V. Something nice and “crispy” about this picture, too. Hair of the beast that ate most of the thing that now lies beneath the snow?

J. Ah but you see, it’s vestiges of the weeds from the back of the creek monsters. In the snow and the ice he can make it just that far away from the creek. However, what he didn’t realize is that he sluffed off some of his concealing creek weed on the fence along the way.
Or perhaps it’s simply the little creatures who live in fences. They snuck down to the creak in the brightest light of the day—for that’s what creek monsters are slowest of course at least in winter—and carefully plucked creek weed from the back of the creek monster so as to frame him for that which lies beneath the snow. However, little do they know what all that lies beneath the snow is dead grass and nothing at all incriminating. So, instead of framing the creek monsters as they wish, because he enjoys snacking on the little creatures who live in fences when he can’t get hiker.

V. Ah, your folklore is getting richer, now populated with more little creatures… with ulterior motives!

J. Conflicting interests. But the poor little guys who live in the fence really must talk to the air headed creatures who live in the pine trees. You know sniffing those pine fumes all day, that’s really the best way to figure out what it’s all about.

V. !! I love it. Wow… Pine fumes. Hmm, reminds me of teenage years… Hmmm. I feel a picture coming on…

J. Climbing pine trees and getting the sap stuck all over your hands and never being able to get it off. Though it did smell rather nice.

V. Ah, haven’t done that for years. Near where I lived as a kid was a row of 5 or 6 enormous fir trees and we’d often climb into them, way up near the top, where you sway back and forth in the wind. Sometimes pretty scary; great views.

J. Yeah, pine trees can be great. I used to climb mango trees over seas, they had a similar sappy problem. But when left they could get ginormous, and made the best climbing trees. Sometimes on the biggest ones we couldn’t get up the trucks so we’d pull down the lower branches and climb up them. Mango’s aren’t overly strong but they bend quiet a lot before they break.

V. Oh, now I have to find a mango tree to climb!

J. You really should. Though I’m not sure how much luck you will have finding one in this country.

V. Yeah, I don’t think I’ve seen one, but maybe in Hawaii…

J. I think you would in Hawaii, though I can’t remember seeing one when I was there. That would be closer to the right climate though. Maybe it’s like most fruit trees they don’t tend to grow them in the cities or populated area’s because of the fruit mess. I haven’t been much outside of Honolulu, in a while.

V. Heheh, yes, the fruit mess. People around the neighborhood here tend to have orange and lemon and olive trees, and then instead of eating the fruit, they let it rain down and rot on the ground… :-( I had an apricot tree that died a few years back, but when it fruited, it gave the best apricots in the whole wide world.

J. Yeah, I never understood the idea of having a fruit tree and not at least eating or using some of it. I know a number of people around here who have apple trees and they do that. We had a neighbor who had one and we’d made tones of apple sauce every year because she didn’t want the apples. I can understand having more then you can use yourself but to just let it all sit there.

V. I also have an apple tree, in front by the driveway. The fruit isn’t very good really, and we only eat a few each year… But not because it falls and rots. It never gets as far as falling or rotting. People come by in the middle of the night and steal it! Once last summer, I woke up in the middle of the night to some sound out front, and when I cracked the blinds to look, it was interesting. For half an hour I watched a woman with a flashlight going around the tree, picking apples and stuffing them into a bag. When it was full, she departed. Another time in the dead of night, I saw a family of people stop their car, all jump out, pick a bunch of apples, then pile back in and drive off. Jeez-o. If they really need the apples, they’re welcome to them!

J. Urban foraging. There is a map floating around of this city and where the fruit trees and berry buses are in town. Someone on one of the groups I’m on was complaining about urban foraging, that because of the amount of it, people aren’t leaving anything for the local wild life to eat.

V. Wow. I feel like a total dolt! It never even occurred to me. I guess it goes on here, too: [link] I guess my “old home town” Berkeley is a hot-bed of this activity. Who knew? Ha ha, maybe this is why all the ‘possums have disappeared. But the squirrels and crows seem to do well here with all the oranges. The back fence is always littered with orange peels dropped by plump squirrels who eat the innards and leave the husk.

J. *chuckles* It’s rather interesting. For instance I wouldn’t have thought about all of the smaller urban animals that rely on that as a food source. I was reading a conversation going on between some of the members of the local Permaculture group (email), [link] [link]

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The Dreaded Human Addiction

V. Something lurking down there, but can’t quite tell what it is… Oh, wait! It’s moving!

J. Slowly inching it’s way beneath the snow…. it’s the river monster attempting in vain to escape from the confines of the river, to breath out while there is snow upon the ground because only then can he walk on dry earth. The snow creates a buffer layer between him and the cruel water sucking earth that would normally be fatal!

V. Getting ready to pounce, I’m sure! Or is he just dying for someone to read him a story?

J. That story was just so good, it made me so hungry that… well, I just couldn’t resist a little nibble and after a nibble, well you might as well go for the mouthful.

V. Exactly, that’s how monsters succumb to “human addiction”.

J. Ah yes the dreaded ”human addiction”, it is afflicting more and more creak monsters of late. Their natural food supply is simply diminishing and the tasty but addictive human’s are growing more and more abundant giving the poor creak monster little opption.

V. Another instance of human encroachment on wildlife habitat! Well, at least humans are edible, eh…!? And if they’re also addictive, well, that’s a great bonus! Helps cut down the human population and feeds the creek monsters…)

J. Only perhaps then we might end up with an over abundance of creak monsters and then were would we be? When their hunger and their addiction gets so bad that they try and creep out of the creaks more? In the winder when it snows enough to allow them to travel farther and farther from the safety of the water? Mmmm and the down fall of the human race has been found.

V. When the city streets and parks are crawling with creek monsters! Aaagh!

J. Lions, Tigers and Creak Monsters! Oh My!

V. :)

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Creak Monster Munch 2

V. There’s that river monster again, just below the surface… This one also has a nice mood; I like the almost b/w quality.

J. Ah, but you know now the river monster doesn’t feel the need to break free because he can come up and breath whenever he wants to. So he’s not as restless as he is when the river is frozen over completely.

V. Tis the season where he loves to stick his neck out and stretch after a winter under the ice…

J. He’s like, “MMmm… I can just smell all that freedom and all those tasty hiker toes in their yummy stinky hiking boots… and I can’t wait to eats me some of those!”

V. Oh, I have a pair of hiking boots he can have… I’ll keep my feet, though!

J. There you go. Fishing for creak monsters by taking off your hiking boots and dangling them in the water instead of your toes. You are definitely one of the smarter hikers around.

V. Hopefully that’ll keep me out of the monster’s belly for another season.

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Creak Monster Munch

V. Nice… It looks very soft and inviting. Maybe go for a swim…

J. It’s warmer in here, come and jump in you know that you want to. That’s the water monster whispering to you, telling you that you really do want to go for a swim. And he wants a snack.

V. Probably wants to nibble my toes…!

J. AH but the problem with a nibble, is that creak water monsters are deceptive. The creak might not be very deep but they are really very big and long because they smoosh down and spread out. So that in the end a nibble for water monster is actually very large bite for you and me.

V. You mean big like no more toes? or off at the knees?

J. Rather somewhere in the middle I think. Rather like off at the ankle but you might not realize it right away because he has very sharp teeth. So, you’d probably be trying to walk away and fall over flat on your face because you don’t have foot that you thought was there, only it wasn’t really there… And then maybe all of you would fall through the ice if you fall hard enough and that’s when he gets those nice big meals that keep him fed throughout the year.

V. OK, I’ll keep the tootsies out of the water!

J. Just dabble them in the edge while you lean over and put the boot in the deeper water. Then you can get your feet wet and not get your toes munched off—though I can’t guarantee your creak monster won’t have bigger teeth and take off your whole arm—and it will be all good. Save for the walking back to the car or trail head without two boots, which could prove problematic depending on what type of trail it is.

V. Yes, I can see myself limping back down the trail with one boot and one arm…

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V. Nice branches… Poor tree!

J. Makes a nice image against the snow though.

V. It does make a good image. Hope the bigger trunk part has some branches, too…

J. I think it’s probably dead, poor little thing. That was all of it there was. It’s one of those smaller trees in a fairly dense canopied area, that probably will not make it to maturity because it hast to fight too hard to reach up high enough to get to the sunlight through all of the other trees.

V. Too bad, but, it happens…

J. It does and that is why we have cannibalistic trees because they feed off the decaying bodies of the young that have been spawned by themselves and their neighbors… Now there is an interesting theory for how we might cut down on over population. Follow natures example…

V. Ah, yes. It would work very well… Following natures, example, Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal”. Scroll down for example to: A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends, and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt, will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.

J. *chuckles* It has possibilities, though I suppose most would resort to cats and dogs first. Mmm Swift, I haven’t had to delve into that in a long while.

V. Mmm, we could make a 3-meat stew! I’ll bet that would sell.

J. Soup of the day ABCD!
A Baby, Cat and Dog Soup.
Just $2.99 A Bowl.

V. Wow! A bowl of 3-meat soup for under $3! Yay!

J. I know. That’s what you get when you use cat and dog, though I suppose baby might up the price some…

V. !! Yes! Maybe that’s why it’s not $2.95…

J. Yes, those special four pennies added onto the end. Little do people know that they are actually the very secret intermediate that adds magic to our soup. We very carefully take those last four penny’s and we add them to the tithe that we pay to hell. The one that allows us to add little baby’s and defenseless animals to our soup without fearing four our souls. Instead we just put everyone else in jeopardy but FEEDING it to you. Mwahahaha!

V. Oh, wow! I’m seriously laughing all over… I love it! :rose: (Hmm, maybe someday 3-meat soup will appear in a deviation… “For only four cents, we throw in the baby, and you can take the bath-water home!”)

J. It’s guaranteed to cure all manor of allurements from the common cold to crabs and maybe even aids. Would you like to try some bath water now? Just remember you can not guarantee that your soul will survive in one piece.

V. Ah, yes…

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V. A giant comb, and… Ooh, wait! What’s that!? One ultra-rare photograph of picnic tables mating… :-) Wow, do they allow this stuff on DA?

J. I don’t know. I think might have to put up a mature content warning on this one. I hadn’t thought of that until you said something. Amazing, I captured that moment without seeing the obvious… I wonder how big we can blow up the image, print it and plaster it around campus. Everyone will be totally amazed! They won’t know what hit them. Heheheheheh!

V. Great idea! Won’t the faculty be surprised…

J. Unfortunately, I’m afraid we might have to include diagrams to that people truly understand what is going on. Other wise they just might miss the awesomeness of the moment and that would really be sad.


V. Ah, yes, must include the detailed, educational diagrams without which any discussion of other-species mating rituals is so incomplete.

J. People get so bogged down in the details that they can not truly comprehend… after all most do still firmly believe that such objects are inanimate and thus incapable of such actions. That, I know a great many people when faced with such a truth have not been able to handle it.

V. But now, with your photos and diagrams, and the video out there on the net, they’ll just have to believe! It’ll open a whole new world.

J. And then no one will ever believe that I managed to do anything else with my life in the future. Because all they will remember is mating pick nick tables.

V. Oh, yes! You do not want to be one of those authors/artists who do one really big thing and then everyone forgets that they ever did anything else. Like Carl Orff. J.D. Salinger. Harper Lee. Pachelbel… ;-) So, I agree. Better to bury the mating tables, and let someone “discover” it after you’re gone. Then people will say, “Wow, that J did all of that and this fabulous undiscovered work, too!”

J. Of course then there is the risk that they will somehow try and name this variety of mating pick nick tables after you and that can be a rather scary thought as well.

V. ! :lmao: Oh, yeah! But that could be lovely, couldn’t it? Doesn’t every woman want to have a species named after her? ;-) (Hmm, OK, you have to wonder about guys who name gross little parasitic worms after their wives and stuff… I mean, a species of flower is one thing, but.)

J. “Honey, I’m home.”
Kiss, kiss, “Welcome home, sweatheart. What did you do today?”
“Well… I got a surprise.”
“Oh, what is it?”
“Here,” Hands a photo.
“Mmmm… and what is this little wormy thing?” Tries to sound polite and interested.
“That my dear, is the new species I named after you today. Isn’t it great,” Pulls out a wad of papers from his pocket, “See, I have a certificate of authenticity and everything. You my lovely are looking at the new form of fungus, the Mildred. Or as I call her Milly for short.”
Btw, on a side note these things are cool [link].

V. Yes! Exactly! The next frame is where she beans him with a frying pan! “Is that all I mean to you?” :crying: “Frank’s wife got a new rodent named after her…”
And those fungi! Ooh, they look so incredibly ALIEN! Wow! And to think some of them are only
down the road from Santa Banana. I might be able to see some in real life.

J. Poor Bob, he just couldn’t do much to please Mildred… besides it would’ve served her right to have a rodent named after her. Frank’s wife was much to pretty to be named after a rodent but ahhh a fungi. She would make a beautiful one.
I know aren’t they.

V. LOL, she would make a beautiful fungus…!

J. Fungi just have so much more class then those stinky pooping and eating little rodents.

V. LOL…!

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