These little fuckers are round gobies. They are a freshwater goby that's invasive in Michigan, and they're in the nearby lake. They're distinct from the four native species due to their fused pelvic fins (middle pic) and a big black dot at the rear of their front dorsal fin. Though some other gobies have spots on their fins, NO Michigan-native species has a fused pelvic fin. These guys are very aggressive feeders and are very good at outcompeting native gobies.

They're also extremely good at stealing bait off big hooks as people on the docks reel in their lines. In particular, the bastard in the bottom photo stole my bait two days ago, so I caught him and filleted him for Bug.

Today, after acquiring smaller hooks, I went back and got 16 more, and educated several other fishers about their invasive nature. I got two turned over to me by others, and caught 14 more myself.

One man wandered over and asked why I was catching them on purpose. It was too much trouble to explain my feelings about invasive species, so I just told him, one of them stole my bait two days ago. He stopped watching my bobber and boggled at me and goes:

"You're doing this for revenge?"

So now there's some guy in town that thinks I am exacting revenge upon fish kind for a single stolen worm.

This is why you don’t keep wildlife, folks. This baby Eastern Screech-Owl was rescued from Floyd after being found and kept by someone for weeks and was encouraged by others online to keep this bird rather than take it to a rehabber. Sadly, this little owlet had a badly fractured wing — this injury could have been surgically fixable if the bird had been brought to us when it was found. However, because the bird had been kept from medical attention for so long, the bone was dead and there was no longer a way to fix this very painful wing injury.

People, we know wild animals are cute, cool, and getting the chance to be with one up close is an amazing and unforgettable experience. We know it is tempting to keep them and take it on yourself. We all think we are capable and that we know what’s best — it is just human nature. But the reason why we ask people to bring wildlife to us is not out of greed or because we feel we know more than you, but because every week we see what happens when people try to take matters in to their own hands. Imagine what it is like to receive animals that you know you could have saved if people had brought the animal to you when it was healthy. It’s hard to keep a straight face some days.

Call us. We’re here to help you. Don’t let your ego get in the way of what is right for the animal. Without our existence, we know thousands more would needlessly suffer because of people DYI-ing rehab at home.

Be a hero. Make the call even if you don’t want to. A life may depend on it.

The Black Snake

When the black snake flashed onto the morning road, and the truck could not swerve--- death, that is how it happens.

Now he lies looped and useless as an old bicycle tire. I stop the car and carry him into the bushes.

He is as cool and gleaming as a braided whip, he is as beautiful and quiet as a dead brother. I leave him under the leaves

and drive on, thinking about death: its suddenness, its terrible weight, its certain coming. Yet under

reason burns a brighter fire, which the bones have always preferred. It is the story of endless good fortune. It says to oblivion: not me!

It is the light at the center of every cell. It is what sent the snake coiling and flowing forward happily all spring through the green leaves before he came to the road.

Mary Oliver, Twelve Moons (Little, Brown, 1979)

i am once again thinking about 17 year old bj, shaken and upset after seeing clare's body being carried out of the garage, knowing he's been spotted by the policeman who murdered her... thinking about how he likens fleeing from searching police to a war zone, and how when he finds a place to hide and rest a moment in someone's garden shed, he pulls up his shirt and searches his back for evidence of severed wings (real as in he once had wings sewn into his shoulder blades like the murder victims? imagined bc he's in the middle of a mental and emotional breakdown? wholly metaphorical?)

something something... seeing a character hold it together for such a long time, numbing numbing numbing, then finally shatter into pieces bc there is too much for them to stitch themselves around. and something something... the way bj is connected to the murder victims (found with swan wings sewn to their backs) but also the mutilated swans themselves (found without their wings). and. the. idk. the way that the police had all the answers in front of them from the start with the swans, but they kept dismissing pieces as unimportant ("just birds", "just troublemakers", "just prostitutes", "just" the unimportant things we don't want to deal with or acknowledge). and as a result, bj and every other victim were failed at every turn even though the signs and the cries for help were all there.

there's interesting things being said there about bj and i wish i could place my finger on all the somethings.

goodbye pepper - your frankly aggressive sprint towards me for sunflower seeds in the morning when i get to work will be missed 💔

the dumpling passed away today. she was 16, which means she was with me for more than half of my life. thank you for everything, baby girl. 💛

tw: animal death

So today I’m gonna add the latest chapter of “Don’t Leave Your Fucking Cats outside.”

My mom feeds the stray cats around our neighborhood and in the last couple of months we had a new dark tabby visiting our patio. He was so sweet and friendly we figured he must’ve had owners-or at least contact with other people- before us. A few weeks ago we had new neighbors move in with a dog that managed to get through a gap in our fence and began running around our yard. Four days ago, right before we managed to seal off that part of the fence, we found the dark tabby hiding around our porch bleeding with multiple puncture wounds around its stomach and lower torso that looked about the width of a dog’s jaw.

We took care of it for a couple of days before realizing it was getting worse not better so today we took it to the vet. If/when it got better we were planning on adopting it. The vet told us that it’s spine was broken above where the puncture wounds had started(presumably because of the dog jerking it around after biting down on it) and we had to put it down.

I’ve seen people say their cats are “good at surviving outdoors” but all it takes is one instance of bad luck or not being fast enough or not hiding well enough for them to become fatally wounded. And unlike this kitty your cats might not have a family that will find them and take care of them in their last days of life. They may just end up dead in a bush somewhere all alone and terrified.

I’m gonna put the photos I took of its wounds under a readmore(because ofc they’re upsetting) but if you have an outdoor cat I think you should look at them and think about this happening to your cat.

Rest in peace you little angel.

New animated AU anybody?

Masterpost | Next video

Taglist: @cutebisexualmess @oatmeal-stans-the-trash-rat @uhhh-hi-there-i-am-nervous @nebulous-astronaut

When Tyler and I first moved in together back in August, I wanted to draw a family portrait of us and our cat, Sullivan. Unfortunately, between the move and my nightjob becoming quite busy, I was unable to find the time. Then, Sullivan suddenly fell ill and left us in November. For weeks I drove home from work thinking about that portrait, wondering if it was too late. But then I figured it might be nice to make family portraits for both of the cats I’ve had, as a little dedication. It felt nice to visit with both of my cats again. I got to capture what I love about both of them!

Elliott liked being held upside down like a baby, and he’d stroke my cheek with his paw. He had a squeaky meow and a tendency to get up on my piano while I practiced. He liked the smell of strawberries, and would nuzzle up to anything that smelled like them. Oddly enough, he loved curling up next to the vacuum cleaner, and batting tennis balls around the house.

Sullivan was a snuggle bug -- literally climbing into my arms at the shelter and rubbing my face, and loved being held. When I came home from work, he would wake up, stretch out of his cat tree cubby, and climb onto my shoulders -- whether I was ready for it or not. We would both walk around our home with him on our shoulders. He’d also curl up between us at night. He had a little black heart on his back toe beans. He never figured out where the sound of his mealtime alarm came from.

Come back as a flower, spring Baby

Tala took it pretty hard. Makes sense

Hopefully, anyway. Live food that has the opportunity to hide can be hard to keep track of, so it’s possible they were stressed too... But at least that would be something familiar, not a big scary shadow to run away from

Even selfish, childish thoughts deserve a place to be recognized. There’s no utility in piling shame on top of grief

It felt really strange to logically know that they were gone but still believing so hard that I could somehow undo it, that they’d start moving again if I just did the right thing. Death really does strange things to the brain

For those of you not watching along at home, Steve Harrington actually did not bite the head off of a demobat. I know Eddie references Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a bat when he's talking about what Steve did, but Steve didn't do that. The bats were too large for him to have done that.

What Steve DID do was sink his teeth into the long, serrated tail a demobat had around his neck, causing it to release him from its stranglehold as it tries to escape him. What he DID do is grab it by that serrated tail - because he's not trapped in upside down with them, they're trapped in here with him - and swing it in an arc to bash its head against the ground 3 times before he stepped on one side of it and pulled on its tail until he fully just ripped the thing in half.

Then he spat the blood from the tail out of his mouth and looked around for the next one.

It goes far beyond biting a monster's head off. He fuckin' obliterated it. With his literally bare hands and feet, he was not even wearing shoes. Or a shirt. I feel like it's important we all understand he wasn't even feral enough for head biting. He was just fed up with being fed on, and was not going to take any chances.

Janus: I just taught Remus how to dance, he's so adorable! Why is he a dark side, again?

Logan: He brutally murdered two dogs, four cats, and three bunnies.

Janus: Okay, he's very accomplished.

Ellesmere Island

You have a job at a pet store. $12/hour. You face the leashes and dog toys, clean the cages and place the rodents destined for the boa constrictor into the freezer first, because you've read Jack London and know that they will go numb, which will hurt, but then they will go to sleep, which is, in your experience, gentle. There is a heroin epidemic in your small, northern town. People going numb all over the place. You don't know their names, you don't name them. Like Hazen, on Ellesmere Island, is a thermal oasis. In the summer it gets so warm you can walk in up to your neck. Still, everyone craves the buried heart 1,000 meters deep in the ice. It'll take a bomb to open that baby up, to expose those guts, to get to the thing we all take for granted as alive. You're comforted by Ellesmere Island, where rats might sleep for thousands of years, waiting for scientists to chip them out, to insert the long needle into their necks. A man rushes in, holds up the pet store with a fishing knife. For a moment you are frozen, but then you put the bills on the counter and raise your hands in the air. The beast in the freezer shifts on the rack, closes its eyes. The man does the same in the parking lot. 120 people visit Lake Hazen every summer and post pictures. During your lunch break you scroll through them on your phone.

Paige Ackerson-Kiely, Dolefully, a Rampart Stands (Penguin Poets, 2019)

sad news- my mom had to put down her old whippet today- had a little over a week/two weeks learned that the old guy had bladder cancer and the tumor had spread to over 90% of said bladder. She had him on chemo pill to see if it'd help- dog too old and tumor way too big for a surgery option. Dog was twelve, and she tends to have them die on her to health issues around 11-12, sometimes earlier if freak accidents (Previous male whippet more than ten years before was lost due to a succession of strokes at 9) and heart problems. (Breed average lifespan can be more than that but she's had a decades long streak of losing them before 13/14). Old dog had an extreme heart murmur so that it was bladder cancer of all things out of the blue. But his kidneys were starting to go too on Sunday and by last night that he was in pain was obvious. Due to history with her first male whippet, my mom doesn't like to keep terminally ill dogs past the point she feels the pain versus quality of life is more about the owner's grief. So this morning she took him in and the vet immediately agreed. Still it's hard even if my mom is outwardly very accepting, especially that the old dog had a relatively long life full of sporting events and achievements and that she was here with him.

And of course that this summer my sister's old male pom died of what was probably heart failure and she's still grieving. But the irony is that the other old whippet - the one that's my dad's as the rest of the whippets are my mom's- is the aunt of the old male dog. And that old bitch - she also has cancer. The type that's usually in the spleen but is this large tumor on the dog's shoulder, the one that this same vet estimated would kill her in months at the most because this is the time of also aggressive cancer that has an expectancy of weeks... And it's been almost two whole years and the old bitch mostly ignores the tumor lump and it seems to not effect her at all. Also the first exception to that 12 year cut off date in twenty years as she's I think 14. The joke is that the old bitch will outlive everyone, including the two yo twin puppy boys (sons of the old male dog, very much the same in personalities). Grantie is cranky about her stupid grand-nephews if she's trying to nap, but otherwise tolerates them fine.

It's a bit rough having this happen so soon relatively after the death of the other old male dog (the pom), and that both happened after the diagnosis of the old bitch, and does dredge up my lingering sadness of losing my goober hound. And just like the weekend after my sister lost her pom, she and my mom are going to a UKC dog show event, which will be good to hang around several dog show world friends and sympathetic ears doing things with the living dogs in a separate location. Hopefully the twin terrors behave themselves.

now everytime i walk past the kitchen or my mother’s room (so -- all the time, because you physically can’t not walk past those) i expect the dumpling to be either in my mother’s bed or in her little bed in the kitchen but she’s. not. this sucks. i hate it