who resents the intrusion. And if the guy’s not careful, he’s going to get something very nasty.
Our cats don’t like it when someone enters the vestibule of our apartment. Usually they run to the door and growl, and sometimes they run upstairs and hide. Now I wonder what they’d do if we had a mail slot.
Territoriality: don’t sell it short.
I’m trying to go out with a bang, and my new Bell Mountain book, The Throne, will be coming out sometime very soon–so what do you say to another comment contest?
Whosoever posts the final comment on this blog for 2016, and it doesn’t matter what you comment on, will win an autographed copy of The Throne.
For this contest it doesn’t matter if you’ve won before. Anyone can enter, and any comment is eligible… with the following exceptions. Comments that are abusive to me or to another reader; comments featuring profanity (I don’t care if scientists say dropping the f-bomb proves you’re smart; scientists say a lot of things); commercial pitches un-cleverly disguised as comments; blasphemy; and comments that are simply too inane to bother with–other than any of those, anything goes.
Now, I don’t know and you don’t know when that last comment of 2016 will be posted. I’d rather everybody didn’t wait until 11:59:59 p.m. tomorrow night–but hey, it’s up to you.
Happy New Year, folks!
P.S.–Please remember I’m on Eastern Standard Time; so if you’re in another time zone, take that into account. If you’re in California and it’s 9:01 p.m., I’ll be already one minute into 2017.
If you’ve been reading my Bell Mountain books, you know that Ryons, the boy king who was born a slave, has a guardian who never leaves his side: Cavall, the hound.
This is a picture of a dog who looks enough like Cavall to be him.
In The Thunder King, the hermit, Merry Mary, knowing that she will die soon, commands her dog to stay with the boy and protect him. A child wandering all alone in Lintum Forest needs a wise and valiant dog. Cavall has been with him ever since–to the rescue of the city of Obann, and all the way out to King Thunder’s fortress and back.
At this point I don’t know where they’ll be going next; but wherever it may be, they’ll go together.