I present to you installment #7 from my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page. (I’m especially proud of No. 5 on this week’s list!)
Their knot knotted in the mud.
He heard the murmuration’s murmurs.
Unblinking, the stare stared back.
The dole didn’t look doleful.
The earth’s earth was in the earth. ***
Stuffy noses don’t suit a sute.
Stare, Raptor rescue center, AustraliaDole, Wong Tai Sin Medicine Temple, New Territories, China
Answers:
Knot of toads [1]
Murmuration of starlings
Stare of owls [2]
Dole of turtles [3]
Earth of foxes; place the vixen (female fox) searches out to raise her kits; ground she finds the earth in. ***3 uses of the word!
Sute of bloodhounds
Knot member, back trails Cranberry Lake, Adirondacks USA
Yet another addition to my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals! … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.
A rookery will hardly rook you.
The cast cast out sand.
The quivering quiver swayed and waited….
Culture doesn’t care about culture.
This lounge member lunged!
The swarm swarmed my sandwich and I couldn’t eat it.
Answers:
Quiver, Snake Farm (Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute), Bangkok Thailand
Rookery of gooney birds [1]
Cast of crabs
Quiver of cobras
Culture of bacteria
Lounge of lizards [2]
Swarm of flies [3]
Lounge member, Khao Lak National Park, ThailandCast, Khao Lak, Thailand
NOTES: [1] Ah, the gooney bird… now better known as the albatross. This magnificent bird’s wingspan can reach 11 feet! Status: 19 species of albatross are threatened with extinction. Environmental Watch [2] This particular lizard is a waran. It was bigger than me! [3] Nothing compares to the Hell that is a swarm of flies in Australia’s Outback. Nothing. Go to my earlier posts Warning: Waran!! and The Outback for more on my encounters with these critters.
I’m on hiatus at the moment from leading a writers’ group. I once compared the job to herding cats and the group loved the description. It became one of my official titles: Jadi Campbell, Herder of Cats.
You want us to do what? Seriously?
Try to herd cats sometime; it simply can’t be done. Close your eyes for a minute and imagine a basket in the middle of a long room. The basket opens up and out pop fifteen cats of all ages and breeds. Can you picture them? Long hair, short hair, Manx, kittens, tomcats, calico, tiger striped, Egyptian, Persian, running, sitting abruptly to wash a paw, tumbling, chasing one another, purring, wandering away in all directions. Now, keeping your eyes closed, try to get those cats to all head in the same direction – the one that YOU want them to go in.
Go away, I’m busy
You will open your eyes and comprehend it is impossible to get a single cat to do what you want them to, much less a clowder of them. [1] Not only that: you start sneezing, because you’ve discovered you’re allergic.
Waiting for the rest of the clowder in Portugal
[1] Yet another word to describe a group of cats is a pounce of pussies. Even better is the definition for a group of feral felines: A destruction of wild cats. More definitions to follow!
Here is a new installment from my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.
The generation generated alarm in the audience.
I was not bowled over by the barrel barreling towards us….
A big congregation congregated on the beach.
The turn turned again towards the sun.
The horde should have hoarded their food.
The fleet fleet ran off.
Answers:
Generation, Snake Farm (Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute), Bangkok Thailand
Generation of vipers [1]
Barrel of monkeys
Congregation of plovers
Turn of turtles [2]
Horde of hamsters
Fleet of mud hens
Barrel, southern ThailandTurn, Wong Tai Sin Medicine Temple, New Territories, China
…Here’s the next installment from my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals! … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.
Grain needs a grist!
The sound of the sounder almost gave her a heart attack.
The flock flocked on his poor kids.
Wow, the muster mustered such gaudy colors.
When my bike ran over the bike, I knew I was in big trouble.
The drove drove towards us in the dirt road.
Muster member
Answers:
Grist of bees [1]
Sounder of wild boar
Flock of lice
Muster of peacocks
Bike of hornets
Drove of horses
Drove, Northern ThailandGrist, Khao Yai National Park, Thailand
NOTES: [1] Status: Endangered “….[P]ollinators are under threat around the world…about 40 percent of invertebrate pollinator species (such as bees and butterflies) are facing extinction.” This could have major implications for world food supply, because “about 75 percent of the world’s food crops … depend at least partly on pollination.” NPR Report
2016 was the Year of the Monkey. Wong Tai Sin Medicine Temple, New Territories, China
I’m a little slow sometimes. I recently realized that my new-and-improved wordpress website jadicampbell.com had a birthday in January and is now a year old. (Yes, I’m aware it’s already March!) So, what did I do with a year of blogging?
Last summer I lost my mother-in-law, an old friend, and my dad Bobbo, all within a shocking three-month period. Those were by far the hardest posts to write. But I discovered something: the most personal blog essays are the ones my readers (i.e., all of you) respond to most.
2017 is the Year of the Rooster! Wong Tai Sin Medicine Temple, New Territories, China
What you can look forward to in the Year of the Rooster: a huge blog thread for my father Bobbo that I’m calling The Animal Kingdom. Occasional notes about my volunteer work with refugees. Lots more quirky posts about places Uwe and I visit. And on-going musings about life, the Universe and everything in-between as I deepen the process of saying goodbye to those who have left.
May you find something here that makes you laugh, creates a spark of connection, and moves you enough so that you reenter your own life with a sense of touching upon mine. That would make the new year of blogging – and all the years to come – worthwhile. As Mae West says, “Come on up, I’ll tell your fortune.” [1]
Here is the third installment from my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.
The charm charmed me again with their singing.
A huge cloud clouded the sky, and ruined any chance of a good photo.
The band banded together, hoping no one would notice.
This is the second installment from my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.
“Double double, toil and trouble, fire burn and caldron bubble,” she cackled. Then the witch threw another cauldron into the caldron. [1]
The prickle prickled no one that day.
And the clutch clutched at the edges of the baskets.
Exaltation exalted the evening with the complex songs of the family Alaudidae.
A smack smacks into goo on the rocks.
The romping romp are some of my favorite critters.
Prickle, Laos
Answers:
Cauldron of bats [2]
Prickle of porcupines
Clutch of birds
Exaltation of larks
Smack of jellyfish
Romp of otters [3]
Smack, Loro Parque, TenerifaCauldron, Khao Yai National Park, Thailand
I dedicate this new blog thread to my father Bobbo, who worked for the Forest Service. On one of our last family visits we sat around and gleefully read out a list describing groups of animals … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.
The shrewdness shrewdly assessed the jungle floor.
This obstinacy obstinately refused to budge.
The covert covertly hid, migrating only at night.
The big bask basked in the river, seemingly aware nothing would dare attack them.
In spite of myself I was charmed by the pitiful piteousness.
The safe sought safety on the shoreline.
Obstinacy, Perfume River, Vietnam
Answers:
Shrewdness of apes [1]
Obstinacy of buffalo
Covert of coots
Bask of crocodiles
Piteousness of doves
Safe of ducks (on land)
Part of a piteousness, Hampi, IndiaBask member basking, Khao Yai National Park, Thailand
Carl simply gritted his teeth as he cried until the punishment was over. When she was done, his mother sat abruptly in the living room’s one easy chair and pulled Carl up onto her lap. “Honey, someday you’ll be big and smart enough to get all this stuff. But you have to wait until that day, do you understand?”
Carl didn’t particularly, but he nodded his head anyway, because neither of his parents ever talked to him in such an adult fashion. The seriousness in her voice surprised him in a way the punishment had not.
“There are those on the top, and everybody who’s below them,” she instructed. “If you get to the top you can call the shots. In the meantime you keep your eyes open for what’s going to be yours, do you understand?”
Again she asked an unanswerable question. Carl wasn’t sure what the proper response might be, neither then nor later.
She placed the candy wrapper in her son’s open hand and closed his small fingers over the edges. “You hang on to this Carl, and put it in a safe place. You go look at this every time you think about stealing something you see in a store.”
A year later his grade school science class studied the planets. Carl confused the candy bar with the workings of the solar system. For a short but intense time, somehow he identified the act of the theft with the order of the Cosmos, a feeling he never entirely shook off as an adult. It didn’t matter how hard he tried or how much more he learned and knew as the years went by; the feeling remained.