wordsfromanneli

May 30, 2024
by wordsfromanneli 39 Comments

The Spider and the Fly

Mary Howitt lived from 1799 to 1888. Her poem, The Spider and the Fly, was first published in 1829, almost 200 years ago.

The first line of the poem – “Will you walk into my parlour?” said the spider to the fly – is often misquoted, and you may have heard people say, “‘Come into my parlour,’ said the spider to the fly.” It is used to show that someone is trying to tempt another to do something they probably shouldn’t do.

In her poem, which is about seven stanzas long, the spider tries to lure the fly into coming into her trap. I’ve quoted some parts and paraphrased others.

#1 Spider: Will you walk into my parlour … up a winding stair.

Fly: Oh, no, no … For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.

#2 Spider: I’m sure you must be weary, dear. Will you rest upon my little bed?

Fly: Oh, no, no … They never, never wake again, who sleep upon your bed.

#3 Spider: I have within my pantry good store of all that’s nice;
I’m sure you’re very welcome; will you please to take a slice?

Fly: I’ve heard what’s in your pantry, and I do not wish to see.

#4 Spider: I have a little looking-glass upon my parlor shelf,
If you’ll step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself.

Fly: I thank you, gentle sir,” she said, “for what you’re pleased to say,
And bidding you good-morning now, I’ll call another day.”

#5 Spider: He wove a subtle web, in a little corner sly,
And set his table ready to dine upon the fly.

(Then he said all kinds of flattering things to the fly, until the fly couldn’t resist).

Fly: She came nearer and nearer, listening to the flattery, thinking of how pretty she was.

And then: Up jumped the cunning spider, and fiercely held her fast.
He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den,
Within his little parlor; but she ne’er came out again!

The lesson is basically, “Don’t fall for flattery,” or you might end up like this fly that was caught by a spider on my living room window yesterday.

Epilogue: (Apologies for no proper poetic meter.)

The fly was sucked dry.

The spider had her inside ‘er.

She was dropped on the sill, my dog ate her at will.

The spider returned to the scene of the crime, and Anneli smashed her and turned her to slime.

Some regret did I feel, but it had one last meal.

May 24, 2024
by wordsfromanneli 33 Comments

There Otter be a Law

An unsuspecting young fellow had a big surprise at a local lake when he tried to bring ashore a trout he had hooked on his fishing line.

Turn on your sound and watch his surprise.

I hope the thief has enough skill to work around the hook and doesn’t eat it.

P.S. I would like to give credit to the photographer but at the same time I am trying to keep the young fellow relatively anonymous.

May 22, 2024
by wordsfromanneli 54 Comments

The Lonely Sea and the Sky

Last week the Captain and I went to a nearby beach. I took a few pictures and thought, “Why am I taking pictures of nothing?” When I looked at the photos later, I thought how lonely the sea and the sky looked and John Masefield came to mind. I have always loved his poem, “Sea Fever.”

(By the way, did you know that John Masefield was England’s poet laureate from 1930 to 1967?)

The first line was especially appropriate.

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

The rest of the poem didn’t fit because the sea was really quite tame, and the wind was not like a “whetted knife.”

But the loneliness of the great expanse of water was prevalent.

You may want to click on these photos to enlarge them, especially the ones with the lonely creatures in them. They are so tiny in an immense world.

In the first photo, the general setting. Notice the pink and blue striations in the water.

Now, notice in each subsequent photo, the one lonely thing in the setting. You will need to click to enlarge or you won’t see much. Use the back arrow to return to the page afterwards.

A sea duck, minuscule, the ocean immense,

Alone though he be, he relaxes, not tense.

The marker buoy rocking so gently and slow,

It warns of the rocks where the water is low.

A lone paddleboarder, is breaking the rule,

She stands as she’s dipping the water so cool.

The seal glides alone but with grace and finesse,

He searches for love and is feeling distress.

Could that be his love on the far other side?

Stay cool and don’t splash, just swim up with a glide.

**For sure you need to click to enlarge the photo to find Mrs. Seal on the far side of the photo.

And lastly and leastly, a lone club is measly,

But even a stick can feel beastly.

May 13, 2024
by wordsfromanneli 58 Comments

A Glimpse of May

Scotch broom is considered invasive because it crowds out other plants, but it provides shelter for many birds who can hide in its thick growth. Bees love it too.

It makes a background for puppy poses. Here is our springer spaniel, Ruby, when she was a pup.

The irises are having a little chin wag.

Miss Bossie runs the meetings.

Other members of the community listen in.

The columbines provide a slurpy snack for the hummingbirds, who then zoom off to spread the word that spring is really and truly here.

Precious first flowers

That bloomed after showers

Are chatting and preening all day.

Puppies roll over

As if they’re in clover,

Now spring has come, why don’t we play?

Hummingbirds sipping,

They fly away dipping

And buzzing, “Hurrah, now it’s May!”

May 9, 2024
by wordsfromanneli 45 Comments

It’s Dogwood Time

It’s time for the dogwoods to bloom. There are many bigger dogwood trees around, but ours is still quite small.

The robin is enjoying the spring morning sunshine while he wonders about the petal count of these flowers.

Most flowers have a number of petals that fall into the Fibonacci sequence, a mathematical sequence in which each number is the sum of the two preceding ones. So it goes like this: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144 … and it goes on forever.

Our Pacific dogwood usually has between four and six petals, so it’s different from most flowers which tend to follow the Fibonacci sequence.

Next time you’re in a flower garden, see which flowers you can find that have either 3, 5, 8, 13, or 21 petals. You’ll be surprised at what you find.

*Fibonacci sequence was used and further explored by an Italian mathematician, Leonardo Bonacci, who was called Fibonacci, possibly as a name made up from “filius Bonacci” (son of Bonacci). He was born about 1170. Yes, about 850+ years ago.

I bet he loved doing puzzles or writing code.

So what’s the next number after 144? The first nine commenters got it easily, so how about the next three numbers?

May 1, 2024
by wordsfromanneli 49 Comments

It’s Just Lunch

This is a post I did ten years ago, but I was reminded of it this morning when I heard the unmistakable DEE-di-di-di-di of a merlin in our nearby wooded area.

Warning: This is from a sad but true story that happened in my own yard back then (ten years ago).

The songbirds always let it be known when there’s a killer in their midst, be it a cat, a raccoon, a hawk, or a crow. Today, it seems that every bird in my little acre was shrieking with alarm — not just the usual robin whose nest was threatened, but the chickadees, nuthatches, and many others as well. When all the birds sing happy songs, it’s background music, but when they sound like several fire alarms going off, something is wrong. I went out onto the deck to have a look.

In the tall firs next to the house, many songbirds were divebombing a predator who sat and watched from her perch on a dead broken branch. I ran back into the house for my camera. The merlin (a small falcon) didn’t seem to care about me being there. She was either a juvenile or brazen or both. However it was, she allowed me to take many pictures, even posing a bit.

She ruffled her feathers, being Mrs. Cool. I’m not afraid of you!

The songbirds set up the alarm in the whole mini forest around my yard. A chickadee and a nuthatch, both tiny birds who are often chosen by the falcons as appetizers, bravely sat on the branch directly behind the merlin, scolding her.

The merlin merely gave them a look that said, “Who? Me?”

Then she looked down at the ground to see if her lunch was still there. I suspected she had done something because she had blood on her hands … er … beak.

“Yes, it was me,” she said. “I’m not proud of myself.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s just lunch.”

My little puppy, Emma, found the falcon’s intended lunch, lying on the ground below the tree. A juvenile red-shafted northern flicker, one of my favourite birds in this area.

I was choked. I don’t want to hear another person say a word about “Mother Nature.” There is nothing “motherly” about nature. As beautiful as nature is, it is also very cruel when we apply our human values to it. But that’s how it has to be.

And I do think the falcon was sorry.

I waved my arms but the falcon didn’t want to fly away. It was only when I opened the big patio umbrella that she flew off. The songbirds settled down and silence hung in the air.

When I picked up the flicker, a single tail feather fell to the ground and as I walked away, I heard one lonely bird calling. It had to be the mother giving one last quavery call to say an anguished goodbye to her baby.

My apologies that the story is so sad, but life can be like that sometimes.

April 25, 2024
by wordsfromanneli 43 Comments

Red Hot Pokers

The hummingbirds and Bullocks oriole share the red hot pokers, but not at the same time. These photos are from another year, as it’s a bit early for the pokers to bloom, but I was inspired by Cindy Knokes’ oriole photos to dig out my oriole photo. Please visit Cindy’s blog too, if you haven’t already done so. https://cindyknoke.com/2024/04/21/goldies-2/

The red hot pokers soon will bloom,

Just waiting for some sun,

Then to their petals I will zoom,

And hover till I’m done.

The juicy nectar waits for me,

I stretch my long tongue down,

To lap the sweetness running free,

Within the petals round.

I need to hurry – sip and fly,

Ere Bully Bullock comes,

I do my best to drink it dry,

‘Cause he and I aren’t chums.

I am an emperor of birds,

You see my royal stance,

I rule the land with so few words,

It only takes a glance.

It could be that it is my size,

I’m not a little hummer,

I feed on flowers, they’re my prize,

Especially in summer.

But one thing hummers share with me,

That is our love of bugs,

The creepy crawlies that we see,

They simply call us thugs.

The hummers take the tiny ones,

To suit their appetite,

While I eat big ones by the tons,

I’m not a little mite.

And so we share the poker plants,

There’s food enough for all,

In time I’ll go and eat some ants,

And any bugs that crawl.

April 19, 2024
by wordsfromanneli 37 Comments

Adventure Playground

Oh, my goodness! See that woodpile,

I’ll explore it quite a long while,

Please don’t stack it. Let it stay ’round,

It’s my own Adventure Playground.

Sweet the smell of new cut firewood,

Forest fir, a fragrance so good,

Freshens up my furry coating,

“I’m so special,” I’ll be gloating.

Now the truck has left at last,

I’ll explore and have a blast,

Careful though, the wood may slide,

And I could get stuck inside.

So much wood to climb up on,

I can duck in and be gone,

Just in case the heavens rained,

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

April 16, 2024
by wordsfromanneli 32 Comments

We Do It All the Time

Photo by Ken Thorne

A True Horror Story as told by “The Captain”

What a day for fly fishing! Coho jumping and finning in front of us. A beach fisherman’s dream. But how quickly things can change. Here I was, loading my fly rod back into the truck to return to town without even wetting a line.

I had set up my friend, Brad, for fly fishing; even giving him one of my hot, specially tied blue-green streamer flies to guarantee his success. But I hadn’t counted on his lack of technique. With beginner’s luck, he was into a finning coho right away, but within seconds, the lightning fish spit the hook. In his eagerness to hook another fish, Brad’s backcast became an errant sidecast. The fly whipped by my head and on its return stung me on the nose like a mad hornet.

And there it stayed.

I tried to work the hook out of my nose, thinking of the coho slime now embedded in my face. It wouldn’t budge.

“You won’t get it out without help,” Brad said. “It’s stuck right in the cartilage.”

On the way back to town, Brad stole frequent glances at my nose and sporadic snorts of laughter escaped him. “Sorry,” he wheezed.

I glared at him, but moments later his shoulders bounced again.

It was a relief to drop off Brad at home. I continued on to the hospital with the truck’s sun visor down in case I passed anyone I knew. I parked close to the Emergency entrance. Head down and hand cupped over my nose, I strode up to the reception desk. A bubbly young nurse looked up at me. “Can I help you, sir?”

Uncovering my nose for her eyes only, I said, “Can you get this off me?”

“Ooh! Oh, my goodness,” she blurted out. “We’ll put you behind this curtain. I’ll get the doctor right away.”

Quick, light footsteps approached. A short, slight woman stood by my bed. “Been fishing, have we? I’m Doctor Payne.”

“Hi. Can you get this thing off my nose? Have you ever dealt with this kind of thing before?”

“Don’t worry. We do it a-a-all the time,” she assured me. She brought a needle up to my nose. “This may sting a little, but it will freeze the tissue so we can pull the hook out.”

“I don’t think so,” I hurried to inform her. “There’s a barb on the end. I crimped it, but apparently not enough. Believe me, I tried to pull it out and it won’t budge. Hurt like hell, too.”

“In that case I’ll push it through to the other side and cut the barb off. Then I can pull it back out.” I was thankful for the freezing as she pushed the hook through.

Dr. Payne left to find a tool. I was puzzled and disappointed when she came back with a pair of worn, old wire cutters. I had envisioned something more sterile and surgical. With much squeezing of wire cutters and accidental twisting of my nose, the tiny woman worried the tempered steel of the fly hook, all to no avail. At this point, I offered to go find my gear pliers and do the job myself, but she insisted, “We do it a-a-all the time.”

When she left the cubicle, I touched my nose gingerly. It was swollen and probably bright red. Add the decoration of blue-green feathers and I was thankful for the curtain surrounding the bed.

The intercom paged Dr. Birley and momentarily he and Dr. Payne appeared at my bedside. The man dwarfed the little woman. He took the wire cutters and, with an outward flip of his elbows, and a shuffling of his feet to find the most comfortable stance, he prodded the hook to find a good grip.

Dr. Payne’s face was almost as close to mine as Dr. Birley’s. “NO, Doctor, NO!” she exclaimed. “You’ve got tissue. Doctor Birley! You’ve got tissue!”

Dr. Birley straightened up, raised his head, and looked down his long nose at Dr. Payne. He tossed the wire cutters onto the tray by my bed. The last I saw of him was his wide back passing between the cubicle curtains.

Dr. Payne hurried after him. A moment later, the intercom announced, “Maintenance … call Emergency. Maintenance … call Emergency.”

All was quiet and I was drifting off to sleep, but my eyes flashed open when I heard the receptionist’s shrill voice. “Oh, my goodness! I wouldn’t let anyone go near my face with those things.”

Alarm bells clanged in my mind. My eyes must have been huge when Dr. Payne walked in carrying a pair of red-handled bolt cutters that were almost half as big as she was. I wondered what grungy task Maintenance had last used them for. The tool’s great iron beak settled on my nose like a turkey vulture, but seconds later, the hook was out.

I thanked the doctor and as I left the hospital, free of my feathery affliction at last, Dr. Payne’s words still echoed in my ears. “We do it a-a-all the time.”