Stories
the tail of the lobo - penny porter
I has just finished washing the lunch dishes when the screen door slammed and Becky, my three-year-old, rushed in. “Mommy!” she cried. “Come and see my new doggy! I gave him water two times already. He’s so thirsty!
I sighed. Another of Becky’s imaginary dogs. After our old dog died, our remote home - Singing Valley Ranch in Sonoita, Arizona - had become a lonely place for Becky. We planned to buy a puppy, but in the meantime “pretend” puppies popped up everywhere.
“Please come, Mommy,” Becky said, her brown eyes enormous. “He’s crying, and he can’t walk.”
Now, that was a twist. All her previous make-believe dogs could do marvellous tricks. Why suddenly a dog that couldn’t walk?
“All right, honey,” I said. But Becky had disappeared into the mesquite by the time I followed...
Polly
A while back I got offered to look after a horse called Polly for a couple of years as the owner was going overseas. She was about 27 years old, which is rather old, but I wasn’t going to be doing anything too strenuous with her so it was ok. We talked to the farmer and he said he was happy with us having a horse here which was good.
I went to meet her as she was staying at my riding instructor’s property for the time being, and I got to groom her and spend time with her. I also got to ride her for a little bit. She had a really loving nature and she was really nice to spend time with.
I decided I was going to take her but the owner wanted to come up to our place and see where she was going to be living. The owner came out and she was happy where Polly was going, so then we arranged a day for her to arrive and Julie offered to bring her out for me.
Peepy
I was walking down our small creek one evening, and I came across a pile of tiny ducklings. I tried to catch them but failed miserably. I finally managed to catch one and take it back up to the house. When I finally got back, along with my mum and brother Matthew, we managed to catch two more. Matthew and I found the mother duck dead a little way up the creek and we think it was due to a hawk. We had three ducks in total but two got away as we had them in the garden enclosure for a little while. We decided to release the third duckling at the creek again as we didn’t really want only one duckling. We were all quite sad about it and while we were feeling sorry for ourselves, Matthew heard peeping in the garden...
5 minutes later
I came across an illustration that radically shifted the paradigm for me with the realization the end is much nearer than it appears. Chris Martenson, economic researcher and futurist, asks us to imagine we’re in Fenway Park, stadium home of the Boston Red Sox. At noon he handcuffs us to the highest seat in the bleachers, and then with a magic eyedropper he places a single drop of water on the pitcher’s mound far below—a drop that magically doubles in size every minute. If Fenway were water tight, how long do we have to flee that stadium to survive drowning?