danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

My friend Jeff has had all manner of dirty, back-breaking jobs, going back to our high school days when he washed dishes at Shoney’s.  Later, he worked in the sewage treatment business, which sometimes required that he stand waist-deep in unimaginably horrible human waste.  He’s had to work long night shifts, drive all over town and outside of town, lift heavy things, and sometimes combinations of those things.  But it was always for somebody else, and I don’t think it felt very rewarding.

Several years ago, he moved to Miami.  It was a logical move.  Unless you have an advanced degree or some other special qualification,  Gainesville can be a tough place to find work.  Plus, Sandi was in Miami.

About that time, Jeff got involved in a business that is far more necessary and profitable in South Florida than it is here: animal removal.  In Miami, if somebody has an alligator or large snake in his backyard, or an opossum or raccoon in his attic, he calls a company to get rid of it.  Jeff worked for a business that did just that.  Still, it was working for someone else, and the boss was getting wealthy while Jeff did the work.

So, Jeff started his own business called Miami Animal Removal, and last week he was on TV.  Wednesday night, on a Discovery Channel show called Verminators, Jeff was shown capturing peacocks that were creating a disturbance in a residential area.  Even on TV, he seemed just like the Jeff I’ve known for years.  Sure, he fell down in slow motion, and a peacock defecated on him, but he was on TV, and he’s doing it for himself.

Filed under: Animals, Friends, Television on August 2nd, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Every summer, my neighbor Elke visits her family in Berlin.  She and Kyra left a couple weeks ago, and aren’t due back until next month.

In the meanwhile, while Elke is away, I am caring for her animals.  The menagerie includes two cats (her adorable kittens have another home for the summer), four rabbits and a chicken.  The cats require little care.  They’re sassy, but I don’t have to touch them.  The same goes for the bunnies.  They have their own large cage, and all I have to do is fill their food dispensers and make sure their water jug–which sends water to several nipples in the cage–is always full.  They don’t seem to like being molested.

The chicken, on the other hand, is the most demanding of all.  She doesn’t really like her oats as much as she likes the rabbit food.  That’s fine; I’ll give her what she wants.  But she’s always getting under my feet, and if she thinks I am holding something she can eat, she’ll jump up.  I am a six-foot-tall, 190 pound man, but it still makes me a little uncomfortable having a chicken lunge at me.  After school every day, I let her out of her cage, and she pecks around the yard for a few hours until I come by later to put her back.  Once it’s dark out, she goes to sleep near the back door, and I have to pick her up and carry her to her cage.  She doesn’t fight me, but she does lift her wings up when she knows I am about to grab her.  More troublesome is the way she knocks over her water bowls.  She tries to climb up on them, and ends up dumping the water out.  I make sure to check on her several times day because of this.

I also check for eggs every day.  I never really gave it much thought before, but eggs are completely bizarre.

Filed under: Animals, General on July 28th, 2009 | No Comments »

To get to my yard, of course. [Click picture to play video.]

There is a nightly visitor to the garden here, and the cats do not seem to mind.  I do wonder what Bela is thinking.  Does she understand that this other animal is a bird, and that cats are supposed to want to eat birds?  Does she think it is perhaps another large and very ugly cat?  Does she know it is a chicken, but realize that even if she did attack it, it could easily fend her off?  Or does she think she could defeat it, but has no interest, since she receives her meals everyday with no effort on her part?  Some time ago we had an armadillo in the back yard and she seems to look on it with pity.  We had a raccoon as well, but never witnessed their interaction.

Did I mention I live in a city, and not on a farm?

Filed under: Animals, Garden on September 30th, 2008 | No Comments »

HILTON HEAD ISLAND – I am in South Carolina for a few days while Miriam is at a conference.

The trip here, in a rented Hyundai Sonata, was surprisingly comfortable.  That’s a good little car.  It has every luxury, and appears to get incredibly good mileage.  We made a brief stop in Savannah for lunch, then arrived in South Carolina around 4:30.  This area differs from coastal Florida in a number of ways, though the most immediately obvious is the presence of trees, which is striking, considering how many hurricanes come through here.  Every shopping center and parking lot is wooded, and, in fact, the shopping areas are set back from the road, so you see unobtrusive signs along the street, in front of a wall of pine and oak.

The hotel is nice, if sprawling.  The hallways are long and the pool area covers a giant swath of land in the middle of the complex.  The balcony of our room looks over a pond with a fountain, and at night the frogs are very active.  The lobby is handsome, with elaborate wood paneling and millwork, and as I write people are enjoying complimentary lemonade and some other drink with whole strawberries in it.  This morning I attempted to get started reading Robinson Crusoe, but the splashing and cavorting of the guests at the pool, and the sound of the waves was too distracting for me.  I have been watching the swimming events from the Olympics on television.

Last night we went for a lovely walk along the beach, and it took us quite a distance north from our hotel.  The shore in front of the hotel had a goodly number of bathers, but a short distance up the coast it was practically deserted, and there were all manner of birds and bivalves and crabs.

The weather today is surprisingly cool, in the mid 70s, I’d say. It feels like Florida in the winter, since it’s also a bit overcast at the moment.  In a few minutes we’re going into town to have lunch and look at some old antebellum houses.

I foolishly forgot the power supply to my laptop, so I can only use this computer for as long as I have charge.  If  I don’t write again until Wednesday that is why.  The most unfortunate aspect of my absent-mindedness is that I won’t get to edit the photographs from the wedding I shot in St. Augustine last month.  That will be my top priority when I return to Gainesville.

Filed under: Animals, Recreation, Travel on August 11th, 2008 | No Comments »

An op-ed in today’s New York Times regarding this afternoon’s Belmont Stakes got me thinking about another crime perpetrated by the horse racing community, namely the names.

If Big Brown wins today he’ll be the first horse since Affirmed in 1978 to win the Triple Crown. “Affirmed”? What kind of name is that for an animal? “Big Brown” at least makes some sense, but “Funny Cide”, “Casino Drive”, “Touch Gold”, “Empire Maker”? Those aren’t names. They’re just words strung together, some vaguely related to gambling. When they’re brushing these animals in the stable do they actually use these absurd monikers? I hope not.

Maybe I’ll call my cat “Window Dressing” or “Furball Dancer”.

UPDATE: Big Brown loses.

Filed under: Animals, Current Events, Sports on June 7th, 2008 | 1 Comment »