Found Objects including my Catahoula

The first photo is my Catahoula found hound, Shadow. The second photo is of objects I picked up on my early morning walk today. I did not pick up a rather nice piece of ornamental garden fence because I had two dogs on leash. Two pieces of a broken glass insulator, some turquoise colored stuff that must be plastic but breaks like rock, a spoon, one of two I've found this week, a penny, 1990 I think, and a piece of grey rock with a layer of lava spread thinly on top. Spoons are so common by the side of the road. Do people sell drugs by the spoonful? Seems unlikely, but since my years on the road I have only found three or four forks but I've collected enough spoons to overstock my van. I've found a lot of knives from switch blades to skinning knives to boy scout knives to just regular table knives, but nowhere nearly as many as spoons. The lava is my day's favorite. There are extensive lava beds to the north, so I think it was probably used as fill once. There is a pink glitter in the lava. I tried to scrape it out, but it seems to be integral. You wouldn't find iron pyrites or copper flakes in lava would you?

I spent too much time yesterday reading up on Catahoulas. I really need to find a happy ranch home for my 'rescued' Catahoula dog Shadow. I started out looking for a place to advertise, but I ended up getting into the history. The story goes that De Soto brought greyhounds and mastiffs with him to the South. Being dogs, they interbred with Choctaw dogs that may or may not have been domesticated red wolves. A French dog called a Bouceron may or may not have been involved, and certainly the hunting and working dog that evolved must have had a lot more genetic strands in its identity.

Probably ownership of Catahoulas should be limited to people who want to tree bears and mountain lions at least three times a week, or people who hunt wild hogs daily or people who move livestock around all the time. I do not qualify. Apparently they are often aggressive. Shadow is not. Her habit of exposing her front teeth and snarling and snapping is simply an invitation to get into some sort of high energy game with her. She is almost spookily intelligent and I sometimes think that she has a very similar sense of humor to mine. Perhaps, like me, Attention Deficit Disorder will prevent her from achieving her full intellectual potential, though as can be seen from the photograph, she is capable of intense focus.
Last night she devoured a paper wrapped burrito she found on the road, then she took a plunge into an irrigation ditch and immediately started gagging and coughing. I thought she had paper stuck in her throat, but I put my hand into her throat as far as it would go and found nothing. She was gagging and coughing all night, so then I thought she had kennel cough, but this morning she seems fine. Maybe the burrito had too much hot sauce on it.

Pachamama and endless growth.

This is a wall of one of the buildings of the Museo Pachamama, in Argentina. It is an astonishing, remarkable, delightful, fascinating, beautiful place created by a family with talent and money to go begging, so to speak. I wouldn't have missed seeing this place for the world, but it is a long way from anywhere, and should we travel addicts really indulge our passion for wandering to the distant corners of the earth to see and sense the wonders? Well, yes. We should. No justification for that. I don't consume a heck of a lot in my day to day life. I should have a few carbon credits available.

Today at the Zendo there was a man who is getting a PhD in Business. How curious, I thought, a business major at an American Zendo. But it turned out his thesis and center of study is the need for development of sustainable, responsible business models, dare I say it not currency based. Not based on 'growth' or ever increasing consumption of commodities and irreplacable resources. He says such ideas are rare, but surely at some point in the future people are going to have to open their eyes to the fact that the old growth based models for business have to go out the window. I don't know. Maybe not. Hey! Wait! Yeah I get it! Technology will save us! We can all just go on consuming and growing for ever and every person on this earth will prosper and his children down through the generations, growing and prospering and growing and prospering er could you move over a bit get your elbow out of my eye hey it's my turn to breathe and my turn for a mouthful of artificial water.......

Cholla by Moonlight.

This is cholla by moonlight. I took it in the Sonoran Desert, Organ Pipe Park, a couple of days ago. I tried it both with and without the flash and they both came out interesting. Cholla is horrible though quite pretty. It is called jumping cholla though it doesn't quite jump. If a human or other brushes against it, it breaks off and adheres, and digs in its spines and pierces flesh etc and tangles in fur, clothes, hair etc. I thought of those who cross the border by night, walking miles through this beautiful, waterless place. My silly dog Shadow had chewed through her leash which I hadn't noticed, and she broke away from me to dance joyfully in great circles. After a minute or two she slowed down, chewed at her feet, tried to run again then gave up and limped pathetically back to me. It was a very humiliating experience for her and an unlooked for triumph for me. I had taken a few days to go to Arizona to give a talk to high school students about self publishing. They didn't shout or throw things so I have no idea what they learned if anything. I did enjoy talking to them because it's not often I get peoples' more or less full attention.....
I also took the opportunity to visit an artist friend who had just arrived in Southern Arizona to live in an artists' community. It would be nice to think she is within visiting distance, but alas it is a long day's drive and a hell of a lot of gas to get there from here!
I wish the entire country was linked together by pedestrian/bicycle paths with rest stops every twenty miles! Oh yes and security patrols spaced a mile apart.......... and solar/wind powered wheel chairs for the infirm on a special track and a GPS unit attached to each person and the solar collectors would provide shelter from sun and rain and and and er............... Oh yes when sun and wind don't cut it peoples' feet running or walking on the specially developed surface of the track would generate power stored in new high tec batteries that could save the power for weeks or months well may be permanently and and and.... Oh yes, so the tracks could be illuminated... and and bicyclists have been generating enough power for their running lights for as long as I remember so there has to be a way of collecting that power too. I'm sure it can be done.... Think of the development along these trackways! Convenience stores and motels and emergency clinics would open in the most undeveloped areas of the country and .... Well wait a minute...... don't we already have a lot of this? Just clear off the auto roads, put all trucks on trains and open the highways to pedestrians and cyclists! People used to walk like that. Obesity would melt away. In fact if kids were forced to walk to school say up to five miles each way, that would be a good thing. Imagine the law suits.
I'm thinking about deleting this entire blog but I'm not going to.

I beat the drum at the Zendo today and I almost have it down.