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35 days ago
The mountains of New Mexico are so beautiful in the spring, The cottonwoods fresh with young leaves chatter as the cool breeze fans their branches and the tiny pods of cotton form on the upper branches. It will be a few weeks before they burst and send the seeds borne on fuzzy puffs. The ground will look as if snow has fallen. William and Wendy Wren will gather the pillowy down to decorate their home and make it comfy for thier babies. Here comes William now. Why Rufus, what are you doing so far away from your home on the Virgin River, chirps William? I've been all the way to Sonora to visit my cousin there. He brags about how tasty the scorpions are around his cactus patch. I will admit that they make a spicy change from my usual meals. I mentioned how the sheep herder's boy on the reservation likes to practice with a braided whip and he told me a story about a legendary masked rider named Zorro who used a whip and a sword to defend the peasants when his great grandfather was ...
758 days ago
The solitude of the english moors is a fertile breeding ground for legends of ghosts and mysterious happenings. One story tells of a ghostly apparition who patrols the byways of the moors and of strange disapearances of travelers caught out on a moonless night. It was such a night as two LDS missionaries drove their van from a late night meeting when they came upon a lone bicyclist cloaked in black, riding toward them on the opposite side of the road. They passed and traveled a short distance before their curiousity prompted them to turn around to have another look. As they neared the same spot, there was the mysterious rider again coming toward them. They proceeded to where they could turn around and retraced their course. This time the road was empty. Where had the traveler gone? Was it the ghost? The truth was revealed days later as they related thier story to a local family. "That is not a ghost," they were informed. He is a man who rides his cycle along the road ...
1005 days ago
The rock pecker (hornithopterus amphibius) is a presumed extinct relative of the pterydactl. Its common name derives from the way it uses its beak to chip small rock particles from the rock walls. Though there have been no documented confirmed sightings within recent recorded history, there is ample evidence of the creature's existence from its cup-shaped creations in the rock walls of the canyons bordering the Colorado River. Scientists believe the depressions are used by the rock pecker for shelter and nesting. The rock pecker derives most of its diet from the rock fragments it produces. An important benefit from eating the rock chips comes from the concentration of arsenic in the rock pecker's tissues. Though benign to the rock pecker, the concentrations of arsenic are highly poisonous to would-be predators. The rock pecker's beak extends up between its eyes and over the brows providing protection for the head and eyes from a misplaced blow. "The Rock Pecker Legend" - ...
1305 days ago
Four boys huddled around a paper cup peering intently on the thread-like object wiggling lazily in the water inside. None had seen anything like it before. While trying to catch water skaters along the bank of the irrigation canal one of the boys had spied the curious object and captured it in the cup. Horsehair snake is an appropriate nickname because it looks so much like a hair from a horse's mane or tail. It is not a snake but a parasitic worm which matures in the abdomen of grasshoppers and crickets. It is completely harmless to humans. The mysterious creature somehow manages to induce the grasshopper to jump in a stream or pool of water where the grasshopper dies and the worm swims out into the water to seek a mate. Legends say a horse hair falling into a watering trough or puddle of water comes to life becoming the horsehair snake. Much mystery still surrounds the life of this interesting creature. It is sometimes referred to by the name Gordian Worm for the habit of curling ...
1520 days ago
School was out for the summer. The hot days in the classroom were over until Labor day. After my chores were finished I had to run an errand to the store to buy bread, milk and a can of soup for lunch. With that done, I had the rest of the day to myself. Walking down the dirt lane bordered on my left by gnarled boxelder trees and on my right by the irrigation ditch and pasture, I strolled down to the pond. The sunfish were plentiful though not very big. What they lacked in size they made up for in speed and aggressiveness. Jigging a fly through a hole in the moss soon provolked a speedy attack. A quick eye, a quicker hand and more than a little luck and there dangling on my line was a frisky bluegill. The first time I tried to remove a sunfish from my line I found the sharp spines on the dorsal fin and it was not a pleasant lesson. I caught and released a few more fish then thought to myself, "I'll try casting out to the middle of the pond. Perhaps there are bigger fish out ...
