What's Going On.?!

I don't have much to show for the last while, meaning posts have been scarce on the screen; oopsy! Time instead has been filled with the mundane while I still get to see beautiful views and dip into the sea on occasion in the process - meaning the mundane ain't so mundane at all. 

Recently a friend from St. John sent me a happy surprise package filled with all things Anne Bonny (and Mary Read too, just for good measure). If you don't know who they are and like things piratical and playing way outside of the lines, click on the link and check out Anne and Mary. While slaying for treasure isn't my style, I lean toward the rebellious spirit that drove them.

Not being much (at all) of a beer drinker, I'm really happy this fits my glass perfectly!

Going about my day here on the hill, with the whole front of the house given to windows on every level, it only takes a glance seaward to find something going on. Boats, birds, more boats, more birds, all the same and all different. The color of the water reflecting the sky off a bottom covered with sand or turtle grass (sorry, you who would like to collect the different colors of water, that is NOT how it works - but really, I am sorry, that would be tres cool).

Whether riding the waters with feet firmly planted on a board, or with them planted on a deck, I love that the honda is almost always a busy place, that a lot of people really use their boats. I love to watch fishermen heading out early, hoping to come back with lower gunnels. 

A mind can spin a lot of stories as sailboats pass through the buoys; where are they going? Where have they been? When decks are loaded with the accouterments of need for long travels, charts unroll in my brain, marked with memories and check points of places not yet traveled. Lots of both. Lots of good.

Of course, with birds, it often seems my camera is three levels down or three levels up and by the time I grab it, they have swooped and glided and flapped away. I'm learning, if I can't grab a photo, to stop and just enjoy them. I think that's a good lesson.

Have a windswept Wednesday. Do something wayfaring.

Simple Sunday ~ Culebra

Paths lead to the sea

They lead the other way too

Color outside lines

Shame On You, Cruel Tourists. Please Don't Come Back.

I was out walking, taking lousy just-for-me happy photos of these horses when the inexplicable happened. Oh, accidents happen and they can be horrible unintended events, but this was on purpose in every sense of the phrase. 

I don't know who you are, three golf carts full of awful people who yelled and threw things at the small herd of horses yesterday in the afternoon at the corner near Susie's, laughing at your ability to scare 4 legged beasts with so much more beauty than you possess. I only know you should be completely ashamed of yourselves. Usually your sort never are until karma catches up. Maybe then you see the ugliness in your souls; if you are fortunate, you'll get the lesson. Does it make you proud that you frightened them to the point of making them run and jump over a wire, where they could have injured themselves? What could possibly motivate your behavior?

"Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it. It is a trait that is not known to the higher animals." Mark Twain

Where the yelling began

She is running after her scared baby

Up come the next two golf carts. I thought they were just stopping to enjoy the horses but they join in the harassment

Truthfully, I was so stunned, I had to go over to Susie's and ask if anyone saw what happened and did it really happen? Luckily (or not) two or three others saw it as well, and confirmed people, families! had really been that horrible. I think we were all just mouth agape, so this is my way of yelling back, I'm just sorry I didn't do it then and get photos of all of them.

Mark Twain had a lot to say about the cruelty of man to animals, as well as simply in general, as cruelty to animals is well known to have a strong connection to treating humans the same way. 

Credit: DailyMailUK article (more photos there)

Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately.

Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones--not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court. - Mark Twain

Good old Mark Twain, I can always count on him.

There are plenty of humans (you know, where the word humanity comes from, with all its levels of meaning) who have plenty to say about this subject. I think Marie Sarantakis sums it up pretty well.

“If you don't like pictures of animal cruelty being posted on social media, you need to help stop the cruelty, not the pictures. You should be bothered that its happening, not that you saw it.”  ~ Marie Sarantakis

Be bothered. And then say and/or do something. Cruel people who litter the world with ugliness, verbally or physically, need the real humans to speak up and speak out. At least, that's what I think. 

Take it from Spartacus - Be nice. Nice is good.

I have watched this herd of horses many times; this was my first since the baby arrived. I've watched other people stop and watch them, enjoying their beauty, their antics, their horsiness. Hopefully, that's what I'll watch in the future. If not, I'll be a lot better prepared to take better photos (some lessons I'd really prefer never to learn).

Have a sensitizing Saturday. Do something shamefree.