Not the best photo but, I think, the perfect picture to go with the story I wrote about my dad’s service in the Army. On the day pictured above Dad received his commission in the morning and a few hours later graduated from Kansas State University.
My story is included in a military anthology called Holes in Our Hearts. The book is filled with the poems, short stories, and memoirs of 55 New Mexicans. The writers include service members, veterans, family members, caregivers.
Telling our stories is important but can be difficult and I am impressed when I think about the time and effort and care that went into each one of these pieces.
On Saturday ten of the writers will be in Santa Fe for a reading. The works by this group of writers range from a poem about the Holes in Our Hearts sculpture featured on the cover of the book to a child’s memory of an experience at a roadside Buddhist shrine in South Korea to a firsthand account of a deadly rocket attack in Vietnam.
If you happen to be in the Santa Fe area on Saturday, please join us.
Details: Santa Fe Main Library 145 Washington Avenue Santa Fe, NM 505-955-6781 August 12th, 2023 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm
In a departure from my usual stories/essays about wolves, bears, and feral cats I recently wrote a short family history piece about my dad’s time in the U.S. Army. It is included in the anthology of stories, poems, and memoirs in the above-pictured book.
It is an honor to be included with these 54 writers, all New Mexicans and all with a connection to the military. Many are veterans and others are family members or caregivers of veterans.
The book will soon be in all New Mexico libraries. Santa Fe Public Library has two copies available for check out now. It can also be purchased in some local New Mexico bookstores or online at Amazon.com.
On Saturday August 12th the Santa Fe Public Library will host a reading of ten of the writers. Details provided above. Six veterans and four family members will read from their work.
Great news for Nancy Charles-Parker and Ferol Kolons, cited for giving water and food to cats at Queens’ Marketplace on April 18th after a feeding ban had been put in place to protect endangered nēnē that had discovered the cats’ feeding stations.
Charles-Parker and Kolons were represented pro bono by their attorney, Susan Regeimbal, who agreed with Deputy Prosecutor Matthew Woodward when he moved to dismiss the case. He was quoted as saying “. . . the vast majority of cats have been relocated.”
Funds had been raised for both women’s legal defense by Kohala Animal Relocation and Education Services (KARES) and the founder of the organization, Debbie Cravatta, quoted in the article, stated “that money will go to animal rescue, pet food for shelters, spay neuter, veterinary services for stray animals, etc.”
That is good news for cats, but it doesn’t solve the problem of the Queens’ Marketplace cats. Although a West Hawaii Today article last week said that 64 cats had been adopted, the two rescue groups—AAO and HAKA—doing lots of hard work to capture, spay/neuter, vaccinate, and rehome the felines estimated there were still about 100 remaining. One hundred cats that aren’t getting food or water.
The rescue groups have said they will begin trapping again once they have more adopters lined up.
Thanks to West Hawaii Today for continuing to report on this story as it develops.
Local television station KITV 4 Island News broadcast the story linked below back in May. It takes a look at a group of volunteers caring for a colony of cats in Hilo, on the other side of the Big Island.
According to this story 64 cats have been captured at Queens’ Marketplace. They were spayed/neutered and vaccinated before going to adopters who will kennel the cats for a period of time until the felines become used to their new surroundings. Two rescue groups worked together on this first phase, Aloha Animal Oasis (AAO) and Hawaii Animal Kuleana Alliance (HAKA), and will resume trapping as they find homes for the cats. These groups need volunteers, donations, and of course, adopters!
This letter to the editor published yesterday June 7, 2023. Mr. Chraminski volunteers with AdvoCATS so he has firsthand experience with feeding and caring for a colony of cats.
Cat issue’ spreads
The feral cat issue has reached Keauhou Shopping Center area.
The AdvoCATS group has been leading cat feeders as part of their catch/neuter/ release program, and in the six years I have been a feeder, the population has declined — except not as fast as it should due to irresponsible cat owners dumping cats there.
Now Kamehameha Schools, the property owner, and mall management are making it a trespassing crime to continue feeding the cats.
Their solution is that now the 30 or so cats will wander the whole mall, starving, looking for handouts, and management will then scrape up the carcasses, I guess.
Where is all the animal-control money just allocated going, and why are they not leading to solutions including for cats, mongooses, pigs and goats that run feral all over town now?
Even trapping and euthanizing is more humane than starvation.
Below is an unpublished letter to the editor that I submitted to West Hawaii Today on May 15th. Note: I don’t know why my letter wasn’t published but I have noticed that the paper doesn’t print many letters from readers. I could have posted the text of my letter it in the comment section of one of the stories listed below but I preferred to publish it here along with links to all of the recent stories.
My first visit to Waikoloa Beach Resort (WBR) was in the early 2000s. Queens’ Marketplace was still on the drawing board and the lone nēnē I saw lived behind glass at the Hilton. Snorkelers, golfers, and stargazers all found something to love. And where we go, the cats follow.
Charmed by the loveliness of the Kohala Coast my husband and I became frequent visitors. I’m a landlubber at heart so I spent my time not on the beach but behind it visiting a colony of cats, talking to volunteers who took care of them. I also looked, in vain, for Hawaiian stilts, coots, and ducks, the native water birds that had once lived in and around the nearby fish and anchialine ponds. None of those endangered birds were found at WBR when the 1985 environmental impact study was drafted. The study mentioned the observation of one feral cat.
On my visits over the last couple of years I began to notice a few nēnē. It was a surprise since Hawai’i’s state bird had not been mentioned in the environmental impact study, but it was good to see that they were recovering, attracted not to the natural habitat but to grassy lawns and other landscaping at hotels and golf courses.
After my early April visit, the nēnē discovery of cat food in the Queen’s Marketplace parking lot made the news. The conflict that ensued resulted in a feeding ban. Volunteers are now working to capture and rehome cats.
I am concerned about the wellbeing and safety of the nēnē but I am haunted by the thought of starving cats that are also being denied water. Isn’t there a better way for us to resolve a situation that was created when we humans began to work and play here?
Paula Nixon Santa Fe, NM
Here are links to the four articles published by West Hawaii Today between April 25th and May 24th. The first three are what prompted my letter. The stories are behind a paywall but by signing up for a free digital subscription I think you can read up to seven articles a month.
Briefly, the issue is that a group of free-roaming cats lives behind Queens’ Marketplace in WBR. ABay Kitties is a nonprofit group that was providing food and water in the parking lot for the felines. Sometime in the last few weeks Hawai’i’s state bird called the nēnē (pronounced nay-nay) discovered the cat food and began to frequent the area putting them at risk of harmful encounters with humans and cats. The nēnē is listed as an endangered species by Hawai’i’s Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) but has been downlisted from endangered to threatened by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
On the basis of the protected status of the nēnē, the DLNR has outlawed any feeding of the cats behind Queens’ Marketplace. ABay Kitties along with another nonprofit group, Hawaii Aloha Animal Oasis is working to trap and find homes for as many of the cats as possible.
Two women were cited in mid-April for setting out cat food after DLNR ordered the removal of feeding stations in the parking lot at Queen’s Marketplace. Their names were released in the May 24th story above. They are due in court on June 13th.
I’ll post an update when new information becomes available.
This tiny piñon tree is about 10 inches tall with new shoots that are 3 inches long! It sits downhill from a couple of mature piñons, one of which was our first Christmas tree after we moved into our house in 2000.
We had a good winter this year with lots of snow in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Most of our piñon and juniper trees look healthy and have new growth. But the outlook is still dire. Drought and rising temperatures are making these trees vulnerable along with another threat that Sara Van Note wrote about in this article Unraveling the Plight of the Pinyon Jay. According to Van Note, “Pinyon jays and piñon pines are wholly interdependent–the piñon nuts provide essential sustenance for the bird, and the jay offers critical seed dispersal for the tree.”
In the 28 years I have lived here I have rarely seen a pinyon jay. Much more common is the squawky Woodhouse’s scrub jay. He loudly announces his arrival at the birdfeeder and takes over the backyard. My guess is that it was one of these jays who cached a piñon nut and forgot to come back for it.
Here’s hoping it will be a good year for piñon nuts and my local scrub-jays. I don’t see as many of them as I used to but maybe a bumper crop of nuts will bring them around.
For now, I’ll be watching this sprout and giving it a little extra water over the summer months.
It’s been a long time since I posted anything here. Not really sure if I’ll make it a regular thing, but I always meant to share this video that I captured back in January 2019 at the Albuquerque BioPark.
I always stop by to see the polar bears after visiting the Mexican wolf habitat and on most days the bears are lounging on the rocks, not doing much. But on this mild January day they were interacting with each other and their green barrel. The video lasts about a minute and a half. Watch to the end to see some sibling behavior that most of us can probably relate to.
Here’s a link to a little more information about polar bears and these two brothers, Kiska and Koluk.
Need a break from nonstop politics? Here’s a story I wrote about a snake. It was included in an anthology published by SouthWest Writers, Seeing the World in 20/20. No photo with this post because mine didn’t turn out well and all those pictures of coiled snakes on the internet spook me!
It needed no pity, but just a crumb, something to hop toward. —Gary Whitehead
Yesterday morning I spotted a rabbit outside my kitchen window. It was dragging its right rear leg, bent at an odd angle–maybe grazed by a car or nipped by a coyote. One more worry.
It reminded me of this poem about a bird missing a leg. Turns out I’m not the only one who frets about a scrub jay with a deformed beak or a mule deer with a big hole in its ear.
I know that rabbit is just fine without my help, but after breakfast I took a wrinkled Newtown pippin from the fridge, left over from last year’s farmers market, and placed it where I had seen the rabbit, in view of my makeshift desk, the kitchen table, and now I’m waiting.
Yellow-bellied sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius). Our first bird of the morning. I lifted my field glasses to get a better look, but never caught a glimpse of its golden underside. Bob pointed out rows of holes in the bark of a Siberian elm, one of the woodpecker’s favorite trees in Central Park. Most of these birds are passing through, making a stop to feed before continuing on their journey south.
It was a Saturday morning in mid-October, overcast but mild. About 30 people had gathered outside a restaurant in the middle of the park to meet up with Bob for a 3-hour walk. A native New Yorker, Bob earned a PhD studying the flora of NYC and has been conducting bird walks in Central Park for over 25 years. Dave and I arrived at 9:30, not a moment too soon, to go on the second walk of the morning. We both borrowed binoculars (often referred to as “bins” by birders) from Bob and were on our way, headed into the Ramble, one of the wilder areas of the Park.
After our first sighting, Dave and I fell into a rhythm. I made a list of all of the birds called out and he looked them up on the Cornell bird identification website. We had mixed success in actually seeing the birds, often concealed in the leaves of trees or moving too quickly for our inexperienced binocular handling. We took few photos, leaving that to the pros with their high-powered cameras and long lenses.
The morning passed quickly with a succession of kinglets, warblers, and sparrows. Lots of the birders dropped off. Dave and I had skipped breakfast in our rush to catch an uptown train to the park so it was tempting, but we kept walking, stopping frequently to peer through our bins into the trees, hoping to spot a scarlet tanager or a brown creeper.
Near the end of our walk, back in the heavily-wooded Ramble, the sun came out and one of our fellow birders pointed out a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis). The feathered predator was sitting serenely on the branch of a hackberry tree above a boulder, the size of an upended mini-van, balanced on a sheet of rock.
Red-tails, native to the area, have adapted well to the ceaseless growth and development of Manhattan. They nest and raise their young on the ledges of multi-storied buildings near Central Park, soar high over the city, and make a good living off an endless supply of rats and pigeons. The story of one red-tail called Pale Male was documented in books, movies, and articles. In the 1990s, he and his mate built a nest on a Fifth Avenue building where they raised their young in view of a crowd of birdwatchers and casual bystanders.
Red-tails in NYC have grown used to humans and this adult male paid no attention to the photographers under the hackberry angling for the best shot or to those of us who stayed on the path training our bins on him to get a better look at his pale breast and streaky belly band.
We have red-tails in New Mexico and I often see them on power poles as we drive down the highway, but it’s always a fleeting view from a distance. Although this red-tail sitting on a branch was not a rarity in the park, it was my favorite sighting of the day. Long ago I had read about the Central Park red-tails and I wondered if this hawk might be one of Pale Male’s progeny.
I stood and watched, hoping to see him take flight so I could get a look at his red fan-shaped tail and the elaborate pattern on the underside of his wings, but he didn’t budge. I took one last long look before I handed my bins back to Bob.
Dave and I walked out of the park, caught a southbound subway, and went in search of lunch.
Further Information: Bob’s Bird Walks – schedules and bird lists and much more Deborah Allen’s list of birds for October 12, 2019 Central Park Red-Tailed Hawks: two articles written by Deborah Allen and Robert DeCandido (aka Bob): Nesting! and Fledging!
