This haiku is inspired by my next-door-pasture mates. Three geldings, only 2 of whom I know names. So I lump them as dark, milk, and white chocolates. My 3 chocolates. Dark is in charge. Dark and milk are highest on the horse pecking order. White comes in last, as youngest and newest to the herd of boys and is always thrust away from attention by flattened ears and threatening postures. He of the white chocolate is the most friendly and curious. He’s always up for hanging out over the fence for a chat and a scratch.
I love them all, my chocolates.
P.S. Not really MY chocolates. A girl can dream…
Who lives in your next door pasture? I’d love to read a haiku about your neighbors. Or you can just tell who lives next door. No haiku required! Do they make you think of chocolate?
Not THE Jimmy Hoffa, but my own skin-less, flesh-less version.
One quarter during my junior year of college at Western Washington University, I had the BEST science course! I loved that class. We determined our own grades by the project choices and number of selections we made on a preset list of assignments. Since I was always aiming for top grades, I made high marks my goal.
The final choice (between getting an A or a B) was removing the flesh from a small rodent to expose the skeleton. Actually, there was a second choice, but I don’t remember what it was. I spent many intense moments in consideration as I walked to and fro across campus. Choice A or B? I just had to do that final project to push myself to an A.
As I was wavering on how to get a rodent (rat or mouse) and how I was ever going to ‘kill’ it in order to dissect the flesh/skin/fur from its’ skeleton, I practically stepped on a rat. I was racing to class, when BAM, there was a barely moving rat lying on the pavement right outside my dorm! It was up against Old Edens, a gorgeous brick, ivy-covered behemoth of a building. I think the poor thing fell off and brained itself. Barely breathing or moving. Four feet in the grave.
Should I or shouldn’t I??? Choice A? I had to choose A when the opportunity presented itself. Nearly late, I raced to my room, grabbed a plastic bag, ‘rescued’ the rodent from the cement, put it in the dorm freezer, and headed to class. I really don’t think it was going to come around, so slowly freezing to death seemed pretty humane to me.
Now I was in possession of a full-sized dead frozen rat-sicle. In. The. Dorm. Freezer. (Don’t tell anyone, I’m sure there were regulations against it.) Time to earn that A.
How to Make a Rat Skeleton Display
1. Borrow science tools and remove as much of the ‘not bones’ parts as possible. This was a bit tricky with the tail and tiny toes, not to mention the dull scapel.
2. Attach rat skeleton (in my case, Jimmy Hoffa) to a piece of balsam wood to hold it in one position. I used straight pins.
3. Take rat skeleton to a flesh-eating insect colony. I also had the choice of boiling off the flesh, but ew. If frozen rat in the freezer in my dorm was bad, the smell of cooking rat would have been much worse! Besides, the tiny bones would have fallen apart or dissolved.
4. Let rat skeleton spend a minimum of one month in the insect colony.
Research Tip: I have no idea which type of insects Jimmy really visited, but best guess is a colony of dermestid beetles. Which, according to this post, can pick a skeleton clean in one day. No idea why Jimmy had to stay away from home for a month.
5. So, Jimmy went on a little trip to the flesh-eating insect container. There Jimmy spent a month of so while hundreds, or thousands, of little bugs combed his bones, picking off and eating leftover bits my scapel refused to move. He was almost perfectly clean when I picked him up from the vacation in Bug-Land. After writing an eye-witness account of his travels, I presented Jimmy and his journal to my professor.
Ta-da! I was awarded an A for my work in the science course. And I got to keep Jimmy. Where he lived in a ziplock bag for years until I couldn’t think of anything else to do with him and tossed him out. Poor Jimmy.
There you have it! Should you want to de-flesh a rodent skeleton, just find a colony of those flesh-eating bugs.
What crazy projects did you complete during your educational years?
As a preschool educator, I would like to suggest two new developmental stages.
The Stage of Why.
The Stage of “Actually”
1. The Stage of Why. My 3-year-old grandson is solidly in this stage, as evidenced by lengthy ‘why’ infested conversations during our daily commutes. Today, after being unable to even count HOW MANY whys were tossed willy-nilly towards me from the back seat, I turned the tables and rephrased his questions into ‘whys’ for him. To which he replied with the actual answers to some of my lobs.
Why? Why? Why? I love answering questions and explaining things we see and do (teacher!), but sometimes, I may be close to my limit of whys. Gage is on the verge of being out of this stage, but since we are taking a pit stop in the WHY questioning period, my game of counting whys and popping the questions back to him might just keep me sane.
2. The Stage of Actually. This word, used correctly in context by the younger preschool crowd, cracks me up. It usually shows up when preschoolers are able to grasp the abstractness of this word and how they’ve heard others use it. AND they can get out that many syllables, be understood, and make sense. Actually has been visiting this 3-year-old and his conversations. Waiting for the 2-year-old to pick up on it.
Preschoolers. They ROCK. Life is enriched with their preschool-ness.
What other new developmental stages would you like to add?
Nature abounding in the woods and along mountain tops strips away the stresses of the modern world, the work world, the life-filled with garbage. In the woods, I find home. I imagine places I could build shelter or a cozy cabin and projects for harvested pinecones and rocks. I dreamily discover that perfect rock chair so I can just simply sit and listen to the burble of a small stream or the wind whipping through canyons and treetops.
I relax. The fragrances of wilderness, fir trees, clean dirt, evergreens, mountain breezes. They cleanse noise-city-dirty air-vehicle polluted senses and engage my entire sensory system.
My imagination runs wild at times, inspired by pencil-thin bouncing hooves of deer and bunny-tail rumps disappearing under shrubs. What was that noise? Is a bear nibbling berries on the other side of this patch? Will mosquitoes or wasps or ticks invade my body? Is a hungry cougar lounging over the trail, ready to pounce? Should I perhaps be thinking about how I would survive if I became lost? Is the birdsong loud and joyous or absent and ominous?
I am at home. I feel free to dream and imagine and just be. I drink deeply of the mountain air, listen intently to the sounds of God’s creation at its most pure.
It’s been too long without my woodsy home. To the mountains, to the woods, I must return.
Love, Laughter, and Life 