Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter I recently had occasion to take a long cross-country road trip, spanning the Midwest, Colorado, and New Mexico. It’s a grueling ride, taking over twenty hours, but the pain is worth it. Driving through the plains and rolling hills and sometimes bleak plains offers the opportunity to get …
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Category:Nature
Kickass and Bird Photos
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, has pretty much given up on assisting the keeper with his “bird” issues, including, of course, his place in the unstated sandhill crane photo competition that is ongoing as the big birds return to the state in droves. Prior to the most recent snow …
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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 Iditarod Sleigh Ride
Alaska Region U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, assists the keeper in accepting the reality of a postponed sleigh ride—not enough snow–that he and Phyllis were scheduled to enjoy, by comparing it to the experience of Alaskan Bridgett Watkins who was attacked by a moose …
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Kickass Watches Crows Chase
Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper takes bird incidents where he can get them from the 5th floor bird-isolated location where he and Phyllis reside, and therefore it was with some excitement that he watched an obviously pissed-off crow chase another crow across the parking …
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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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