What Jonah Knew by Barbara Graham: A review

Are rebirth and reincarnation really a thing? That is the issue at the heart of Barbara Graham's debut novel, What Jonah Knew. The Jonah in question is a seven-year-old boy who inexplicably seems to have memories of a twenty-two-year-old musician named Henry who had disappeared without a trace seven years earlier. 

Henry had been playing a gig with his band Dog Radio in the small town of Aurora Falls just before his disappearance. And then he became a statistic - one of 650,000 Americans who go missing every year. In the years following his disappearance, Henry's mother Helen had searched without success for answers. 

That same year in that same small town, Jonah was conceived by his mother, Lucie. And when Jonah is seven, his parents decide that the family will spend the summer in that town. That's when strange things begin happening. Jonah begins having night terrors and insisting that he has another mom and a dog.

Helen has a dog named Charlie who was actually her son Henry's dog. When Charlie encounters Jonah, there is an instant connection. The dog seems to recognize the boy. Meanwhile, Jonah keeps coming up with these strange observations that he seems to have no basis for knowing about but they are things that Henry would have known about. Spooky, huh? 

The theme of the book seems to be the connection between mothers and their sons. There is also a bit of subtext about Lucie's animosity toward her own mother. So, apparently, mothers love their sons unreservedly but are hypercritical of their daughters. As a mother of daughters, obviously, I reject that! 

I thought the author did a very good job with character development and exploring those characters' experiences with grief and motherhood - Helen trying to get on with her life after the devastating and still unexplained loss of her son and Lucie trying to help her son deal with some mysterious and inexplicable trauma. This was quite an original idea for a story. I don't recall ever having read anything quite like it. It is told in the style of a psychological thriller and is a creditable first novel effort from this writer. I look forward to reading more of her work.

Poetry Sunday: Late August by Margaret Atwood

I went searching for a poem for late August and there it was! Margaret Atwood had provided the perfect words to describe the season. 

Late August

by Margaret Atwood

Late August—
This is the plum season, the nights
blue and distended, the moon
hazed, this is the season of peaches

with their lush lobed bulbs
that glow in the dusk, apples
that drop and rot
sweetly, their brown skins veined as glands

No more the shrill voices
that cried Need Need
from the cold pond, bladed
and urgent as new grass

Now it is the crickets
that say Ripe Ripe
slurred in the darkness, while the plums

dripping on the lawn outside
our window, burst
with a sound like thick syrup
muffled and slow

The air is still
warm, flesh moves over
flesh, there is no

hurry

This week in birds - #515

 A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

House Finches are regular visitors to my bird feeders.

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Here's a plea by songwriter Carole King to protect our forests from logging. Simply letting them be costs nothing and has many benefits.

*~*~*~*

The extreme fire season in Australia in 2019 and 2020 sent smoke twenty miles into the air and damaged the ozone layer, causing major warming.

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As severe drought has all but dried up some rivers in Texas ancient dinosaur footprints have been revealed, footprints dating to more than 100 million years ago. Here are more pictures including a video of the prints.

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Bird flu has killed at least 700 Black Vultures at the Noah's Ark sanctuary in Georgia.

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Record-breaking drought has caused some rivers in China, including parts of the Yangtze, to dry up. An unprecedented heat wave in the country has wilted crops, sparked forest fires, and caused major cities to have to dim their lights.

*~*~*~*

The world's smallest sea turtle, the Kemp's ridley, has been found on Louisiana islands for the first time in 75 years.

*~*~*~*

Alaska is burning. As drought has dried out parts of the Alaskan wilderness, it has become more vulnerable to wildfires.

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Many people harbor an unreasonable fear of spiders but they are an important element in the natural world. And it seems that while some people may have nightmares about spiders, spiders may be having nightmares about us.

*~*~*~*

This is a lanternfly, an invasive insect from China that has become established in several states, mostly along the Eastern Seaboard. A campaign is underway to have people smush every one of the insects that they encounter as a way of trying to eradicate them. But there are some who sympathize with the insect that, after all, didn't ask to be brought here.

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This sprightly little critter is the Araripe Manakin, a critically endangered bird of northeastern Brazil. It is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week.

*~*~*~*

Macaques are clever monkeys that are skilled in the use of stones as tools. It seems that some of them have found a unique use for stones, wielding them for the purpose of masturbation! 

*~*~*~*

Central Mississippi experienced flash floods this week when up to a foot of rain fell in a relatively short period of time. Meanwhile, the Dallas area was being hit by a 1-in-1,000-year flood. But in Houston, we are still dry.

*~*~*~*

How can we protect some of the oldest and largest trees in a world that is quickly heating up? In their hundreds of years of life, California's giant sequoias have faced and overcome many challenges; can they overcome this one?

*~*~*~*

Think you know a lot about Yellowstone National Park? You may not know as much as you think!

*~*~*~*

Here's something else for you to worry about: What if underwater methane deposits break free from the sea floor and release their gas into the atmosphere? Scientists say it could happen.

*~*~*~*

The sea mammal called the dugong has been declared "functionally extinct" in China.

*~*~*~*

As many as one in six of U.S. tree species are threatened with extinction due to an onslaught of invasive insects, a surge in deadly diseases, and the perils of climate change.

*~*~*~*

In the past five weeks, there have been five instances of 1,000-year rain events in the lower 48 states.

*~*~*~*

Climate change is stressing and imperiling North America's bumblebee population.

*~*~*~*

Alaska's snow crabs are disappearing from that environment and their disappearance is likely connected to - you guessed it - climate change.

*~*~*~*

And hundreds of miles south, there is an extreme effort taking place to save the endangered Mexican wolf.

*~*~*~*

Epaulette sharks may be evolving to better survive the climate crisis. They are able to walk on land for up to two hours.

*~*~*~*

Here are five drought-tolerant and highly nutritious plants that could help to feed the world in a hotter climate.

*~*~*~*

The U.S. has set aside 63 national parks. It is one of the best things our nation has ever done.

Things We Do in the Dark by Jennifer Hillier: A review

I have not previously read anything by Jennifer Hillier so I went into this not really knowing what to expect, but I was captivated by the story early on. The characters were interesting and I thought the writer did a good job both of introducing them and then of developing them in order to advance the plot. And what is that plot?

The television celebrity husband of a woman named Paris Peralta is found dead in their bathtub. His femoral artery has been sliced and he has bled out in the tub. Paris is beside the tub, covered in blood, and holding a straight razor which is obviously the weapon that was used to cut the victim. She knows how this looks and that she will likely be charged with murder. That is worrisome, of course, but what worries her more is that now her past will be exposed. It is a past that she has worked very hard to keep hidden.

Meanwhile, Ruby Reyes who the media had dubbed "The Ice Queen," had spent twenty-five years in prison after being convicted of a similar murder and she is now unexpectedly going to be released. Ruby knows who Paris really is and she threatens to expose her. The threat to Paris' new life leaves her little choice but to confront the past that she had hoped had been left behind.

This is a fast-paced, well-written thriller that kept me well entertained throughout. At the end, the author gave us an unexpected twist to the story which is always effective in a thriller. She also did an excellent job of developing her characters leading the reader to have empathy for some and to thoroughly dislike others.

The most difficult part of the read for me was the instances of child abuse that Paris experienced. I generally try to steer away from plots featuring child abuse, but this author, I think, handled that part of her story about as well as it could be handled. And to be fair, it was an integral part of Paris' personality development.

Overall, this was not at all a bad book, even if it wasn't exactly my cup of tea. I'm glad that I read it and I'm glad to have made Jennifer Hillier's acquaintance. I'll be on the lookout for future books by her.

The Two-Bear Mambo by Joe R. Lansdale: A review

There are twenty-six books in Joe K. Lansdale's Hap and Leonard series dating all the way back to 1990. Two-Bear Mambo is the third book in the series, published in 1995. I've not read any of the others and just decided on a whim to read this one. The series is set in the fictional town of LaBorde in East Texas, an area I'm somewhat familiar with.

Hap and Leonard are described as amateur investigators and adventurers. Hap Collins is a White working-class laborer who spent time in federal prison back in the day when he refused to be drafted into the military during the Vietnam War. He believes in non-violence and does his best to avoid conflict. Leonard Pine is a gay, Black Vietnam vet with some serious anger issues. He has no tolerance for racist and/or gay slurs. He is quick to anger and doesn't really understand Hap's more passive approach to life. These two opposites are the best of friends. 

In this entry, Hap's ex-girlfriend Florida Grange, who is also Leonard's lawyer, had set out to try to recover some long-lost tapes of a deceased blues musician. Unfortunately, the tapes are thought to be in the Klan-infested town of Grovetown in East Texas and the ex-girlfriend has now apparently disappeared there. There is reason to fear for her safety because she is a Black woman who was asking inconvenient questions in a racist town.

She had been investigating the jailhouse death of a legendary bluesman's son who is believed to have been in possession of those missing tapes. He had supposedly committed suicide while in jail but there may be reason to question the official explanation. 

As Hap and Leonard set out to try to find Florida, they also must face a threat from the weather. An East Texas monsoon is brewing with its attendant flooding and they must race to try to find Florida before the storm adds another layer of difficulty to an already difficult task. 

The relationship between Hap and Leonard is an interesting and complex one and Lansdale describes it believably. Moreover, his descriptions of the East Texas landscape and zeitgeist rang true for me. As one who traveled those roads for many years as a state employee, I could clearly recognize both the people and countryside which they inhabit. In reading about the author, I was interested to see that he himself lives in Nacogdoches in the same county where I lived for many years, so I think he came by his knowledge of the area quite honestly.  

Poetry Sunday: As imperceptibly as grief by Emily Dickinson

Summer is beginning to wind down although we still have several more weeks of potential triple-digit temperatures here in Southeast Texas. But already I can feel a difference in the air when I sit outside on my patio in the late afternoon. Moreover twilight creeps in earlier and earlier every day. The days are getting shorter, the surest indication that autumn is, in fact, on its way.

Emily Dickinson observed that summer passes into fall with "A courteous, yet harrowing grace" which is almost imperceptible at first. As imperceptible as grief. 

As Imperceptibly as Grief

by Emily Dickinson

As imperceptibly as grief
  The summer lapsed away, —
  Too imperceptible, at last,
  To seem like perfidy.

  A quietness distilled,
  As twilight long begun,
  Or Nature, spending with herself
  Sequestered afternoon.

  The dusk drew earlier in,
  The morning foreign shone, —
  A courteous, yet harrowing grace,
  As guest who would be gone.

  And thus, without a wing,
  Or service of a keel,
  Our summer made her light escape
  Into the beautiful.

This week in birds - #514

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

Just about anytime I look out a window, I'll see at least one of these guys in my yard - the ever-present White-winged Dove. 

 *~*~*~*

The top environmental news in this country this week has been the dangerous heat wave that has affected much of the continent. It may just be a preview of our future as much of the U.S. will be part of an extreme heat belt by the 2050s. And as extreme heat becomes our norm, gardeners are looking for ways to help their gardens survive and flourish.

*~*~*~*

Europe also is enduring a scorching summer that is putting a strain on its energy systems.

*~*~*~*

The president this week signed an energy bill, one aim of which is to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

*~*~*~*

"Forever chemicals" may soon be less than forever chemicals as scientists are making progress on a method of breaking them down.

*~*~*~*

Mexico is fighting for its share of the water from the Colorado River, water that largely gets taken by U.S. states as it travels its course. Meanwhile, the U.S. has imposed drastic cuts in water available to the states along the river.

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This little beauty is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week. It is the Royal Sunangel, a bird of northern Peru and southern Ecuador.

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Donkeys are an invasive feral species that does a lot of damage in Death Valley, but they do serve one important purpose: They help feed the native mountain lions.

*~*~*~*

Meanwhile, mules are doing their part to help preserve Nature in the Bob Marshall Wilderness of Montana.

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You can participate in tracking Monarch butterflies as they begin their fall migration across the continent.

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Megaladons, the immense predatory sharks that patrolled the oceans five million years ago, were even more fearsome than had previously been known. 

*~*~*~*

Heat waves are not only physically stressful; they can also adversely affect your mental health.

*~*~*~*

Climate change may be hastening the time when California will be faced with a megastorm.

*~*~*~*

The giant kauri trees of New Zealand are dying. Can they be saved?

*~*~*~*

Which are more dangerous to humans - orcas or great white sharks? However dangerous orcas may be, there is one being held captive at the Miami Seaquarium that should be set free.

*~*~*~*

If you followed the exploits of the Leakey family of paleontologists, you may recognize the name Kamoya Kimeu. He was the Kenyan fossil hunter who found most of those fossils for the Leakeys. He died this week at 83 or 84. He was never sure of his age.

*~*~*~*

The wood of the shipwreck of Captain Cook's Endeavour is being eaten away by "termites of the ocean" called gribbles.

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In another case of an invasive feral being utilized by native species, Australia's crocodiles are devouring invasive pigs that are damaging the ecosystem.

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New Yorkers are being encouraged to kill another invasive species - the spotted lanternfly that is itself a killer of some crops and plants.

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A red panda that escaped an Australian zoo has been recaptured after being found hanging out in a fig tree.

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Two teenagers in the Bay Area have discovered two previously unknown species of scorpions.

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Harnessing ants as a natural pest control is better for healthy crops than resorting to chemical pesticides.

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Boreal forests in the far northern latitudes have suffered more tree cover loss due to fire than anywhere else on Earth during the last decade.

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Here is some information about grosbeaks that live in the West.

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Being a ranger protecting endangered rhinos in South Africa is a profession fraught with peril. One such ranger paid with his life this week.

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Hawaiians are working to try to save their historic fish ponds.

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We know about the Chicxulub asteroid that hit the Gulf of Mexico some 66 million years ago but there was another that hit the planet around the same time off the coast of West Africa.

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So far, the Gulf of Mexico has been quiet this hurricane season but there is now a tropical system developing that is being watched by meteorologists.

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One of my favorite memories of my childhood summers is the fireflies that seemed to be everywhere in the early evening dark. But they are struggling in our well-lighted world of today. 

A blast from my blogging past

We have recently been watching and enjoying the "Joe Pickett" television series on Paramount+ which led me to reminisce about when I read and reviewed the first book in that series. It was eleven years ago and I liked the book quite a lot and subsequently read the others in the series. Here is that review.

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Open Season (Joe Pickett #1) by C.J. Box - A review

August 29, 2011

I was introduced to the writing of C.J. Box through my local library's Mystery Book Club. Open Season, the first in Box's Joe Pickett series, was the club's selection for reading in June. Although I didn't get a chance to read it in time for the meeting, the discussion of it made me curious and I put it on my to-be-read list. I'm glad I finally got around to it this week.

Box has created an enormously appealing character in Joe Pickett. A Wyoming game warden, Joe is a devoted family man with two young daughters and a pregnant wife when we first meet him. He and his family are able to barely scrape by financially on the meager salary of a state employee (Been there, done that!), but Joe is a happy man because he's living his dream. Being a game warden was what he always wanted to be.

Not only Joe but his whole family are lovingly drawn by Box. We get to know them well and to like them and want them not just to endure but to triumph. Seven-year-old Sheridan, particularly, who has an important role to play in this story, is a child after my own heart. I know her well because I could easily see seven-year-old Dorothy in her.

The story begins with Joe's sidearm being taken from him by local wilderness outfitter/game poacher Ote Keeley when he confronts Keeley about his poaching, catching him red-handed, literally hands dripping blood, with the carcasses of his out-of-season kills. Keeley eventually gives the gun back and Joe writes him a ticket for poaching. Soon the story of how the bumbling game warden was disarmed is making the rounds and Joe becomes something of a laughingstock. But, he stoically continues doing his job every day to the best of his ability and continues to write tickets for scofflaws, even when it might be more convenient or popular for him to look the other way.

Then comes the night sometime later when a mortally wounded Ote Keeley rushes into the yard of the Pickett family with a plastic tub in his hands. His face is seen at her bedroom window by Sheridan but she convinces herself that it was only a dream and doesn't wake her parents. The next morning, Ote Keeley's dead body is found next to the Picketts' woodpile with an open plastic tub containing some kind of animal scat by his side. Why would Keeley use his dying breath to drag himself to the Pickett home? What was he carrying in that plastic container? Joe is intrigued, of course, and he gathers some of the scat into envelopes to send for analysis before he calls in the local sheriff.

As the investigation proceeds, Joe begins to suspect that something is rotten in the state of Wyoming. He and another game warden and a local deputy are sent into the wilds to find Ote's two partners, who, it is suspected may be responsible for shooting him. When they arrive at the camp, they find another eccentric local coming out of one of the tents with a gun, but the other two men in Pickett's party shoot the man before he has a chance to say anything. Searching the camp, they make another gruesome find in one of the other tents.

This is a real page-turner of a first novel. Box keeps the action going and keeps the reader guessing until close to the end, even though it seemed obvious pretty early on who the bad and badder guys were going to be. I look forward to reading more in the series and seeing how these characters develop.

I did have quibbles with one part of Box's narrative. His presentation of the effects of the Endangered Species Act seemed quite biased to me. He bemoaned the fact of the negative impact on the local economy when logging and other outdoor jobs were lost because of the need to protect a dwindling population of his fictional "Miller's weasels," which seemed to be based on the real-life experience of the endangered black-footed ferret. In the next breath, he talks about outsiders pouring into town to see the ferret or to take part in its protection. Surely, those people have to stay somewhere. They have to eat something. They have to buy gas for their vehicles or supplies for their treks into the wilderness. This would seem to pump a lot of money into the local economy and to create new jobs and new opportunities for entrepreneurship. Does the word "ecotourism" ring a bell? I know it certainly does along the Texas coast with all its bird and butterfly festivals and its year-round influx of birders and other outdoors-lovers from right around the world. I don't see why that wouldn't work in Wyoming as well.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - August 2022

I admit that I completely forgot about Carol Michel's meme Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day this month. It was only after I started seeing other bloggers' posts that I remembered, so I grabbed my camera and ran outside to record what is blooming in my garden this month. It didn't take long because there is not much there. Only the toughest of the tough plants can still manage to produce a few blooms when the temperatures hover around 100 degrees Fahrenheit every day and the few puffy clouds have forgotten how to drop their moisture. Here then are the hardy few that still brighten my garden and provide sustenance for the butterflies. (If some of them look wilted, it's because they are. The pictures were taken when it was 96 degrees and felt like 103.)

 

The native butterfly weed is impervious to heat and drought.

And the old standard, petunias, can match the Asclepias for toughness.

Justicia 'Orange Flame.'

Purslane, of course, in pink...

...and yellow.

Blue plumbago will bloom regardless of the weather.

And so will yellow cestrum.

Some of my zinnias have given up, but these bloom on.

And so does this one. 

Pink crape myrtle.

And watermelon-colored crape myrtle.

Hamelia patens.

Turk's Cap.

Pride of Barbados, aka peacock flower.

At least the water lily doesn't go thirsty.

Thank you for visiting my hot and dry zone 9 garden in Southeast Texas this month. I look forward to visiting your garden in what I hope is a somewhat cooler clime!

Poetry Sunday: An August Cricket by Arthur Goodenough

Sitting on the swing in the backyard, listening to the song of a cricket in the shrubbery next to my little pond, I thought, "Someone should write a poem about that cricket who is completely undaunted by the heat." And, sure enough, someone already had! 

An August Cricket

by Arthur Goodenough

When August days are hot and long,
And the August hills are hazy,
And clouds are slow and winds also,
And brooks are low and lazy.

When beats the fierce midsummer sun,
Upon the drying grasses;
A modest minstrel sings his song
To any soul that passes.

A modest, yet insistent bard
Who while the landscape slumbers;
And Nature seems, herself asleep,
Pours out his soul in numbers.

His song is in a tongue unknown,
Yet those, methinks, who hear it
Drink in its healing melody
Renewed in frame and spirit.

His life is brief as is the leaf
To summer branches clinging!
But yet no thought of death or grief,
He mentions in his singing.

No epic strain is his to sing;—
No tale of loss or glory;—
He has no borrowed heroines;
His heroes are not gory.

He is no scholar; all he knows
Was taught by his condition,
He never studied synthesis,
Nor simple composition.

His lays are all of rustic themes;
Of summer's joys and treasure
Yet scarce could Homer's masterpiece,
Afford us keener pleasure.

This week in birds - #513

 A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

                              White Pelicans preen next to Galveston Bay.

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The fact that the Climate Bill actually managed to pass in both houses of Congress is little short of a miracle. It's less than what environmentalists were hoping for, of course, and, in fact, some groups believe it will do more harm than good. I guess they would have preferred nothing.

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It's not exactly concerning our earthly environment but the pictures of our larger galactic environment from the Webb telescope are nothing short of spectacular. 

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Even as the climate bill was being debated, word came that our planet's Arctic region is heating up much faster than had been predicted.

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This is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week. It is the Newell's Shearwater ('A'o), a Hawaiian specialty. The species is listed as critically endangered, with less than 10,000 remaining in the wild.

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Some scientists are saying that the billions that the U.S. is spending on saving communities from Western megafires are being misdirected.

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New research provides evidence that we should designate more land and water for protection to save biodiversity and fight climate change but we should also do a better job of actually protecting those designated sites. 

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When one pod of Atlantic spotted dolphins invaded the territory of another pod off the Bahamas, conflict might have been expected. However, proving the superiority of their intelligence, the two pods intermingled peacefully. 

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We know that humans impact Nature but we may not recognize that Nature impacts humans in a host of ways that may be intangible and yet contribute to our overall well-being.

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Researchers in France have found that climate change is stressing lizards by aging their DNA even before they are born.

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Who knew that sponges sneezed? Well, it seems that they do and that the product of those sneezes actually helps to feed other marine organisms.

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It's manatee mating season in Florida and, naturally, some stupid members of our own species manage to interfere with what is referred to as a manatee "mating herd" or "mating ball."

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Don't look now but it seems that Congress might actually pass a huge wildlife conservation bill with bipartisan support.

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In Bolivia, a route that was once known as the "death road" is now a haven for wildlife and has experienced a resurgence of wildlife in the area. 

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New evidence links the wild ponies of the barrier island of Assateague along the Maryland and Virginia coast to horses from sixteenth-century Spain, lending credence to the story that the horses are descendants of survivors of a Spanish shipwreck of 500 years ago.

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Dry conditions are not rare in northern Mexico, but the area is now experiencing a historic drought and water shortage.

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Maybe seawalls are not the best way to protect coastal areas from rising seas. Nature-based alternatives can be more effective. 

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Climate hazards such as flooding, heat waves, and droughts have a negative impact on many of the infectious diseases that plague humankind. 

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Fossils of its teeth have been used to identify an ancient species of panda that was previously unknown to science.

*~*~*~*

Researchers have recreated what they believe to be the chirp of an ancient cricket that existed alongside dinosaurs.

*~*~*~*

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is sticking with its prediction of an above-average hurricane season, even though things have been quiet so far. 

The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager: A review

Shades of "Rear Window," the classic Hitchcock movie. In this case, instead of looking into a neighboring apartment, a woman spending time at her family's lake house in Vermont passes her days by watching her neighbors in The House Across the Lake. Her neighbors are Tom and Katherine Royce and Casey Fletcher becomes somewhat obsessed with them. Tom is a tech mogul and Katherine is a gorgeous former model.

Casey has retreated to her lake house to escape the bad press she was recently receiving in New York. She is a successful actress who was widowed when her husband drowned in that very lake. She is attempting to assuage her grief with alcohol. Her viewing of - some might say spying on - her neighbors is fueled by a plentiful supply of liquor. 

A fateful change in her relationship with those neighbors comes when Casey saves Katherine from drowning in the lake. It is the beginning of their friendship, but as Casey gets to know her better, she learns that Katherine's marriage to Tom is a fraught affair. 

And then Katherine vanishes after telling Casey that her husband would never let her go. He would kill her first. Casey suspects the worst and she is determined to find out what has happened to her friend. But it becomes apparent that there is a serial killer on the loose. Several young girls have been killed. Was Katherine a victim of the same killer? And is that killer Tom?

The basic plot here was interesting, but there was quite a bit of repetitive "padding" to the story that didn't necessarily move the plot along. The book was almost four hundred pages and I felt that if some of that repetition had been cut, it would have been a better read. In spite of those caveats, the book was still a solid three-star read for me.

Horse by Geraldine Brooks: A review

Geraldine Brooks has written a fictionalized account of the life of a record-breaking thoroughbred named Lexington who lived in pre-Civil War Kentucky. It is an account of the horse's life and the life of the enslaved groom named Jarret who loved and cared for him. 

Jarret was just a boy himself when he was first given the care of the new foal as his responsibility. The boy and the horse formed an unbreakable bond that saw Lexington through a long series of record-setting victories in races throughout the South. 

In those years, a young itinerant artist was hired to paint Lexington's picture. Those paintings were quite successful and helped the young artist to make his name as a professional. When the war began, the artist took up arms for the North, and in that role, he would encounter the horse and his groom one more time.  

A hundred years later, a gallery owner in New York became obsessed with an equestrian painting from the nineteenth century, a painting of unknown provenance by a then-forgotten artist. It is completely different from the paintings that she usually champions, the work of edgy contemporary artists. But the power of the work speaks to her and she seeks to learn everything she can about it.

Fast forward to the present day and a Nigerian-American art historian named Theo and a Smithsonian scientist from Australia named Jess become connected through their interest in the horse in the painting. That horse's bones are in the American treasure trove that is the Smithsonian and Jess is studying them for clues to the horse's power and endurance. Meanwhile, Theo is interested in the Black horsemen who were so instrumental in Lexington's success.

From the essential facts of the horse's life, Geraldine Brooks has woven a multi-layered tale that examines the social fabric of the time in which he lived and raced. She addresses the record of racism that was a part of that time and the consequences of which still plague the country today. I thought she did quite an incredible job of bringing together all the various elements of the story - the racism and slavery as well as the history of nineteenth-century horse racing and modern-day art and science. Her development of the main characters in all three time periods in which her story exists was interesting and I was fully invested in their stories.

I debated with myself as to what rating to assign the book. In the end, I couldn't quite bring myself to give it five stars but bestowed an enthusiastic four. I highly recommend the book to anyone who enjoys horse stories or anyone who just enjoys good writing. 

Poetry Sunday: In August by Paul Laurence Dunbar

I am not a fisherperson, although I freely admit that I like eating what that person catches. But the fish that I enjoy most are the ones in my aquarium and in our little goldfish pond. I find it pleasant and restful to watch them. If I did fish, I think August would be a good month to do it. Goodness knows it's too hot to do much of anything else. 

Paul Laurence Dunbar evidently enjoyed fishing or at least he understood those who did. And it seems that he may have understood their propensity to...um...exaggerate about their catch. He also understood the need for some libation to fuel one's angling efforts. Since he was a poet, he expressed all of that poetically.

In August

by Paul Laurence Dunbar

When August days are hot an' dry,
When burning copper is the sky,
I'd rather fish than feast or fly
In airy realms serene and high.

I'd take a suit not made for looks,
Some easily digested books,
Some flies, some lines, some bait, some hooks,
Then would I seek the bays and brooks.

I would eschew mine every task,
In Nature's smiles my soul should bask,
And I methinks no more could ask,
Except—perhaps—one little flask.

In case of accident, you know,
Or should the wind come on to blow,
Or I be chilled or capsized, so,
A flask would be the only go.

Then I could spend a happy time,—
A bit of sport, a bit of rhyme
(A bit of lemon, or of lime,
To make my bottle's contents prime).

When August days are hot an' dry,
I won't sit by an' sigh or die,
I'll get my bottle (on the sly)
And go ahead, and fish, and lie!

This week in birds - #512

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment: 

A Long-billed Curlew searches for his dinner in a field populated with Laughing Gulls.

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The big news in the environment on this continent this week has been the heat wave that has affected more than 80 million Americans in the central and eastern states. The hot weather will continue for the next several weeks, with only the Southwest and Alaska forecast to have cool or average temperatures.

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Are we truly headed toward a climate meltdown on the planet and is it too late to prevent a global catastrophe?

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This tiny green sea turtle, after being rescued on a Sydney beach, pooed nothing but pure plastic for the first six days after it was brought in, startling evidence of the damage that is being done to the ocean environment. 

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The High Plains of Texas have plenty of wind and they are home to more than 11,000 wind turbines, but, sadly, the state's transmission network is incapable of moving the electricity that is produced to the areas where it is needed.  

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Hyperion is the name given to the world's tallest tree, a redwood in California's Redwood National Park. But it is now off limits to visitors because of the damage done by people trampling around the giant tree.

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The eruption of a volcano on Tonga released into the atmosphere the most water vapor ever recorded. And in Iceland, a volcano with an unpronounceable name started erupting on Wednesday, just eight months after its last eruption had ended.

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The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is the Kiwikiu, a critically endangered Hawaiian bird. Fewer than 200 of the birds are believed to still exist in the wild.

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This isn't exactly bird-related but it is about something that flies; NASA's James Webb Space Telescope sent us some truly amazing pictures of other galaxies this week.

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It isn't only on this continent that the heat and drought are creating crises, including among wildlife. For example, British wildlife are having to struggle to survive.

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Life among the plants can be a struggle for survival as well.

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Vessel strikes are among the biggest threats to the continued existence of North Atlantic right whales. In an attempt to help protect the species, the U.S. has drafted new speed limits.

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You probably don't give a lot of thought to fungi so you may not be aware that they possess superpowers that can assist in the fight against global warming.

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A Greenland shark that normally feeds on polar bear carcasses was found swimming in the deep waters around Belize.

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Our attempts to affect our environment often have unintended consequences - such as almost driving a tiny fish to extinction.

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This is a Santa Marta Saberwing, a rare hummingbird that had been feared extinct. But it has been rediscovered by a birder in Colombia.

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How about some good news from Australia's Great Barrier Reef? Marine scientists have recorded their highest level of coral cover since monitoring began nearly four decades ago.

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DNA from elephant dung may help scientists to count the elusive African forest elephants.

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The Colorado River is drying up and that is a huge problem because forty million people from Colorado to Mexico rely upon it.

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Stinky seaweed that smells like rotten eggs is smothering Caribbean coasts, killing wildlife, and disrupting human life. 

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Tiny Piping Plovers are a threatened species and protecting them has ruined some people's East Coast vacations this summer.

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A set of eighty-eight fossil human footprints from about 12,000 years ago has been discovered in the Utah desert.

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If the drought long continues the Great Salt Lake threatens to become a small salt puddle.

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Elsewhere the problem isn't drought but floods, but those floods have a silver lining.

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Europe's heat wave has caused some Alpine hiking routes to be put off limits for the protection of the hikers and the environment.

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Never underestimate the intelligence of insects! Or any critter for that matter.

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Once again human actions have unintended consequences - in this case the extinction of a plant.

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The northern Haiti magnolia which had been thought to be extinct has been rediscovered on the island.

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A bizarre new species of sea snail, the scaly-foot snail which excretes sulfur, has been discovered in the planet's deepest oceans.

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A diner in a small outdoor restaurant made an important discovery when he happened to look down - dinosaur tracks! The discovery has been confirmed by scientists.