Pheasant, meet Calf.
It's only January, but the cows have already been let into the back pasture. Usually I have to wait until March or even April to see my friends. But the weather has been so warm...suddenly there are signs of spring everywhere.
Including in the pasture. A couple of days ago I noticed a young calf lying in the grass. I grabbed my camera and headed to the fence. While I'm snapping photos, a pheasant walks across the viewfinder! Again, I don't usually see pheasants (or hear them) until spring, but there's Mr Show Off prancing around the pasture, right in front of my camera lens!
I watched as he went over to investigate the calf. He got about 3 feet away, looked her over, and then turned around and walked away.
Last spring there were so many pheasants out there they kept us awake, squawking all evening. (Don't know what a pheasant sounds like? Think of that sound an old-fashioned bicycle bell makes—that's exactly what they sound like.) Maybe that's why this year, we've (we, meaning "Sparky" of course) seen so many foxes.
I predict a busy spring out back.
A graph to peruse while sipping that 2009 Bordeaux
I have no problem with government policies that raise the price of beer to reduce alcohol comsumption and its adverse effects—namely, drunk driving. (That's partly because I can't stand lager or cider—both of which taste like cold piss.)
But here's a policy I like even better: Cheap wine! Yes, it turns out lowering the price of wine means fewer adverse effects of alcohol, in particular binge drinking.
Seems people don't binge drink wine. (No? Pass that Medoc!) That means fewer traffic fatalities as wine becomes a larger share of total alcohol consumption.
This research came about by looking at states that allow wine to be sold in supermarkets, versus states that require you to go to a state liquor store to purchase wine. (Thank god I never lived in one of those states!) Those that allow supermarket purchases of wine have lower prices on wine, since supermarkets offer competitive wine pricing.
So David Cameron, along with increasing the price of Stella, should considering lowering the price of Bordeaux. We'll all live healthier, longer lives, and when Southern England is warm enough to produce decent wine, we'll see a lot more economic benefit.
A Kentish red anyone?
I bet everyone has heard of Madelyn McCann. Her sweet little face once sold millions of newspapers, prompted millions of website clicks, and earned newscasters a few more minutes of viewers' attention on networks around the world.
But who had ever heard of Alisa Dmitrijeva, until her body turned up on the Queen's estate in Norfolk?
I hadn't either, since her disappearance in August failed to stir the media's attention. She was seventeen and bears a striking resemblance to little Madelyn McCann. So it evidently wasn't a lack of photogenic qualities that caused her disappearance to fail to make worldwide headlines—as is often the case with the thousands of missing children and adults.
About a year ago Joanna Yeates went missing right before Christmas. We all heard about this young woman, perhaps because her family was so adept at getting the word out, or perhaps the local authorities did a better job getting her photograph out. And the media attention didn't drop off after her body was found by walkers on Christmas day, either. We all watched, riveted to the news, as first her boyfriend and then her landlord were suspected of her murder and later exonerated. Recently a neighbor was convicted of her murder, in a trail we all heard about on the evening news.
There's no doubt we'll be hearing more about Alisa, a Latvian student who'd been living in Norfolk. The details of her murder, if that's what it was, will be retold while we're preparing dinner. Her picture will become familiar, and we'll be reminded to hold our loved ones close. But when one of our loved ones disappears, only a "lucky" few of them will find the media is prepared to devote non-stop coverage to finding their body—unless it turns up on the estate of royalty.
I don't have a clue what algorithm results in vast media coverage for one missing person, while thousands of others go unnoticed. Do the public care more about a missing four-year old than a missing seventeen-year old? Or a missing blonde girl than a missing black boy? Hopefully not. Yet every day over six hundred people go missing in the UK (two thirds are adults who voluntarily leave). It's impossible for the capital-centric UK media to devote front page coverage to all of them—perhaps the advent of local television coverage will help correct some of the geographical disparity of media attention.
Yet the United States, with a vast network of local media, is even worse. A small percentage of missing persons cases make headlines there—"missing blonde girl syndrome" is well known, even when the blonde girl goes missing in Aruba. There are whole "news" programs that detail the courtroom proceedings of high profile crime cases. News has become entertainment; a mention of Casey Anthony is guaranteed to get more viewers to tune in than a live appearance by Angelina Jolie.
What about the 99% of missing persons whose photos never make the front page of a website, whose names aren't as well known as Beyonce's baby, whose families will never worry about a media scrum outside their front door? Their lives are lived and lost in quiet anonymity—not such a good thing when the first hours are crucial in finding a missing person.
Would people care less about the Madelyn McCanns of the world if they realized there were missing toddlers in their own vicinity? Would we care less about Joanna Yeates if we knew there have been thousands of missing young women over the years?
I suspect we would. There are only so many trending topics on Twitter we can absorb.
A perfectly legal Chinese lantern blasts off in a Buckinghamshire garden.
Not long after I moved here I noted the many contradictions of living in a supposed "nanny state", a term used to describe the sometimes extreme measures taken by the government to keep its citizens safe and healthy.
For instance, I heard about a town that cut down all its lime trees because a limb had fallen, and it was feared that the trees could fall on unsuspecting passersby. Graveyards are also seen as places of potential fatal hazards after an old leaning tombstone fell on a child once, thus requiring notices to be put up. And then there's the size of Teddy bears: mustn't encourage our tots to gamble at the Fun Fair by offering too-large bears as prizes!
But anyone who's ever called Great Britain a nanny state obviously never endured a night of anything-goes fireworks. The three weeks of pyrotechnic frenzy around Bonfire Night sound like Baghdad during Shock and Awe. BOOM! Welcome to Buckinghamshire during Diwali.
Recently, a friend on Twitter mentioned that New Jersey didn't allow any fireworks at all for home use. I was surprised to hear New Jersey was even more health and safety conscious than the UK, with its Teddy-limiting laws. New Jersey?! Isn't this the birthplace of concrete shoes?
Yet the law in the UK seems to allow celebratory fireworks year round. A few months ago, my daughter took the dog on a walk and came home with a strange story about some twenty or so weird glowing apparatuses she'd seen in the sky. Since she had a friend along for confirmation, we believed her, and it wasn't until an American neighbor put on a Fourth of July fireworks show in his garden that I realized what she must have seen: Chinese lanterns. Apparently it's entirely legal to send flaming bamboo and paper balloons into the atmosphere. As we watched our Chinese lanterns disappear over the M25, I wondered if there were any thatched cottages nearby.
Surely these must be safe, I reminded myself—I live in a nanny state! I'm not even allowed a damper in my gas fireplace, or an electrical outlet in my bathroom! No worries. Right?
But today I read in my local paper that over New Year's, two fires were caused by Chinese lanterns. A car caught on fire when one blew underneath, and a tree went up in flames after one was caught in its branches.
I found this comment interesting:
Chris Bailey, head of Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service’s community safety team, said: “You can’t control the direction they take or where they will land.
“There is no guarantee that the fuel source will be fully extinguished and cooled when the lantern lands, and that’s a real fire hazard.”
He said unsuitable locations for flying lanterns included areas near telephone and power lines, areas near standing crops, anywhere near buildings with thatched roofs, areas of dense woodland and areas of heath or bracken.
That pretty much describes all of England.
A nanny state that can't be bothered to regulate dangerous fireworks, yet doesn't allow dampers on gas fireplaces, in case citizens kill themselves? It's one of those contradictions that make me more certain than ever that political labels are meaningless. I live in a theocracy, where the state media broadcast church services, yet much of the population never attends church or even thinks about religion very often.
It would be enough to make my head explode, except for the fact that I'm sure the Health and Safety Executive has issued a guideline against exploding heads.
So bring on the nanny state. I'd like more of it, please—just don't tell me how big my Teddy bear can be.
Found the sweet spot!
Last night my husband came down the stairs and saw Sparky in his usual pose, lying in a tight circle on the rug in the middle of the entrance hall. But this time he'd managed to find the sweet spot, exactly in the center of the round rug.
He's always slept tightly curled up, as if conserving body heat. We suspect that before we got him, he'd been left outside on cold nights with no shelter. He also had a massive coat, despite the fact it was September. In fact, we thought at first he was much bigger, but after we brushed him a few times we discovered he was quite thin, weighing around 20 kilos.
He's put on weight now, despite stomach issues, and this house is never cold, but he still curls up to sleep like a little cold mouse.
This is his second Christmas with us. And I believe it's a much merrier Christmas than we'd have without him. (The squirrels may have a different opinion, as do the cats across the street who used to hunt in our garden. And the mailman, who is greeted with vociferous barking if he dares approach the door.)
I hope this holiday season finds all dogs and kitties well fed, warm, and snoozing contentedly on someone's rug. If you can, open your home to a foster dog or cat; you'll never regret it.
The only snowflakes here will be the ones on my Christmas tree.
For the last week, I've been casting worried glances at the weather reports. My iPad has a neat weather app that predicts the weather five days out for any city in the world, including major airports. I was honed in on Friday, when Daughter Number One was scheduled to arrive at Heathrow.
You see, last year she was due to arrive right at the very moment snow was blanketing the runways at Heathrow. Watching her flight on radar, I saw it circle the airport several times, a typical maneuver as planes stack up. The snow here (twenty minutes from Heathrow) had stopped, so when the flight disappeared off radar I figured it had landed.
No, Flight 78 had headed in the opposite direction, to Charles de Gaulle in Paris. The plane landed safely (the French clear their runways très vite), disgorged its passengers, and there it stayed, well, until it was redirected to Miami a day later.
The passengers weren't so lucky. Holiday travelers found themselves stranded in Paris with no way to reschedule a flight to Heathrow, which remained essentially closed for days. This was Saturday; by Monday afternoon, we realized there was no way Heathrow (and its operator, BAA) could figure out how to remove five inches of snow from their runways (despite my many tweets offering to help). My husband announced he was driving to Paris and as he left, I booked his passage through Eurotunnel.
Long (and frustrating) story short, Daughter Number One (and two fellow passengers she met while stranded) finally were repatriated early in the morning of the Winter Solstice. (We of course immediately left for Stonehenge, to pay homage to the sun in hopes it would never abandon us again.)
So flash forward to this year: When the forecast predicted snow and sleet for Friday morning, I was concerned. No, that's too mild a word. All the anger and frustration I'd felt a year ago rose to the surface. For the last two years, we've had snow in December. Not that unusual, not even here in balmy England. Yet the locals reacted as if the Germans had launched a modern Blitz. Schools were cancelled, minor roads were impassable, sidewalks remained icy and dangerous for a week. Urban myths warning people not to clear their pavement (sidewalk) propagated: if you do, and someone slipped, you'd be liable to be sued, since you actually interfered with Mother Nature.
Well, I don't know about Mother Nature, but this mother was pissed. I wanted to scream at my lazy neighbors who didn't bother clearing their sidewalks, hurl insults at the idiots from BAA who appeared on the Beeb defending themselves for not knowing how to clear a few inches of snow from the busiest runway in the world.
I started the 2010 holidays off in a bad mood. So I didn't want to repeat that this year. When we saw huge fat snowflakes falling around nine a.m., I panicked. But the travel gods were on our side this year: the snow stopped, never accumulating, and Daughter's plane, delayed out of Dallas, landed an hour late. By the time we picked her up at Heathrow, the sun was shining and Mother Nature, I swear to god, was smiling.
Happy holidays. I'll try not to hit you if you wish for a white Christmas. Really. I'm over that.
We had our first frost about a week ago, so of course I ran out in my pajamas and slippers and snapped a few photos. Apparently the warm weather has kept cows out in the fields longer than usual, along with the drought. Thames Water says water levels are low, and as proof they offered the fact that farmers are leaving herds out in pastures well into December. Other years it's already too muddy by November for our delicate livestock. Mustn't have muddy hooves.
Meanwhile, I got muck all on my slippers during my early morning photo session. So I think Thames Water is full of cow poop.
She finally found a cup she liked.
Today is Daughter Number Two's birthday. I know it's hard to believe she wasn't always the poised and personable young grad student you all know and love (well, some of you), but there was a time when she personified the cliché Terrible Two.
At the time, I was the editor of a magazine for military spouses in Ohio, a job that allowed me to vent my feelings monthly in my editor's column. One month, I wrote about my terrible two-year-old and our perfect end to a day that started out typically terrible:
Play Dough Days
Today was one of those days. Now I know what they mean by "Terrible Twos." (My first-born was born a six-year-old.) It's like living on eggshells. I just couldn't seem to do anything right. "NO!! I don't want THAT green cup, I want THIS green cup!" And "NO, I don't WANT a jacket, I want my YELLOW SWEATER!" (She speaks in capital letters a lot these days.)
I had reached the end of my rope. In desperation, I called a friend (the mother of a three-year-old) for advice. She told me to join the group Moms & Tots. Then I called to warn my husband he might not find his children intact when he got home, and was just about to call the gypsies and arrange a pick-up when I got an idea.
"Do you want to make play dough?" I asked, half expecting a "NO! I DON'T want to make play dough!!" But instead the answer was a sweet little "Okay, mommy! Let's make play dough together!"
Still fearful of setting off another round of NO!!'s, my hands shook slightly as I filled the measuring cup with flour, measured salt and squeezed red food coloring into the goo. But later, kneading the warm play dough actually had a calming effect on my frazzled nerves, and I realized what's fun for little ones can also be stress-relieving for big ones.
At nap time, as I picked up little balls of pink dough from the rug, I congratulated myself on surviving another morning as a stay-at-home mom. Yes, it's a hard job. But still, I'd rather be the one to get those peanut butter kisses after lunch.
My youngest daughter still has her moments. Recently we had to convince her to go to the doctor for a serious cold, and as she insisted that NO, she wouldn't go, I got a glimpse of the two-year-old she once was.
She lives too far away now for peanut butter kisses, and if I mailed her play dough she'd probably use it for an engineering experiment. She no longer has a yellow sweater, but we still insist she drink out of plastic cups, since she has a habit of breaking Champagne flutes.
I still think that night 23 years ago, when she came into my world in a great big hurry, was my lucky day. Happy birthday, Daughter Number Two!
Play Dough Recipe
2 cups flour
2 cups water
1 cup salt
2 tablespoons cream of tartar
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
a few drops food coloringMix ingredients in saucepan over low heat. Stir constantly until mixture thickens and becomes the consistency of play dough. Remove when cool enough to touch. Store in airtight container; this will keep for months (and is non-toxic).
