A friend of mine in Idaho has about forty horses, he doesn’t need them, very few people really need horses, but he loves them and that is good enough for him. He lives on the South side of the Snake, in a semi-desert area. He does a little farming and ranching, has excellent irrigation water from the Snake and good well water. Of course the birds figure the horse watering tank was put there specifically for them and they are perfectly willing to share with the horses, just to be good neighbors and citizens.
Unfortunately, that presents a problem, the metal rim of the tank is slippery and the birds will often fall in the tank while getting a drink. Holding on while drinking is hard, but climbing out is impossible for a bird; sadly, they swim until they drown. Life is hard on the ranch, but it’s really hard if you make a stupid mistake. My friend is a fairly soft hearted man and he knows that a dead bird will foul the water and the horses wont drink with a dead bird in the tank. To alleviate this problem of clumsy birds, he leaves several boards floating in the tank. The birds can climb on the boards, shake out their feathers until they are dry and fly away.
In time the birds learn that it is easier and safer to drink from the floating boards than the metal rim. They also enjoy resting on the boards and watching the brightly colored Coy fish my friend put in the tank. There were over a hundred of them when he first put them in the tank; he enjoyed watching them and the fish seemed to enjoy life in the tank they ate bugs and the mossy like growth that grows in the tank. Life seemed good and everything was in balance, like in the early bible days.
However, there was a problem; the Coy fish began to disappear. It was nearly impossible to count them accurately, but there was no longer a hundred in the big tank. A week later my friend took inventory again and there were even fewer.
Intrigued by the depleted fish stock, my friend sat with binoculars on the hillside above the tank to try and solve the enigma. Within an hour the answer was obvious: Magpies would land on the boards and stand perfectly still, when a Coy fish rose to the surface to sun himself, the Magpie would deliver an incapacitating blow with its beak to the back of the fish’s head rendering him unconscious. The bird would then fly off with the helpless fish and feed its young back at its nest.
This wasn’t a government team sent to investigate, there was no need to muddy up the water with philosophical theory and a multitude of causes like Climate Change and pollution: no, like most problems, the answer was simple, but the solution was a problem indeed.
Oddly enough the fish solved the problem after about forty of them had been eaten by the blood thirsty feathered savages. The remaining 60 decided that it is dangerous to sun yourself at the surface and they never came to the surface. Eventually, the Magpies only came to drink like the other birds and nature’s balance was restored.
The Coy remind me of Republican congressmen, if they compromise their principles and bask in the warmth and seemingly easy life at the surface and play the game of go along to get along, they will become branded as RINOs and it wont be long until they are carried away. Before long they learn that the only way to insure longevity is to stick to the cold hard principles of true Conservatism. Survival requires a consolidated effort to avoid the entreaties of Democrats who are no longer in power and now are more than willing to seduce Republicans with a faux olive branch promising compromise like mincing harlots, but in reality it is merely a trap to weaken the movement and destroy the integrity of Republicans by having them labeled as RINOs and making their political survival in 2012 a questionable proposition.
A professional horseman for over 50 years, Skook continues to work with horses. Skook has finished an historical novel, Fifty Thousand Years, that traces a mitochondrial line of DNA from 50,000 years ago to the present. The story follows a line of courageous women, from the Ice Ages to the present, as they meet the challenges of survival with grit and creativity. These are not women who whimper of being victims, they meet the challenges of survival as women who use their abilities without excuses or remorse, these women are winners, they are our ancestors.
Fifty Thousand Years is available in paperback and e-book, it is getting great reviews. You can purchase a copy here; Visit me on Facebook.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Dylantheauthor
In this world within which we live we call ourselves conservatives or liberals, left or right, we categorize ourselves and we seek the side of the fence that is most comfortable to us. We develop commonalities, we seek common goals and we view our world through jaded eyes or rose colored glasses. We have utopian ideas which are so different as to cause wars. We venture forth and we strive to live and in so doing we are willing to give our lives to lead the life that we as individuals desire.
Yet, we still look at this world through eyes that see out of bodies that created by a supreme being combined with evolution.
Myself, I view my world as being “UPSIDE DOWN”, almost as if I am wrapped different . . . down to my actual DNA . . . is the DNA double helix that makes me who I am wrapped to the left or to the right? Is it even possible for science to see this as a possibility? Truly, all through my life as I have ventured into the world I have been viewed as different, a strong non-conformist . . . my perpectives have been recognized as an attritbute, a positive thing that allows me to see things from a different perspective and present a different approach. This characteristic is something that to me is inborn in me. I find those that readily accept me and those that build huge, insurmountable barriers to even being near me. I find that I am NOT alone in this, that there are many, many, more like me. It is as if half the world would put the other half of the world into an insane asylum, pen them up and throw away the key or worse yet . . . commit genenocide and wipe them out. Half the people suddenly turn on and bury the other half in shallow mass graves that heave the earth to an ever pitched mound of putrification and hate.
Controversy rears this arch angle of black and white . . . rising us in our anger, repulsiveness, releasing us to wreck havoc on the weaker side, be even that both sides are equally vicious, the determination of the outcome determined only by the strength in numbers, skills, knowledge and resources in the victor.
Is there victor? No only a revisionist who choses to write the future in blooded stone.
Signed, Sincerely
Spiral of the opposite ordinate
Skook,
Amazing how you are able to weave the simple realities of life into the twisted political envronment of today so seamlessly. I envy your writing skills my friend. And as always, thanks once again for the smile that always comes to my face when reading your stories.
joe
My bird feeders are swamped during the Winter months by Democratic pigeons who think I’m a social services feeder.
I found a red tailed hawk who was willing to start a new revolution.
http://i52.tinypic.com/ela87q.jpg
We need more hawks in Washington
Love your stories for two reasons:
1. All are based on actions and consequences (foreign concept to many people today).
As more and more people go off to college and study “women’s studies , African-american, Irish-american studies, etc.” and other mushy topics, we’ve gone farther and farther away from direct consequences of actions. Someone responsible for shoeing horses, changing oil in a car, repairing a television, delivering a boat on the ocean, or wiring a ceiling fan sees the connection between actions and reactions. Our kids don’t see that, nor do they see the satisfaction of fixing something.
2. All are based on reality… not magical thinking. Tinker Bell an pixie dust are fantasies.
Keep the stories coming.