Attribution: Christopher Bruno, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper notes the news that a coyote is recovering at a wildlife center after being removed from the frozen food section of a Chicago Aldis grocery store. It is speculated that the coyote entered the store after …
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Category:Nature
Oh, Christmas Tree
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Each year, in the family holiday tradition, my wife and I venture out to buy our Christmas tree. We’re lucky enough to live across the street from a big tree lot so we don’t have very far to go—we can walk right over. It’s very convenient. It’s also …
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A Day with the Whales
Photo by Geoff Carter By Geoff Carter Last week, we had the opportunity to go on a whale watching expedition and photo shoot in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Banderas Bay, on which Vallarta is located, is a favored breeding ground for the great humpbacked whales. These magnificent creatures come from as far away as the waters …
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Time of the Season
The Pen in Hand Blog
Illustration by Michael DiMilo
Kickass and Bird Migration
Attribution: David Whelan, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper and Phyllis, forever attempting to establish their compatibility with the other creatures, woke up this morning of Sept. 23 with a strange sense of motion that they could not identify until they tuned in to the Cornell …
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Kickass and Oakwood Preserve
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, passes along the keeper and Phyllis’s appreciation for a priceless hour of therapy on the trails at the Oakwood University Wildlife Area. A rare place where meddling humans have been prevented from interfering with old things naturally getting old, demonstrating the grand cycle that …
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Kickass Visits the Prairie
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, agrees with the keeper and Phyllis that this is the time of prairie glory with such expansive growth of spectacular blossoming plants as to defy description. On a recent tour of family property west of Madison, Vista West neighbors Joyce and Jerry hosted the keeper …
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Kickass and Bird Photos
Photos by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, assists the keeper today in promoting him as a unique “minimalist” bird photographer with the shot of a hummingbird at the feeder which shows only the very tip of the hummingbird’s wing and requires that a viewer take the keeper’s word for it that …
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The Birds and the Bees
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Earlier this spring, we were heartened to see our old friend the mother robin return to her nest tucked above the heater on our front porch. Last year, she hatched three broods throughout the spring and summer, and so we were able to watch the hatchlings grow until …
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Kickass and the Mayfly Hatch
Attribution: Davide125, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper’s shaky equilibrium, as Phyllis knows, is so easily tipped off kilter that he should probably be encased in a plastic bubble. This morning it was a bit of gray cottonwood fluff floating by the window, and the …
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Kickass and Book from Grandchildren
Attribution: John Benson from Madison WI, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper and Phyllis in constantly marveling at their good fortune in having such outstanding grandchildren, and great grandchildren, of course. Periodically there are occurrences that endorse this judgement, and so it was when Nick and …
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Kickass and the Birds
Attribution: Photo by Mona Kool-Harrington on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper, weary of accepting what gets handed to him from such entities as the red-tie mafia and the black robed robbers has turned his attention to the birds and will henceforth not be accepting every aspect of the avian arrangement whereby …
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