Total Eclipse of the Rhinoceroses

 

Howard and I went to the Buffalo Zoo today to view the Total Eclipse.

We had been invited to an eclipse party we had really been looking forward to, however the traffic predictions were vexing, and Howard had been under the weather and was recuperating. The Zoo allowed us not to be in close quarters with anyone, in case he had had some bug that could be passed on.

And so we viewed the eclipse from outside the rhino enclosure! Those are the rhinos up above. 

The afternoon was honestly magical. I had ridiculed the eclipse beforehand. Why are all these people traveling to Buffalo, I had wondered. I would not cross the street to view an eclipse. That is what I said.

Then I did end up crossing the street to view the eclipse. The Buffalo Zoo is across the street!

Delaware Park was full of people with their eclipse glasses. Howard issued me a pair of eclipse glasses so we were set too. We ran into some people we knew. Other people were texting us. Everyone was excited.

When the eclipse really got down to business, everyone grew quiet. This facet of the eclipse was almost as astonishing as the videos. Here in Buffalo we never shut up for anything! Yet everyone was suddenly hushed.

I took these pictures.

And this video ....

 

LOL! You can tell how dazzled we were!

And then I stopped filming anything because you just have to enjoy, you know?

It was just so beautiful! 

The Zoo being plunged into darkness. I mean real darkness, aside from the lanterns were on of course, and there were other lights.But really, it was dark as night. No one could believe it. 

This eclipse, I had totally underestimated it. It made me think of a few years ago when the high-wire artist Nik Wallenda walked the wire over Niagara Falls. I had thought that would be no big deal. Then Howard and I were watching it with Jocko in the Hyatt and we all realized we had been wrong in underestimating it.

I will remember this the way I remember that.

Magical!

Breeding Like Rabbits

 This is a cute rabbit that hangs out in our yard. We have reason to believe there are baby rabbits beneath our back porch.

It is an Eastern Cottontail! The Seek app identified it.

I also saw this kind of rabbit on the Ring Road at Delaware Park. So I trust this ID.

Our property is alive with baby animals. There is this robin's nest on our garage left over from several years ago. It was sweet to watch it once upon a time. Howard and I watched the baby robins with their mouths open, and then we saw one of the babies -- the last one! -- take his first flight from the nest.

It made me sad to see the nest empty and I kept thinking I should clear it out. However I never did. And now, lo and behold, there are eggs in the nest again and a robin is sitting on them!

That made my day to see that!

Rabbits and robins. Two of the cutest animals in the world.

Right here in our own back yard!

The Mystery Mammal

 I am trying to get in my 10,000 steps a day and in the process I sometimes see wildlife.

For instance that critter up above!

I was able to take his picture because we are growing comfortable with each other. I saw him once at the wetlands of Forest Lawn Cemetery -- I mean the wetlands section of the cemetery. He was swimming across the pond.

Then I saw him at the big pipe where the creek goes underground. You can follow the creek through Forest Lawn and then it goes into this big pipe and God knows where. The critter was swimming merrily along in the creek and then he went into the pipe and off to the side and into some burrow.

Last winter there was this creature I met when I was hanging around down around the river, looking at the freighters. That creature was bigger.

 This one was smaller. 

 

I looked up online what it could be and got the idea that maybe it was a muskrat. It is hard to tell. The pictures are always kind of vague.

However sure enough, my friend Ryan who knows about these things confirmed that yes, the handsome creature was a muskrat. I love it. I love its big triangular shape, its funny little eyes, its big rear.

I have a video of it swimming I have to figure out how to upload.

Many people, so I read, are disappointed that they see a muskrat and not a beaver or whatever. Not me. I am delighted. I have never seen a muskrat and now I have.

My friend the muskrat.

Muskrat love!

 

The Mysterious River Creature Down By the Docks

I hated to see the sun set today. That is it up above! I took that picture at Wilkeson Pointe.

I hated to see the sun set because the day was just so lovely. 

Today I returned again to the Maumee. That is the ship wintering on the Outer Harbor by the Cheerios plant.

I was down there drawing and this is what I need to discuss. There is this animal there! I saw this animal the other day while I was sketching. It was swimming around. There is this area by the pier where the boat owners dock their boats...

... and all of a sudden the weeds that covered the water, I saw them moving. Next thing I knew there was this big animal undulating this way and that. It had this big rear and it would splash and dive beneath the surface and come back up but never to the extent that I could see it clearly.

I did know that it was not a snake, I will tell you that right now.

It was also not a fish. That is what I thought it was at first.

Also, it seemed benign. It seemed happy, going this way and that, some fat happy animal.

Today I was back there again. ... 

I was on the docks. I used to draw on the shore but I have graduated to drawing right on the water.

And I turned around and ... there it was! The creature!

It was maybe two yards from me. It was a little bigger than a cat. I went to grab my camera and take a picture but it moved fast and splashed back into the water with a big belly flop.

Then I saw it swimming around. It had these little ears, I do believe.

After conferring later at Wilkeson Pointe with my friend Ryan I do believe it might have been a beaver. That was the closest we came to figuring this out.

Here is a picture of a beaver from the National History Museum. 

This is what the animal looked like although to be honest I did not get a good look at its tail. Which, that would be vital to positive identification.

Here is a video of beavers swimming that looks like what I saw.

They are playing Bach in that video. How about that? Today is the birthday of the great Johann Sebastian Bach! Surely this was all meant to be.

Ryan is going to go with me to the docks, with luck to get a look at this animal in person.

This is funny, no one wants to go with me anywhere to be with me when I am drawing. But bring in some animal, and everyone is into it. They want to see this creature!

As do I!

Like a Bos

You know how people ask you, "And what did you get out of Mass today?"

Today I have an answer!

Sleepy as I was, and preoccupied with the coffee hour as I was, nevertheless this Mass taught me something I will never forget.

In the Gospel today there is something about a cow. And the Latin word for cow is "bos."

I gazed at that word charmed.

Bos!

That explains "bovine."

And even better, it explains "Bossy."

That is why people have historically named their cows Bossy!

Remember the bossy Lutherans and the bossy estate sale people? "Bos" does not explain them. Nothing can explain them! But cows named Bossy, the Latin word has to be the reason.

It has to be!!

Naturally I could not wait to share this observation -- or should we say rumination -- with a couple of my fellow choristers up in the organ loft. A few minutes later I felt terrible. Here I am diverting their attention from the Gospel. What is it in me that makes me want to disturb people's devotions?

But still, Bos.

They will remember it.

They will thank me!

Cheers, big ears

How coincidental is this, yesterday I wrote about the Birthday Bunny and today I was in Allentown and met him in person. That is he pictured above!

It was in Black Cat Vintage on Allen Street. We like to walk there on the first Friday of the month when the stores and galleries are open and they give you beer and stuff. Click on the picture and you will see what an adorable store it is.

And what an adorable stuffed animal. So serious looking. So big.

Another shot showing its adorable outfit. Love the Elizabethan ruff!

It had a price tag that read $357. And just in case that was not out of your budget, another tag said, "NFS." Not for sale.

That is lucky. The house is already too crowded! Though it would be fun to have this thing greet me along with Jeoffry when I come home from work.

I could say to it, "Cheers, Big Ears!"

The grasshopper and the cat

Taste of Buffalo, which took over downtown last weekend, left our cat out of sorts. I do not know if I have mentioned we have a cat. It is a stray who adopted us! It is the Bean Alley Cat because it came in from Bean Alley. That is not our cat pictured above. But our cat has similar coloring. It is a beautiful sort of tiger cat.

My sister Katie was adopted also by a stray cat. Here is a file photo of Howard with her cat, Jinx. That is my brother Tony asleep in the background.

Anyway. Our Alley is recovering now but for a couple of days she was acting sort of zonked.

I think it was the noise and the madding crowd. The cat is used to peace and quiet and now there was this generator roaring round the clock just a couple of feet from her territory. Generators are the noisiest thing in the world and the people who run them never give that a thought.

I am bothered by loud noises as Leonard Pennario was too so I think the noise was the culprit. But there is also the chance that the cat went out and dined off the fat of the land, and ate something she should not have eaten. Howard thought that was the case. Whatever the reason it was breaking our hearts because this cat is the sweetest cat in the world and you hate to see it under the weather.

However. Now she is better and today she felt good enough to torture a grasshopper.

Nature is not pretty!

Every time this grasshopper hopped the cat would streak after it and nail it with its paw. Then she would swat it around a little and hold it captive and then let it get away. Sometimes the grasshopper got it into its little grasshopper brain to play dead, hoping the cat would leave it alone. But our cat would wait it out and as soon as the grasshopper moved the cat would fly over and grab it again.

The cat never missed! That was what Howard said. I actually did not see this. He told me about it.

Once the cat grabbed the grasshopper and thrust it into her water bowl. It let it drown but then pulled it out before it was dead. And the game began again.

How horrifying!!

Lucky that cat it is not 100 times our size.Our relationship with it could be quite different, you know?

But there was a positive side to the grasshopper incident.

Our cat was feeling good!

Mystery animal

Yesterday, such a fright. I got home from work and there was this animal hanging out of the garage!

It was my fault! I had been negotiating to get the garage fixed but the wheels turned slowly and between us Howard and I have taken too long to figure things out. Meanwhile there is this space under the eaves. These were the wages of that.

I called Howard. He said, "What? I'm on the Thruway."

I said, "Howard, there's a dead animal hanging out of our garage."

He said something to the effect of what was he supposed to do about that.

"It's so embarrassing," I said.

And it was! This long tail and these feet, hanging out of the garage. You could not miss it. What was I going to do?

"Are you sure it's dead?" Howard said. "Are you sure it's not just hanging out?"

"It's dead," I said. Those limbs looked totally lifeless. It was ridiculous to think this creature, whatever it was, could be alive.

And then ... one of the feet moved.

"It's not dead," I said.

But where would the animal go? How would it get out of there?

What kind of an animal was it, anyway?

What if it was a ...

... raccoon?

Suddenly the animal, whatever it was, heaved itself up into the garage and lay there. All I could think was that it was stuck. Clearly it was crawling in there to die and then we could deal with it. Howard agreed with that strategy and I let him go back to his afternoon. I did not know what else to do.

A while later I was out on the porch, working on my Pennario project. I kept glancing up at the garage, though. I could not help it. And eventually the animal moved again and came into better focus.

It was a cat.

Just a cat. And it did not look stuck. It looked relaxed. It was napping.

Once it awoke and groomed itself for a while, in this little space in the garage. Then it slept, facing me with its little cat ears. I saw what the situation was: It just liked it up there. Probably it was cool under the eaves, and no one could get at it or disturb it.

After that panic, the evening took on a new peace. It was quiet. A few birds circled overhead. There was the call of the mourning dove, the squeak of a swing set. The cat slept.

A bee drifted over to me and buzzed lazily around the porch chairs. The cat turned over and slept some more.

It felt like the Deep South!

One minute I turned my back and when I looked again the cat was gone. It must have jumped down and gone on its way. But it was fun while it lasted, watching it nap.

I am still going to get the porch fixed. But I feel I will have to apologize to the cat.

I regret depriving it of its haven!