We now enter a less pleasant chapter in the revelry of my budding porcupine friendship, as chronicled in An Unlikely Encounter with a Porcupine, Return of the Porcupine, an Apple Fest and Porcupine, Fawns and Turkeys – A Winter Woodland Celebration.

MOVING IN

After my woodland birthday celebration on that snowy Thursday in October, our resident porcupine made herself scarce. Then, as Tim woke to let the dogs out on Saturday, he saw her nestled against the chain link fence with her quills pointed through into the dog yard. With the dogs crossing their legs in need of morning relief, an hour ticked slowly by before the porcupine finally wandered off again.

That night, the dogs nearly climbed the 6 foot fence, frothy white saliva flying this way and that, as they barked themselves into a frenzy. In the glow of the house floodlights, we saw our little porcupine curled up in a half-igloo just 3 feet from the fenced yard. As Tim and I dragged the dogs inside, the Newf nearly went through the sun room window in pursuit, leaving swipes of muddy footprints smeared across the glass. It took great effort, but we wrangled both dogs into the main house and slammed the door shut.

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World Animal Awareness – it’s not just about animals. It’s about people too. These are some of the stories highlighted on Facebook this week by World Animal Awareness Society – WA2S.Org, a dedicated non profit focused on filming human animal intersections worldwide.

ETHIOPIA

The human/animal connection is readily apparent on a most basic level in a video called Women Want Change. This video comes from The Brook, an international charity relieving the suffering of horses & donkeys working for some of the world’s poorest communities. (Visit The Brook on Facebook.)

Women can play a powerful role in bringing about change and, through its training, The Brooke is equipping women in many rural communities with the skills, confidence, and knowledge to make improvements for the future wellbeing of their animals and their families. – The Brooke President, HRH the Duchess of Cornwall

Watch the shift toward better animal husbandry as illiterate women are educated about proper working animal nutrition, wound care and problems with overloading. They speak of a time when they didn’t know more than to use traditional –  yet lacking – healing methods as compared with now healthy animals who benefit the survival of their families.

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In late October, I woke to a landscape glittering and bright in the golden sun of daybreak. It was the first snow of the season, and this particular day was my birthday. Through the window, from the warmth of my bed, I watched a rabbit making tracks as our Newf, Shamus, ate frosted crabapples straight from the tree. The view made me cheerful for the first time in a long while.

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Last week, as I told of My Unlikely Encounter with a Porcupine, we left off with this darling, quilly little girl trotting through the deep woods as I skipped home filled with wonderment at our chance meeting. But that’s not the end of the story…

On an overcast Saturday afternoon, a dark, waddling shadow under the apple trees caught my husband Tim’s eye. “Hey. You’re friend is back!”

I ran to the window. There she was, face-first in a shiny, red, fallen apple on the lawn, circling around it as she ate, not a care in the world. Unable to hold onto the fruit, she sank her long teeth into the ruby red flesh, re-angling for every bite. When only a bright white core was left, she abandoned it for the next apple. Continue reading →

It was October 18th, 2011. The sun played peek-a-boo, ducking behind passing clouds and cheekily popping out again like a gleeful child. Bulbous shadows floated across the lawn in tandem with their fluffy white counterparts above. I absorbed the sights as if they were harmonious sounds, the clouds providing a strong bass line as melodious bursts of golden light trickled through the pines.

Then she arrived, hopping and bopping through this symphonic space like a tuba in the strings section. From a distance, she looked like a ground hog, or perhaps a beaver. But, no. She was a beautiful little porcupine.

Climbing the hill toward the house, she took a turn past the dog yard – which sent the dogs into an ear piercing cacophony. When she redirected, I grabbed my camera and followed with a wide birth letting the zoom bridge the gap.

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On January 18th, 2012 the internet is going on strike to stop two web censorship bills in Congress: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

Leading websites including Wikipedia, Reddit, Mozilla, WordPress, and BoingBoing will go dark tomorrow in protest, and we join them. Whether you have a website or simply like to read them, you’ll want to take part, too.

WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?

Two laws, hastily proposed in the name of protecting copyright holders, will more likely enable censorship by US corporations and the U.S. government, undermining the First and Fourth Amendments of the United States Constitution.

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The house rattled and creaked as the wind pushed and pulled, searching for a way in beyond the logs. Crisp brown leaves whizzed past the windows, illuminated only by the lamplight inside. The feeder swayed back and forth from it’s hook, metal grinding on metal. The cedar trellis whipped from side to side. From under my my chocolate knit afghan, as I sat with the dogs basking in the warmth of the fire, I lazily thought, I need to tighten those trellis screws.

In the flurry of all that commotion, something caught Jed’s attention. The curious cat ascended the couch, planted his face in the window and stared into the darkness. Then he started to pace.

Squirrel? I thought. We hear them trotting across the roof some nights. They use the trellis to reach the closest feeder with solid footing. I welcomed the thought.

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INNOCENCE LOST

Flying to Sevilla in 1985 with a pack of fellow 9th graders, the school system’s hope was to teach the Spanish language while immersing us in rich and colorful culture. We learned a new and colorful vocabulary all right, the locals were happy to give lessons, but it was not in the curriculum and we would not receive extra credit.

We also experienced a tradition that had young, rabble-rousing boys reveling in real-life bloody violence and girls upchucking their Chorizo. I’m not referring to our stealth acquisition of sangria. I’m referring to our first (and my last) bull fight.

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Edie Jarolim of Will My Dog Hate Me and Amy Burkert of GoPetFriendly.com are co-hosting the 2nd Annual Pet Blogger Challenge today, inviting all pet bloggers to answer eight questions about their blogs.

I’ve anxiously awaited this day, planning to use the PBC’s questions as a tool to redefine why I blog and what I’d like to either accomplish or abandon here. Please pardon my taking a few liberties in prose form to better explain 2011′s situation.

GOALS: THEN AND NOW

The 2011 Pet Blogger Challenge (my previous post) aimed to explore “how and why” I blog about animals and how that’s working for us as a group. I quote myself as saying then, in reference to goals from my start in 2009, “This One Wild Life still celebrates relationships with all things animal, vegetable and mineral.” I go on to say, “I wanted a way to record and remember favorite moments with these magnificent beings, exploring and sharing the human emotion attached to my animal relationships.” That goal of keeping the human/animal connection at the forefront has held fast, but I feel the execution – or my vision of it – has essentially failed.
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When it comes to compassionate living and my love for animals, I credit my grandmother, Helen, for encouraging me to respect all living beings at an early age, never by telling me to do so, but because she led by example. My father had a significant influence as well, but since he too learned from her, today I remember the source of that love – in celebration of Helen’s birthday.

Alzheimer’s ruthlessly robbed valuable pieces of Helen’s memory over the years, and I have long missed my connection with sweetest woman I have ever known. Now that her beautiful soul has flown, I believe her spirit has been set free to soar through the ethos, no longer bound by earthly separation and limitation. And I am free to remember the woman who was and who is now whole again, not the still-darling but deteriorating woman who no longer knew me.

Memory. Relationships depend upon it. And so I remember.

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