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Linda hadn't exaggerated her fear of the golden orb weaver spider. Up north at her cabin in Morley, I had once teased her by asking "Have we ever seen this kind of vireo before?" And then, instead of showing her a photo of a bird, I thrust a picture of the black-and-yellow spider at her. She shrieked. I laughed. Oh, the fun we had." --
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Bob Tarte |
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aad241d
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I loved birds, and every bird was my favorite bird. But no bird was a better bird than a bird I saw with Linda.
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Bob Tarte |
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I feared that it was only a matter of time before the kitty would stumble onto the secret messages that other strays had left
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Bob Tarte |
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Three rabbits, two cats, three parakeets, a dove, two parrots, three turkeys, two geese, a canary, and nine ducks at last count were just about what Noah had started with, and he never brought his animals into the house.
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Bob Tarte |
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8fc0ba7
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That's because they're people, only smarter. They know us better than we know them, and a lot of them have a sense of humor. They're exactly like us minus our useless mental power and thumbs.
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Bob Tarte |
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a749535
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Depending on how high I heaped the stones, each wheelbarrow weighed between 175 and 250 pounds. Once I managed to set it in motion, it was loath to stop without banging me up in some fashion, especially during the thrilling plunge down the backyard hill, when I switched roles from cart pusher to dragging victim.
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Bob Tarte |
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13514c1
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linoleum at the base of the refrigerator. The pressure-fit plastic lid, which hadn't withstood the pressure of impact, had rolled under parrot Bella's cage. With hearing finely tuned to recognize the distinctive characteristics of tuna-packed-in-oil slopping across the floor, Lucy had materialized to lap up the chemical spill. "How did you get in here with the door closed?" Linda said to her. "I guess I let her in before I went outdoors." I..
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Bob Tarte |
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cat person" was pretty specific, suggesting a tame middle-aged eccentric who substituted interaction with pets for a healthy social relationship with other people. I resented that whole notion, because it described me perfectly."
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Bob Tarte |
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8333163
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We only had three, and the only reason that we had that many was due to a unique set of circumstances that had descended upon us like a dark cloud and could never occur again. At least that's what I told myself a few years before we ended up with six cats
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Bob Tarte |
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2b4c943
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I had discovered the "loop-back" phenomenon, and I had penetrated its deepest meaning, which boiled down to this: in birding, as in life, we don't so much find things as things find us."
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Bob Tarte |
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d6d4476
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Bill had always been a placid pond of a friend with a few boulders of madness lurking beneath the surface, but unlike me he knew how to keep the jagged edges out of sight.
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Bob Tarte |