Antonio, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper has in hand a top- secret document from the Department of Interior that outlines the following: *Preliminary study shows a crossover of the mysterious human brain malfunction of denying reality–“DR” to several bird species causing them to fly …
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Category:Environment
Kickass and Treeson
Photo by TJ Watt, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, shares good vibes with the keeper regarding trees, and notes that he–the keeper is in a final draft of his book “Treeson” which is an apology to all the trees that went into making the paper to print his …
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Time of the Season
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter This past weekend my brother and I partook in the old family tradition of going up to the family cottage and taking the pier in. It’s not a huge chore or a particularly difficult one, but there is—for me, at least—a kind of sadness attached to the task. …
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Kickass and Coyote Mange
nature80020, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper’s son Rick, visiting from his Denver suburb home, casually tells of his success in treating a local coyote family for mange. After observing the nearly hairless mother, Rick sent away for some sulfodene, the standard mange treatment drug, inserted …
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Kickass and Packaging
User:Nino Barbieri, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, passes along the keeper’s carefully researched conclusion that the end of the “civilized” world will not come from running out of water or food, or by crashing into another planet, or by burning up in wildfires, or by drowning in floods, …
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Kickass and Black Earth Creek
Corey Coyle, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that among the latest big-money-sponsored insults to life as the keeper’s crowd knows it, is a warning from the DNR that eating the trout out of Black Earth Creek comes with the risk of cancer, a lower birth rate and …
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Foul Weather
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Over the past two weeks, our Wisconsin weather—always a wild card—has been beyond extreme. We shot up from a high of sixty-one degrees last Wednesday to a high of ninety-five on Thursday (never mind the heat index). That next night the temperature plummeted to the low sixties. This …
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Kickass and No More Fetch
Maulor, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, informs the keeper that if the Earth were a tennis ball, no dog would fetch it, there being no fun in playing with what is coming to resemble a rotting meatball being picked over by opportunistic vultures and consumed by rich maggots. …
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Old Guard
Photo by Geoff Carter By Geoff Carter My family is lucky enough to own lakefront property in Northern Wisconsin. We’ve been going there for over fifty years, ever since my brothers and I were children. My mother would pile us into our red VW bug on the first day of summer vacation, drive for five hours, …
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Kickass and Bird Migration
Antonio, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in his fascination with the fact that, according to ornithologists, 340 million birds will migrate across the skies of the US tonight. The incredible timeless night migration of birds is now being negatively affected by human …
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Kickass and Earth Day 2022
NASA images by Reto Stöckli, based on data from NASA and NOAA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper on this Earth Day to lament the physical and mental “dung ball” condition of the planet; and to remember Earth Day 1966 when the keeper was among the …
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Kickass and A Walk in the Woods
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper, fresh from reading The Overstory, where Richard Powers relates trees to humans, walked in the woods with son Larry to assess the kill of ash trees by the invasive emerald ash borer. The walk included pauses at many of the …
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