Assorted Doggerel...

While walking the aisles at the Pheasants Forever Pheasant Fest in Omaha earlier this year, I was delighted to discover a booth for the American Chesapeake Club displaying this cool vintage poster from the now-defunct Storz Brewery.

I had never heard of Storz beer, but I'm told that back in the day it was a fairly popular regional brew up in that part of the world. And even if it tasted about like it sounds, I'm sure I could choke down a few in appreciation of the chessie art.

I started talking to the poster's owners, who, as it turned out, were close friends with the breeder of my male Lewey, and in fact had owned Leweys great-great-great-grandsire on Lewey's dam's side, which was this dog...

  
They had a couple chessies there with them that I, regrettably, completely forgot to take pics of, one of which was (I believe, but I may be wrong...) Bur Oak's Authentic Jessica, who would have been Lewey's grand-dam. Small world. But since I can't remember my own family tree, much less my dogs', I may very well be wrong on that. At any rate, it was an enjoyable visit, if a somewhat bittersweet reminder that at some point I'm going to have to think about a new pup to take Lewey's place.

And on to flying setters...

Just because the mercury's sitting on 103 as I type this, and snow is but a distant memory...

Paging Dr. Dolittle...

Over on the Quail Forever  website I recently blogged about watering my yard during a drought. In short, we're up to our ears in wildlife. Not surprising, considering our backyard is (to put it mildly) of the non-manicured variety (mostly weeds, in fact) and is as wildlife-friendly as I can make it.

But what's really bringing them in is the water. Earlier this year, right before this insane drought/heat wave really cranked up, we had a small sprinkler system installed around our yard and garden. We did it not because we're interested in having a trophy lawn (we're not) but because it's literally the only way to keep any vegetation alive in our sandy soil. I hadn't planned on it becoming an oasis for drought-stricken wildlife, but that's exactly what it's turned into. Between that and the "water garden" (i.e. the bait tank) our little acre or so of greenery is fast becoming like those mid-summer water holes you see on the African documentaries...

I can now say I've finally found a good use for watering the yard. We've had more quail whistling around the house year than we've ever had...

Deer? We've had more than we can count. We've got does with one fawn...

We've got does with two fawns...(eating flowers)

We've got a tom who has, quite literally, moved in with us. He hangs out in the back yard all day long, sleeping in our flowerbed...

And when he gets up to scratch around the bird feeder, there's always a doe hanging around to steal his spot...

Bugger off, birdbrain. This is my bed now...

And we have several regular hens who come in on a daily basis, but a few days ago we had one bring in the family (or what's left of it thanks to the neighborhood feral cats, coons and skunks...)

There were actually three chicken-sized poults tagging along, but I couldn't get them all in frame because not only are the animal enjoying the greenery, the 'hoppers are, too, and these guys were buggin' all over the yard.

I can't really tell how the various hatches have gone off this year. I've seen several groups of poults around the neighborhood this size, as well as several about twice as large, so at least for the turkeys it looks like a decent year, anyway. Not like we really needed any more turkeys...

What we need are quail, and as for Mr. Bob, the jury's still out, I think. I haven't seen any chicks in the yard, although I do have several hens and/or pairs hanging around, and we saw a hen riding herd on a group of chicks on the way to the lake last week. Guess we'll find out in November, if it ever gets here...

In addition, we're plum covered up in leopard frogs eating grasshoppers, ribbon snakes eating leopard frogs and coons eating ribbon snakes and whatever else they can stuff down their throats. We've got sharpies and Cooper's picking off songbirds, cottontails trying to pick off my garden, short-eared owls picking off the rabbits and the turkey vultures getting the last word on everyone. Nothing like epic drought to make things chummy. It's a regular chain 'o life in our back yard this summer. The Disney crowd would be enthralled. Or horrified

In fact, I half expect to wake up some morning and have a pair of mallards swimming around the water garden. And if we don't get any rain - and soon -  it may end up being my go-to duck hunting spot this year...

Re-visiting Some Old Stuff

Too hot to train dogs. Too hot to fish. Too hot to even think about the promise of fall and birds and dogs, so I'm re-reading some old favorites. Because when you're lazy the assurance of the known trumps the promise of the unknown any day...

One old favorite I just pulled from the shelf and dusted off for a read is Okla Hannali by RA Lafferty. Go on, you can admit it: you've never heard of him. Neither has anyone else. Neither had I, until I was compelled to read Okla Hannali for a western history class at OU. Who says college isn't worth it?

Lafferty was an interesting dude. He's no longer in print, but you can find most of his stuff if you look hard enough and are willing to pay. Here's a little backpage obit I wrote for our state magazine back in 2002 when Lafferty died, broken, broke and alone, in a Tulsa nursing home.

It is somehow fitting - however tragically so- that the best Oklahoma book no one has ever read was penned by the best Oklahoma author no one has ever heard of, but if history is rife with examples of literary genius discovered postmortem then perhaps Tulsa’s Raphael Aloysius Lafferty will now finally get his due.



The genre-warping author and self-described “cranky old man from Tulsa” who died in a Broken Arrow nursing home earlier this year at the age of 87, wrote dozens of books and hundreds of short stories in a career that only began in his forties. However, despite his prolific output Lafferty never achieved widespread fame, due in no small part to his eclectic subject matter and absolutely unique writing style.


While Lafferty is generally categorized as a science fiction/fantasy writer, his work has always defied such neat and tidy pigeonholes. In 1972, one year before Lafferty won a Hugo award for his science fiction short story “Eurema’s Dam” he published “Okla Hannali”, a historical novel that chronicles the history of the Choctaw tribe in Oklahoma through its protagonist, Hannali Innominee. That he could do both genres so well - and yet remain so widely unknown – is both a testament to his genius as a writer and a pointed reminder that genius is often unmarketable.


Despite the sci-fi label, Lafferty’s writing - with its peculiar style and structure - has often been compared to that of James Joyce. No matter the subject, Lafferty’s surreal tall tales exhibit a lilting, singsong cadence, an unmistakable stamp that enthralls his hard-core fans but forces some who try to read him to simply give up, hopelessly entangled in Lafferty’s syntactic jungle.


It is that slightly askew, wildly imaginative style that firmly entrenched both Lafferty’s cult status and his obscurity.


Virtually an entire generation of sci-fi writers credits him as an influence, but the vast majority of Lafferty’s work is long out of print and extremely rare, primarily because much of it was originally published in low numbers by small, independent presses.


As such, there is no such thing as a definitive Lafferty bibliography. Some of Lafferty’s work remains alive on the publishing fringes, available from the small indie and underground presses that have always sustained him, but for the most part Lafferty‘s books are now the exclusive domain of book scouts, fans and collectors.


“Okla Hannali” is a notable exception. In 1991 the University of Oklahoma Press resurrected Lafferty’s hypnotic tale of the Choctaw nation, and Oklahoma’s literary landscape is richer for it. Few books - fiction or non-fiction - capture the mood of Indian Territory as completely as Lafferty’s, and his singular style imparts a dreamy, songline-like quality to the tale.


Lafferty’s death barely registered in popular literary circles, but perhaps his passing will rekindle scholarly and the reading public’s interest in his work. Both the University of Tulsa and the University of Iowa maintain Lafferty collections, and, of course, there is that vast, amorphous body of work strewn across the dusty corners of the literary landscape, just waiting to be rediscovered.


Until then, however, R.A. Lafferty’s legacy and his contributions to Oklahoma and world literature will remain much as they always have – unknown.


Good stuff, if you ever come across it...

Blogging Escher-Style...

I can log in to post a blog, but when I try to log in to respond to a comment, or to comment on anyone else's Blogger-based blog, it prompts me for my username/password, and then when I do that, it shows the comment being from "anonymous."

And then, when I try to post the comment, even as "anonymous" it then - in a nice little bit of circularity -  sends me right back to the Google sign-in page to start the whole futile process over again...

Any ideas? Is a wholesale move to say, Wordpress in the future?