Winter Solstice Sunrise 2010 by Sian Lindsey, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, listened as the keeper interviewed the shortest day of the year (SDOY): Keeper: “So how did you end up as the shortest day of the year?” SDOY: “Daylight started to leak out through a big hole in …
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Category:Nature
Oh, Christmas Tree
Artwork by Michael Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter (Originally posted in December, 2019) 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 …
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Kickass and Leghold Traps
Accipiter (R. Altenkamp, Berlin), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in approving of the Madison city council’s ban on declawing cats; and also in telling the council that so long as it does not ban the use of leghold traps—as has been done in many parts of the civilized …
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Kickass and the Snowy Owl
Alan D. Wilson, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper has spent much of his long life trying to make amends for his early farm-boy years when his thoughtless marauding with his .22 rifle made no bird or animal safe. Etched deeply into the keeper’s guilt …
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Kickass and Mackenzie Pheasants
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, napped at home as the keeper and Phyllis spent the waning hours of the 2021 deer hunting season hiking a trail at the MacKenzie Outdoor Education Center near Poynette where a sign displays the famous Aldo Leopold quote about some people needing wild things. …
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Kickass and Bird Dinosaurs
NobuTamura email:nobu.tamura@yahoo.com www.palaeocritti.com, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the new digs for Phyllis and the keeper–being on the 5th floor of a recently completed structure that is isolated from most natural plant growth, is not exactly bird friendly; and this has moved the keeper to court the …
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Kickass and Silent Spring
NASA, ESA, H. Teplitz and M. Rafelski (IPAC/Caltech), A. Koekemoer (STScI), R. Windhorst (Arizona State University), and Z. Levay (STScI), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper’s solution to being totally incapable of understanding most of what occurs on planet Earth was a misguided attempt to …
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Kickass Suggests the Zoo
Photo by Chris Briggs on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper, suggesting to Phyllis’s son Todd and granddaughter Taylor on how they might spend Tuesday in Madison, said it was a toss-up between the Vilas Park Zoo and the Capitol where there will be a public hearing on establishing a hunting season …
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Kickass Talks to Horses
Photo by Harry Peterson By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, passes along the keeper’s report of a last-day trout fishing excursion with Harry Peterson that included such extensive immersion in the rural Driftless landscape that communicating with the animals, both wild and domestic, came as naturally as it ever can for a species that …
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Kickass Makes a Move
Martyn Gorman / Newburgh: Return of the wild geese By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in noting the constant creature movement across the globe, perhaps topped by the radio-tracked female pecchial hawk that spent 42 days flying 10,000 kilometers from South Africa to Finland, which helps put the upcoming move by the keeper …
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Kickass and Pack Position
Photo from mila-del-monte via Pixabay By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, shared with the keeper and Phyllis yet one more example of what it means to be older members of a “together” pack when son Mike and granddaughter Sarah delivered grilled cheese sandwiches and chili, and stayed to help with furniture moving and official …
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Backyard Web Tour
All Photos by Geoff Carter