Friday, October 17, 2014

The New Neighbors Weekly Link Round-Up




Denis and I belong to an online neighborhood group that keeps everyone apprised of all sorts of things: block parties, information about trash pick-ups, news of break-ins, and so forth. This past week, there was news of a different sort that raised my eyebrow. In my neighborhood, people are being advised to keep their cats indoors. Why? Because four coyotes, a javalina (a type of large, hairy wild pig), and a raccoon seem to love the Palo Verde Golf Course, which isn't all that far away from our house. 

This little tidbit answered a question I'd been asking myself during the last half of summer: our property went from being overrun with feral cats to my not seeing any at all. I hadn't given voice to my question about the lack of cats because I was afraid that, if I did, we'd experience another population explosion. (That's how my luck tends to run.)

For those of you who think of me as Ellie Mae Clampett due to my love of wild critters, you won't be surprised that I think it's kinda cool that we have new neighbors. I've known for a long time that coyotes live in every major city in the good old US of A, but I am wondering how in the Sam Hill a javalina and a raccoon made their way to the middle of one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country. Raccoons don't like this climate, and javalina usually don't like urban areas. It is a puzzlement. 

There is a remote possibility that these critters could make their way through the fences surrounding our "estate," and if they do and if they fall in the pool, I won't mind hauling them out of my cement pond. I'm just hoping it's not the javalina that goes for a swim. I've got experience in hauling a struggling, squealing Vietnamese pot-bellied pig out of the pool, and it took a few days for my bruises to fade!

Okay. Exit Ellie Mae Mode. Enter Link Round-Up Mode!


Books, Movies & Other Interesting Tidbits
  • Scarlett Johansson is to star in a television adaptation of one of my favorite books-- Edith Wharton's Custom of the Country
  • Here's an infographic on little-known punctuation marks. I may have to start using some of them!
  • A mystery from 1925 still haunts a Philadelphia graveyard.
  • Another of my favorites has been snatched up by the developers: Eddie Izzard will be adapting Timothy Hallinan's Junior Bender novels for NBC.
  • Lost stories written by Truman Capote have been published.
  • I loved reading this article about Nancy Wake, a Resistance heroine who led 7,000 men against the Nazis. 
  • I was thrilled to see that Malala Yousafzai has won the Nobel Peace Prize.
  • 10 brilliant British TV shows you need to watch. I've seen half and will be checking Netflix to see if I can watch the other five. 
  • More proof that Mother Nature knows what she's doing and that we should leave Mom alone: just see what changes have occurred in Yellowstone National Park since they reintroduced wolves
  • This cable channel is now called Hallmark Movies and Mysteries, and I just may have to start watching. 
  • The perfect one-Tweet response to people who say all Muslims are violent.
  • The second I saw this article about Pappy Van Winkle, I immediately thought of author Craig Johnson.
  • Dozens offer to read books to a blind man after an advert in a bookshop window was spotted and posted to Twitter.



Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones
  • Undersea archaeological sites hold crucial clues to early humans.
  • A silver tiara is among the treasures discovered in a Bronze Age tomb.
  • The drought has exposed a once-submerged Oregon town to an archaeological dig.
  • Archaeologists are revisiting a rich Roman wreck off the coast of Greece.
  • Archaeologists think they know why the mysterious "witch girl" was given a deviant burial in Italy.
  • 40,000-year-old Asian cave paintings are making archaeologists reconsider history.
  • I've shared several links to the ongoing dig in Greece, and it's now been confirmed that Alexander the Great's father, King Philip II, is buried there. 
  • Secrets of the burned Magna Carta.
  • Archaeologists in Kent, England, were shocked to discover World War I trenches on the Isle of Sheppey.
  • While they've been identifying the remains of Alexander the Great's father, they've also found a large floor mosaic in the tomb at Amphipolis, Greece. 
  • Metal detectors strike again! A Viking treasure haul has been unearthed in Scotland.
  • Scientists may have accidentally solved the hardest part of building space elevators
  • A Bronze Age warrior chariot has been discovered in the UK.



I  ♥  Lists

Book Candy


That's all for now. Don't forget to stop by next Friday when I'll share a freshly selected batch of links for your surfing pleasure. Have a great weekend!
 

4 comments:

  1. Cathy - I love wild critters too. After all, a lot of them were here first... And thanks as ever for those links. And now I have to go see what those Vikings had in their treasure troves....

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    Replies
    1. Some beautiful objects, that's what they had, Margot! :-)

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  2. We have coyotes in our neck of woods too (Nova Scotia) but the only javelinas I've encountered are in Chet & Bernie books. I'm just as happy to keep it that way.

    As a point of interest, coyotes in the eastern part of the NA continent tend to be bigger than their western counterparts because they've interbred with wolves. Nonetheless, my cat has managed to escape them (& eagles, & hawks & owls & foxes & raccoons & bears) for 11 years now.

    And sometimes I don't give him much credit for brains. For shame!

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    Replies
    1. Yes, he sounds like one smart cat!

      Wolves are being re-introduced into many places here in the West, so it's possible that our coyotes may interbreed and grow bigger, too.

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