Are you Ribbing Me?

 
While I was walking yesterday, I saw this reflection of a broken fan of cattail leaves. I liked the way it looked, and it reminded me of ribs.



Not five steps farther, I saw this reflection. My first thought was of the ribs of a sunken ship. Then I did a double take. It is ribs. (a winter-kill deer)



Then I got to thinking about the words rib and ribbon. I wondered if they came from the same root. The answer is... probably not. "Rib" is pure Old English. "Ribbon" is more a diminutive of "band," from Indo-European "bhend," from which we get bandana, bind, bundle, bond, ribbon and more!

A busy day, but had an uncharacteristic migraine headache this afternoon. Thankfully, it went away.

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G is for Galluzilla - the Gift that will Continue to Give

 
I've been meaning to tell you the rest of this story, and here we are at G. Can't find a better time! For those of you who are coming by for the A-Z Challenge, I'll give you a quick overview.

On October 20th, we were given a 30 pound turkey. Yes, thirty. Named Galluzilla for Gallus (Latin for fowl) and zilla (Pop Culture for monster- actually the Wikipedia entry for Godzilla is quite interesting)



Freezer, challenge to get it in... Thawing, challenge to get it thawed... On December 22, I cut it up, and made soup out of all the less desirable parts.



Still 20 pounds left to roast for Christmas dinner!



I saved the wishbone, sprayed it white, and it will hang on future Christmas trees.



Just a wishbone you say? Check out the ruler. Yes, that is 6 inches!



Goodbye till next Christmas, Galluzilla.

	See My Problem Fades to Insignificance See Under the Knife See Galluzilla Fuels More Good Time
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Solution to The Bony Mystery

 
First of all, congrats to John, Ann, and the Duxbury Ramblers, who guessed #3. You got it right. Here is the fragment next to two more complete skulls.



Now you can see that it is a deer. I am sorry to say that this was a fawn that did not make it through the winter. It was probably born late in the season. There's no way to know if it was killed, or just died and was then eaten.

How can I tell? Well, the two real giveaway features for me were that the top of the skull did not narrow significantly in front of the eyes, and the big one was the holes (foramen) just above the eye sockets. I've circled one on each of the skulls in the picture below. The color is just an indication of how much the bone has bleached, and has nothing to do with identification.



Here is the book I use to help me identify skulls. I tried to add it to my Amazon Recommendations at the bottom of the page, but it's not letting me edit it for some reason. Hope I can get that figured out soon.

I had a lot of fun today! Since we are supposed to have several rainy days soon, I already know that I'll have good things to show you, despite the weather.

My life is getting really busy again, and I'm behind on reading many of your blogs. I caught up with a couple of people today, and I'll try to get a few more tomorrow!

See A Bony Mystery

A Bony Mystery

While hiking with Ellen the other day, we found this piece of bone that obviously is part of a skull. But whose? We'll play a game today.



Hoping you won't be grossed out. This is all part of nature, as much as the cute bunnies and birds. Yes, this has been chewed on. Just try to remember that some other critter lived because this one died. (When we eat meat we do it too!) Here's a little help. Just to orient you, I've labeled the back and the eye sockets.

Here's the game- just leave a comment as to which one of the skulls this piece matches, and why you think so. There is no trick. I've oriented them all the same. Don't be fooled by size- there can be a lot of variation between individuals in any species. The fragment is smaller than some of the whole ones and larger than others. The piece is a match for one of these.

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See Death and Survival See Deersicle- Revisited, revisited, revisited

Deersicle Revisited, Revisited, Revisited

 

This is not an entry for the squeamish. But this is about the realities of nature.


I have jokingly referred to the deersicle on several previous occasions. I think it is time to explain it better. On the second day of gun deer season, Nov 16, a six point buck died on the back side of our property. Without struggling to turn it over it wasn't at all obvious if someone had shot it and had been unable to track it, or if it was clipped by the train (the tracks are the back edge of our property) and managed to run only a short distance after that before dying. Somehow it seemed a terrible loss when any hunter in the neighborhood had been watching that nice six-pointer for days if not weeks.

And yet, the deer has been providing a service to the non-human neighborhood ever since. Of course I keep trying to get Maggie to stay out of it, but she is a dog after all, and just has to grab a snack whenever we go by. My only real hope is to keep her from eating so much at one time that she gets sick (I hate surprises like having to wash all the bedding on the spur of the moment).

But my real point is that the deer is providing winter food for a number of animals. Every day, no matter how much snow has fallen an access to the carcass has been beaten down. The haunches and everything inside the rib cage is now gone. But the scavengers will continue to feed until, by spring, all that will remain will be some bones and parts of the hide.


The crows are regular diners. The day their tracks were really good I didn't have the camera with me. The picture here isn't as obvious that the tracks belong to a crow, so you'll mostly have to take my word for it.

The fox has stopped by several times. Probably a porcupine will come along and even drag the antlers away to gnaw on.

Nature wastes nothing.