Monday, March 18, 2024

Good Works and True Compassion

There is an old tale where the rabbi was asked by one of his students “Why did God create atheists?”

After a long pause, the rabbi finally responded with a soft but sincere voice. “God created atheists” he said, “to teach us the most important lesson of them all – the lesson of true compassion. You see, when an atheist performs an act of charity, visits someone who is sick, helps someone in need, and cares for the world, he is not doing so because of some religious teaching. He does not believe that God commanded him to perform this act. In fact, he does not believe in God at all, so his actions are based on his sense of morality. Look at the kindness he bestows on others simply because he feels it to be right.

When someone reaches out to you for help, you should never say ‘I’ll pray that God will help you.’ Instead, for that moment, you should become an atheist – imagine there is no God who could help, and say ‘I will help you’.” 

             —Martin Buber, Tales of Hasidim

Stump Bunker



Checked holes we filled in at at a small local farm about a week ago.  All holes still blocked, but one. The groundhog there was about six feet down under a large stump surrounded by Multiflora rose and Japanese honeysuckle. Moxie was under a long time, but it was an impossible dig. When she finally exited, I buried the hole, hoping the groundhog will move to a more amenable location.

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Wee Wolves Waiting for Their Monkey

The Wee Wolves waiting patiently for me to take a few Peregrine Falcon pictures.

Peregrine Falcons Preparing to Nest

At least one of this pair is no doubt one of the Peregrine Falcon chicks that hatched two years ago at Harpers Ferry, about 10 miles up river. That nest was the first Peregrine Falcon nest in the area in over 65 years.  

This nest, which was also occupied last year, is just upriver from Point of Rocks. It’s an old Raven nest located on a cliff face above an active railroad bed.  The Falcons seem unbothered by the occasional thundering train below.

This pair is not yet sitting on eggs, but that should come soon.

Double Bald Eagle Nest

I first saw this double nest back in 2020. At the time, it looked like one nest might be falling apart and the second was a repositioning, but both these two nests now seem to be in fine shape. From directly below, it’s impossible to know if one of them is occupied, but I suspect so. Each of these nests is about 8 feet across, so it’s a lot of work to fly all these sticks up into this sycamore.

Friday, March 15, 2024

The Best Hitler Is a Dead Hitler

Today is March 15th -- International Kill a Tyrant Day.

Don’t understand? Ask a friend who has read Shakespeare.

The Border Collie Comes from Australia?


Sure it does.  
I mean theAustralian Kennel Club says so!



Counterfeit Collies and Bogus Bulldogs



Back in October of 2015, I wrote:

It's 3 am and Katie in the UK sends me a note.  It seems some nitwit named Geoff Corish has just posted to Facebook:

“I am thrilled to inform everyone that my application to have Jack Russell's recognised in the UK has been approved by the General Committee of the Kennel Club. There is a process and dogs will not be eligible for exhibition until the date of the publication of the interim breed standard, which should be April 2016. I wish to thank all those who helped me along the way with the application, you know who you are, a huge thank you. I could not have done it without you. So we will now see this great little English breed back in the UK rings next year.”

I have never heard of Geoff Corish, and neither has anyone else in the world of working terriers or real Jack Russell terriers, so far as I can tell.

It seems he is a Kennel Club French Bulldog breeder and ribbon chaser who has flitted from one breed to another over the course of the last 50 years. No doubt he imagines an ego-boosting scheme for himself in the world of Jack Russell Terriers. Good luck with that!

It will be fascinating to hear the breed history the Kennel Club will spin for the Jack Russell terrier. After all, the Rev. John Russell himself walked away from the Kennel Club after his first show, one in which he himself was asked to judge.  He would not register his own dogs, sniffing that the whole thing was artifice and pretense.

What will the "interim breed standard" say, and who will actually write it?  No one who has dug on a fox, or owns a locator collar, I am sure!

No doubt "the standard" will note that "form follows function."  It's a wonderful rhetorical chestnut -- and complete nonsense, of course.

Think about it. A working dachshund is a great little animal in the field and does the same work as a terrier, but it does not look like a terrier, does it?

By the same token, a Jack Russell Terrier does not look too much like a Border Terrier.

Smooth coats and rough do equally well in the field, as do coats of black, brown, white, or any combination in between. A folded ear is the same as a prick ear, a black nose the same as a liver-colored nose.

And is it any different for running dogs, molosser breeds, herding dogs, pointers, or retrievers? Does color of the coat matter? The "expression" in the eyes? No!

A working dog is defined by its work, not by its form. A retriever retrieves, a herding dog herds, a pointer points, a molosser guards, a pulling dog pulls.

"Form follows function?"

That's not even true in that sentence!

Form is about form. Function is about function. At best there is a relationship when it come to gross body shape or size, but that's not what they are judging at the dog shows is it? Instead, the most minute and insignificant detail is elevated to importance by preening pretenders and a handful of people doing contrived "work."

And what is the result?

It can be seen in breed after show-ring breed: transvestite terriers, counterfeit collies, and bogus bulldogs. The dogs may look the part, but they cannot do the job.

The Saint Bernard has been reduced to such dysplastic dysfunction that the dog cannot hope to rescue anything. In fact, it is an animal that needs to be rescued!

And let's not even start with the show-line German Shepherd, with hocks so sprung it looks like a dog sired by a frog.

Here is a simple truth: you cannot protect and preserve working dogs without working them.

You cannot breed quality retrievers or pointers when your own dogs have never heard a shotgun.

You cannot gauge the sheep-sense and holding power of a good Border Collie by tossing a Frisbee.

You cannot judge the true grit of a Jack Russell Terrier with a rubber ball.

A one-hour cart pull around a farm does not a sled dog make.

People who think otherwise are kidding themselves. They are the reason every working dog breed dragged into the Kennel Club has been ruined there.

These people sincerely believe that if they breed a dog that looks the part, it can do the part. But this misguided belief underscores their ignorance. What makes working breeds special is not what is on their outside, but what is on their inside.

"But why do we need that today," says the matronly show dog breeder. "No one works dogs today."

Really? Well, maybe not in their suburban world of shake shops and one-minute rice. It is true that in their world, there are no hunters, cowboys, Eskimos, or gamekeepers. In their world there are no rats, fox, bear, sheep, cattle, duck, geese, or pheasant.

But these creatures exist outside the suburbs, and these people exist there as well.

In America, Australia, and parts of mainland Europe, dogs are still used to bust, hold and drive wild cattle and hogs.

Retrievers and Pointers are used as bird dogs the world over.

Terriers are still used for pest control, not only in the U.K., but also in America, Canada, South Africa and mainland Europe.

Dogs are still used for transportation in the Arctic, and rabbits are still brought to hand by running dogs the world over.

Is this work being done with Kennel Club dogs?

No. Not usually. And no wonder; form is not function.

No matter how attractive a man in a dress might be, no one who has a clue is going to take that "girl" to the prom.

And yet Kennel Club breeders will tell you, straight faced, that they are sincere in wanting to protect their breed.

And who are they trying to protect it from? Why unscrupulous people who are not show-ring breeders, of course!

And what do they intend to protect the dog with? A scrap of paper!

It is all laughable nonsense. And it becomes nonsense on stilts when people begin to talk about "the standard" as if it were a sacred text delivered to Moses on the Mount.

In fact, is there anything standard about "the standard?" I defy you to find a single canine standard that is more than 20 years old that has not been changed at least once.

And then there is the little matter that the standard is not the same from one country to another, or one registry to another. So what is so "standard" about the standard?

Ironically, what is NOT part of any standard in the U.K. or the U.S., is a requirement that the dog actually be a proven worker in the field. That, apparently is not "the standard." That function is not required for the rosette. A black nose, is a "Yes," but working a dog to the task it was bred for is a "No."

And so we come back to the real meaning of "form follows function" as used by academics in the dog world.

For these folks the "form" being referred to seems to be a paper form showing the pedigree of the animal being displayed.

And "the function" these people are referring to is either the rosette from a show judge, or the cash to be gotten from a prospective dog-buyer.

Form follows function, indeed!


Thursday, March 14, 2024

Overloaded and Numb

“We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness.” –Tom Waits

Transvestite Terriers

Crufts has propelled a cute little dog forward, calling it a “Jack Russell,” which they tell us — straight faced — was “developed” in Australia, a country the Reverend John Russell never lived or even visited.  

And the dog’s purpose?  Why to be a show dog!

Right.  Crufts — the dog show named after a man that never owned a dog (yes, really), is now telling us what Jack Russells are, and where they came from.

What did we expect?  

What else is there?  

Just this: The Kennel Club’s ersatz “Jack Russell” is different from the “Parson Russell Terrier” which was created whole cloth in the 2000s by the Kennel Club for the dog show trade, and it is distinct from the “Russell Terrier” which was created by the FCI at about the same time for the same purpose.

How to sort it all out?

I think simplicity is best. 

In my opinion, there are only two types of terriers in the world: those that work, and those that don't. 

The mostly white ones that work are called Jack Russell Terriers, and they are called that out of respect for the working standard that the Reverend John Russell himself honored throughout his life. Most of these mostly white-bodied working terriers are not registered, but neither were any of the Reverend's own dogs.  Short legs or long, prick ears or folded, it does not matter.  The only standard is that of a naturally-dug den pipe, and the only judge that matters has four feet and teeth, and is in that den pipe!

What are we to make of the Kennel Club dogs? 

Simple: None of them are Jack Russell terriers.

They are simply white terriers being combed out, powdered, and fussed over by people chasing ribbons.

They are transvestite terriers with fake names and invented history:  George Smathers of Yonkers dressed as Dolly Parton and calling himself “Trixie Buffey of the Charleston Buffey’s”.

Oh, I am slandering transvestites now, am I?  

Am I?  Well good then. I guess the point is made and apologies to all the cross-dressers and transgenders if they find the comparison a bit harsh.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Originates From Where?

An Australian Shepherd named Viking won best in show at the 2024 Crufts dog show in Birmingham, England. The dog did not come far — he lives just a few miles away. Though called an “Australian Shepherd,” the breed was created in the US.

Zen, a Jack Russell Terrier from Japan, won the second place at Crufts, and was the top terrier.  According to the Kennel Club, the Jack Russell Terrier was not created in England as a working dog, but in Australia as a show dog.

Dallas Seavey Wins His 6th Iditarod


Dallas Seavey, 37, finished the 51st Iditarod in 9 days, 2 hours, 16 minutes and 8 seconds, and won just over $55,000 in prize money

Seavey’s race was not without incident. A moose severely injured one of Seavey's dogs in an attack on the trail. Seavey shot and killed the moose, and partially gutted it, but race rules require any big game animal killed in defense of life or property to be fulled gutted before the musher moves on. Because Seavey spent only 10 minutes gutting the moose, race officials gave Seavey a two-hour time penalty.

Despite the time penalty, Seavey and his dog team battled back, and by Tuesday morning they had a three-hour lead over their nearest competitor.

As Seavey neared the finish line, he jumped off his sled and ran with his dogs. At the finish line he hugged each dog on his team — and they gave him sloppy tongue kisses right back.

Three dogs died on the race, each from separate teams, two dogs from 1st time racers, and one dog from a second-time racer.

Time to Cut the Head Off the Snake

So, you know those videos of Ukrainian drone operators dropping grenades on Russian troops?

I have a list of targets vital to Ukrainian and other democracy-loving interests. You have that list too.

Now, we’re just waiting…

Monday, March 11, 2024

Trump Is Gutting the RNC to Steal More Money

Trump's daughter in law and hand-picked sock puppet are now running the RNC, and they are gutting staff from top to bottom.

Not a dime of the money that would normally be donated the the Republican National Committee will go to House and Senate campaigns. Instead ir will ALL go to pay legal fees, court-ordered judgements, and bails of Trump's failing businesses. With Trump it’s ALWAYS about him, never the country OR the party.

Friday, March 08, 2024

Teddy Before the Terriers

A 19-year-old Teddy Roosevelt at Harvard in 1877.

Hives Waiting for the Bees

The hives are painted and on their stand behind a strong wind screen. The internal frames and foundations are in the garden shed waiting the arrival of two "nuc" or nuclear hive bee packages from a local source. These hives will be strapped down to prevent wind from toppling them over and as a precaution against both bears and people. Bears, by the way, are not raiding hives for honey, but for bees and bee larva. When full with bees and honey, each of these hives will weigh about 260 pounds.
 
Initially, both hives will consist of just a "Deep" brood chamber, and a Medium honey chamber on top; other boxes will get added as the bees near the 80 percent full mark on the preceding box. 

The plan is to manage one hive as a two Deep and two Medium tower, with the other tower being converted to two smaller Deep + Medium hives with the addition of another top and base. I will populate the third hive with either a "split" or a captured feral swarm.  If I do not split or capture a swarm, I can manage this as two towers, as seen here.

Feeding the Yard Deer

Cracked corn is cheap.

Thursday, March 07, 2024

FDR Before Polio

If FDR were running today, Fox News and the NYT would be endlessly running stories about how an invalid in a wheelchair and crutches could not possibly be able to do the job.

How can a man who cannot stand up ever hope to stand up to Hitler?

Painting the Hives



Both hives have their base color on.  I painted them first with a white primer (two coats) and then topped that with Valspar “StormCoat” exterior paint in a shade known as “Golden Promise”.  Next comes a little design work on the front.

I think am going to treat for Varroa Destructor mites (the bane of modern bee hives) with vaporized oxalic acid. The results are impressive, the oxalic acid does not hurt the bees, and does not build up in the wax. There are other remedies that are more complex, less effective, more toxic, or more costly over time.  As in everything, it’s a trade-off, but Oxalic acid seems the best fit for now.

Wednesday, March 06, 2024

What’s the Right Word?

This morning, I realized that I no longer remembered how to “boost” the signal on my e-collar; I had to Google the manual to find out.

A “boost,” for those who wonder, is a jump-up from the minimal “working” level you use when training.

For example, if the normal “working” level on a dog is 7, a “boost” signal might be 17.  Most people cannot feel an E-Collar Technologies collar set at 10 or 11.

The question of how to “boost” the signal was not raised by an actual need, but by a bit of reading where the author makes a distinction between correction and punishment.  

John Holmes writes in “The Farmer’s Dog”:

“There should be a very clear dividing line between correction and punishment. Correction is something which *has* to be done to get the dog to understand what he must do, and should, therefore, always be used to the absolute minimum. Punishment, although it may take the same form, is administered only when the dog has been deliberately disobedient, and can, therefore, be quite severe. That is if you are *quite* sure he has been disobedient. No dog can be disobedient until he knows what he *should* do, but many are punished simply because their owners have failed to make that clear. Many dogs are punished for trying their very hardest to please the master, they cannot understand. Remember, too, that what might be very severe punishment to one dog, might have no effect at all on another.”

This got me to thinking… under *this* definition, have I *ever* punished a dog?

Maybe once, 15 years ago, when I used an old Pet Safe 7-level collar to bust a dog off deer.  These old off-patent e-collars (what we now know as the low-cost Chinese crap) were a little too “hot” be very useful training tools.  But did they teach the dog to not chase deer?  They did.  

The lowest setting on that collar was all it took, but that lowest setting is higher than the highest setting I have ever used on a modern e-collar made by E-collar Technologies.

Which got me to thinking — there’s a “boost” option on the E-collar Technologies collar.  You can set it to give a “boosted” nick on the collar if you need it.  I never have. How do you set it?

So I found myself drilling on the on-line manual, where they describe the “boost” as “corrective,” and the low “tap” that I give my dogs as “conditioning”.

Ok.  Words.  

But apparently, not only do I *not* punish my dogs, I do not even *correct* them.

Upon reflection, I think “conditioning” is probably the right word.  

The “tap” I send to the dogs is so subtle I cannot feel it.  Basically, it just breaks the dogs out of their ADHD and OCD.  

If I’m dumping the dogs into a field after a long drive, a single tap on the collar just before they jump out of their crate will let them know we are working and curtail any tendency for them to engage in a 10-minute game of “grab ass” with each other.  

Similarly, if a dog seems transfixed by some smell in the grass, a single tap will pull them out of their fog and get them scurrying to catch up.

In truth, I walk the dogs and almost never tap on the collar at all. They know what little I require, and they know I keep kibble in my pocket when they do good, and my voice has been paired with collar taps to the point I rarely need to tap the collar at all.

That said, I am not sure I am going to change my 

Dog trainers prattle on about “operant  conditioning” (they mean training) and the “four quadrants”.

Whatever.  I have never saluted unnecessary complexity.  In the end, all dog training boils down to two simple signals that say “we need more of this” or “we need less of that”.

Call it what you will.  I have always called it rewards and punishment.

But then, I am lucky and do not have clients who force me to tiptoe around their childhood traumas, logic leaps, and armchair philosophies.

A lot of folks (apparently) had parents who misinterpreted the Biblical admonition to “spare the rod and spoil the child.”  Others may have grown up in alcoholic homes or ones where a parent had mental issues of some kind. 

Even in “normal” homes, busy parents often vacillate between indifference and controlling, permissive and authoritarian, if for no other reason than both parents are often on a different page when it comes to how to rear the kids.  

Any wonder why these folks are not big on the word “punishment,” which in their minds means unnecessary cruelty?

So, if you are training other people on how to train their dogs, and want to use another word or phrase, I am more than OK with it.  I get it.  You’re wrapping the medicine in a bit of bacon or cheese.

Haven’t we all done that at some point?  I know I have!

It’s Capitalism, I Whisper

Tuesday, March 05, 2024

This Next Election Is an IQ Test



The Numbing Numbers Of a Bee Hive



The hive base coat color will be yellow.  The design element on top of the yellow will be green foliage and small red flowers. I may trim the edge of the top covers in a black stripe.

You paint hives with all the frames out and stacked in a corner, which got me to thinking about the surface area inside the hive.  I will have two hives, each with two deeps and two mediums.  That’s a total of 80 frames, with two sides to each frame.  A single hive, as described, is about 61 square feet of surface area.

At peak, a single hive might hold 60,000 bees, all of whom will share a common queen mother who, as a virgin queen, will have flown out into field and forest to mate with maybe half a dozen male drones from another hive.  

Every worker and drone in a hive, and all of their replacements over the next year or two, will be the product of this one mating excursion.

The queen is a egg-laying machine; she does almost nothing else. With added weight, she can no longer fly. She cannot feed herself or clean herself; all of that work is done by her worker bee daughters. Drones in a hive are largely expendable; they are tossed out in late Fall to freeze to death. Drones do some guard duty in the Spring and Summer, and are the favorite host of the parasitic varroa mite, which is the chief cause of hive collapse.

Why All the Questions?

Monday, March 04, 2024

The Wee Man

My Wee Grandson with an enormous California mussell. I’ll get him to read Euell Gibbons’ “Beachcombers Handbook” in a few years. Going to make him my assistant beekeeper this summer.

His best trick so far, is getting a great mom and dad.

Sunday, March 03, 2024

The Hour Between Dog and Wolf

The phrase is taken from a French saying, “entre chien et loup,” and refers to the moments after sunset when the sky darkens and vision becomes unclear, making it difficult to distinguish between dogs and wolves, friends and foe.

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Time to Do Away With Leap Year

Wind on the Knoll

Pretty big winds last night. Went out this morning to walk the dogs around the woods and to check on the state of my recently-installed wind screen for the future bee hives. Wind screen in perfect order, and nothing came down that I could see other than one dead tree that pushed over but snagged on a living tree. That hanger is pretty perilous, but not a problem — it’s out of the way, and when it comes down I can section it and move those sections.

Feeling pretty good, I headed out to do some errands, but at the very end of the driveway, a big tree came down, blocking the exit. The root ball is about 7 feet tall and tipped over from my neighbor’s side. She’s called our tree guy to come and sort it out. This is a big tree — at least 80 feet — and even when sectioned, it might require a Bobcat to load it out.

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Suited and Booted for Bees

Ready for Bees! Jacket and hood came today, along with a bundle of basic tools. Hives come Sunday, bees in April. I already put in a windbreak for the future hives.

Bee keeping is about raising bugs that face a torrent of viruses, parasitic mites, and beetles. Along with fighting starvation, cold, and damp, you also have to worry about semi-random genetics, queen death, and swarming, to say nothing of fungus and bacteria.

Honey is merely an incidental benefit, and is not guaranteed, especially in Year One. If you think $2 eggs from your backyard chickens is expensive, the cost of your first 10 pounds of honey will make you weep. The good news is I am not in it for the honey, but for the hive.

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Ten Feet on Two Tires

The Wee Wolves went biking with me today. This is Lockhouse 22 on the C&O Canal, where President Grover Cleveland would go fishing about 150 years ago.

Sunday, February 25, 2024

What Counts Is What You Count

To an economist, trees only have value when they are chainsawed, milled, and stacked. And right there, is the essence of the problem...

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Five Yards of Sifted Top Soil

We've got two clear days followed by 4-5 days of warmth and rain, so I am jumping the gun to overseed the lawn. I think the core lawn problem is not enough dirt over the hard rock of the knoll.  Hopefully this will help. Plenty of seed, soil and water takes care of quite a lot. 

Friday, February 23, 2024

This Land Is Your Land

On this day in 1940, Woody Guthrie wrote “This Land is Your Land” in his room at the Hanover House Hotel at 43rd St. and 6th Ave. in New York City.
When the sun come shining, then I was strollingAnd the wheat fields waving, and the dust clouds rollingThe voice was chanting as the fog was liftingThis land was made for you and me

The Dawn Chorus on the Knoll