The "Real" Post

Every once in a while, they do actually sit together nicely. Although they usually aren't in the least bit quiet even then, at least there not yelling at each other.

This made me kind of sad. I know that there's many people who think that these monkeys are just "aping" humans and don't really understand ASL. I think that's probably true for the most part (there were a few documented instances of Washoe communicating that are pretty damn compelling, though. Look up the baby story on the Friends of Washoe website). But I got to tell you, I went and saw these monkeys three or four times while I was at CWU (I know, chimps aren't monkeys, but I like the word monkey better), and usually when you would go into the viewing room, they would all be laying around, flipping through magazines, trying on clothes, putting make-up on each other - all in a very human way, and aside from the fact that Washoe taught the other monkeys some ASL, they always seemed to be communicating amongst themselves in other ways. And. My first year at CWU I had an apartment north of campus and I'd have to walk by the chimp house to get to class, and more than once one of the monkeys would have climbed up to the apex of the fence-roof in their yard and would just hang out and watch people walk by in a very human way. It kind of creeped me out (so did seeing the monkeys looking at magazines), not least of all because the ape that would watch people looked like one of the trolls from "Willow" at that distance (~30ft?).

Unlike the last few years, I have had some limited success with hunting this year. So I made some Wellington of Duck Breast with a Cherry and Orange Brandy Sauce, and some Cream of Potato with Leek soup one night. While it was good - and I'll share the recipe for Wellington with anyone interested as it's a nice "presentation" dish that's really not all that hard to make - I think that next time I would use puff pastry dough rather than phyllo, and I would use domestic duck rather than wild so that the center could be left medium rare. The shit quality of the resolution on these pictures doesn't do the dish any justice.

WTF is that thing!

Cindy and I went for a hike a while back (this was probably late August/early September) and when I heard her yell from behind me "Oh my god!" or some-such thing, I knew that I was going to get to see something cool, because she's not the type that freaks out over most things. I thought maybe there was a bear hanging around the trail, or a moose, or an arboreal antelope. But it was a snake, trying to eat a huge frog. We watched for a while - frog squeaking and struggling, snake trying his/her hardest (there was no way this frog was fitting down that snakes gullet). Real "Wild Kingdom" type of stuff.

But the frog ended up getting away, so here we have a dejected snake. Apologies again for shit picture quality - I think that it is time that we upgraded the camera! I'm not familiar with the herpetological species back here, or I'd tell you what kind of a snake (and frog) it is. Also, this happened again when we were working in the yard a week or so later - albeit with a smaller snake and frog. I think in the yard wife rescued the frog.

There's a ton more pictures on my Flickr page if anyone is interested, maybe I'll post again tomorrow. That's all for now.