Sitting here with my down jacket on. It’s lilac-colored, the wrists dingy and the patch on the sleeve coming off. It will be years, though, before I buy another. My desire for fashion as far as coats are concerned — long gone. Melted with the snow.
That was cliché. Melted with the snow, and here I am dressed in a jacket one wears in the snow. Or the cold.
Jim wants me to go out to the orchard and get Otis. He’s freaked out. A roadrunner that Rafael attacked and almost killed, is taking revenge on Otis. It jumped on Otis’ back the other day. Dropped from a Ponderosa pine, like an ambush. Otis flipped out, ran into a shed, and then the roadrunner jumped up on a woodpile just outside the shed and made “brrrrrr” noises at Otis as he trembled inside.
Since then Otis walks with his head and tail down. He’s a big dog but he reminds me of a buffalo, his body arched, his eyes darting here and there. He’s traumatized, so now mostly we keep him inside.
Rafael, mean time, is impish as ever. He still runs at the roadrunner. I can’t believe the roadrunner is even alive. You can see the flesh exposed on its neck. Reminds me of the time the dogs next door to our old house attacked Azul. Jim said you could see Azul’s guts, yet Azul still lived. Birds are hardy that way.
I made up a song for Rafael. I usually sing something that goes: He’s the Ra-fa-na-ta. He’s the al-li-ga-ta. Now I say, He’s the Ra-fa-na-ta, he’s the bird ha-ta, he’s the roadrunner ter-mi-na-ta.
Truth is, though, I wish Rafie wouldn’t attack birds. He goes after skunks and porcupines, and if he saw a cat, I’m sure he’d attack that, too. The only thing that scares Rafael is turkeys. He doesn’t like them, keeps as far away as possible. I wish Rafie would figure out that all smaller animals are off limits. But he seems to get worse with age.
I’ll make it out to the orchard soon. Jim is outside almost all day, even in the bitter cold. He wears a sherpa hat made of fleece and a Carthartt lined jacket. He wears flannel-lined jeans and a pair of gloves. He stays warm, and when he comes in to eat a breakfast of eggs and turkey sausage, his nose finally runs. That’s the only cue he gets that he’s freezing.
I’m amazed at his ability to withstand cold. Hates heat, though. He’s definitely got different blood than I do. I must have snake energy, he has sled dog.
Jim named the roadrunner Rodney. Rodney the Roadrunner. Jim’s funny that way. The roadrunner actually likes Jim, often follows him to where ever he is in the yard. Which is probably why Otis is so miserable.
Poor Otis. If he were a person, he’d be the good guy who finishes last. And who made up that saying anyhow? I like good guys. And gals. Kindness is underrated. Toughness, like fashion, is overrated.
-related to Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – NO TOPIC
Poor Otis!
Road Runners are the most ferocious birds I have ever witnessed. The are one click forward from prehistoric velociraptors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velociraptor
And they do have a funny brrrr brrrrr insect sound. Definitely not beep beep.
I heard one yesterday on the dog walk, and was trying to think of how to describe the sound they make.
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i love all the stories and personalities in this free write. your song is terrific, also! i realize i’ve never seen a road runner. except on bugs bunny. i certainly didn’t know they would really harass dogs.
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“Rafa nator, he’s the bird hater…” great invented song. I have never seen a road-runner, even after many journeys to the countryside of the south-west. My loss. I bet the dogs find them most annoying. Surprising place this write took you to. it would seem that birds of all type are drawn to your Jim. That is so cool! G
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I’ve been sending the camera out with Jim each morning. We have quite a few roadrunners who live around here. Rodney is recognizable by his huge size and the flesh exposed on his neck. I’m hoping Jim can get a shot of him. Jim even lured Rodney to the back patio the other evening so that I could get a shot, but Rodney dashed as soon as he saw me.
But soon, very soon, a roadrunner photo will happen. BTW, I understand from friends who have heard about this bizarre trauma with Otis, that roadrunners are territorial. They stay in a certain area for life. I’m not certain, but that’s what I’ve been told.
Oh, leslie, I need to tell you. Jim does this little thing where he talks to Rodney. He puts his hand on his head to make a little crest, and then he fans out his hand the way the roadrunner’s crest fans. Then he does the “brrrrrr, brrrrr” sound. It seems to work. Try it some day.
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This website has a couple of photos of the roadrunner. (It also has — or had when I looked at it — a Carthartt clothing ad…weird.)
http://www.desertusa.com/mag98/sep/papr/road.html
The only thing is, it doesn’t really show the size of the roadrunner, but leslie’s right, there is a similiarity to the running Velociraptor. (That link shows the bird as compared to the man — roadrunners are not *that* big.) Also, the link that I included says that roadrunners are so fast, they can kill rattlesnakes. Whew, that’s fast.
One time a roadrunner got into our old house when we were living in it. We used to leave the doors open, and we didn’t have screen doors. (A snake got in once, too.) I remember feeling absolutely freaked out by the roadrunner. It was so big and fast and its beak big and its eyes intense. I felt like it could jump at me and poke out my eyes. We opened all the doors and Jim had to guide it out. I wouldn’t even get close.
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YB, I also feel sorry for poor Otis! Never having actually seen a road runner, I can understand how nature & instincts play a huge rule & Rafael is being protective & so is Rodney. Although I do think Rodney needs to move on, I believe he detects Otis’s vulnerability. I learned that too well when we had chickens at the farm & a weasel (maybe more than one) got in one night & took 12 of them from us! Brutal!
I can relate to your statement about good guys finishing last. I like to believe that when good guys are down they learn a lesson from it & pick themselves back up & move forward. In the long run, they will benefit the most from their experiences! In my life, I have known many tough & successful people & happiness is something I rarely see in those folks!
As far as fashion, I also agree, as I sit here wearing a 20 year old t-shirt that states on the front “100% Cotton, One size fits most, HamWear-Wash when Dirty!” I no longer wear it in public, but can tell you that it has not one fray at all, after all these years!
Good luck with Rodney! D
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I’ve never seen a roadrunner either (except in the cartoons). No wonder the poor coyote had such a hard time.
I love how your No Topic tells a story or two. 🙂
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I don’t know why I’m so surprised that so many of you have never seen a roadrunner. They’re ubiquitious here. The NM state bird, ya know. They mostly are on the ground, but they fly up to trees and fence posts to get away from dogs and such. You often see them with prey — lizards and such — hanging from their beaks.
They’re about the size of a smallish chicken, although Rodney is one of the bigger ones I’ve seen. I think he fluffs out his feathers to make himself appear bigger.
BTW, in the spirit of full disclosure, I wrote a writing practice on No Topic, intended to publish on the blog, but it was all about my mom and her bout of bloody noses and panic attacks and another trip to Emergency. After I wrote it, I just felt like I didn’t want to publish it on the internet. I sent it to my writing group instead. I have to say, and QM can attest, when we do writing practice knowing it’s going out on the blog, we already have a certain filter happening that normally doesn’t happen when we write in our small group.
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diddy, your t-shirt sounds comfy. Hey, we lost our three chickens to something — maybe racoons?? — shortly after moving here. It was so sad; the chickens were like pets. They had names and hung out with us. Could have been a coyote. It was horrible. I couldn’t imagine losing a dozen!
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YB, we had many chickens & I named everyone of them. The mother hen was Chicken Little, but my favorite was named Porky. He was timid & & he did not survive the brutal attack. I went down to feed them & was 1st to witness the horrible event that had taken place. The remaining chickens were huddled in a corner & I ran out, not fully aware of what had taken place. We were able to determine where the little varmint or varmints were able to get in & secured the building from such future attacks.
I had no idea that road runners were that small!
I haven’t seen our 2 coyotes here since last year & can’t say that I miss them much! Animals are indeed territorial creatures so I suspect they will be back.
When we moved here our front yard was home to many tiny red squirrels, but I feel certain a racoon, or most likely a black snake have made tasty meals of them. 😦 , but that is nature’s way. D
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ybonesy, this practice is really grounded in details, very present to your life at that moment. I wonder if part of that is that you did a few Writing Practices before you did this one.
You bring up a good point about how not every Writing Practice we write can be published on red Ravine. Not all writing is fit for public consumption. Some is very private and that’s why it is so great to have Writing Practice. We can write a very private practice, and still gather raw material and passion from those pieces to add to our published work.
You know, I have NEVER seen a roadrunner either! In all the times I have been to New Mexico, nope, never seen one. Will you show me one next time I’m there! It sounds like I can see one from your backyard. Can’t wait for your roadrunner post and Jim’s photo. I guess he’s also a Roadrunner Whisperer. 8)
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Yes, yesterday was a big writing practice day for me. I wrote every chance I could get. I was kind of down and out, worried about the political scene (ugh, and I had to write to get that out of me) and especially worried about my mom. So I felt this urge to write. This writing practice was my fourth, I think, of the morning. I had written out the emotional angst and was, by then, more into detail.
And yes, we are now calling Jim the Roadrunner Whisperer ; – ). He just has this animal sense to him.
Had I known that you’d never seen a roadrunner, I would have made sure you saw one. They really are everywhere. So, yes, next visit you WILL see one.
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About the third picture down is one of our resident road runner.
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Wow, leslie, your resident rr is big and beautiful! I’ve never seen that blueish iridescent tail on any of our rr’s. That one at your place looks to be about the size of Rodney.
Those are all great photos, btw.
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I was surprised by the amount of blue, also. I think this is the female. When there were chicks, somewhere across the road, the pair would make continual food runs from our yard, down the driveway, and to the nest. I am glad to have them around, but I wouldn’t want to be a small reptile or baby bird. The road runners are some hungry critters.
I’m going to try the ‘raised crest’ finger thing, but I will be ready to run 🙂
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Oh, Ybonesy, what you said about kindness being underrated and toughness being overrated? I so agree with you. It drives me crazy that we see truly kind people as weak — like they have to make up for their kindness by having big muscles and never crying, or something.
Loved your stories.
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[…] getting started; Barbara at The Seeded Earth who is blossoming at an amazing rat, in my opinion; Ybonesy and QuoinMonkey at redRavine who are some of the kindest, gentlest writers — not to mention […]
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