“Circus life under the big-top world
We all need the clowns to make us smile"

– Faithfully by Journey

Welcome to my zany world of combining my animal and nature photography with creative writing. After taking photos, sometimes I find that a particular shot or subject might be "extra" interesting to me and I make up a story behind what I think is "really going on" in the picture. Along with Monty Python, many thanks go out to Mark Twain and his amazing book, A Tramp Abroad, and Erma Bombeck’s brilliant, The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank, for tempting me to explore this world with farcical imagination, and Gary Larson for his The Far Side cartoon strip, who all influenced my vision in these very short stories. I hope that my creatures make you chuckle.

"Nude beach?? Ha ... are you kidding me here?! Not a single one of you is out of your shell! Come on guys, somebody go commando, toss the housing unit and get rid of those turtle tan lines!! So, who's gonna go first? Uh, me, uh, no, I've got to run and get ..." [splash]

"Ok. Got it. No more drinking Tequila sunrises. No more dancing with high-voltage fireflies!”

"Whoa! Dude, do you always just walk into the buckroom without knocking on the stump? A little privacy in the loo would be nice, please. Thanks. Wait. Before you go, can you hand me some of those soft, fleshy leaves over there? No! The other leaves; not the itchy ones. You humans, how uncivilized."

"Honey, are you sure it's in this flower? I've searched everywhere in here and I don't see it. Why, exactly, were you wearing your good jewelry, anyway, when you knew it was sloughing season? You could have dropped that leg anywhere!”

Law enforcement rangers at the Beaver Meadows headquarters of the Rocky Mountain National Park have issued a park-wide alert for Chip "The Hypnotist" Monk, a known con artist seen working the Fern Lake Trail area, recently. Visitors to the park should be on the lookout for Monk and avoid his intense stare at all costs; the hiker who took this photo was not properly prepared for the mental onslaught and was caught under Monk's dangerous spell. He said that the last thing he remembered was a small, soothing voice saying, "… you feel your hand relaxing ... you feel the White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Clif bar slowly slipping out of your hand ..."

** Cloudzilla Reported in R.M.N.P. **

A nature photographer, hiking the Longs Peak Trail in the Rocky Mountain National Park, outside Estes Park, Colorado, captured this rare image of Cloudzilla, today, as the monster ravaged the peaks with his bite and brawn. Though the backpacker wished to hang around and properly document the changes being inflicted on the rocky skyline, he admitted that he took a fast flight down the mountain as soon as Cloudzilla began it's "waaaaaaaaaaak" squeal (Japanese for "waaaaaaaaaaak") which, in sound quality and squeaky embarrassment for the monster, had haunted the man since he was a child.

"99...100. Ready or not, here I ... Bartholomew Moose!! You haven't even moved??," said Evelyn.

"Waddaya mean? I'm hidden, totally. Invisible," replied Bart.

"Invisible? Oh my goodness. Look, there's a strange man only twenty noses away taking your picture."

"He is not. He's checking you out. I saw him admiring your ear hair, which, by the way, looks really sexy today."

"Bart, dear, he just called you by name."

"No. Really? Oh, shoot. Sorry, hon. OK, close your eyes and count again and I'll hide this time, really. I promise Ev, I'll get up."

"What am I going to do with you?"

"Love me, babe. Just love me."

"... the beavers will find it easier to get permits for new dams. The grizzlies will get free dental care to keep their teeth clear of plaque and humans. The otters will get taxed fewer clams. And, we marmots will finally get the funding for our charter schools specializing in bear-box lock-picking. So, in summary, if you will give me, Doyle McMarmot, your vote and elect me to the Grand Teton House of Creatursentatives, I promise to represent all animals in the Bearpaw Lake District, equally."

"Blecckkkkk! New life discovery number thirty-one: Don’t eat the dung beetles!!"

"Nine-One-One. Please state your emergency."

"Yes, ma'am. Um ... I'm caught."

"Caught by whom, sir?

"Not a 'whom', but a 'what': briars."

"Did you say 'briars'?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You are 'caught in briars'?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Uh, sir, what part of this is an emergency?"

"Well ... you see, ma'am ... to be perfectly honest ... I was out naked gardening and went to pick some fruit and got too low and there were these hidden briars and certain, uh, they, uh, everything got tangled and ..."

"Uh, sir ... that’s quite alright. I believe I understand your unfortunate situation, now."

"Oh, thank goodness."

"Have you been drinking? Taken illicit drugs? Have any mental health issues?"

"This is not funny, ma'am??!! I need help!"

"Obviously. Sir."

[overheard in the background:]

“attention all units … possible DV (Darwin Violation) in progress ... available officers please respond … suspect considered dangerous to the gene pool … Taser’s authorized, and advised ... repeat: possible DV in progress …”

"My bright, golden butt shines in the meadooooow. My bright, golden butt shines in the meadooooow. The grass is as high as my antlers are wide ... and it looks like my singing has caught a deer's eye. Oh, what a beautiful mooooorning! Oh, what a beautiful daaaaaay! I've got a beautiful feeeel-ling, that I am going to get ... oh, uh, good morning Mrs. Feinstein. I didn't see it was, um ... have you seen my glasses?"

“OK, Bonnie. When I say ‘Go’, turn the valve in your left foot counter-clockwise, and I'll watch the pressure go crazy. Got it?”

“Yes. But why do we have to go by these dumb names, ‘Clyde’?”

“For the same reason that we are wearing these dumb house-sparrow costumes: to disguise the fact that we canaries will never forget the mines!!”

"Noooo, pleeease ... I can't do hard time!!! I didn't know that I wasn't supposed to eat the treats out of there. By the way, what is a 'kitty litter box'??"

The famous, cajun choreographer Felix Pel' Ican – last year's winner of the prestigious Herringbreath Lifetime Achievement Award in Avian Interpretive Dance – was recently spotted on the Mississippi Gulf Coast working on his latest artistic creation. While not giving up the whole fish story on his current project, Felix did take the time to mention that this new piece was inspired by the 2012 presidential race and was tentatively titled "The Right Wing Must Go." His first, public performance of this new piece will be live from The KennyD Center for the Disturbing Arts, on the eve of the election, and he said he would perform the dance in tar and yellow feathers to show solidarity for his brother, The Notorious B.I.G. Bird, who's about to be pinked after 43-years on the job helping teach more than 250-million American kids how to sing, laugh and spell. To show how utterly disgusted he was over the whole cut-PBS-to-eliminate-the-deficit nonsense, at the end of the interview Felix coughed up a day-old mackerel ... and wouldn't re-eat it.

- If you are trying to run off a skunk who is living under the floor of your cabin in the middle of the woods, do not feel sorry for her and put out a plate of food on Thanksgiving Day. She will never leave. Especially if you are a good cook.

- If you want to anger a skunk living under the floor of your cabin in the middle of the woods, just forget to pick up her leftovers from said peace offering, and attract a wild boar with the stale food. He will never leave. No matter your cooking skills. No matter how stinky the angry skunk becomes.

- If you want to anger a wild boar who is expecting tasty treats, nightly, at your cabin in the middle of the woods, put no more food outside, guaranteeing that he will tear up the entire yard looking for his critter vittles, and destroy everything else on your property. You didn't need that new garbage can. Or that new lawn chair.

- The B-17 Buzzing Beetle patrolling the skies of your living room in your cabin in the middle of the woods is most likely a friendly and not going to attack. Most likely.

- The pile of brown stuff with white specs, freshly deposited on your front porch at your cabin in the middle of the woods, is probably not something that you should find interesting, nor should you use your finger to poke and examine it. What caught your fancy just may be rodent poop, with undigested seeds. In fact, if you live in a cabin in the middle of the woods, there is a significant chance that the brown stuff on the end of your finger will be some type of animal excrement. Most likely a certainty.

- Reminiscing at your cabin in the middle of the woods, wondering if you've ever done anything more stupid in your life, while disgustedly examining your finger and the fresh porch poop stuck to it, is not necessarily a good thing. Some memories need to stay buried; some questions left unanswered.

- Country girls are great dancers, especially if they are a mouse. If you challenge one to a square-off in your tiny kitchen in your cabin in the middle of the woods, with Mrs. Broom as your only willing partner, you will lose. Every time.

- The penalty for losing a kitchen dance competition, in your cabin in the middle of the woods, to a mouse, if you are a good cook, is that you must help the rest of her relatives train for the nightly Refrigerator-to-Couch Relay, by turning yourself into an awkward, stumbling obstacle whenever they make a dash. Providing girly squeals is customary and proper. Every time.

- Purposefully choosing to live in a cabin in the middle of the woods, kept company by only your very unhealthy fear of snakes and your very healthy imagination, and picking a cabin in the sandy, copperhead kingdom of Caldwell County, Texas, is a psychological indicator that you probably should be living in a cabin in the middle of the woods. Deep woods.

- During winter, if you find yourself needing an immediate wake-up in the mornings, in your now frozen cabin in the middle of the woods, skip building a raging fire to warm the toilet seat. While using said device in its natural, chilled state may induce a rapid heartbeat, cursing spasms and temporary blindness, you will be instantly awake and intensely alert. For days. Guaranteed.

- The constant, "drip, drip" of the faucets, necessary to keep the pipes from freezing in your frozen cabin in the middle of the woods, will not keep you lying in bed awake, forever. The unthinkable anxiety over the fact that, even though you can't actually hear them drip, you know water is being wasted, will subside. Eventually.

- Lying awake at night in a frozen cabin in the middle of the woods, worrying about dripping faucets that you can not hear, is a psychological indicator that you most definitely need to be living in a cabin, in the middle of the woods. Alone. And you should call it Camp Crazy.

I had heard the tale, and thought it was just another legend; a story made to scare little kids to keep them from wandering too far into the woods. I had always fancied and counted on the fact that the story was just one of those creature features that are laughed away in our later, less-imaginative years, and then passed on to our children in all the seriousness of an afterthought. But, I was wrong. So very wrong. For, today, I ran into the real Vamputterfly, and saw the glamor of her black heart's shadow. I kept my wits gathered near, running fast and far through the forest – missing most trees – and lived to tell about it, obviously. I was quite fortunate, this time. But, you are forewarned. Vamputterfly is out there. Somewhere. Good night.