This Friday moment

This Moment

"A single photo – no words – capturing a simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

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“This Moment” is a ritual found on Life inspired by the Wee Man adopted fromSouleMama which was introduced to me by Sarah-Jane. If you find yourself touched by a Moment and would like to participate, post your picture on a Friday and leave your link in the comments section.

Thank you for sharing this moment God Bless

lot of mess

I'm dad kitty

I had just started work at OEA “Ordnance Engineering Associates” in Fairfield California. We found us an apartment in Suisun the other side of the tracks form Fairfield. It struck me funny that here I am 1500 miles and fifty five years later from my birth place in Nebraska and only a half a block from the same Railroad tracks. Over the years it seem as I have lived within a mile of the same set tracks all my life. Even today I am just a mile as the crow flies from the same tracks.

This tale is not about railroad tracks or where I lived but about some animals that came to live with us. Shortly after we move in an alley cat move in on us, it was a large tabby tom cat. We ask around and no one knew who the cat belong to. It was warm and we had the window and door open to stay cool. That cat came in and made himself at home.  After a week or so we gave him a name of sorts, we started to calling him dad kitty. Every day at 9 O’clock he start meowing at us to get our attention and then head to the bed room, if we did not follow he would come back out and encourage us, by getting in our lap and sinking in his claws in, it’s time to go to bed. It reminded me of my dad sending us kids to bed when I was a little.

We live on the edge of the Suisun marsh a wildlife preserve, about 200 feet from the fence that bordered the preserve, where Canada geese and other water fowl wintered and dad kitty hunted. He would bring home rats, gofer snakes, and ducks, many as big as he was.  We never knew just what he would bring home.

I am a big dog

The people that lived above us had a little Chihuahua mix of some kind and it had pups with a poodle. Well there was one the runt of the litter that we just had to have. It was small about the size of a coffee cup, and was a curly black as coal, poodle hair, ball of energy. We were afraid that dad kitty would harm the pup that we named bingo, but much to our surprise he took care of it. Dad kitty would bring in mice, lol, for the pup most every day. Dad kitty even taught bingo to use the litter box. I would come home from work and find dad kitty and the pup curled up in my chair. I ask my wife if she had put bingo in my chair, she said no dad kitty had.  At 9 he would take bingo in to and up on our bed every night. Bingo was too small to get up there without help. Now I have seen mama cats nurse pups and take on squirrels and hamster as kittens. But a feral tom cat, that takes the cake.

I'm a lover

It was about a year later that an apartment opened up across the street, in the senior’s only complex with lower rent.  The land lady had a miniature Pomeranian that was six week old and my wife just had to have it. Now we had three pet the pom we named taffy, and dad kitty took her on as his own.

I came home from work one evening, my wife was out taking care of one of her lady’s she work for as a chore provider, as I open the door the three met me looking up at me as if they were perfect little angle and there was feathers floating it the air. As I looked around there were feathers all over the place. On further investigation I found that dad kitty had brought in a pigeon and the three of them had the fun taking it apart, what a mess. We had been empty nesters for eight years but I don’t remember our kids making any bigger mess.

Thank you for coming by god bless

lot of Dee

Dee die doe

Die doe Dee

Die Dee doe

What on my pole

Fly in the sky

Don’t be shy

There is mud in your eye

Cries little fly

Miss and toss

Wish I had a hoss

Is that the boss?

Better get lost

You know what I missed

It’s not Die

It’s not doe or even a toe

It’s Dee kiss form you my miss

THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS

lot of discovery

Lake  Camanche

When I was a little fellow I dream of making a scientific discovery, like Newton, or Einstein, or maybe Edison.  As I grew up in school I found that it was hard to make such discovery. Someone else had not already made them. All the mountains had been climb and named, rivers had been crossed, and someone did it before I could.  The years have gone by like the melting snows of my childhood, and I have not made a historic discovery.  I have done many things of historic note like working on the first space shuttle, and the development or the air bag for cars.  Being part of a team is one thing, but being the first to do something, to make the discovery is another.

1987 October 1 was my wife and I’s twenty wedding anniversary, to celebrate we went on a second honeymoon, of sorts, at lake Camanche in California.  We got a cabin with meals and a patio boat for fishing, for a weekend of romance and fishing. We arrived there Friday around 6 o’clock in the evening check in and had a champagne and steak dinner with all the trimming at the lodge, then retired to our cabin and shared a Jacuzzi hot tub.  We had a sunrise call for breakfast and the patio boat was waiting for a day on the lake fishing, the lodge had packed us a lunch. Being October is not the prime time for camping at the lake we had the lake to ourselves.  On the boat we head up the north arm of the lake to a spot that we had been to before and the fishing was good. The early morning air was crisp, a little fog layer hovered over the water giving a spooky passage up the inlet of the lake.  I threw out the anchor and we settled in to fishing. My wife poured us a cup of coffee the lodge gave us, there we sat huddle together drinking coffee and fishing.  

As we fished we saw deer come and go from the water edge, raccoon fishing for crayfish, and even a skunk along the shore. The fishing was every slow we had not had a bite by lunch time.  Looking at the fish finder we should be catching fish as there was a large school showing on the finder.  Looking over the side of the boat we could see hundred of fish. They were feeding on something in the water. What we could see was a quarter sizes round objects floating in the water. In my backpack was a quart plastic bottle that contained the last of the beef jerky we brought along to snack on. I empty the bottle out and started to try to catch the thing the fish were feeding on. After four of five attempts I managed to catch a pair in the bottle

  At first I thought I had not got anything but then I saw something moving in the jar. It looked like a jellyfish, but this is fresh water and we are a hundred mile from the any salt water.  The excitement started to come over me, had I made that big discovery.  I had never heard of fresh water jellyfish; never saw one in any book on fish. My wife and I started to catch them using our coffee cups.  We had about twenty or so in the jar, so I pulled in the anchor and we head back to the lodge.

When we got back to the dock we show the unusual catch to the attendant and he said he had never seen then before or ever heard of freshwater jellyfish.  He said we should take them to the rangers at the forestry office.  So we drove to the forestry office and showed them to the ranger. They made a full report and had us show them where we found them.  They had never heard or seen them before either. They took about half of the ones we had and I told them I was going to that them to the researcher at mount Diablo marine studies in Pittsburg where we lived, down in the bay area. We had an exciting two day but it was time to head home. On Monday morning I took the jellyfish to the researchers and they said that these were the first they had ever seen or heard of.  It was about a month before they reported back on their finding.  Well guess what? Yep someone had found them before, and wouldn’t you know it I am possibly related to the first person to report them. His name was John Durham a professor of biology who reported them some fifty year before. 

 If you would like to know more about the freshwater jellyfish  go here http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=1068

Oh well I am not dead yet, maybe I will write a great novel.

Thank you for stopping by and god bless.

lot of a short tail of short tail

I guess I let the cat out of the bag.

The spring of 65 was different as I was nineteen out of school and as they say foot loose and fancy free, whatever that means. There was a bunch of us that kind of hang out together trying our best to see just how much trouble we could get into.  We all had jobs, mostly part time, so we had a lot of time to run around chasing girls, fishing , hunting, racing and some time chasing each other. We all had pet name or nick names. Cliff short for Clifford was called the nose. He had a nose on him that some years later he would get surgery shorten. Then there was john he was called doggie, he drove an old dodge truck that someone “I won’t mention any names” had replaced the necessary letters on the hood of the truck to spell dogge thus doggie. There was the chief, Ed chow a full bold Ute and he would let you know about it. One other was Nathan Gore but I will let you guess his nick name.

It was the first week in June we found some girls to go camping with us and we all headed up to the porcupine dam. It was remote and secluded, a place where you could go skinny dipping, get drunk, and have fun, kick up our heels a bit. John worked a Safeway store and got hold of a keg of beer.  There is a ravine on the north side of the dam that opens up to a sandy beach and is about the only place you can camp at the dam.  Cliff had brought a couple of the big buckets of Kentucky fried chicken and all the trimmings, the leftovers from work. He worked at KFC. So he would load us up with chicken.  We built a big bone fire and were having a big time goading the girls to going swimming in the buff, we all had fun.  The girls were a little worried about the cries of a cougar up the ravine from camp and I was put to the task of taking care of it.  The cries of a cougar in the dark can unsettle you a bit.

I was known for my way with wild animals, so with a lot of encouragement form my buddies I hike up the ravine to the spot where I could see the cougar in the mouth of the old mine that had been dynamited back when they built the dam. I could see it was a young cougar it had not lost its spots, and it looked to be about four months old.  I look around for the mama, but it was not to be seen. I was about to shoot it, when I had the wild idea of catching it.  I ran back down to the camp and got a rope, and the bag of chicken gizzards, that we were going to use for bait the Kokanee salmon love them. I went back up to the mine and sat down and started to talk to the cat that was just inside the opening. I threw some gizzards to him and he came out to eat. I could see he was very thin and had not eaten in a while.  I feed him some more and he came closer. I reach out and touch him expecting to lose my hand but it did not attack or shy away. So I pick him up and continued to feed him gizzards.  I took him back to camp where he and I was the hero’s of the evening. When thing settled down in camp the kitten was a sleep on my sleeping bag. We spent four day and night up there at the dam fishing and hunting for rabbits which I feed to the kitten.  It followed me everywhere and it was hard to leave him up at the dam. Every time we went to the dam that summer he would come into camp and we would feed him.

Things change the next summer  about the last or July we had gone up to the dam and found a bounty poster on the cougar that the ranchers had seen up there, some said that it was killing cattle. There was a five hundred dollar bounty on the big cat.  We all knew where to find one and it would be an easy five hundred buck. We were on the hunt for the cat. When we got site of him we could see he was coming to meet us at camp. I knew it would be his end so I shot toward him off.  My buddies would shoot to kill, at least that what I believed. My aim was not that good, and I hit him about the middle of the tail.  He ran off to hide and nurse his tail which is now about a foot shorter. We recovered the piece of his tail and the fellows were all sorry that we would betray the friendship of the cat.  But he now has a name Short tail. For year after he would still come to camp to be feed, and would stay about twenty feet away. He is gone now they don’t live but ten to twelve years in the wild. I never heard of him being killed.

  

 Thank you for coming by god bless