donttread (08-11-2019)
Peter1469 (08-12-2019)
She borrowed her dad's welding gloves, but no special gear. She's kind of odd when it comes to animals, they tend to find her when they need help. I know that sounds hokey, but when I drive by myself, I rarely see lost dogs or cats. When I'm riding with her, they come out of the woodwork, and, of course, we have to help each one of them. She bought a place in the country three years ago and she and her fiance raise and train GSDs for police work. She's also in law enforcement, so she gets called when the deputies pick up injured critters. She serves as an overflow for the animal shelter in town. I always thought she'd grow out of that when she grew up but she didn't -- she just found a guy who would build everything she needed to keep animals. She has horses, dairy goats, dogs and cats and an occasional deer/possum/bird that gets injured until she can get it healthy and release it.
""A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul" ~George Bernard Shaw
Ethereal (08-12-2019)
FindersKeepers (08-13-2019)
One of my favorite short pieces by Franz Kafka, "The Vulture"
There was a vulture that hacked at my feet. He had already shredded my boots and my socks, now he was attacking my feet. He picked away at them, then he flew around me a couple of times skittishly, before resuming his work. A gentleman came along and watched for a while, then he asked me why I tolerated the vulture. “I’m helpless,” I said. “He came and started hacking at me, and of course I wanted to drive him away, I even tried to strangle him, but a beast like that has a lot of strength in him, and he was about to leap at my face, so I thought it was better to sacrifice my feet. Now they’re almost shredded.” “How can you stand to be tormented like that,” said the gentleman, “a single bullet, and that vulture is history.” “Is that right?” I asked, “and would you oblige me?” “Willingly,” said the gentleman, “I just have to go home and get my gun. Can you wait another half an hour?” “I don’t know,” I said, and I stood for a while, rigid with pain. Then I said: “Well, will you try anyway?” “Very well,” said the gentleman, “I’ll be as quick as I can.”
The vulture had been listening to our conversation, and kept looking back and forth between me and the gentleman. Now I saw that he had understood everything, he flew up, leaning right back to get plenty of momentum, and then, like a javelin thrower, he thrust his beak through my mouth deep into me. As I fell back, I could feel a sense of deliverance as he wallowed and drowned in the blood that now filled all my vessels and burst its banks.
Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler