While I was at UNM the other day, I stopped in the Art Building to see what was happening. The photo department was open, so I walked in to see how it looked 30 years after I was a photography student in the Art Department. I wasn't too surprised the see that the prep area and gang darkroom had changed little since I was there, and it warmed my heart to see they still offered classes in black and white film photography. What had changed were the areas that had lighting studios and other darkrooms now had scanners, color printers, larger format plotters and computer labs for digital processing and printing. I spent four years of my life in this area taking photography classes, processing film and making prints, and as I stood there in the familiar surroundings, it felt like only yesterday that I was a student, but a yesterday that was oh so long ago.

Music video: THE TURTLES - Happy Together (1967) 

Sasha's intense stare.

Spunk think about tearing through the wire.

Spunk looks before he leaps.

Spank makes a spectacular leap. I wasn't fast enough to get the landing.

Paw Lee doing his imitation of Charlie Chaplain.

Although Paw Lee could get in trouble doing Charlie Chaplain like Felix the Cat in the movie Felix in Hollywood (1923).

Go ask Alice, when she's ten feet tall…
And call Alice, when she was just small…
Go ask Alice, I think she'll know…​

Grace Slick, 1966

Jefferson Airplane -White Rabbit- Official Music Video​

Sandhill Cranes hanging out in the field next door

There are a handful of Sandhill Cranes hanging around in the neighbor's field thinking that migrating is for the birds. But I'll bet those magnets in their little brains that the polar vortex tugs at will soon be pulling them northward. Temps in the 70's and Leap Year has so far only produced one lonely bloom from a yellow crocus along the walk to our front door. The other crocus, daffodils and tulips are not buying into this window of warm weather since morning temperatures have been around 20º F every morning despite highs in the 60's to 70 degrees during the day.

We took advantage of the warm weather to work on the garden. Laurie cut and cleaned up a lot of the dry foliage we leave for the birds and winter interest. I worked on the drip systems and soaker hoses, then I started moving a pile of bamboo I had cut out of the black bamboo grove to make the labyrinth last summer. I got frustrated with the elm trees blocking my path to the limb, started cutting elm trees out to clear the path, and ended up cutting a few hundred elm trees out of a 12 feet by 100 feet section along the south side of the property. The elm trees I cut down ranged in size from twigs to trees with 4 inch trunks that were 20 feet tall. Most of the trees had 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inch diameter trunks and were 8 to 12 feet tall. Since I cut down all the trees by hand with lopping sheers, a bow saw or an axe, I left the big trees with 6 inch to 15 inch trunks that are up to 50 feet tall for another day. I have to use a chainsaw, get a ladder, climb up into the trees and cut them down in sections so they don't crush other parts of the garden when they fall over. I was thinking I needed to hire the beavers to take out all the trees I removed — that would give them plenty of material for their dams.

Yellow crocus

Laurie brandishing sheers.

Laurie cutting dead foliage off a peony.

The beavers are still winning the war the Conservancy has been waging against them and their dams. I would willingly donate the fruits of my labor from clearing out all those elm trees to the beavers for their dam.

I turn to my old friend the Bestiary (Book of Beasts) MS Bodley 764 from the 13th Century for a discussion on crows. What the original author of the Bestiary tells us about crows is that little has changed in the nearly 800 years after he created his manuscripts.

The Crow
“The crow is a bird which lives to great age. Its name is the same in Greek as in latin; ‘cornix’. They say it can reveal the purposes of men’s actions: it can disclose the whereabouts of an ambush, and predict the future. This is a great offense, to believe that God entrusts His counsels to crows. Among other omens they are credited with foretelling rain with their cries. Hence the poet’s words: ’The crow loudly cries for rain’ [Virgil, Georgics i.388]. Men should teach themselves to love their children from the crow’s example. When their young are learning to fly, they follow them assiduously, and in case they should weaken, they bring them food. They do not give up the task of feeding for a long while. By contrast, our women wean human children as soon as they can, even if they love them; and if the children are troublesome, they show a real aversion to breastfeeding them. If they are poor they throw out their babies and expose them, and if they are found, deny all knowledge of them. Even the rich would rather kill the child in the womb for fear that their lands should be divided into many parts, and use murderous juices to extinguish the concealed pledges of their love; they are more ready to take life away than to give it. Who apart from mankind denies their offspring? What other creature has such harsh treatment from its father? Who made brothers unequal in their brotherhood? The sons of the same rich man with have very different fates; one will be entrusted with all his estates, the other will inherit a poor and worked-out corner of his father’s lands. Did nature divide the merits of the sons so unevenly? She divides equally for all, giving them enough to be born and to live. Nature should teach you not to make any distinction in dividing an inheritance between those who are equal by brotherhood of blood.”†

†Excerpt from Bestiary MS Bodley 764. Pages 160 and 161. “Bestiary being an English version of the Bodleian Library, Oxford M.S. Bodley 764 with all the original miniatures reproduced in Facsimile. Translated and introduced by Richard Barber. The Boydell Press. Woodrifge. 1999”