Kickass and the Dead Beaver

Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, assists the keeper in making something of his—the keeper’s memory of the March afternoon when most of the student body of the country school trudged across the deep melting snow of Becker’s woods to see the bloated body of the beaver that had been trapped …
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Kickass and Driftless Tour

Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons / “Dülmen, Hausdülmen, Sonnenaufgang — 2015 — 4952” / CC BY-SA 4.0 By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, stayed home and rested as the keeper and Phyllis had an afternoon windshield lunch with the eagles and the crows in the snow-frosted Driftless hills of southwest Wisconsin. Aged venison was on the menu for the birds as they …
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Kickass and DNR Board Outrage

kallerna, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in reporting on the recent unbelievable DNR Board meeting at which Walker appointees, one of whom—Wausau tooth-jerker Fred Prehn, refuses to step down from his expired term, voted in favor of continuing to allow the poisoning of surface water …
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Dialogues on Nature Gone Wild/Letters from the Killing Fields

Photo by Francesco Ungaro from Pexels Featuring the Fabulous Dadbots Mark Mamerow, Dave. S., Mark O., Dennis Curley, and Geoff Carter Hello Bots, I found this article fascinating in an almost schadenfreude sort of way… (taking pleasure in other’s woes…usually an enemy or excessively privileged one…but not always—no one in our respective purviews is immune from schadenfreude). So many animals…and …
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Kickass Talks to Wolves

Fool4myCanon, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, under the heading of “Talks to Wolves,” passes along the keeper’s message concerning the latest judicial decision that at least delays the advent of another unconscionable wolf slaughter as occurred last year in Wisconsin: “Wolves! “Listen up! “Don’t get all howling happy …
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Kickass and Those of the Forest

Shadowmeld Photography, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper has finally finished his before-sleep book—”Those of the Forest” by Wallace Grange, which is an accounting of the symbiotic existence of all things, complete with all the necessary predatory/parasitic violence and transformative extinctions.  There are no people …
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Kickass and Leopold’s Birthday

Pacific Southwest Region 5, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes that while the keeper mentioned recent January birthdays, he missed Aldo Leopold’s on Jan.11 which marked 135 years since Leopold’s birth in 1887. (Leopold died in 1948 of a heart attack while fighting a wildfire on neighbor’s property.) …
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Kickass and Skunk Style

Photo by Bryan Padron on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper assesses the degree of hibernation necessary to survive a Wisconsin winter, and compares the actions—inactions, actually—of himself and Phyllis to that of the “dumb” animals such as skunks that are dozing through the numbing cold and snow in cozy dens. Skunks …
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