Our second grandson was born on this day nine years ago, and what a blessing he is in our lives! Each time he finishes a Harry Potter book, he is allowed to watch the movie. His parents are teaching him the timeless truth that the book is almost always better than the movie! Today, he’ll spend his birthday in Harry Potter World, and he has no idea that this is part of the surprise.
His mother and I were texting last night, and she said he thought he was going to a state park to hike and explore, and was so excited about that, and it seemed almost at first as if he was a little disappointed, since he is an outdoor-loving adventure kind of kid. Then, once they got into the park, he said it was the best birthday ever, despite the throngs of people. She reminded me that they are not used to crowds at all beyond their family and the grocery store, so this is a cultural awakening for them. “We are not in any way, shape, or form ‘crowd people,’ ” she texted.
“Tomorrow is going to be different. He won’t be able to contain himself with all the happiness of Harry Potter World,” she added.
We can’t wait to hear all about his birthday with his family in Harry Potter World.
Warning: Photos of dead bobcat in photos at end of post. Do not read further if this makes you uncomfortable. It saddens me, but country living is full of both delights and horrors, and I take the bad with the good.
At 7:52 a.m. yesterday when I pulled into the parking lot at work, I reflected on my morning. Already, I’d seen a dead bobcat, two rabbits (one alive that ran in front of my car, and one dead that didn’t make it when it ran out in front of someone else’s), a squirrel, a large buck and small spotted deer. I’d heard the calls of the Downy Woodpecker, Eastern Phoebe, Blue Jay, Carolina Chickadee, Ruby and Golden-Crowned Kinglets, Carolina Wren, Eastern Bluebird, American Robin, Pine Siskin, Chipping Sparrow, Eastern Towhee, Northern Cardinal, and Orange-Crowned Warbler. I’d walked our three schnoodles and discovered a new scratched-up area in the ground cover along the woods of the driveway, showered, dressed, and had my mushroom coffee and protein shake.
Ollie checks out a new ground scratching
I’d been in the shower when I heard the phone’s text ding. I saw it was my husband, so as soon as I was reasonably dry, I read the text: Please call me before you leave for work.
He told me he thought he’d seen a dead wildcat on the side of the road where the neighbors with the black Suburban live. “Take a look when you drive by, and let me know what you think it is. It might be a bobcat.”
He knew I wouldn’t be able to wait on fixing my hair, clothes, and makeup. So off I went in my robe to see this creature whose fate had been determined somewhere between 10:30 Thursday night and 6:00 Friday morning.
I stopped the car in the road and turned on the flashers, got out with the flashlight, and made pictures. Sure enough, it was a wildcat. Its gut organs had been eaten, but the rest of it was still in fairly good condition for something that was hit by a car going the speed limit on Beeks Road. I didn’t think a car had done this, or at least not the blood and gut part.
I made some pictures to help me in my research and theories about what happened. Imagine: a half-clad, robed wildlife crime investigator out on a rural road before daybreak, wet hair, no makeup, snapping photos of a dead animal carcass. That was me.
I mourned the life of this cat for a moment, despite the fear its kind evokes in me each time I take my dogs for a walk. Moments like these are powerful reminders of why I believe strongly in keeping my dogs on a leash at all times. People think it strange that I live on a family farm in the country on the backside of nowhere and leash my dogs. This is why: bobcats, foxes, coyotes, owls, red-shouldered hawks as large as the Great Horned Owls, rogue dogs, wild boar, cars, venomous snakes, and hunters. Not to mention those who believe that every dog they see off a leash needs rescuing, posting on social media for three days, and then rehoming (a/k/a dognappers who believe they are fully justified). Ours are chipped, but walking unleashed in our neck of the wilderness simply isn’t worth the risk.
I raced back home to pull my Audubon book out and make a 100 percent positive identification on the bobcat. Check.
Then I began the investigation. “Hey, Google. What are a bobcat’s natural enemies?”
Google rarely lets me down. “The most common enemy of bobcats is man, but they also have other predators, including owls, eagles, coyotes, and foxes, mountain lions, and wolves.”
I looked closely at the photos and observed that this bobcat appeared to be in good shape except for the gaping gut hole that had been devoured by something. I also noted an odor that suggested the bobcat had been dead for longer than a couple of hours, even though it wasn’t there the night before. It seemed odd it was in the road smelling of decay already, and not fresh-since-last-night meat. It was also on the edge of the road where it would have likely been hit a number of times by texting drivers who failed to see it in time and move over a little.
A pack of coyotes would have picked this bobcat clean and torn its limbs apart, so I ruled them out. I have never seen a wolf here, and it’s been years since anyone has seen a wild boar on this property. A fox lingered for a passing thought, but one predator emerged as the prime suspect. We have three active culprits, and they’re nocturnal. The Great Horned Owl.
Most people would shake their heads and dismiss this possibility. No way an owl would kill a bobcat.
Here’s a way: a bobcat is struck by a car and crippled but not killed. It languishes for several days in the brush, and finally succumbs to its pain and lack of food or water, probably realizing that whatever animal stumbles across it will consider it a gourmet meal.
I believe it was the Great Horned Owl who watched to see that the bobcat was alive for a time, and then when it knew this creature was too weak to fight back, but probably still alive, it swooped in for the feast. I believe it dragged it to the road for a better angle and strategically placed the stomach organs on the line in the road where the elevation dips back down so it could get to all the good meat in much the same way we invert the yogurt lid to lick the top, and I believe it ate the stomach organs and the eyes.
I believe all of this because I have seen over the years how the Great Horned Owls prefer organs. They eat the heads of rabbits, taking out the brains and leaving the rest. This carcass destruction made sense to me.
I can’t imagine the sheer shame of the bobcat spirit in bobcat heaven, reading the Georgia Rural Wildlife newpaper obituaries about his tragic end:
Robert W. Cat died Friday, November 10, 2023, killed by a Great Horned Owl with a five-foot wingspan. His friends all believed that he was the fiercest of his kind there in rural Georgia but report they had noticed a slip in his swagger in the days preceding his death. His wife reported she had heard rumors he was out running around on her with his sly catlike ways, and moved on just hours following her husband’s death, noting simply, “I hope he was in life number nine. He was a real animal.”
At the end of each month, (or beginning), I review my yearly goals and spend some time reflecting on how I’m doing in living the life I want to live ~ a way of becoming my own accountability partner and having frequent check-ins to evaluate my progress. I’m still in the process of revising some of my goals as I encounter successes…..and setbacks. New goals have asterisks for the month of November, when I will report on them in a few weeks. For the month of October, here’s my goal reflection:
Category
Goals
My Progress
Literature
Read for Sarah Donovan’s Book Group
Send out Postcards
Blog Daily
I participated in the October book discussion with Sarah’s reading group for Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World. I’ll participate in the book discussion for Assessment 3.0 this month. Time for reading has been scarce lately, but Audible is a good way to try to keep up the pace when all I can do is multi-task.
I sent no postcards this month.
I continue to blog daily, and the daily writing and reflecting is a wonderful habit for me. I don’t feel complete without some form of daily writing, and the blog is a way of continuing the habit.
I had a Zoom meeting with Ruth Ayers of Choice Literacy about writing for her website. I look forward to spending some time writing about local literacy events.
Creativity
*Decorate for fall
*Create Shutterfly Route 66
I created a surprise ducking of our office. I used tiny ducks left over from my brother in law’s birthday ducking and put them to use in the office, even adding Halloween ducks to the lineup.
I have been trying to get to Shutterfly since July, so if I haven’t accomplished this goal by the end of October, I may give up on this one. Update: I’m giving up on this goal.
Spirituality
Tune in to church
Pray!
Keep OLW priority
We have been tuning in to church. With Dad preaching every Sunday in October and a few Sundays ahead of that, it makes the church home hunt take a back seat until my childhood church gets a new preacher, since I have the opportunity to hear Dad.
My car is still my prayer chamber for daily prayer, and there’s so much to give thanks for. I continue my conversations with the good Lord each morning and afternoon.
I’m still keeping my OLW my priority: pray!
Reflection
Spend time tracking goals each month
I’m tracking goals, revising, and considering some new categories as I look at my goal table.
Self-Improvement
*Reach top of weight range
This is a setback for me this month. I’ve hit major stress and gained weight, despite joining WW. I need to set a firm date and get the mental mindset that it takes to stay on track. I have work to do. Update: every day, the diet is starting “tomorrow.” I seriously need a good mindset to start back. I’m keeping this goal. I need to get on track. Tomorrow.
Gratitude
Devote blog days to counting blessings
I begin the days this way and end them giving thanks as well.
Experience
Embrace Slow Travel
Focus on the Outdoors
I’ve taken a trip in October to F D R State Park for a Little Guy Southern States Meet Up. We met people who have the same kind of camper we have, and we even signed up for next year’s meet up in Tennessee at Roan Mountain State Park. My brother and his fiancee came for a visit during Fall Break, and it was wonderful having some time together with them.
I’m still focusing on the outdoors with birdwatching adventures and camping. We also built our own fire pit foundation for the fire pit my son gave us for Christmas last year.
Today at http://www.ethicalela.com, Tammi Belko of Ohio is our host for the second day of the October Open Write. You can see her prompt and read her poem here as she inspires us all to write. Today, we are writing about what our shoes would say if they could talk. I got a little concerned about the reality of this ever happening…….all my secrets would be told!
If My Shoes Could Talk
If my shoes could talk
they’d tell all my dark secrets:
sweets-binge hiding spots
Erica Johnson, our host at http://www.ethicalela.com for the first day of our five-day October Open Write, wrote one of my favorite forms of poetry – found poetry – in an art museum using the artists’ statements about the works! You can read her poem here – it surely captures the essence of departure by someone, leaving us to feel the loneliness that comes, almost missing them before they get fully out of sight. I feel I have been on an art exhibit tour today. Erica invited us to find poems in artists’ statements about paintings as well. I have a framed print of a painting that my parents gave me for Christmas in 1984, after I fell in love with the landscapes of the English countryside painted by John Constable following a visit to the National Gallery in London. My favorite Constable work: The White Horse, kept at the Frick Collection in New York. Here is the art link: https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.1146.html
The White Horse
six-foot wide space a new technique spanning canvas no longer overshadowed
The White Horse crosses the River Stour to the other side on a barge
full-size sketch with broad brushstrokes thus crossing a new career threshold
The White Horse painting appears at 2:37 and at 2:49 in the video
Last night’s book discussion in Dr. Sarah Donovan’s Healing Kind Book Group was Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World by Maryanne Wolf. Whether you are a teacher, a parent, a reader, or any combination of those roles, you would likely find strong points of identifying with the author – perhaps both agreeing and disagreeing with ideas even in the same chapter!
Each month, I enjoy the lively discussions of this group. We gather and bring a passage to discuss on our Zoom call. Denise Krebs of California led us this evening. Mo Daley of Illinois liked the quiet eye – the observant part of the reader that takes in details, and Sarah Donovan of Oklahoma liked the idea of cognitive patience – – attending with consciousness and attention to a rhythm that allows insights to unfold. What resonated most with me were the fostering of empathy and refining of critical thinking skills as readers use their eyes to take in whole new worlds through words. Every few pages, I’d marked a passage and stuck a Post-It bookmark tab on the side of the page to flag my favorite parts.
So much of our brain is active when we are reading – it’s performing miracles we don’t even realize are happening, lighting up the night sky during a thunderstorm with all of its lightning sparks and flashes.
To readers everywhere: pick up a book and savor the magic of reading. You are blessed to be able to make sense of print, to consider and contemplate it, to meditate on the ideas and to add layers of new perspective, and yes – even to revise your position because a book presents a case you may have never considered.
I usually post my goal update at the end of each month, but September’s is running late. October was sneaky and arrived before I knew it. I even forgot to say Rabbit, Rabbit.
At the end of each month, (or beginning), I review my yearly goals and spend some time reflecting on how I’m doing in living the life I want to live ~ a way of becoming my own accountability partner and having frequent check-ins to evaluate my progress. I’m still in the process of revising some of my goals as I encounter successes…..and setbacks. New goals have asterisks for the month of October, when I will report on them in a few weeks. For the month of September here’s my goal reflection:
Category
Goals
My Progress
Literature
Read for Sarah Donovan’s Book Group
Send out Postcards
Blog Daily
Write a proposal for writing group’s book
I participated in the September book discussion with Sarah’s reading group and look forward to reading October’s book – Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World. I’ll participate in this book discussion this month. Fellow blogger Tammi Evans recommended a book by Elizabeth McCracken entitled The Souvenir Museum, and I hope to explore this collection of short stories as well this month. I need a spooky book, too, to bring on the chills of October.
I mailed 10 postcards this month from Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky.
I continue to blog daily, and the daily writing and reflecting is a wonderful habit for me. I don’t feel complete without some form of daily writing, and the blog is a way of continuing the habit.
My writing group is writing a series of new books, and I will spend time editing the chapters we have written. I will continue to add chapters as we receive feedback from our proposals. We are each sending our proposal out to some publishing companies.
Creativity
*Decorate the house for fall
*Create Shutterfly Route 66
I am working on decorating. It’s a slow process this year. I picked up an orange and a bronze mum today from Home Depot, and I’ve also made the instant hot spiced tea and put it in Mason jars for the fall. I have added a couple of new pillows and a throw for the living room. Our decorations are simple around here in the country – – we have a lot of natural foliage, and I like using it in some wine bottles I’ve wrapped with twine using double-sided tape as vases.
I have been trying to get to Shutterfly since July, so if I haven’t accomplished this goal by the end of October, I may give up on this one.
Spirituality
Tune in to church
Pray!
Keep OLW priority
We have been tuning in to church. With Dad preaching every Sunday in October and a few Sundays ahead of that, it makes the church home hunt take a back seat until my childhood church gets a new preacher, since I have the opportunity to hear Dad.
My car is still my prayer chamber for daily prayer, and there’s so much to give thanks for. I continue my conversations with the good Lord each morning and afternoon.
I’m still keeping my OLW my priority: pray!
Reflection
Write family stories
Spend time tracking goals each month
I have shared family stories through my blog this month and will continue this month to do the same.
I’m tracking goals, revising, and considering some new categories as I look at my goal table.
Self-Improvement
*Reach top of weight range
This is a setback for me this month. I’ve hit major stress and gained weight, despite joining WW. I need to set a firm date and get the mental mindset that it takes to stay on track. I have work to do. Update: every day, the diet is starting “tomorrow.” I seriously need a good mindset to start back.
Gratitude
Devote blog days to counting blessings
I begin the days this way and end them giving thanks as well. I enjoy tea on the porch, taking time to meditate on all that I have been given. And all that I have not been given, too. I’m grateful both ways.
Experience
Embrace Slow Travel
Focus on the Outdoors
I’ve taken a trip in September to Augusta for a work meeting and to Kentucky to visit family. We visited Mammoth Cave National Park and the Bell Witch Cave – two caves in two days.
I’m still focusing on the outdoors with birdwatching adventures and camping. It’s the best time of the day to sit outside on the porch (in the shade) and just listen and watch what is going on around me. I have also come to an interesting resolution: I like my own backyard for birdwatching. Over time, I begin to know where each bird lives, its hours of activity, and its preferred seeds and feeders – and there is a powerful science to the perch on a feeder. Take cardinals, for example. They will come to a hanging feeder, but they prefer platform feeders just like mourning doves do. I’m learning by slow birding.
Boo Radley sporting his Parti spotting shades of gray, more evident following a grooming.
Boo Radley gave us a scare this week. Our sevenish-year-old Parti Schnoodle who came into our lives as an abandoned, starving, severely matted rescue whose tangles were so horrible they nicknamed him Einstein, had a lump pop up over his left hip.
We went straight to the verge of panic, stopping short of it when the vet had a quick opening.
I dropped him off Thursday morning for some tests and left a skeptical, trembling Boo with the look of betrayal in his eyes in the caring hands of our veterinary clinic’s staff, who always greet us by name.
The call came during a state Zoom call when some of our students were presenting their projects on poverty to leaders across the state.
I shut off my camera and muted my microphone and took the call.
“Boo Radley is going to be fine,” the office assured me. “He has a lipoma, a benign tumor of fatty tissue.”
They’d performed a fine needle aspiration and examined the cells to be sure that they were not cancerous.
I picked him up after work, and as I was waiting for him to be brought up front, one of the veterinary technicians whispered, “I just want you to know how sweet your dog is. I was back there earlier, and I caught him looking at me with his big eyes, pleading with me to love on him. I opened his kennel and took him out and he showered me with kisses. He is one sweet boy!” This vet tech was a man, and Boo has always taken to men much more quickly than women. On the Schnoodle Facebook page, this seems to be a Schnoodle trait to prefer men.
He’d already forgiven me for leaving him by the time they handed him back to me. He caught a glimpse of the dog before him leaving, meandering with his family back to their car, and barked cuss words at them like a little banshee.
“This is ‘the other side’ of Boo Radley,” I pointed out. “Sweet boy can’t mind his own business. He has strong opinions and forces them on others.”
They chuckled and handed me the bill. I did not chuckle, and paid it.
As we neared the Johnson Funny Farm, I cracked the window so Boo could do his favorite thing – – sniff all the smells of the fauna and flora of the realm that is now his permanent place in the world – not a place of abandonment, but a place of love and belonging. The place where he will live out his full life, grow old, and cross the Rainbow Bridge someday. Just not today, thankfully.
#lovestoride #frontseatdog
I assured him when he got up this morning that he did not have to go back to the vet today. He went outside, did his business, and came in and had his blue jean time where he plays tug of war with the legs of my husband’s jeans for a moment, then had his treat. As I write at this very moment, Boo is snuggled by my right shoulder as he is each morning, snoozing in the comfort of the life he knows.
Earlier this week, I shared my experience participating in a coaching cycle in an elementary school in my state. This work takes place through the Georgia Association of Educational Leaders (GAEL) as part of the L4GA Grant (Literacy). During the second day of our coaching cycles, we visited a high school in the same area. In the elementary school, we looked for examples of behavioral, cultural, and cognitive engagement. At the high school, we looked for levels of rigor.
The classes with the highest levels of rigor, we observed, were classes where teachers knew their students’ interests and had a grasp of where they were in their understanding of the content. They knew how to push and how to pull, how to give some students an extra thinking challenge while working on the spot with a small group that needed extra support. The most masterful teacher we observed that day made relevant life applications by giving specific examples, providing time to think and to work on the task, encouraging talking with peers to figure out solutions, and asking questions in a way that allowed students to figure out the answers rather than giving the answers to the students or leading them there with hints. Instead of lowering expectations, they raised the bar.
We observed for instruction that needed tweaking to reach its potential also. No matter where we are as educators, there is always room for improvement. Teachers in these schools appeared to welcome the observation team with sincere interest in the suggestions to improve in the areas that are most often only recognized by someone other than the instructor.
I feel blessed to be able to be part of such a strong network of leaders throughout my state. Each district leader in this particular observation team comes from a different system, so we bring the perspectives of our own school system in terms of strengths, gaps, and areas of opportunity. We also see small things in the moments, on the walls, in the conversations, in the frameworks of instruction that make us stop and smile.
These were some signs throughout the building that brought some encouragement as we walked the hallways. I hope they inspire you the way they inspired me.
Common Threads 