The second instalment of pieces of wisdom.
If you missed the first set from Bob Derham they were last week.
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Come back in a week’s time for the third and final set.
In the interim, have a peaceful week.
Year: 2014
No limit to friendship!
The friendship of a Magpie and a dog.
Kindly sent to me by Chris Snuggs.
Tried to find more background information but the best I could do was from here:
This is Sqwark the Australian Magpie, and Whiskey and the dog and they are the best of friends! Sqwark is Whiskey’s friend, not a chew toy. It may look rough, but they are just playing like they do all the time and having fun.
In addition, there was a comment on the YouTube page:
The “grey back” is an indication that it’s a juvenile. When it’s an adult, the grey bit will be snowy white.
Wherever you are in the world, have a peaceful and fun-loving day!
Real democracy.
This news really brightened my day!
Or, perhaps I should have written that sub-heading, “Adding a gloss to what are mostly bright days!”.
What on earth am I rabbeting on about?
From time to time on Learning from Dogs I have touched on the topic of democracy. The most recent post of any relevance was on the 27th January this year in a post called Unconditional love. In essence that blog post was recording an email exchange between Martin Lack, Chris Snuggs and Patrice Ayme. Let me reproduce a part of that ‘discussion’:
Paul: Chris/Martin, To my way of thinking, there is a more fundamental issue at work. That is the corrupting effect of power. I’m certain you know the famous saying. Thus whatever fine motives propel a person to enter politics, that person seems unable to avoid the call of power and its corrupting effect. The only hope is that key countries, and none so key as the USA, evolve a better, more representative, political process. Otherwise, I fear for the coming years.
Patrice: I agree with Paul 100%. I saw the call of power. Unimaginable. People just get insane. There are also filtering systems to insure they get that way (it starts right away with one week retreats in extremely posh resorts; does not matter if you are capitalist, socialist, blueist, reddist, ecologist, independentist, etc.).
Chris: Agreed. It has been clear time and time again throughout history. Well, so much is obvious, but WHAT TO DO about it?
A) We must end the practice of having career politicians: you serve a maximum of TEN years, at the end of which you go.
B) Inherited wealth allowing the building up of immensely powerful family dynasties over generations must be ended. It is simply untenable. The rich-poor gap is getting obscene everywhere, and money is of course power. My “Abolish inheritance” idea will be wildly unpopular because we are naturally acquisitive and “greedy” and of course would hit those with most to lose who also therefore have the most power.
Patrice: With all due respect, Chris and Martin sound rather naïve… Huge wealth and power is where it’s at. And it attracts to politics first, foremost, and soon uniquely, those it attracts most, namely the basest sort.
Without in any way of knowing in a reliable manner, as in statistically reliable, the attitudes of folk, nonetheless there is no question that a huge number of the ordinary folk that live around us here in Merlin, Joesephine County, Oregon and others that one meets in the course of being ‘out and about’ are worried; frequently deeply worried.
Worried about the “Huge wealth and power ..” and the gross inequalities that flow from that.
So with that in mind, consider the pleasant surprise offered me when I read the day’s roundup from the Permaculture Research Institute email distribution and it included:
The Missing Part of the Internet – Collaborative Decision-Making Made Easy with Loomio
The world needs a better way to make decisions together
“The new era of digital democracy is one source of hope. New formats for web-based participation, like Loomio, and enablers of grassroots engagement… are flourishing.” —The Huffington Post Democracy isn’t just about politics — it’s people getting together and deciding how things should be. It’s a skill we can practice with people wherever we are: in our workplaces, our schools, and our communities.
Loomio is a user-friendly tool for collaborative decision-making: not majority-rules polling, but actually coming up with solutions that work for everyone. We’re a small team in New Zealand, and we’ve built a prototype that people are already doing great things with. Now we’re crowdfunding so we can build the real thing: a new tool for truly inclusive decision-making.
It was but a hop and a skip to go to the Loomio website and read:
The world needs a better way to make decisions together.
Help us build it.
Loomio is free and open software for anyone, anywhere, to participate in decisions that affect them
and then with a further mouse-click on the Crowdfunding link to read:
THE WORLD NEEDS A BETTER WAY TO MAKE DECISIONS TOGETHER.
Democracy isn’t just about politics – it’s people getting together and deciding how things should be. It’s a skill we can practice with people wherever we are: in our workplaces, our schools, and our communities.
Loomio is a user-friendly tool for collaborative decision-making: not majority-rules polling, but actually coming up with solutions that work for everyone. We’re a small team in New Zealand, and we’ve built a prototype that people are already doing great things with. Now we’re crowdfunding so we can build the real thing: a new tool for truly inclusive decision-making.
At this point, I should declare an involvement. Jean and I decided to donate a modest amount. Thus it is not from an impartial position that I close today’s post with the following video. Bet you will be impressed!
If you enjoyed that video then do watch the following TED Talk.
Published on Aug 4, 2013
Ben Knight is part of a cooperative social enterprise building Loomio, an online tool for collaborative decision-making being used by thousands of people in more than 20 countries. Ben will be picking through ideas around how technology can enable everyday democracy.
This could be a most interesting development!
Two thousand posts!
Funny how things in life roll along!
Today is the publication of the 2,000th post on Learning from Dogs. To be frank, I’m staggered. But it is what it is!
The first post was published on July 15th, 2009. Ergo, I can’t think of anything better for today than to republish that first post.
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Parenting lessons from Dogs!
Much too late to make me realise the inadequacies of my own parenting skills, I learnt an important lesson when training my German Shepherd Dog (who is called Pharaoh, by the way). That is that putting more emphasis into praise and reward for getting it right ‘trains’ the dog much quicker than telling it off. The classic example is scolding a dog for running off when it should be lots of hugs and praise for returning home. The scolding simply teaches the dog that returning home isn’t pleasant whereas praise reinforces that home is the place to be. Like so many things in life, very obvious once understood!
Absolutely certain that it works with youngsters just the same way.
Despite being a very dominant dog, Pharaoh showed his teaching ability when working with other dogs. In the UK there is an amazing woman, Angela Stockdale, who has proved that dogs (and horses) learn most effectively when being taught by other dogs (and horses). Pharaoh was revealed to be a Beta Dog; second in status below the female Alpha Dog. The role and natural instinct of the Beta dog is to teach puppy dogs their social skills and to break up squabbles within a pack.
When you think about it, don’t kids learn much more, often to our chagrin, from other kids than they do from their parents. Nevertheless focusing on giving more praise than punishment seems like a much more effective strategy.
As was read somewhere, Catch them in the act of doing Right!
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Hopefully, you, dear reader, has found the quality of the posts to have improved over time! That first one did leave something to be desired.
Thank you all for making these many posts such a labour of love!
Hugs to all, Paul.
Mid-week story
Too good to wait until the week-end!
(And a big thanks to Dan Gomez for sending it my way.)
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Went Fishing, Caught 4 Deer
A once in the history of mankind kind of thing. The Best Day Of Fishing Ever!
Some fishing stories are a little hard to believe but this guy has pictures to prove his story. Like me, you will heard of salmon jumping into boats, but never anything quite like this…
Tom Satre told the Sitka Gazette that he was out with a charter group on his 62-foot fishing vessel when four juvenile black-tailed deer swam directly toward his boat.
Once the deer reached the boat, the four began to circle the boat, looking directly at us. We could tell right away that the young bucks were distressed. I opened up my back gate and we helped the typically skittish and absolutely wild animals onto the boat. In all my years fishing, I’ve never seen anything quite like it! Once on board, they collapsed with exhaustion, shivering.
This is a picture I took of the rescued bucks on the back of my boat, the Alaska Quest. We headed for Taku Harbour. Once we reached the dock, the first buck that we had pulled from the water hopped onto the dock, looked back as if to say ‘thank you’ and disappeared into the forest. After a bit of prodding and assistance, two more followed, but the smallest deer needed a little more help.
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My daughter, Anna, and son, Tim, helped the last buck to its feet. We didn’t know how long they had been in the icy waters or if there had been others who did not survive. My daughter later told me that the experience was something that she would never forget, and I suspect the deer felt the same way as well!”
“Kindness is the language the blind can see and the deaf can hear.” – Mark Twain
Story dated October, 2010
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I have no idea if it is a true story, although the photographs suggest it is, but so what! Any reminder of how precious our wild life is will always be welcomed on Learning from Dogs!
Meet the dogs – Sweeny!
Little Sweeny; our dog number seven.
Last week, I wrote about Hazel. The week before Jean wrote about Casey. This week it’s back to Jean writing about the one little dog we have here at home: Sweeny.
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Sweeny
On that day we lost Poppy back in February, 2011, when we were still living in Payson, Arizona, it was as though she had been vaporised! Dear, sweet little Poppy. A ten-pound Poodle mix I had rescued in Mexico. She had been living in and around a Mexican construction site and when I rescued her she was very scrawny and without hair. But Poppy, as I named her, soon blossomed into a little, blonde, beauty and I grew to love her very much. Prior to Poppy, I had always liked the bigger dog but Poppy taught me the pleasures of a ‘lap’ dog that also happily slept under the covers at night with Paul and me.
Most afternoons in Payson, we took some of the dogs for a walk along a trail hike of about 2 miles. The dogs were allowed to be off-leash and loved it. Poppy always came and stayed with me, never leaving the trail as did the other, bigger dogs. That February, it was a chilly Winter’s day (Payson and area were at 5,000 feet above sea-level) and we were all dropping down into a dry wash when I glanced behind to check that Poppy was handling the slope. To my total horror, she wasn’t in sight. Indeed, Poppy was never seen again.
Despite days spent scouring the terrain, notices in Payson shops, radio announcements on the local radio station; it all came to nought. Poppy was gone! Locals that we spoke with and who knew the area of desert where the trails were, the Granite Dells, were all of the opinion that Poppy had been stalked by a coyote that would most likely have grabbed her in an instant. Such happenings had been known before.
I was inconsolable with guilt. I had let Poppy down by not giving her enough attention and it lay heavily upon me. For weeks and weeks I moped, missed her snuggles and that cute, little body crawling into the bed with me. One day, I broached the idea with Paul of adopting a small dog from the local Humane Society. Naturally, Paul agreed in an instant and in next to no time we had jumped in the car and were heading to the Society.
I wanted an older dog but the two small dogs that the Society had were really only suited for adoption into a one-dog household. The Society did, however, have two puppies from a mother that had been taken in by them when that dog was heavily pregnant. The pups had been born and raised at the shelter.
It was love at first sight when they handed me the puppy that was destined to become Sweeny. Sweeny Todd to give him his full name was a two-pound bundle of fluff.
Today, Sweeny is a twenty-pound terrier mix. A very ‘sassy’ little dog that is as much loved by his doggie brothers and sisters. Sweeny, too, sleeps on the bed, laying alongside me and the edge of the bed so that he isn’t between Paul and me. Sweeny has developed the habit of waking me in the morning by laying, full-bodied, over my face; to the point of me not being able to breathe. Guess I shouldn’t have called him Sweeny Todd! 😉
No dog will ever take the place of Poppy or fully assuage me of my guilt that I still feel to some extent. But ‘The Sween’ has helped beyond measure.
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Next week, meet our dog number eight.
Nostalgic times.
Flying the Piper Super Cub
Last Saturday, I posted an item that included a great video about the Air-Cam sports aircraft. I succumbed to a bout of nostalgia in that I dipped into both my old gliding and flying log-books. As I wrote:
My last (powered) flight was in a Piper Super Cub, registration R-151, a flight of 1 hr 40 mins from Kemble returning to Watchford Farm, where the Cub was based.
I ‘warned’ readers that today’s post would offer some more about that wonderful aircraft; Piper Super Cub R-151.
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Piper Super Cub, L-21B, R-151
A/C Construction No. 18-3841, Frame No. 18-3843
Original Engine, Lycoming 135 Type 0-290-D2, 54/2441
R-151 was one of a batch of 298 L-21’s delivered in 1954. There were 584 L-21B’s produced by Piper for military use, the ‘L’ standing for Liaison. The L-21B’s were PA-18-135’s with civil Lycoming 0-290-D2 engines, glasswork as most L-21A’s and L-18’s and a gross weight of 1760 lbs.
This aircraft was delivered to Koninklijke Luchtmacht, Dutch Air Force, on the 1st July, 1954 and registered R-151. After various homes, R-151 transferred to the Dutch civil register as PH-GER, on the 1st April 1976 with 4,458 hours. Shortly thereafter the aircraft was registered to Vliegclub Hoogeveen, Certificate Number 2380. Amazingly, the club is still in existence as their website shows.
On the 27th March, 1981 the aircraft was delivered to the UK with a total time of 5,043 hours and in September, 1981 became G-BIYR. In April, 1983 G-BIYR was the first of type to be given a Public Transport CofA (Certificate of Airworthiness) and was used for training at Tollerton; Nottingham. G-BIYR reverted to a Private CofA in January, 1984 when purchased by Mike and Barbara Fairclough from Devon at 5,120 hours.
In 1992, the aircraft was re-engined with a Lycoming 150HP, 0320-A2B No. L49809-27A (zero hours). Finally on the 2nd June, 1995 the aircraft was repainted in original Dutch insignia and given CAA (UK Civil Aviation Authority) permission to use the original call-sign, Romeo 151.
The aircraft is based in South Devon, England and owned by the five members of the Delta Foxtrot Flying Group.
More pictures.
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This last photograph was taken shortly after Pharaoh decided to jump into the passenger’s seat. The year was 2006 when Pharaoh was 3 years old. As much as I was tempted, I resisted the urge of taxying him around the airfield!
Learning from Dogs 