Wednesday, September 13, 2006

A Murder of Crows...A Blizzard of Buzzards


What do you call a flock of buzzards? This picture was taken by my friend Waldo Schmidlpt of an old tree by the cemetery that was just filled with buzzards. An eerie bird at best, but when hanging out in a gang like this, downright spooky!

Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Today, I finally learned how to make a link from this blog. A simple thing to most people, but despite instructions, I have the hardest time with html. All those little carrots and slashes and quotation marks drive me crazy. I have new respect for dark daddy, my web designing friend.

Last year, clay guy talked me into taking a pottery making class. It was a logical request, me and Pap love pottery and have a large collection on top of the fact that pottery is our regional product and we actively promote its sale. I'm creative and kind of artsy, I thought I'd love it. I didn't. I hated everything about making pottery from the uncomfortable position you must assume at the wheel to the feel of the clay squooshing between my fingers. I hated having to remove all my rings, I hated that my long fingernails made it almost impossible to smooth things out properly. I quit the class, but, I gained a whole new respect for the potters who make my dishes and art pottery.

While you may be thinking the previous paragraphs were as random a bunch of thoughts as could be, they connect on the level of "things I once took for granted". I used to believe I was pretty smart, then I realized a three year old could stump me in under thirty seconds (smart people should also have answers for the illogical) and I don't know what a flock of buzzards is called. I used to call myself a quick learner, then the internet came along. Things I once presumed were easy, turned out to be hard, hard things turned out to be easy... I have learned that life has very many more dimensions that I had previously believed. That's cool, and it's inspired me to make a list of things I want to do and see before I die. Luckily, I have many, many years to work on this.

Top of the list: I want to tour Scotland, my husband's, families homeland. I want to learn how to use oil paints, train for a marathon, write a play and see it produced, teach my grandgirls how to walk with a book on their head, build a straw wall, raise a chicken, design a new house, learn to ballroom dance, see a financial report for the lottery, watch a concert from the first row, mediate a debate between a minister and a wiccan priestess, visit my girl in Australia... to be continued somewhere else....

9 comments:

Dave said...

Hi Kat, ....Buzzards the collective noun is a kettle of.....

I must admit this is a new one on me. Cheers

Kat Campbell said...

A kettle??? Wild, I'd like to find out where that came from! Thanks davem!

Charlene Amsden said...

Hmm -- according to the English textbook I teach from the collective noun for buzzards is wake as in: a wake of buzzards -- which seems quite fitting for your picture since they have gathered above the cemetary.

Of cousre the logic behind this name is apparent -- they gather to celebrate the passage from life to death ... they just celebrate a bit differently than we humans.

Kat Campbell said...

Does sound logical, thanks quilldancer! But it doesn't make them any less creepy.

Anonymous said...

I allways thought 1 Buzzard was just that and anymore you added a s to it. like look at all those Buzzards. Oh well I did go to a public school in Columbus what do you exspect!

Kat Campbell said...

Mifflin school... oi. Thank goodness we didn't have to rely on the school to teach personality or you'd have been totally ruined Mert!

Anonymous said...

Hi Kat, Loved this post and the photograph of the buzzards. According to this site on animal groups it is a "wake"

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art13151.asp

I'm still learning new 'blogging' skills too, html and perma links etc. its not easy :p
Hope you get to do your list of things 'to do', quite impressive.
So many things but even as they are crossed off the list there are always more to take their place and that is what makes life exciting, do you agree? I'd love to see Swan Lake live and listen to an opera in a domo in Italy...and...
Scotland you must go, I went there for the first time a couple of months ago and loved it.
Sorry to be long winded, my comment is rapidly becoming a post :)
Thanks for stopping by.

Anonymous said...

Kat,

Us mountain folks call a bunch of buzzards like that, "BAD NEWS".

Kat Campbell said...

I do agree Sandy, I'm interested in everybody and everything... I wish I had more time to try stuff.

"BAD NEWS" is right... buzzards are just so gross limpy, but that picture is cool.