I've always promised myself that I would never do this, talk about it, be a part of it....  But the truth is that from the time we were born the clock starts to tick and tock forward and we start getting older.

When I was three years old I began to 'remember'.  That is, it was a forward event that happened that caused me to remember from that point and onward.  Memory happens to most of us if all the brain parts are wired correctly.  In my case, it was a concerted effort that I decided on a very special day.

I was in the backyard with my Dad.  I remember that he was working in his small garden and clearing stuff in the yard.  I wandered and puttered about with him because he was the GOD and my mother the GODDESS and above all other parents I understood other children defintely had, MY parents were the only true, correct, perfect, and most beautiful that had ever been created.  My Dad knew everything.  Everything he said and did was gospel and perfect.  

He was wearing a pair of work pants and because his was hot work on a very hot day, he'd taken his shirt off and sweat poured down his face and his chest, back and arms were coppered by summer.  He had finished his work with a beautiful tooth-smile and had just wiped his forearm across his forehead and stood strong and straight with a grand 'Whew!' surveying the now pedicured loveliness of the backyard such as it was.  I stood beside him and stared up into his face waiting for what the next 'event' was going to me.

'So, what do you think Becky?' I remember him asking me letting the sweat-wiping arm relax while the other still held a shovel or rake at the other side.  I looked around but wasn't really sure what I was supposed to supply by worthy comment.  But it was at that moment, that single ticks and tocks of early time, that I swept my eyes across the back of the house and that's when I saw it, the thing that would forever be my trigger to 'remember'.  It was a patch of pink, a pink thing caught up under the space below the back porch where a multitude of other 'stuff' had been staked and stored like a giant puzzle with no space left for another piece to be fit.  That'pink' thing caught and held my eye. 

'What is that Daddy?' I had asked and he bent a little and tried to follow my eyes easily three feet below his own and then 'What Honey, what is it you see?'

'Over there, over there a pink thing.'

'Oh my goodness, don't you remember your rocking horse?  That was yours and you used to sit on it all the time'

I dug deep into my mind, my still growing brain.  I dug and dug and dug but no matter how deeply I went I could not conjure back the image of a rocking horse, a pink rocking horse, nor a time when I might have sat upon such a perfectly lovely color.  'No', I finally admitted, 'I don't remember', and I was so sad that I didn't.  'Can I have it back?'

'Honey you're too big for it now and it's been under there for a very long time.  It's all dirty now and broken.'

I continued to stare and almost wept inside.  If ONLY I could remember.  If only I could pull the image back out again and see myself sitting on the pink rocking horse and remember how it felt.  But I couldn't.  In fact, I realized during those horrifying moments that I couldn't remember even the day before, or the one before that.  I suddenly had the epifany of my little life....'remembering' was very important.  Remembering would let me be more than I was.  I decided at that moment, on that very day, standing beside my Dad, that treasures like 'remembering riding the pink rocking horse' could always be there IF I made sure to remember.  Remember, that was the key I thought to myself....I MUST remember to remember!

That was the day that my life really began.  There had, I knew, been days before that one, lots of days before, but I couldn't recall anything of those times, the times before that day.  But I remembered the days after, and all the years after too.  Some things were set aside as insignificant, unimportant, painful or totally unworthy of being filed and those sit in far corners even to this day....but the day I remembered to remember....that's a day I think of pink.

But there's also been recently, now anyway, another pivitol epifany....for as painful as it had been as yet a toddler to realize that a bit of my life had been lived but totally lost in a kind of void that I nearly cried over, I've also begun to understand a bit more about that seeming void and what it may also mean at the close of life....

Posted by hulitoons at 11:09 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 26 June 2008 12:30 PM EDT

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I feel like a really little kid in spite of the furious heat and humidity.  Sometimes 'stuff' happens unexpectedly and those kinds of surprises are the best kinds of gifts.

It all started this past weekend with Lookachoo.  Don't misunderstand, I love my cat, but I don't like his nature.  Cats are prededators and they go after all the little ones I ALSO love.  That's why there are three doors and barriers between him and FuzzyButt.  Lookachoo is NOT permitted access to any rooms in the house at all except the kitchen and family room downstairs and somtimes, if I'm taking FuzzyButt anywhere, Lookachoo is confined to his crate or exiled to the deck.  Well, and that's when things began, when he was confined to the deck last Saturday.  

I heard Lookachoo banging through his cat door and started screeming right away, blocking him and making/forcing him to drop the tiny baby bird in his mouth.  

One leg was twisted and on a chick so tiny (a titmouse), the best thing to do is nothing at all.  From experience with tiny zebra finshes, a leg will 'wilt' off by itself if it is a lost cause.  I had one little guy who lost his and continued to mate very successfully.  

This little one turns out to be even younger than I at first thought.  I've been feeding him (as I normally do with wild baby chicks) dry cat food that is soaked in hot water until each little nugget is like a soft sponge.  The electrolites in cat food is quite high (a bit like monkey chow which is commonly used for this purpose as well).  The chick's mouth/beak is still quite wide for funnel chugging and after eating he/she was lifting the back end high and then pooping which is typical of very young song birds (robin infants eat and release in very defined posture which moves waste instinctively to the edges of the nest keeping the inner area clean.  Mothers (even the human ones) can easily lift the beads of matter and scurry it safely away.  

I didn't expect this little one to survive; I had and still do, brace myself for a fatal infection caused by just the single scrape of a single cat's claw.  So far he/she is doing well, or at least as well as can be expected.  I've named him/her BittyMote since he/she is extremely tiny and will never be much larger than a finch even as an adult.  

We purchased a hampster cage for BittyMote because sitting or even reachng a perch is pretty much impossible AND the bottom grating in even finch cages was obviously going to cause hazardous movement for a little guy who has one leg dragging and another that has not yet learned to support the little ball body yet.  It's unlikely that BittyMote will be able to maneuver like other birds so there is no doubt that being returned to the wild would mean almost immediate death.  It's pretty certain that BittyMote will be here with us. 

So far he/she eats from my finger tips and drinks well from a baby spoon nearly every 35 to 40 minutes.  I have to keep him/her separate from FuzzyButt for the protection of each one's health; and I must wash each time I hand one before handling the other.  I have, therefore, been doing MUCH running up and down two flights of stairs to tend both all day long. 

Lookachoo is now further exiled to only the kitchen and deck unless BittyMote has been taken upstairs at night to yet another room by an open window.  

Keeping everyone comfortable right now is really a chore.  Obviously with the birds, but also the rest of us.  The only AC unit is in FuzzyButt's room because his is the master bedroom located at the top of the house and the temperature up there is nearly always 10 to 15 degrees higher than down here in the family room where we run a fan only.  Normally we do not concern ourselves much with the livingroom and kitchen since we are seldom in those areas for any length of time.  However, my isopods, three glass containers are being effected.  Normally isopods scamper away from light and hjid under pieces of bark or drill tunnels in the soil.  One of my containers has a very large cork lid which was holding more heat in than the other two.  Nearly all my little guys are on top of their bark bridges just hanging out in whatever breezes they could catch and have not been even remotely bothered by having the top moved off to the side.  

It reaches temps nearly 100 and above in the middle of the house and upstairs.  Even with a huge AC going in the master bedroom, the temps can ready over 95 so I have a cool mister running and keep lights off.  Normally I keep a UV lamp on because FuzzyButt needs the rays from this not only for the health of his skin and feathers, but also because birds normal sight depends on viewing via the spectrum of rays given off by natural sunlight, even if filtered through heavy overcast.  For awhile, even that lamp must remain off because it too generates heat.  FuzzyButt will watch cartoons this morning but by noon the TV will need to be shut down as well since even that generates heat to the room.  

During all the heat and discomfort though, my microscope video camera arrived yesterday and I was able to actually see into the world of my seed shrimp harvested (this is the second year I've harvested them) from the fountain I created several years ago for the birds outside.  From their feet and aided by overwintering decaying leaves in the water I leave behid in the fall, I was able to dish out a sizable amount of both matter and water containing these little critters.  I had to carefully remove misquito larvae with a roasting baster (sucks those buggers up pretty well!).  

Though these minute, tiny specs can be seen with the naked eye, their features and what they are doing can't be seen because they are nearly microscopic.  With the aid of my new camera I was able to not only watch them on the computer screen, but also am able to capture single shots and videos of their world.  I am amazed, and exstatic over the technology that is letting me inside this world and ecosystem!

So, that's it really.  For me amazing Stuff but I do understand that some would think this truly pathetic.  HA!  I do NOT care!  I'm having FUN!!! 

Posted by hulitoons at 8:34 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 10 June 2008 12:12 PM EDT

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I really have a one-track attention mindset...apparently and should NEVER multi-task.

I have a line of four large glass (about 12-inches across), specim containers that house various critters, crestaceans. 

Three containsers hold isopods I gathered (pill worms to some folks) I've been breeding in phases.  The first has established a very nice ecosystem complete with burrowing holes and the other two further on at just beginning their habitats into which I've added gathered snails with no shell (slugs) and worms and other animals who share general area without disturbing the other tenants.  

Another contains seed shrimp also gathered from my designed outdoor fountain from water that has wintered with decaying leaves etc., and which I sample every year for squatter-critters trying to find and then breed seed shrimp after removing offending larvae (misquitoes).  

I have a variety of magnifying viewers including microscope, animal scope and magnifying lenses.  All of this is in the kitchen, on an island table. 

This morning, I put a piece of pita into the toaster oven to toast which is not even two feet behind the island table where I had turned to watch the seed shrimp while I waited for the toast.  Unfortunately, once I had turned my back and became mesermized by the shrimp, I promptly and completely forgot that the little oven was on.  

Some long minutes later I smelled smoke, turned with magnifyer still in hand, to see billows of very thick smoke filling not only the kitchen over my head, but out into the living room beyond the wall opening.  My pita was so charred that even after turning off the oven, I tried to scoot it out and off the grill but it was nothing but ash with a few crispy pieces still sticking to the rack.  

I had to open all the doors, turn the fan on and still I can smell the char. 

The oven's fine and so are the seed shrimp.   But this happened before in a regular toaster that was completely ruined, which is why we got the toaster oven.  I guess I shouldn't watch my critters while the oven's on.

Posted by hulitoons at 3:46 PM EDT

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What exactly does ‘Let Nature Take Its Course’ mean anyway?

I’m married to a marine biologist and animal behaviorist.  I listen to his peers discuss research, field studies and tests with a variety of both animals, plants and geography and one famous concept is non-interference, let nature take its course. 

But whose ‘nature’ are they really talking about?  It’s important to them to allow a wounded, sick, or at peril animal simply die, to watch any other animal in the area seek aggressive play with it without intervention because ‘that would contaminate the study because interference would NOT be natural’.

This of course, suggests mightily that humans are not natural at all.  They are demi-gods, gods who not only do not care, but view all the rest of life from the same vantage point the Romans did in the Coliseum blood sports. 

Somehow this same ‘contamination’ does not apply to the other interferences humans so casually indulge in: 

1.  Making garbage in mountain quantities, not just messes, but plastics that will far outlive the human race, Pcps contaminants; 

2.  Stripping natural resources; 

3.  Changing natural geography with concrete and steel; 

4.  Steeling habitats from not just animals but also from resident humans causing one extinction after another; 

5.  Killing just for the sake of fun, or because the critter happens to be there.... 

this list could get extremely long but you get my drift. 

It seems to me that humans have been interfering ever since they stood upright.  But not all of that is bad:

1.  Outdoor bird feeders

2.  reserves and parks to protect now endangered animals 

this list could get longer too, but probably not nearly as long as the first one. 

The truth is that humans are clever and able to do many great things, especially when an event presents itself directly.  If humans are so intelligent, then they must also be the stewards of the globe they stand upon, and continue to be if they ever travel beyond this one to others. 

Is it more contaminating to pick up a fallen baby chick and place it back into the safety of its nest, or to build and detonate an atom bomb?  Which one follows ‘let nature take its course’ more readily? 

In truth, both do.  Humans are not gods of any kind but rather a force of nature more loving and cruel than any other natural event.  Interference is our nature the idea to stand back and do nothing is as lethal as any other natural catastrophe.

Posted by hulitoons at 10:44 AM EDT

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It's Saturday...I think...let me check:  Nope, it's Friday, May 30, 2008, 10:18am and I am trying VERY hard to cool down, not because it's hot, but because I went through a VERY irritated, angry event that was actually several events strung together and wasn't actually anyone's fault. 

We have skylights in the master bedroom, AND a loft bed that rises 6 feet from the floor putting one of the skylights just a few feet over my side of the bed.  It's in one of those interesting positions that perfectly frames a full moon with lazer brightness directly into my eyes at night and worse, perfectly frames a flaming, oven sun during the day with disasterous baking temperatures.  During the winter it's okay to have that skylight open because it heats the room, but during the summer the temperatures at that point can reach even beyond 110 degrees of suffocation. 

Each year I cover it up but it's not an easy job because one of FuzzyButt's ramps leads all the way to the top (another reason I like to cover it because he gets up in there and chews at the ceiling paint.)  Today I began the process which requires me to stand on the bed and into the skylight area with special pushpins and wrappings while leaning over the ramp (can't remove the ramp because it connects to another which in turn connects to a myrid of 'roads' that span across the room; removing one jeapardizes the stability of the others).  FuzzyButt first found all this interesting but then was getting under the dangerous and dubious position of my feet wanting to bite (which could have caused me to stumble onto and injure him).  Then he got up onto the uppermost ramp itself and decided to yank at the  pins I'd already gotten into place after much painful contorting.  Finally he had not only gotten into a position that I needed him to move from, but then savagely bit a finger that caused me to jerk and bang that hand onto a metal piece which caused me to drop down and THEN he gabbed hold of my hair and pulled.  Instinctively I yelled at him and shook the ramp to get him to move to not only safety for him, but also safety for me.  That brought about more hair pulling - large hanks of hair too not just a few strands.  

I left the room and turned his cartoons off because I was so angry and I needed to just put distance there and at the same time display displeasure with him.  So I went downstairs to the laundry room to finally pull up a cotton rug I had put down there in my sewing area but which Lookachoo (cat) had decided was an entirely grand kitty little area.  The rug was so saturated with urine it had been making me ill over the past couple days when I realized what he was doing.  Pulling the thing up was no easy task, however since a lot of heavy furniture was sitting on it and I have only just recently begun to heal enough after an accidental fall from a ladder.  Of course, this time it was Lookachoo who decided that what I was doing was of some interest to him and once again another critter got directly into a dangerous and painful path so I had to very bruskly push-hurl him out of the way.  

By this time my ragged nerves were being processed over extreme aggravation and pain and had swelled beyond the ability to even speak.  I do not want my critters to view me with fear you see, nor do I like the kind of uncontrolled anger and fustration I was feeling...it's more akin to river rapids that not only burble and bubble, but froth crispy razors as well because it's a living, evil entity in itself...that's the way I view it anyway.

So here I am, trying to cool the fires and kill that living thing I deplore.  I've begun to make up again with FuzzyButt and his cartoons are back on again, but when I first went back up to finish the job (feeling somewhat better), he backed away from me, I mean to say he actually walked backwards on his ramp.  It wasn't until I started doing the dance song and calling him a flower that he started to respond normally.  He does look at the now fixed ramp-skylight area with some distain though and maybe that's good; perhaps the word 'NO!' will have some actual meaning and value to him now and will help to protect him when I say it for his safety.  

Lookachoo on the other hand has only two brain cells and neither processes well so I'm pretty sure he's long ago forgotten being pushed rather bruskly from the urine-saturated-rug-pulling area. 

Okay, I feel better, I'll have some cake now...... 

Posted by hulitoons at 10:13 AM EDT

Updated: Friday, 30 May 2008 10:45 AM EDT

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It's Monday morning.  I spent yesterday moving pieces from Huckleberry's Coffee and Tea and replacing with Elfen Zodiac pieces.  This is always a chore when heavy pieces are moved.  Thankfully the zodiac pieces are light weight, but getting all of them to fit was a bit trying.  THEN I had to take photos and measurements of the pieces I brought home to get them onto hulitoons.com.  I had been woefully delinquent getting the site back up to date since many pieces had been sold, donated etc. and new ones had not been entered.  To me that's a job and a half but now it's pretty much current.

FuzzyButt has a doctor's appoint this Friday, May 23rd which is also my birthday.  I'm afraid of doctors, my own and his as well.  They're nice people, I'm just always terrified that something awful will be found.  BUT, I'll be able to get his nails filed and that'll be nice.  I have to write down what he eats and what the daily percentage is of each consumed item.  That's NEVER easy to figure out since FuzzyButt often takes a single bite and then flings or drops the rest to the floor. His doctor requires these equations though so I have to try to figure out the math.... 

Maybe I can take FuzzyButt for a stroll this morning in his Pak-O-Bird and stroller....   

Posted by hulitoons at 8:47 AM EDT

Updated: Monday, 19 May 2008 8:57 AM EDT

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Ahhhh, it feels SO good to get a shower and brush-scrubbed clean.  That's part of my 'witchey-time', that's the time that belongs to no one except the individual.  Not so long ago my witchey-time was between 5 in the morning until 6, when the sun is only just calling but hasn't quite screamed above the horizon yet and the sky is that kind of just-beginning-to-glow purple and indigo blue.  It was also that time before I had to start getting dressed for work; I wasn't pressured to do anything for another soul except to enjoy a little span of peace.....I'd browse the internet then, especially Ebay...ahhhhh shopping in the morning!

I have a lot more time now because I'm a self-employed artist (I'd be starving if not for Erik) and though I put in more hours typically with this endeavor, they are my hours of mostly pure enjoyment.  HEY, I know a lot of folks would think, 'OMG she has it made' but I spent almost half a century just trying to stay alive, sometimes working 3 jobs full time 7 days a week and was fortunate to get 3-4 hours of sleep every night.  I still didn't make enough to eat AND pay rent, nevermind going to a doctor or dentist and I never got enough breath of my own to know what 'witchey-time' even was.  

Posted by hulitoons at 6:29 AM EDT

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Today is May 14, 2008.  I am still who I was yesterday and the day before that.  I'm not any more or less than anyone else and I find that comforting.  There are times I like to feel special (okay, most of the time), but only to myself, Erik and FuzzyButt.  Lookachoo doesn't much care one way or the other so he's not easily impressed anyway (correction:  he's never impressed unless you have good food you're willing to pass on to him).

Actually, you can see FuzzyButt, my African Grey parrot on YouTube.  Just type Hulitoons and you'll probably get a list of stuff.  

People and critters are amazing to me.  Critters seldom disappoint, but people frequently do (I'm including myself in that evaluation).  No matter though, that's where Magick/Magic happens, in the effects of all those sparking souls. 

I've lived long enough to have gained some wisdom, though that's probably dubious.   I'll always give you an opinion though, no matter what. 

I've been professionally drawing and painting, and building and gluing, cutting, chopping and muttering for 40 years --- but I started all that stuff LONG before, maybe even before I figured out how to 'remember'. 

Posted by hulitoons at 9:39 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 14 May 2008 10:41 AM EDT

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