Beauty – Jadi Campbell

Dumb as a Box of Rocks

The ostrich is as about as smart as a box of rocks.

Hey! Where’d the lion go? Etosha National Park, Namibia

This bird is ridiculous! Oh, how the ostrich makes me laugh… just the sight of something so big, and awkward, and silly-looking cracks me up.

Maybe we’ll be safer here. Etosha National Park, Namibia

And stupid: the brain of an ostrich is roughly the size of a human eyeball.

The ostrich does make a pretty sculpture, though. Oudtshoorn, South Africa

And healthy, as well as tasty: ostrich meat has zero cholesterol. *

And striking, with all those feathers and angular limbs. When you see an ostrich running, their limbs go all akimbo.

Basket on the right: traditional Botswana basket pattern Running Ostrich

And lethal. Those spurs on the ostrich’s legs can be deadly. The spurs are found on males, who uses them in mating competitions or to defend territory. The ostrich needs them, because he can’t rely on superior brain power. Remember the comment about brains? An ostrich’s brain is the size of a human eyeball. And that’s a fact worth repeating, because it makes me start laughing all over again.

God was in a great mood the day She invented this bird.

One dumb cluck. Sandwich Harbour, Namibia

I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. My most recent book The Taste of Your Name was a finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award.

Follow these links for Amazon.com or Amazon.de.

Today’s Birthday: Endangered Species Act

Today is the anniversary of the creation of The Endangered Species Act.

President Nixon signed The Endangered Species Act into law on December 28, 1973. The Endangered Species Act requires the federal government to protect threatened and endangered species and their critical habitat areas. According to the WWF website, “[t]he US Endangered Species Act (ESA) is our nation’s most effective law to protect at-risk species from extinction, with a stellar success rate: 99% of species listed on it have avoided extinction.”

Loss of habitat and genetic variation are the top reasons why a species becomes extinct.

The ICUN (the World Conservation Union) advises governments, scientists, academics, and conservation groups on when to designate a species as endangered. They maintain a Red List of Threatened Species with 9 levels of concern: not evaluated, data deficient, least concern, near threatened, vulnerable, endangered, critically endangered, extinct in the wild, and extinct.

Why protect species? The National Wildlife Federation’s explanation is worth repeating verbatim. Once gone, they’re gone forever, and there’s no going back. Losing even a single species can have disastrous impacts on the rest of the ecosystem, because the effects will be felt throughout the food chain. From providing cures to deadly diseases to maintaining natural ecosystems and improving overall quality of life, the benefits of preserving threatened and endangered species are invaluable.

Last year Uwe and I took a trip in Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. We got to view animals in their natural habitats. Many of them are listed as endangered.

Among the species on the endangered list: The African elephant.

Loxodonta africana. Moremi Game Reserve, Bostwana

Both black and white rhinos.

Rhinoceros. Endangered. Etosha National Park, Namibia

The African wild dog.

Lycaon pictus. Endangered. Moremi Game Reserve, Botswana

The Southern right whale.

Eubalaena australis. Endangered. Walvis Bay, Namibia

The cheetah.

Acinonyx jubatus. Endangered. Etosha National Park, Namibia

The hippo.

Hippopotamus amphibius. Vulnerable. Caprivi Strip, Namibia

The oryx.

The zebra.

Equus zebra. Endangered. Roadside, Botswana

The lion.

Panthera leo. Endangered. Etosha National Park, Namibia

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT. OUR WORLD NEEDS IT, MORE THAN EVER.

NOTES: For more information: National Wildlife Federation, National Geographic Organization, World Wildlife Federation. © Jadi Campbell 2024. All photos © 2023 Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.

Follow these links for Amazon.com or Amazon.de.

Your Zebra of the Month: November

My sisters enjoyed their Zebra of the Day pics, so here is the November Zebra of the Month for you, just in case you need a reason to smile.

ZZZZZZZEBRA!!!

I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded and The Trail Back Out.

The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

The Prince Who Changed Everything

Stuttgart has two former castles. The new castle was styled like a palace and is now city offices. The old castle became the Landesmuseum, a fantastic archeology museum. At one time it had a moat!

The Landesmuseum contains finds that span thousands of years, from 35,000 years ago, when the inhabitants of this area in southern Germany drilled holes in bird bones and played them as flutes. We’ve got lots of traces from when this area was Roman and elaborate ceramic remains. And the Landesmuseum contains a Celtic prince, dug up in nearby Hochdorf.

Below is a massive – and massively heavy – torque with ram heads. No one is quite sure what it was used for. Was it ceremonial? Did someone actually wear it? In the background is the oldest life-size, anthropomorphic stone grave marker north of the Alps, dating back to the Iron Age. He’s known as the Warrior of Hirschlanden and guarded a barrow with 16 graves. [1]

And these aren’t even the highlight. They say history is written by the victors, and for centuries the Romans handed down an image of the Celts as savage and uncivilized. The discovery of the Hochdorf Chieftain changed everything….

The drinking horns had all been used and weren’t just grave goods. The largest is made of iron and the rest are made of auroch horns.

The drinking cauldron was imported from Magna Graecia over two and a half millennia ago. Two of the lions that adorn it are original. The third lion is a replacement (also ancient) and of Celtic design. The bowl was filled with 400 liters (100 gallons) of summer flower honey mead when the prince’s barrow was closed and sealed. [2, 3] Archeologists also found traces of marijuana in his tomb. That must have been one hell of a party, 530 BC style!

He was laid out on a well-used waggon couch. The wheels are topped by female figures embedded with precious stones. The waggon itself is hammered bronze.

As to the prince himself, Wikipedia says “[h]e had been buried with a gold-plated torque on his neck, a bracelet on his right arm, a hat made of birch bark, a gold-plated dagger made of bronze and iron, rich clothing, amber jewelry, a razor knife, a nail clipper, a comb, fishing hooks, arrows, and most notably, thin embossed gold plaques which were on his now-disintegrated shoes.” [3]

Was he a prince or chieftain? A high priest or Celtic shaman? I don’t know those answers, but I do know that whenever I visit this museum, I go to his rooms and pay my respects.

Happy Samhain, everyone!

Landesmuseum Stuttgart Collection

https://kilts-n-stuff.com/hochdorf-chieftain/

My forthcoming book The Taste of Your Name was one of six finalists for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award. Stay posted: The Taste of Your Name will be available soon!

My previous books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded and The Trail Back Out.

Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories). The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

Your Zebra of the Month: October

My sisters enjoyed their Zebra of the Day pics, so here is the October Zebra of the Month for you, just in case you need a reason to smile.

ZZZZZZZEBRA!!!

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded and The Trail Back Out.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

Getting It Right

I’ve posted steadily about our trip to southern Africa. It’s fun to write about! The region is a bottomless wellspring of inspiration.

That trip gave me something I don’t feel very often: hope.

We’ve spent months in Asia in natural habitats that are now being dammed, or mined, or paved in the name of progress. It’s all happening so quickly. We know we won’t recognize those places when we go back.

Laos. China is damming the Mekong River and neighbors to the south will be impacted (ie, all of them)

Borneo. Indonesia has moved the capitol city Jakarta from Java to Borneo, reducing the orangutan’s habitat even further

Sittwe, Burma. The junta is crushing all resistance; Uwe and I won’t be allowed to visit this region if we go back

northern Cambodia/Laos border. The rare Irrawaddy dolphin will go extinct if the water in the Mekong River is further reduced

But in southern Africa, in Botswana and Namibia, we were thrilled by the wildlife and the inhabitants. These countries spoke in growls and whistles and birdsong and hippo songs and human voices.

The Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA) is the largest transnational conservation area in the world at 444.000 km2. It is enormous, larger than Germany and Austria combined and nearly twice as large as the United Kingdom. The KAZA TFCA lies in the Kavango and Zambezi river basins where Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe converge. [1]

There are issues to deal with – the loss of domestic animals to predators. The way elephants eat or trample crops. The complicated cross-country agreements. But, as their website states, “Local communities participate with enthusiasm in management of the TFCA through the Transboundary Natural Resources Managment Forum. The aim of this forum is to maximize skills and resources to promote sustainable land use, conservation of wildlife and landscapes, and rural development.”

I urge everyone to learn about this multinational effort to preserve the environment for the benefit of ALL inhabitants, whether winged, hooved, legged, or finned. FINALLY! A region of the world that’s getting it right!

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded and The Trail Back Out.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

Southern African Birds: At the Desert, the River Bank, the Salt Pan….

“Wherever there are birds, there is hope.” ― Mehmet Murat Ildan

There is something incredibly surreal — and very, very funny — to be out in a jeep in the sand dunes on the Namibian coast and see the world’s largest bird stroll by.

Uwe posted photos from our recent trip to southern Africa on his photography website. He now has an entire section dedicated just to birds of Namibia. http://viewpics.de/pics/Namibia/Birds Here are some of his birds and their stories.

The ostriches were seemingly everywhere. They walk around in the Namib, the world’s oldest desert and one of the driest places on the planet. They hang out in flocks in Etosha National Park.

They hang out with other species, too. It’s safety in numbers, as well as combining forces against predators. The elephants provide their bulk and the impalas have keen hearing and sight.

someone’s got to keep an eye out for the lions

We saw hundreds of flamingos on the coast.

When the rainy season arrives, the flamingos send birds north to see if the saltpan in Etosha Park has flooded yet. If the scouts don’t return, the rest of the flocks head north as well. Ann and Mike Scott in NamPower/Namibia Nature Foundation Strategic Partnership Newsletter No. 5: September 2010 had this to say: “Greater Flamingos are widely distributed in southern Africa with concentrations at flooded salt pans (during breeding) and coastal bays (during non-breeding). …at the central coast, they are concentrated at Walvis Bay and Sandwich Harbour. … Breeding occurs in large, typically mixed colonies on raised islands on flooded salt pan at Etosha …. Laying induced by extensive flooding and continued high levels increases chances of success.”

The birds migrate to this giant saltpan in Etosha once it floods. 1,100,000 flamingos were recorded in an especially rainy year!

Etosha Saltpan, seen in November 2023 before the rains. It is 4,760 km² in size, up to 129 km long and 72 km wide, and covers almost 25% of Etosha National Park

Uwe photographed this juvenile African openbill stork in Etosha.

I’ve saved my favorite photo he took of the Southern carmine bee-eaters for this post:

Here’s another bee-eater, this one in olive.

For the final image, I leave you with a species that birders and guides all get excited about: the lilac-breasted roller. Our guide was really pleased with himself that he got us close enough to this elusive bird for a photo.

the lilac-breasted roller IS stunning, isn’t it?

Much as I’d love to take credit for this post, it owes everything to my husband’s great eye and good camera equipment.

NOTES: One last comment about the flamingos: their other regular breeding site in southern Africa is Sua Pan in the Makgadikgadi Pans in Botswana. We visited Makgadikgadi a few weeks later. ©2024 Jadi Campbell. ©2023 Uwe Hartmann. Uwe’s photos of our trips and his photography may be viewed at viewpics.de.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded and The Trail Back Out.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

The Magic of the Wildlife in Etosha National Park

Yes, another post about the wildlife of southern Africa. I’ve written about lions and giraffes and ostriches and marabou storks and hippos. No lengthy explanations this time. Instead, here are Uwe’s photographs of some other animals we saw. Every day brought new creatures into our consciousnesses. They’ve taken up residence there….

We saw all these wild animals during the four days we spent exploring Etosha National Park in Namibia. Seeing them in their natural habitat is powerful magic.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded and The Trail Back Out.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

Today’s Birthday: John Maurice Hartman

Johnny Hartman was born July 3, 1923 in Houma, Louisiana. As a jazz singer Johnny Hartman is most famous for his 1963 collaboration with saxophonist John Coltrane on the sublime album John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman. Also playing on the album are McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones. (This was John Coltranes’s only album with a singer!)

Hartman was a crooner par excellence. Frank Sinatra’s name might be more famous, but from the first time I heard Hartman singing a song I knew who I’ll forever prefer. I discovered him late in life, the soundtrack to a film perhaps, or playing on a jazz radio station. In any case, I promptly bought three of his CDs. When I’m in a mood for love or my spirit needs soothing, I listen to his voice. In his honor here is a post I wrote about romance. How can I not honor him? Hartman’s kind of music will never go stale. – Jadi

For twenty-five years (minus a day) I had a memory of rose-colored glass. Uwe and I got married over a quarter of a century ago. Aside from thinking Yikes, how did that happen?!, I have sighed Awwww. Not many things last this long, especially when we’re talking about human beans….

You know how some couples seem to glide through life without ever having a disagreement?

We aren’t that couple.

walking around a town with even more history than we have

But I distinctly recall that the hotel room where we spent our first night as husband and wife had old-fashioned windows with glass panels in various colors. I can remember looking at those little panes and thinking, How wonderful to begin married life looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. That first image has comforted me countless times. It’s provided me with endless inspiration, and I love telling friends the story of those old windows that shimmered and glowed like gemstones.

We wanted to return to the little town in Alsace where it all began. We booked the same hotel and both of us think we may even have been given the same room. We drove over a day before our anniversary and checked in as it began to rain. The sight of the rain on the windows was get outta here romantic.

I took some pictures. But later, checking to make sure my photos turned out, I was puzzled. The views of the village outside the windows had stayed pretty. But, wait a second: where were the colored panes of glass both of us are sure we remember?

Had my mind and emotions played tricks all these years, keeping me roped in with a faulty metaphor? Or is my eye sight seriously that bad?

The mystery was solved by a friend who reminded me that hotels – especially old ones – spend money on renovations. So, along with the elevator that was not there when we checked in 25 years ago, the windows were probably recent too. The glass in the windows is now textured, maybe ‘pebbled’ is the word I want. The view is still ever so slightly wavy and distorted…

We had three gorgeous days in one of our favorite regions in Europe. Yes, it remained romantic. As you can see from the photos, with rain or without, the views from the windows are lovely.

And, in the right light, my world as a married woman still looks rose-colored.

no my vision wasn’t impaired by the wine we bought at this winery, founded in 1728…

In memory of Johnny Hartman, 3 July, 1923 – 15 September, 1983

NOTES: ©Jadi Campbell 2024. Previously published as My Silver Wedding Anniversary, or, The Rose-Colored Windows that Weren’t. I dedicate this post to Uwe, my wonderful, long-suffering spousal unit. 30 years and counting! To see his photos from our trips go to viewpics.de.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, and The Trail Back Out.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

An Unfamiliar Sense of Optimism

I keep posting about the trip to southern Africa that Uwe and I made in November 2023. I’m doing it to share Uwe’s breathtaking photographs, and to share with you what we experienced.

The act of blogging reinforces my memories. Writing these posts helps me recall where we went and what we did.

But there’s something else going on here. In the months since we returned home I’ve created post after post after post after post after post, as if nothing can shut me up….

They aren’t just for the followers who stay with me as I tell tales. I write to keep reminding myself of how great I felt about the world during that entire trip.

The feeling came to me as a revelation. When I climbed shakily out of what I considered a toy tin helicopter after our ride over the Okavango Delta, I was startled to realize I was feeling something unfamiliar:

Optimistic.

I don’t know about you or everyone else, but it looks to me like ongoing world events are grim. Wars, climate change, mass extinctions, corrupt and greedy politicians destroying democratic governments to hang onto power…. It’s a long, depressing list. So to feel unequivocally GREAT about a spot was wonderful.

Thanks to all of you for reading, liking, and commenting on my endless flow of stories about southern Africa. I want to spread my sense of optimism. Let’s share some hope for a change!

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

Category: Beauty

Dumb as a Box of Rocks

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Your Zebra of the Month: November

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The Prince Who Changed Everything

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Your Zebra of the Month: October

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Getting It Right

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Southern African Birds: At the Desert, the River Bank, the Salt Pan….

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The Magic of the Wildlife in Etosha National Park

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Today’s Birthday: John Maurice Hartman

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An Unfamiliar Sense of Optimism

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