The moment you’ve all been waiting for… has FINALLY ARRIVED. YES FOLKS, everyone’s favorite SLOB, the divine Curly Wurly Gurly, has come to PHILLY. And I was there to document every fantabulous moment.
So go grab some candy, sit back, relax, and click HERE to watch the world premier of MY VERRRY FIRST MOVIE EVERRRR!!
WATCH OUT WORLD. FLAT CURLY COMES TO PHILLY!
ENJOY!!!
I am a city dweller. and I have a 150 lb. dog.
Having such a big dog in the city requires due diligence. I have to keep him leashed. I have to watch him. And I have to pick up his crap WITHOUT FAIL. If my dog Max leaves even the barest trace of doodie on the sidewalk, I address the situation. So no unsuspecting soul will fall afoul. City sidewalks – as I have mentioned before – are busy places. People walk on them. Children play on them. And yes, dogs do their business on them. The city sidewalk may be a dog’s toilet. But everyone needs to flush. So, w/out fail, I curb my dog.
Having a big dog in the city requires additional planning when it comes to exercise. Our virtually nonexistent and unfenced yard is simply insufficient to meet Max’s needs. We joined a local dog park to allow for off-leash playtime. But Max likes to walk. Really WALK. So once or twice a week I take him to a local nature refuge for a 4-mile hike through the woods.
Yesterday morning we went to the refuge. The walk had barely begun when we encountered an older woman coming toward us on the path. GOOD MORNING! I exclaimed cheerfully. HOW ARE YOU? To which she acidly replied, “I’d be better if you’d pick up your dog’s poop.”
Well. Hold the PHONE.
As detailed above, I am fastidious when it comes to feces. NEVER would I leave crap near an unsuspecting foot! But when I take my dog to the woods, we are not on a public street. We are on a trail. We are not someplace where an infant may pick up a turd and stick it into his or her mouth. Where someone’s $500 pumps may be ruined. We are surrounded by the natural world. And I do not allow Max to ever dump on the trail itself. Oh no. But I do not see any problem w/ him pooping on the side in the grass and leaves. After which I take whatever large stick is handy and push/scoop/or fling said poop out into the woods – where it will not harm a soul.
I am not talking about letting my dog poop on a playing field. Where children or lovers – or anyone – would be meandering. That is just plain gross. But the only meanderers in this case would in fact be deer. Or groundhogs. Foxes, snakes, turtles, rats, birds. YOU GET MY POINT! And no living soul is picking up their scat in plastic baggies to deposit in the trash. As I responded to the woman yesterday, it is natural. Left there, excrement (my dog’s included) will decompose and return to the earth. It is recycling in its most primitive form. Something beautiful in its perfection and simplicity.
She tried to explain to me that the ecological burden on the wildlife refuge is great enough. I have been visiting this refuge for 11 years. The acres are sandwiched between the city, I-95, and the airport. Oil pipelines run beneath it. The burden is great but the burden is ALL MAN-MADE. I simply fail to see how dog poop is going to push this land over the precipice.
There is nothing natural about bagging poop. Nothing. Though I do it, living in the city, w/out fail or hesitation. WHY? Because it is a matter of courtesy and b/c it is the law. But in the woods? No. I will not pick up poop. I will not. B/c it doesn’t make sense. If left to the air, excrement will decompose naturally w/in weeks or days. It is a matter of natural recycling. What is UNNATURAL is picking it up, sealing it into a bag, and placing it into a trash can. Where it will have to be picked up by a waste truck, carried miles to a landfill, to be dumped and sit festering for years to come. Where it will not easily – if ever, decompose. THAT, to me, is insanity.
I may be the only person thinking this, but I do not care. B/c in my heart it makes sense. In my mind, every dog has a right to take a crap on the soil and not feel like he or she is doing something wrong. I for one have pooped right there in the refuge behind a bush and I didn’t blink twice. WHY? B/c I had to go. And when nature calls, I answer.
We have a large butterfly bush in our front yard which attracts a huge variety of insects. Butterflies (of course), as well as all types of bees, flies, – this year we even had a hummingbird! Pretty darn rare in the city. Anyway. b/c of the number of butterflies, this bush is also home to a large cadre of praying mantises. Mantids LOVE butterflies. Their tender juicy middles in particular. After gobbling them up, they drop the butterflies’ colorful but otherwise unappealing wings to the floor below. So all summer long, while I’m weeding the garden, my daughters are gathering up the wings like so many discarded petals.
When I was a kid I never saw a praying mantis. But I clearly remember people saying they were endangered, and telling me never to kill one. I believe it was illegal at the time (the 1980s), but I haven’t been able to confirm or deny that. All I know for certain is that mantids are thriving in 2008 – at least in our yard. If a postage-sized stamp of a garden in the middle of a city is any indication of the greater picture, I’d say they’re doing fine.
And yet each time we find a praying mantis, you’d think it was the very first time. We drop everything. Holla to each other. COME QUICK! B/c we all want to see. Their thoughtful eyes and slender grace are fascinating. My daughters found a small one several weeks ago – of all places, beneath a checkout in Trader Joes. They scooped him up, and carried him out of the store. He seemed happy to be free. But rather than hop off outside the exit, he rode for blocks on my older daughter’s hand. Only once we reached the Market Street bridge did he fly off, soaring stories into the sky.
We’ve been fortunate enough to capture several others over the years. Not in any box, but on film. My skillful husband took these photos a couple weeks ago of a pair mating, and I just had to share them. They are beautiful. The text is excerpted from the North Forty News. Many thanks for sharing.
PS: We now have a large egg case on one of the branches. Here’s to next year’s offspring!
This brings us to the delicate subject of mantid love – or, more precisely, mantid sexual behavior.
Slender adult male mantids, smaller than the female, usually feature brown tones in contrast to the female’s greens. They display rather slow, deliberate care around prospective mates, often approaching from the rear and leaping on the female’s ample back when close enough. Females warrant this caution, even though their substantial weight keeps them grounded while males can fly, because a female may hunger for a substantial meal more than sex.
Sometimes she wants both.
Even attached and fully engaged, a male may literally lose his head servicing his chosen female. The female can swivel her head in a disconcertingly human-like gesture and decapitate her suitor. This may not even interrupt the act at hand. One author states that “removal of the male’s head, the bit which the female eats first, releases the male’s genitalia from nervous inhibition from the brain and leads to incessant copulatory movements.”
The smartest–or the luckiest–males avoid this circumstance, however, leap off their temporarily groggy paramour and run quickly away. Such mortal danger may insure that only the smartest males live to mate again.
Once inseminated, a female searches for a plant stem or fence post suitable for making an egg case and laying her eggs. Usually she selects a location 1 to 4 feet off the ground and constructs a case that resembles tan foam with the texture of a roasted marshmallow. Chinese mantids build round cases; the Europeans flatten theirs on one side.