Home Again

It is good to be home, even though we did not get the Libertarian Presidential Nominee that we had hoped for.  Bow was well cared for in my absence, and on my return, he took time out from his dinner with Lawrence to greet me warmly, and then later to thoroughly groom me.

Bow getting read to groom me in the outer pen

It rained constantly while I was away, and for the first few days after I got back. This was a big contrast to the constant sunshine and ninety degree plus weather in Florida. But all this rain has paid off for my cherries.

These are small, extremely sour cherries, and most people I know don't like them in their natural form, though they enjoy them as maraschino cherries, which are preserved and sweetened. However, Bow and I like them just as they are -- very tart!

Bow enjoys the cherries so much that he sometimes eats them whole, pit and all. I tried to slow down his eating and asked him to give me the stems and the pits.


Later in the day, the dogs were barking at something on the other side of the fence, and Bow wanted me to go check it out.

Bow concerned about something going on outside

It was a beautiful black rat snake.

The snake was long and fat, but it may have recently eaten, for it was quite calm and perfectly harmless toward me, even when I got close.

On my property, life and death happen naturally. Many beings every day give their lives so that other beings may live. For all animals, including humans, food is a living thing, whether animal or plant. We are all predator and prey in turn. I eat meat, and I plan to continue eating meat, because that is the healthiest and most effective diet for me.  But I do not kill unnecessarily, and I know that for me, that black rat snake is more friend than foe.  So the snake and I went our separate ways without hurting one another, and I reported to Bow that all was well outdoors. He looked at the picture of the snake briefly, then went back to grooming me.

I wish that my fellow human primates could recognize when someone is not threatening them and avoid killing others unnecessarily. I am not sure I understand completely why it was necessary to kill Harambe at the Cincinnati Zoo. In any event, a zoo is clearly not a safe environment for a great ape, as there are not adequate barriers in place, and any time there is doubt about safety, nobody cares whether a human is trespassing in an ape enclosure or an ape is trespassing on human territory.

I would never send Bow to live in a zoo or in a sanctuary where a breach of protocol by a human could result in Bow's being shot. But I am afraid, very afraid, that with US Fish & Wildlife tightening the noose around the necks of primate owners, my time for idyllic grooming with Bow and quiet time together may be rapidly drawing to a close.

Delegates from Missouri
Austin Petersen,
 Aya Katz,
 Thomas R. Fiedler,
 Rebekah Fiedler,
Jeremiah Barnett

I went to the Libertarian National Convention in Orlando to help select Austin Petersen as our presidential nominee, because I trusted that as President, he would direct U.S. Fish &Wildlife to stop sending our tax money to Africa and to stop harassing the owners of primates here in the United States. But Austin Petersen was not chosen. Gary Johnson was chosen, and I have no earthly idea where he stands on this. I suppose I will now have to reach out to his campaign to find out.

While there, I met the National Chair of the Libertarian Party and got to interview him for LibertyBuzz.

http://libertybuzz.us/story/a-party-of-principles-an-interview-with-nicholas-sarwark/2016/05/28/416/

We Libertarians disagree about many things. We are individuals, and we vote our conscience. No two Libertarians agree on everything. But it was encouraging to see that we all at least agreed on this: Taxation is theft!

If taxation is theft when it comes to redistribution of resources here in the United States, how much more so when taxpayer money is sent to Africa for conservation efforts by an agency that seeks to nationalize all chimpanzees, here in the United States!

http://www.fws.gov/news/ShowNews.cfm?ID=E81DA137-BAF2-9619-3492A2972E9854D9

Foraging for Bow: Cherries and Service Berries

Admittedly, our cherry crop was very small this year. We used to get bowls and bowls full of cherries. This year, only two. Not bowls --  cherries, one of which I gave to Bow.

Bow ate the cherry very slowly.

When he was done with it, he gave me the pit back, even though I did not have another cherry to give him. This is what the cherry looked like when it was still on the tree.

It had rained that morning, so the cherry was wet, a drop of rain was still hanging off of it.

The yucca plant was also dripping with rainwater when I went to look at it by day.

I noticed that there were many insects gathered on the flowering yucca plant, even the black garden ants that used to work on the peony before it bloomed.

It is good to have alternate sources of food and not just depend on a single plant to feed you. That's why I am still pondering what is going on with the Monarch butterfly. Whatever possessed it to become dependent on a single kind of plant -- milkweed -- and if it needs the milkweed to survive, why does it not help with its propagation?

Every day I check to see what insects are pollinating the milkweed. I see Great Spangled Fritillary Butterflies and I see Skipper butterflies.

A Skipper and a friend on the Purple Milkweed

I see honey bees and Great Spangled Fritiallary Butterlies trading places on the purple milkweed blossoms.

But I see no Monarch  butterflies helping out. And yet this plant is so important to their very existence! What is up with that? It's like the Irish during the potato blight. Who depends on a single type of crop for his very existence?

Not Bow and me. We know that if the cherry crop is bad, the service berries that planted themselves on our land might actually be more plentiful and equally nutritious.

I picked some this morning and gave Bow to sample. (We don't have a Hebrew word for service berry yet. I suppose I will have to invent one.)

Bow liked the service berries just fine, but they are small.

However, down by the orchard, against the fence line, there is a service berry tree whose berries are still green and measure as large as cherries. I know not to count my chickens before they hatch, but that may turn out to be a very good deal, considering that I never planted them, watered them or did anything to help them grow! Bow and I are as sinfully idle as the Monarch, but a little more opportunistic in our eating habits.

The Subtle Transformations that We Seldom Notice

Everyone notices how cute a baby is.

Everyone can see how much more mature an adolescent appears.

But how did the transformation come about? What were all the awkward little stages? If you read all my blog posts and articles about Bow and look at all the pictures, you can see it happen gradually. But usually when a child grows, we do not notice.

 The same applies to flowers and fruit. Everybody notices the pretty cherry blossoms.

And who could fail to note when the cherries are ripe?

But how did they get that way? Lately I have been noticing some of the intermediate awkward moments, like a green cherry emerging from a pink flower cap.

The flowers on the cherry trees in my yard start out as white. But as they age, they become pink. Then the green fruit emerges, capped with a pink tuft.

Only later does the pink tuft disappear, and you see bunches of the green fruit, waiting to ripen.

Other awkward transformations are taking place all around me. For instance, the redbud blossoms have sprouted little miniature swords.

Those tiny, dagger-like protrusions will eventually become the well known seed pods. And guess what the dogwood is up to? Its blossoms -- the real ones -- have opened.

Remember that I mentioned the dogwood is a drupe? This means the four white petals are nothing but bracts, and the real action happens inside those little globe-like green things in the center. Those are the real flowers, and their tiny stamens and pistils are now open for business.

It has taken me a long time to notice some of these things. It has been twelve years since Bow was a baby and that's how long it took for me to get to the point of noticing when the little true blossoms inside the big false blossoms really open!

Yesterday I encountered another rabbit.

It was a pretty fast runner, so I was not able to observe any subtle details. It might take me another twelve years before I notice anything truly significant about rabbits. By then, Bow will be twenty-four.

Things are Precious only when Rare

Bow did not even ask for his cherries this morning. He does not want them. He's had too many cherries lately, and he does not find them the least bit tempting, anymore. On the other hand, he finished his grapes.

Bow Looks at His Leftovers after Breakfast

The grapes are store bought, so I dole them out sparingly. The cherries are homegrown, so he can have them at every meal and snack time, if he likes.

Bow's Breakfast Table after Breakfast
grapes entirely consumed, cereal bowl with leftover flakes and cherries untouched

You can lead a chimp to cherries, but you cannot make him eat them. Of course, it wasn't always like this. If you have been following my other blog,  The Feast Before Us, then you know that at first, we anticipated the feast to come:

http://thefeastbeforeus.blogspot.com/2013/06/anticipating-feast-to-come.html

Then we enjoyed eating the cherries:

http://thefeastbeforeus.blogspot.com/2013/06/cherries-and-cherry-pits.html

And finally, to make the cherries more interesting, we also tried them in jello:

http://thefeastbeforeus.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-surplus-of-cherries.html

But the time has come to accept the facts: the cherries are less valued now that they are so abundantly available. It isn't a strictly human phenomenon or one that applies only to chimpanzees: to be precious, something has to be rare.

Have you noticed that food prices naturally tend to go up in a famine or fall in a period of abundance? It is not greed on the part of sellers nor cupidity in consumers. It is just a fact of nature. immutable and fixed, and it has nothing to do with money, except insofar that money reflects the most basic instincts of us all: we will appreciate it more if it is rare.