Thursday, April 14, 2016
Miracles
Maybe the term is overused, especially when it comes to describing human affairs. Or maybe not, I don't know.
Definition of miracle, according to Merriam-Webster dot com:
1 : an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs
2 : an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment
3 : a divinely natural phenomenon experienced humanly as the fulfillment of spiritual law
So, a couple of things that I'm willing to call miraculous. The first two videos are of the same cow-calf pair; a freshly born calf up and about circa 30 minutes after being born. I kind of rainbow-duded the long video, sorry 'bout that. The spirit of the miracle was upon me.
The third video is, imo, waaaaayyyy cool. Without question a miracle in my book. This is the first time I've ever seen a long-tailed weasel on the ranch. I've known, theoretically, that they could be present, but I've never before seen one, or seen signs of one. I really don't have the words or the skills to tell you how lovely it was to see this creature. Nor how wonderful it was that it let me take pics and video. Just pretty darn cool, and for my purposes, meets definition two above. A sub-miracle, perhaps, is that I was able to keep my yap shut while filming the weasel.
Hope for me yet? Perhaps.
Perhaps.
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That was special.
ReplyDeleteThanks Shaun.
Thanks Sarge. Springtime is good for recharging the smile capacitor bank.
DeleteIs it just my monitor, or is The Wonderful Weasel of Shaun's a butterbelly? He comes across as brown, with yellow undersurfaces on my Dell. Do you have any Proper Mustelids on your ranch? You know, gray ones with stripes?
ReplyDeleteButterbelly. Very apt description. And a strikingly pretty weasel. Very definitely brown with a bright yellow underside, to include the feet and legs. White neck and lower face.
DeleteAnd oh yes, we have lots of badgers. It's really good country for them. I seldom see them but they leave plenty of unmistakable evidence. Their burrows can be vexing; I've broken a wheel or two over the years, but they make nice habitat for burrowing owls and perfect dens for the swift red fox.
When the first video ended, I was offered 4 others, one of which was of a kite surfer's cameraman being tasted by a Great White, which on a replay looked like about a 10-12 foot female. Female Whites mature at 15 feet, so that was a Middle School shark, about an 8th Grader.
ReplyDeleteNow Man is the Planetary Apex Predator. But, if you put on a seal black wetsuit, and start making unusual noises in the surf were the Whites hunt seals, you might get a free tour of the rest of the food chain. The Circle of Life goes on, whether in a Nebraska meadow, or a South African beach.
That Momcow is rather pretty, by the way.
I was thinking a lot about the circle while filming that weasel. They feed a speeding metabolism with up to 40 percent of their body weight in fresh meat each day, and they don't go to the store for their food. At the same time they also appear on the michaille obamma approved luncheon menu for larger mammalian carnivores, raptors, and snakes.
DeletePretty is a good description.