All posts by laurahinnj

Birds, Wanderings, Whatever

Decoys again

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Quick – name that duck! I went to a new (to me) decoy show this afternoon hoping to find a nice oldsquaw to add to the growing collection here, but was disappointed. Oldsqauw don’t seem to be popular decoy subjects and I wonder why. I’d thought maybe sea ducks in general aren’t often made, but bufflehead and mergansers are very popular. Anybody know?

As shows go, this one didn’t compare with the Tuckerton show. Very few vendors and very few nicely done decoys. So I came home with the wallet intact, at least.

😉

First thing this morning I was reading an article in the local paper about duck hunting in the area. It seems like every year around this time certain locals get up in arms about something that’s been done here forever. As a birder, duck hunting bothers me, of course, but the folks who live along the local rivers claim that it disturbs their peaceful enjoyment of their homes. I won’t say anymore than that I think the issue is their peaceful enjoyment of the water and the hell with anyone else who doesn’t own waterfront property. Enough said!

Snapshots, Whatever

Sweet lil’ guy

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Isn’t he just the sweetest thing! Today was christening day for the newest member of the family – my nephew’s baby – and the little man slept straight through the whole ordeal.

I also finally got to see my other nephew home from college in Montana for Xmas. I think he’s grown a foot since I last saw him and has his hair cut in a mohawk (again) – kids! Nice to see him and hear that he’s doing well in school; when he was little I tutored him in reading for a while. He struggled a bit during his first year at college closer to home, so this move to Montana was a chance for him to find a better fit. He says he loves it there and didn’t even complain about the cold any. Plus, his grades are good!

In the neighborhood, Whatever

One way to do it

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Is it just me, or is this a very *guy* way to do things?

😉

It’s okay. I can make fun… he’s my friend and well, let’s just say this is typical behavior! Jimmy puts up the tree and all the lights in downtown Red Bank, so I guess he can take it back down any way he pleases.

Cracks me up too, to see another guy (Officer Pete) standing around supervising. Also typical!

So.. fess up guys! Looks like a fun approach to a depressing task, I think.

Image from Red Bank Green, a neat local news blog.

PSA, Whatever

What I didn’t do

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A while back, Beth at EasyEcoLiving tagged me to post about one thing I did at the holidays to lessen my footprint. I’ve avoided responding to her tag thus far because I couldn’t think of anything. Then it sort of dawned on me that, maybe, my laziness with all things Xmas this year might somehow be viewed as a good thing. How’s that for revisionist thinking?

😉

I didn’t waste gas running around too much to buy gifts; I didn’t waste trees because I didn’t send any Xmas cards nor did I do very much wrapping.

Oh wait! I thought of one thing I did – I bought lots and lots of organic produce to feed to the multitudes that showed up here for dinner on Christmas Day. So there. I did something.

😉

Feel free to play along if you like, here in comments or on your own blog. Share some tips for how to make next year’s holiday greener!

In case you haven’t already seen it, have a look at The Story of Stuff and maybe you’ll feel a little less inclined to ever do holiday shopping again.

Dog days, From the field

Please use back door

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I added pit bulls to my list of occupational hazards today, as if the possibility of random shootings, gang violence, or being kidnapped by crackheads weren’t entertaining enough.

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(Please note that I write this not for your sympathy, but so that my coworker Deb from my old cozy unit will stop insisting that my promotion to this field position is some kind of *racket* as she likes to call it.)

I still have all of my limbs, but barely. A sign on the front of the house directed me to the back door where I found, a little too late and a little too close for comfort, a friendly (not!) brindle pit bull. With a very strong-looking neck and a tie out which was considerably weaker-looking than anything I would think to use with my Lab puppy. And about a foot of space between the end of that lead and my pathway to the back door. Ahem.

For the life of me, I can’t understand why my client who has a beautiful house and who is a truly nice person, would have a pit tied out in her yard. Other than, maybe, to protect herself and her home from the neighbors.

At any rate, I’m a dog lover and reserve most of my fear for little yappy dogs or the occasional golden retriever. Illogical, I know, but a golden snapped at me once and now I’m afraid of most of them. My sister-in-law rescued an abused pit in a cruelty case from a neighborhood such as the one I visited today. Sweet dog and good-natured as pits go, but I don’t trust it. Once it had me afraid to move when it cornered me alone in my SIL’s living room and wouldn’t give way for me to walk past him. Silly, really, because I know the dog to be sweet, but always there’s that reputation to contend with.

Oftentimes, I guess the reputation is warranted, but I wonder if others have had a positive experience with pits or other *dangerous* dog breeds. I know lots of lovable Rotties and German Shepherds and wouldn’t think of fearing them as a breed the way I might pit bulls (or golden retrievers!)

Image from the HSUS.

Birds, In the neighborhood, Snapshots

Sandy Hook Sunset

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“I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay until sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” –John Muir

Well… I can’t quite concur with Muir, but it was a fine sunset today at Sandy Hook. The bay was like a mirror all day and the light this morning when I arrived for my volunteering at the bird observatory would have been phenomenal for photography. By the time I was done and could scan the shoreline for ducks there was nothing but glare on the bay, but that glare led to this sunset with the distant calls of oldsquaw arriving with the gentle waves at my feet.

Anybody want to ID the bird standing on the rocks?

😉

Books

Skater

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“She was all in black but for a yellow pony tail
that trailed from her cap, and bright blue gloves
that she held out wide, the feathery fingers spread,
as surely she stepped, click-clack, onto the frozen
top of the world. And there, with a clatter of blades,
she began to braid a loose path that broadened
into a meadow of curls. Across the ice she swooped
and then turned back and, halfway, bent her legs
and leapt into the air the way a crane leaps, blue gloves
lifting her lightly, and turned a snappy half-turn
there in the wind before coming down, arms wide,
skating backward right out of that moment, smiling back
at the woman she’d been just an instant before.”
–Ted Kooser

I was delighted to come across a newly released book of Ted Kooser’s poetry – Valentines – and have been challenging myself to find a new favorite of the 23 poems each day – this one is today’s favorite.

Image by photographer Jeff Maion.

From the classroom, Whatever

Disorganized like me

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I came across an interesting article yesterday at the NY Times website (link) that sounded so familiar to me – as I’m sure it will to the rest of you teachers out there; but I wonder if those of you who parent boys won’t find it to ring true also.

One of the major challenges that I have working with my college-age male students is a lack of organizational and study skills. I saw the same in the few years I spent teaching elementary and high-school boys. The article talks about the need for these kids to visit tutors in order to learn those skills, which, let’s face it, are so basic to success in school that I wonder why they’re not ever taught as part of the regular curriculum.

Teaching kids how to learn seems so… basic; yet the assumption is that kids just know how to do those things that make success at it possible. That I or any other college professor should need to spend time, week after week, showing the same boys how to organize a binder or how to keep a record of when assignments are due – how silly, I think, considering all the *more important* stuff that schools are so focused on.

The funny thing is that I’m not a very good role model for the type of behavior I teach and my students sometimes see it. Too often they get a peak into my messy school bag filled with last semester’s final exams, grocery store receipts and that great new poetry book I picked up weeks ago and then immediately misplaced.

😉

Do as I say, not as I do – right? Thank God no one ever sees the state of my desk here at home – the piles of bills mixed with the piles of books and the blotter still stuck in April of 2007 covered with fragments and whispers and book titles and phone numbers important enough that I won’t turn the page.

Anyone willing to fess up along with me to being a disorganized girl?

😉

Dog days, Snapshots

Seven month pupdate

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Suffice it to say that Luka continues to grow in direct proportion to his ability to try my patience! Mostly, he’s a doll, but he’s learning about independence and the value of selective hearing. I think it’s in that area that our training classes come in handy the most; when he’s too focused on misbehaving I simply distract him with a sit/stay and generous handouts of cookies. What’s really neat is that he’s learned hand signals for all his commands, so that I needn’t even raise my voice to scream at him.

😉

This toy that has him all googly-eyed is the only one recently that he hasn’t destroyed within minutes. Anything that’s slightly soft or has even the tiniest bit of give is torn apart and strewn across the floor somewhere. This yellow rubber jack thingy he just drops (repeatedly) at or (more likely) on my feet – or even more annoying – under the legs of a chair or the dining room table out of his reach and then he sits and woofs at it until someone comes along and retrieves it for him, only to bounce it right back under whatever again. What a PITA!

We’ve taken to calling him ‘Wiggles’ lately – he greets everyone with his whole body in a side-to-side sway. And he is a master at stealing my spot on the couch should I get up to answer the phone or something; the thing that makes me forgive him that is that he is a true lap dog (except for his size, I guess) and seems to love having someone near to snuggle with!