Dispaches From The Planet of the Apes....

Back when my granddad bought this place, North Stamford was considered the backwoods, with dirt roads and a pretty sparse population. Gentrification has pushed out alot of the original old timers but we still have our share of oddballs. Now, I may be one myself, in the new order, because I keep chickens, but that's not the kind of thing that would rate as all that odd up here in the detritus of family places sitting on overgrown prime land and the secrets therein. Its not unusual for specially licensed professionals to keep exotic animals in their homes, but its a little unusual that a troublesome 200 lb Chimp was allowed to remain in what had become a populated residential area.

Travis the chimp was not the cute little guy in the Old Navy commercials anymore. He was not that little guy in diapers driving around town in the company truck... and Sandra Herold was not an animal handler by any stretch. Herold is an eccentric who had managed to grandfather in the ability to keep this wild and increasingly unmanageable animal under wraps and perhaps illegally in her residence. Travis was a disaster waiting to happen, and with his ability to get out of cars, stop traffic, drive cars himself, not to mention his threatening actions, its a wonder that only one person was so severely injured. When Travis stopped downtown traffic for 2 hours last year, it was a warning that things were out of hand. If what happened here on Tuesday had happened downtown, there could have been a much higher death toll.

Whatever was going on with Travis on Tuesday morning that caused Herold to call her friend Charla Nash to help her get the animal inside, is unclear. Sandra Herold has already given him an unprescribed dose of Xanax in tea to try to calm him and get him into the house, (Xanax has not been tested on Chimpanzees.) What is clear, from the reports of the first responders, is that Nash got out of her car with a doll for Travis and he attacked. As those first responders pulled up the drive, Travis appeared with blood dripping from his mouth and down his chest. He raised his arms like a gorilla, running back and forth between threatening the approaching rescuers and what looked like a crumpled mannequin on the lawn, but was actually Nash, continuing to chew her face some more as if she was his kill and they were threatening it.

She didn't even look like an actual person because she basically had no face, no scalp....The responders retreated, backing their truck away, because they knew that Travis could tear the door off their truck and there was no way for them to get to Nash until police sharp shooters arrived. When police approached the scene, Travis partially tore the door off their cruiser, causing an officer to begin shooting him with his .45. It took 5 shots to get Travis to retreat into his house, where he fell to the floor and died. Rescue workers were able to get Nash to the hospital where she remains in critical condition, but those on the scene can't imagine how she can live through the injuries she sustained. Bits of her were left on the lawn there along with the doll she brought to try to calm him.

This morning Sandra Herold was all over the news, giving interviews telling us that Travis looked up to her as if to say "Mom, what did you do?" What did she do? Well, that's an interesting question. She certainly didn't keep Travis in a proper enclosure. She certainly didn't think of her neighbor's safety, including the many young mothers in this neighborhood pushing baby carriages along the roads. She also didn't seem to be at the hospital outside of her "best friend's" room, waiting for word on her condition. Perhaps she has been told to stay away, but honestly, to use this time to make excuses for a wild animal behaving the way that many, many mature male chimpanzees behave, is insane.

Its not that Herold is considered to be a particularly sane person around here, anyway. Maybe she is just negligent and the city is to blame, but I for one, would like some answers. I have a teen who is outside quite a bit, and taking walks on these same roads with his friends, and I'd like to know that any dangerous animals are kept responsibly and that they are visited by the inspector from time to time. This monkey was allowed to drive around in a company truck when he was young, but by the time he has grown to over 200 lbs and was being kept by a disheveled woman (who was alone after having lost her husband,) living in a chaotic house, I would like to know that someone has a handle on things.

Back when I lived in Montana, I met a guy, Doug Seus, who raised and trained Bart the Bear, of The Bear fame (among other movies.) Yes, he was a cuddly animal, and the trainers that worked with him all the time could hug him and cuddle with him like he was a puppy. But he was also, like the many other wild animals that Doug raised and trained for show business, a wild animal. There were always handlers present, and one of my roommates back then had actually been a handler for Doug when Bart was a baby, (that's how I met him,) because one person couldn't possibly keep up with the training at all times. One person cant possibly keep up with the care and training of a wild animal! Older Chimpanzees become erratic


According to the Jane Goodall Institute:

Aggression is a natural aspect of chimpanzee behavior and it is not uncommon for chimps to bite each other in the wild. Even the best cared for chimpanzee innately misses the companionship of other chimpanzees and may act aggressively towards owners. However much a misguided chimp owner continues to love his or her "child," the chimpanzee will be too dangerous to keep as part of the family. Many owners, to delay the inevitable day that the chimp will have to be removed from the house, will pull the chimp's teeth, put on shock collars — even remove thumbs in the mistaken notion that this will make it impossible for the chimp to climb the drapes.

This morning on the Today Show a couple was interviewed who survived a Chimpanzee attack. This is a responsible couple who wished dearly that they could have kept their Chimp, but who put him in a facility when he got older. They were attacked at the facility while visiting by other chimps who had gotten loose. As kind as they are about Chimps in general, and as gracious as they are in saying that they sorely wish they could have one living with them so as to study it, the injuries speak for themselves. This guy isn't even done with the surgeries and care he needs. He threw himself in front of his wife, apparently and saved her.

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Heaven knows that I am an animal person who has been known to have a menagerie of pets that some people wouldn't want. The city was quick to sue me for a noise complaint from a disgruntled neighbor who was trying to sell his house and who had left by the time we went to trial. I won the suit, but had remedied the temporary problem, (too many roosters here from a clutch of eggs,) much earlier, anyway. Still the machinery of the process for noise complaints went into action, and once it was moving, lets just say that I became very familiar with the health department and the courts (and all is fine with my set up, thank-you-very-much.) How is it possible that a city like Stamford could be so remiss in protecting its citizens, even after incidents pointed to the out of control nature of the situation?

Charla Nash lost her face, her hands, and maybe her life. Mothers pushing baby carriages in neighborhoods of million dollar houses who used to worry about the odd frightened coyote up here, have to now worry about what else is behind those overgrown patches here and there. I'd like to know what Mayor Malloy intends to do to assure us that animal control and the department of health has permits and knowledge of all exotics residing in this quickly growing area before we have another tragedy.

Update:
I skipped over the part where the state had allowed Travis to be grandfathered in after permitting laws for exotic pets were passed in 2004. This family had Travis since 1994, which was all the more reason for a permit to be required in 2004, considering what is basic common knowledge about Chimpanzees. In other words, you don't need a PhD in primate psychology to know that they become aggressive. It might have been helpful if some animal regulating body was overseeing this thing. But with the apparent misunderstanding of the serious dangers to the public of keeping primates in substandard housing, I don't know if it would have made a difference.

The law enacted in 2004 exempted primates weighing less than 50 lbs, (as if a 50 lb monkey can't do some serious damage,) and those owned previously. Governor Rell now says that she is willing to consider an all out ban on owning primates as pets, but what seems to have fallen between the cracks here is that the primates that need looking at are the older ones that have been owned for a long time. Granted, no individual has applied for a large primate permit in the state since the law passed in 2004, but that doesn't mean that there aren't pre-existing primates out there that pose a danger. It would serve the entire country for animal control to require some sort of registration of primates, especially large ones. It would also serve to require that owners of these primates be licensed, and required to keep handy, animal tranquilizing darts.

c/p Brilliant at Breakfast

The Chickens Come Home to Woost...Chicken Blogging in the age of Derangement (as Taibbi Might Say if faced with the Same...)

Its days like this, sunny and cool, Mother's Day, half-way watching the morning shows and half-way hearing that Obama is actually, really, realistically the democratic nominee, for whatever that's worth, that I gotta just take Frank Rich's advice:

While we wait out her [Hillary's] self-immolating exit, it’s a good time to pause the 24/7 roller coaster for a second and get our bearings.

To some that may mean reconsidering what year this all is comparable to; has there ever been a year like this? I mean, come on, hasn't this been the most unbelievable 7+ years in modern American history just due to the boldness of whats gone on if nothing else, capped by this year of...of...well, what would you compare it to? Sometimes I wonder about Rich,( I always wonder about Dowd, ) there is something a little wrong there, and his choices do it for me less and less these days.

Due to a real lack of free time, while spending a down and dirty year, quite by accident doing some hands-on helping of inner city kids and dealing with the system that is in place for the other America, Ive found myself with less and less time for bullshit. So, out of some sort of underdeveloped survival instinct, Ive been seeing what life is like to just not even waste time on silly busy work, like comparing this year to that year or trying to unravel the morning idiots. Blogtopia (Skippy!!) is no doubt full of people who can and will do that with one hand while doing real in-depth reporting with the other, so, I figure that I should aim my few still-beating brain cells at something or other that doesn't fill me with the equivalent of cheetos; air and oil and cheese powder. So, today, on this day-o-Moms, (and the sad last day of Sammy Seder's Sunday Show, 4PM EST,) its Mom's choice day.

Hearing Marc Maron this past week on Air America Radio also reminded me of the clarity that comes from focusing on the 3 or 4 things that are really happening, and using the rest of my confusing, mixed-up life for the sort of busy work that, for me, is somehow reassuring and calming. Marc seems to be soothed by focusing on his own neurotic self, but for me, if I can just try to get out of that a little.... I live in a sort of bohemian dream with chickens walking through scenes of dappled sunlight, and every day unfolding into some sort of mini chaos that allows for all sorts of doable problem solving, (if I don't kill myself along the way.) There is something about just doing the chores and keeping things running, that makes for sanity of some sort.



So, today I am doing a little chicken blogging, politics be damned. Ive got Mom here puttering round and trying to figure out what different animals mean by the tone of their cluck or growl, (I said bohemian, right?) and my sister , with hopes of a fancy restaurant up-by-her of course, while my slacker teen sleeps and the other one is lauding his "Mom" downtown, waiting to come back to the ranch.

I'm reading Tiabbi's new book, The Great Derangement, and Cliff Schecter's still fresh book, The Real McCain (see my Amazon widget on the right for that and more suggestions,) and trying to focus and project on whats ahead, while staying mindful of the ever changing textures here, where the leaves are out so quickly and if you didn't have rader of some sort, you could forget where you are in the mental GPS of things.

Spring at the ranch brings the inevitability of the arrival of a box o' chicks from the mailman and My Pet Chicken. This one contained 16 fluffballs of different breeds, from the Polish with the big puffy head feathers,

to the Turkens with the naked necks (see pics of my actual Turkens below.) This year I got my mom some "real" chickens like she had in Illinois as a farmgal, (only till she was 12, as evidenced by the way she overheated and killed 10 chicks while I was at Yearly Kos last year,) in the form of 2 full sized white leghorns; they were out of Jersey Giants at MPC....oh well...there are always more chickens to be had, and here Ive got Favreolles, and d'Uccles, and all sorts of crazy brands, including the Americuanas which lay light blue and light green eggs.


************************clutch o' babies************************

***********************Turken********************************************Polish*********************


*************************unknown baby; very cute and tiny****************

*************************Polish posing**************************


My new discovery this year, (last year it was ordering hatching eggs on eBay...hence the multitude of roosters; because you don't get just hens when you hatch eggs!)is EggBid, and the insane practice of shipping live adult birds in bird boxes. So, I won a trio of Frizzle Turkens, who are my absolute favorite creatures.








Now, some may call them ugly, and some may call them strange...but, this is the kind of thing that is right up my alley along with pin feathered baby parrots and hairless rats (or, as we call them around here, Chihuahuas.) I also got a real barred bantam Aracuana hen for my Coonie roo...oh this is starting to sound silly....but suffice to say that Ive been receiving birds in boxes.




Also joining us this spring is Blackie the hamster...don't ask me why I was compelled to buy another rodent when I had sworn them off, but Ben loves him and he is the cutest creature in the world. Ben named him Blackie the Token. I think Ben can do that, just like he can use the N-word (though hes not allowed to at my house at least...and its not his style anyway.)

And then there's Spike, who weighs just 2 lbs at 7.5 months old, and who was very, very sick, wasting away for months in a puppy store...and who is now much better, thank-you-very-much, and loves to jump on my keyboard and bully the big dogs, but who has managed to give one of my other dogs Giardia and worms and whatever else puppy mills spread around these days. I had a half assed plan that after my older dogs start to go, I might just consider a retired racing Greyhound, but somehow I came across the exact opposite, and the rest is history. So cute and self possessed is Spike, that he draws attention to himself so that its hard to get through a store without people stopping in awe. His size is a bit daunting, but hey, maybe he'll grow a little before hes 1...

This is my William on the right with his cousin Zach on the left....both are 14 and disgruntled, both over 5'10" and still growing like weeds.....Ben? Where is Ben?...oh OK...
He is very shy lately, as they all are, so this is a little old, and it was actually taken upside down...I need some new pics where everyone doesn't look like they are being tortured.







I also have been keeping Poison Dart Frogs, which is something that has been in the planning for years (along with the reef tank, but that will have to wait.) The invention of a particular terrarium that has layers of different substances that, with a little misting, creates a self sustaining system that needs little to no cleaning, has made this easy; the invention of flightless fruit flies even moreso.


I used to keep Whites Tree frogs before we were struck with a quite strange and rare parasite in the form of a long worm that emerged from my frog's leg one day and that needed to be sent to some university for study, causing the frogs to have to be put to sleep, and I have done more reading about them than actually moving towards getting them. That is until Todd and I went to the reptile show to get some Jacksons Chameleons for the bird store. I became sort of fixated on the Black Jungle booth...and, well, you know....
And, now I want a Jackson Chameleon again after hanging out with the 3 that Todd bought. My old one Jaques, was a grand old man by the time he passed away a few years ago...I really enjoyed him.


Anyway, I'm sure that's not all, but I guess that puppy worms aside, I really enjoy the animals most in life.

Last night, in a sort of idyllic splendor, I grilled salmon while Will tossed a Frisbee with his friend. I was filling the chicken waterer with my Jardines parrot, Kitty, who has her flight feathers cut, or so I thought....well, a shocking sound sent Kitty flying in full arc around the house and up into a tree, just out of reach of me dangling off another tree with a rake in my hand....and then off she went again to an old hemlock by the road, on a level with the power lines...which was where I found myself teetering on the top of a very, very old extension ladder with my Mom and complaining son, (apparently a stick fell in his eye,) holding the the thing, reaching up towards her, just grabbing a tail feather or finger, to have her turn and squawk and try to bite me with that big beak...and finally yelling "Kitty, step up!" she did, and I grabbed her hard and shakily descended the ladder.

It was up there on a level with the power lines, realizing that a fall from there could really, really hurt me...like, ambulance and hospital and casts, that I realized that I'm getting a little old for this stuff. But then, I also felt like I had solved a problem, (the bigger problem was solved in trimming her wing feathers this morning,) and that I have some control over my overabundant, crazy, confused life.


I suppose I don't have to go risking my life to feel that, but often I'm compelled by the moment, and ...whats a mother to do?....My Mom was standing below me shouting what seemed like inane directions to me, and she said "just let her bite you," which, if you saw her beak in person or have ever been bit by a parrot might sound sort of crazy, but I was actually thinking the same thing. And that's why we're moms, I guess...at some point you just put your hand in the poo or get bitten or hold a toddler while it projectile vomits across the room, and then methodically clean it up while weeping...today I'm covered with scratches and bruises, and so is my mom, though to a lesser extent...we did have some moments where the ladder swayed out of our control and we were trying to get ahold of it in a keystone cops manner, at one point with it falling actually on us, giving us matching shoulder bruises, with mine being worse and hers showing up more...but we lived to go and sit around the cluttered table and watch the large screen TV which only elicits talk of how things look rather than paying attention to the show thats on.

Happy mothers day to all you Moms out there, to all you dads who are also doing the mom job, and to all you folks who have the mother gene and express it on other's children and also on pets...this day is more about having a certain kind of empathy than a DNA match between one child and one woman....and a big part of that is about how most women are, (and some men too,) in taking care of business no matter what. That Mom thing runs deep, and its something to look towards in regards to regaining what America was before Bush drove this country into the ground.




And finally: Woostie still needs a home, I guess) He has been so bad lately as far as standing in the street stopping traffic and crowing at odd hours. Some of that has been solved with me caging him and covering him with a blanket at night, but he is still a handful here...and a great, loving guy, who is a good watch-bird... He just needs a whole flock of hens all his own!....

Scooter Go Bye-Bye...Moose on the Loose in Stamford...Tornados, Hail, Violent Thunder Storms...Oh My!!

Libby got 2.5 years, and I'm pretty Ok with that, though I cant see that the folks who wrote him letters of leniency were folks who were charged with ...um...protecting not only us, but Valerie Plame, as an agent of ours!...I dont think that its OK for them to write letters of support for this criminal who is openly taking the fall for the worse criminals in our governement! I think that all of those rotten apples have to go. Its highly irregular to have top government officials go to bat for a convicted criminal, and make arguments along the lines of the convicted being just too busy to remember ANYTHING....
This is pathetic and I hope that Scooter enjoys his moments in jail before his pardon...I hope that every American looks at this for what it is: an inside job underlying the machinations that worked to send us into a needless war that has put us in danger and debt....and killed so many of our kids, not to mention the uncounted innocent Iraqis too....
Even if Scooter ends up never spending a day in jail, the civil trial will be strengthened by this conviction, and according to Joe Wilson on Kieth Olbermann this evening, Cheney and those higher ups who the American people deserve to hear on this matter will definitely be named in this action!...and clearly, the transparent attempt to block Valerie Plame's book will be defeated too.

What kind of a wonderful world is this that I live in...? Back home with my birds, dogs, plans for a few chickens, and counting down to upcoming mornings of not waking up for the school bus... and watching my lil' slackers become summer slackers in this only ever summer of their 14th year....
I finally was starting to catch up this morning except for the self-replenishing pile of paper on the desk here and the fact that I forgot all lists upon leaving the house, therefore making it impossible to actually do much of anything out there besides finally stopping to buy the grill that Ive been circling for weeks now.
But it was upon arriving really, really late at the gym this morning that a "friend" was laughing at me and saying that she thought that maybe the moose had gotten me! ...Moose!!??














Well, apparently we had a moose on the loose here in Stamford that had traveled from Northern Fairfield County to just about right here in my neighborhood...Clop, clop, clop, walking up driveways...off running across the Darien golf course, like a very large horse, and finally causing some schools and businesses to lock down, before running into the Merritt parkway and getting hit by a car. Animal control apparently had to put it down, and the people in the car had to be extricated with heavy equipment...
The year that Will was born I lived just outside of Portland Maine, where the Moose rules all...and it is well known that you don't want to hit a moose on the highway because the moose will likely live and the car will be an accordion. Here in Connecticut we have only around 100 moose in total, and they reside in the furthest north-west corner of the state...so, like the recent whales and dolphins showing up way off course, and the increase of bears and bobcats and coyotes entering areas where they never would have been found before because of...um..people...things feel turned upside down.
And the poor guy was put down...which, I'm sure we will hear more about, as the animal rights people around here are pretty strident. And I guess I care more about that than who was hurt in the car...

Then, as I was figuring a way to rush home and put some hay in the yard to try to lure the thing here, my phone email started pouring in with all of these emergency weather notices about extreme storms coming and how we should take cover...violent thunderstorms, big hail, and tornadoes were moving from the northern coastal towns towards where I was...safe in the gym, yes, but still....
What kind of craziness is this?
The flooding wont stop, a worse than usual storm season is promised, mosquitoes are HUGE, theres a moose in the backyard, and its hailing!
The endtimes are nigh, kids....
and just to confirm that, Conan O'Brien is featuring Marc Maron tomorrow (Wednesday,) who will again remind us how fucked things are in general, and also what we're missing every day on the Green's AAR 2.0. Someone had better get smart and give this guy a regular gig really quickly...he is full of material, information, opinion, and angst, and hes ready to go...lets get on with it, OK? We need the funny, we need it regularly, and we need it NOW!

Next up, a plague of tiny frogs or grasshoppers or something slimy, like slugs (the only animal ...er...bug...that I fully dislike...hate!)...(and an unshaven Dan Abrams filling in for Joe Scarborough!)
Maybe I can grill just once or twice on the new grill before the next blow?


Moose update: A New Hampshire woman hit the moose on the Merritt Parkway, totalling her car and injuring the Moose...She was extracted and taken to the hospital. The Moose was too badly injured to save, so had to be put down...RIP baby...Next time, head north...what a beauty!