Posted by Ted Hopton on October 22, 2008
the D-Con you stored under the kitchen sink is gone. I had two packages of D-Con still in the box under the sink, but when I went to get them out I found that mice had chewed through the box and eaten all of the poison.
Boy, that stuff must really smell and taste good to them. As my landlord says, the weather is turning colder and the mice are seeing my little cottage as awfully cozy.
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Posted by Ted Hopton on August 3, 2008
I remember being terrified of jellyfish when I was a small child, but I don’t think I ever actually was stung by one. This NYT article about the dramatic increase in jellyfish along shorelines around the world is worrisome not just from a tourism standpoint. When nature sends us a message as loud as this one, we’d better listen. There’s no simple answer, of course — there never is to big problems.
Let’s just add it to the long list of daunting challenges we are facing these days…
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Posted in Animals, Environment, Outdoors, Science, Travel, Trends | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on July 18, 2008
I liked this story, Summer Wind. It’s calming, peaceful, and evokes images of the rural lifestyle it describes. It’s a vignette, really, not a story, article or column. Just a quick view of a place in time, nicely-written and conveying the appeal that the rural lifestyle has for the author.
Here’s a glimpse:
For the past few hours, the wind has been rising and falling, the precursor of a storm coming in from the west. When the wind climbs, a kind of elation blows through the house — it’s the hushing sound of the leaves outside and the way the breeze sweeps the floors and lifts the curtains and slams the doors. The dogs snap to and look around when it gusts. And when the wind drops, it seems to drop us — the dogs and me — into the trough of an ordinary summer day.
I’m loving the rural lifestyle, myself, here in my cottage on a horse farm. It’s nice out here 
Posted in Animals, Blogs, Human Interest | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on July 5, 2008
I’ve been in my cottage on the farm for less than a month, and nature is clearly at work. First, the sad news: my little bird family is gone. “Nature, red in tooth and claw” was in evidence, as the farm cats found the nest and appear to have reached in and dispatched the two cheeping chicks. Whether they got the parents, too, I don’t know, but I suspect the parents abandoned the nest afterward.
My initial reaction was anger at the cats. I’m not a cat person, anyway, and I wish the cats would just hunt vermin and not cute baby birds. However, in fairness, the wrens were not wise to select a nesting hole that’s within reach of cats. So, natural selection was at work, and these not-so-survival-minded wrens failed to pass on their genes this year.
On the positive front, I have another bird family now: woodpeckers. It sounds like someone knocking on the door Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ted Hopton on June 20, 2008
I’m settling into my new house, which is a cottage at the top of a hill on a horse farm with gorgeous views and a seemingly endless cool breeze. And I am getting to know my closest neighbors, a bird family with a nest in the wall just outside my patio doors. The little ones cheep-cheep constantly, almost like a chorus of crickets. The parents fly to and fro with insects or grubs or whatever it is they are catching to feed the chicks.
Mother or father will land on the deck railing, eyeball me through the doorway, then swoop into the knot hole in the side of my house to feed their young. They will also regale me with a song now and then, too.
A farm is quite a busy place for nature. I don’t have any pets, so I must say Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Animals, Human Interest | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on May 31, 2008
I got my first detailed, in-depth look at the problems of the industrial farming complex when I read Michael Pollan’s eye-opening book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma (which I highly recommend). This NYT editorial cites two reports, one by the Pew Charitable Trust and one by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
As new reports make it clear, the efficiency of industrial animal production is an illusion, made possible by prisonlike confinement systems.
Not only is the efficiency an illusion, it’s actually a disaster all around. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Animals, Economics, Environment, Ethics, Food, Health, Human Interest, Politics, Research | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on May 1, 2008
This column by Nicholas Kristof is not so much about bats as it is about ways to approach rain forest conservation.
Instead of living in harmony with the rain forest — or only as parasitically as, say, a vampire bat — we’re destroying the jungle in ways that contribute hugely to global warming.
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Posted by Ted Hopton on April 30, 2008
Marine scientists studying the carcass of a rare colossal squid said Wednesday they had measured its eye at about 11 inches across — bigger than a dinner plate — making it the largest animal eye on Earth.(AP Photo/NZPA, Ross Setford)
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Posted by Ted Hopton on April 19, 2008
Posted in Animals, Science | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on April 19, 2008
In spotted hyenas, scientists are finding clues to why the human brain grew so large and complex.
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