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Local Falconer Has Interesting Job At The Lake

I like seeing clever solutions to worldly problems, and I think the Chautauqua Harbor Hotel nailed this one. Before the hotel opened, but when the structure was intact, local seagulls thought they’d found a new place to party. The roof at the hotel was inundated with birds and they were making quite a mess. Obviously any kind of solution had to be humane. But it also had to work. So they hired master falconer Jonathan Clarkson of Ellicottville to bring his birds of prey to the hotel to let all the pesky birds know there were was a new gang in town and there wasn’t going to be ...

Picking Cherries, And The Bright Summer Memories

My niece posted pictures she took while she was picking cherries with her dad. That evoked strong memories for me. We often went near Forestville to pick cherries. When we moved to Hickory Heights there were a lot of cherry trees growing here. They did not produce much, but I usually got enough to at least make a pie. They were the sour variety— the kind used for pies. When we began to clean up the yard the cherry trees had to go. I was sorry to lose them, but that was just how it was. I remember the lady who had charge of the picking where we went always wore a headband with ...

Finding A Bug, Only To Begin My Discovery Of The Tolype Moth

What on earth? It takes a lot to get me to budge on a hot summer’s day when I’m finally able to sit and sip — my time to relax. This was particularly worth the effort but, even from a foot away, I still had no idea what I was seeing. My first quick guess was some kind of bird dropping but no. Too long and the shades of gray, varying from white to black, seemed to have a design of its own. Audubon prefers to ignore it which is too bad because I could only learn its wing span is 32-58 mm (let’s say 1.3-2.3 inches) but nothing about length. A pity. Some readers of my fiction ...

‘Summertime And The Livin’ Is Easy’

The above title comes from a George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward 1934 aria, used in the 1935 opera, Porgy and Bess. (This summer, the livin’ might not be as easy as past ones.) As we enter the real part of summer (though COVID-19 actually created a spring/summer vacation, but kids have attended virtual school since March, so we’ll still call this the second half of summer for the purpose of this narrative), kids might be facing more time needing activity. School’s officially been out for weeks, though, understandably, some parents feel their kids have been home forever. I’m ...

Please Be Respectful, Wear A Facemask During Pandemic

By Denny Bonavita People who defiantly choose to not wear facemasks during this COVID pandemic reignite my rant. I love to rant. My rant is about my rights vs. your rights. My rant most recently bloomed when we went through the debate that prompted the repeal or relaxation of then-active laws requiring motorcyclists to wear helmets. The issue is cogently encapsulated in the cliche, “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins. Or perhaps the cliche is, “The right to swing my arms in any direction ends where your nose begins.” Or it could be, “My ...

Has Sleep Ever Interfered With Job Performance?

Last session we met Maxwell, a P.A. whose boss referred him for counseling. Little was pointedly discussed about a patient complaint about Maxwell. He had fallen asleep while attending to a patient in an examination room. The patient left upset and later complained to the PCP. Here reluctantly, Max began to ease into a discussion about his workday and weekend schedule demands. An early riser, by 5 a.m. he was gathering eggs from his chickens and milking two dairy cows. He would shower, eat breakfast and off to work he goes. By 8 a.m. patients filled his exam room until 5 p.m. Some E.R. ...