Anne's Blog

     The thing is time gets away from you. Here I was thinking I was writing this yesterday and it is already today. I walked home from work yesterday. I've done that a few times lately. I find it very peaceful and it's really not a long walk. I stopped a couple times to rest my right knee which was sore because I had been on my feet a lot the last couple days. I had arthroscopic surgery on it 24 years ago and was told then, at the age of 35, that I had the knees of a 70-year-old. My right knee actually will bend but it gets sore if I walk for too long. I might have developed a permanent, almost imperceptible limp after I broke my ankle. It causes me to walk weird and, after awhile, my right knee gets very sore. I need better shoes. My left knee which has never been worked on doesn't like to bend at all. Alas. Is arthroscopic surgery even a thing any more?       As I walked, I scanned the bare branches of the tallest trees and the tops of tall building...

    My eyes, like binoculars, zeroed in on a zig-zagging speck I could see moving in and out of sight through the treetops. She wouldn't see or hear me until it was too late but she didn't need to know that silently I would carry her aloft and back.    I've seen the ads before. I saw one recently. In it, there was a Photoshopped-picture of a Great Horned Owl in mid-flight, talons extended, going in for the kill of a rat also photoshopped onto the ad. There was no grass, no open field vistas, no trees. The photoshopped-drama was set against a tan color.  The  paraphrased message of the poster was that the rat, an alleged pest, had eaten rat poisoning.  The owl's acute senses of hearing and sight help them locate tiny voles under dead leaves up to 900 feet away but they cannot tell the owl the rat they are about to eat is poisoned.  In turn, the poison will kill the Owl. The message is clear: If you must kill a rat or other varmint, don't use poison...