To anyone silly enough to believe that critters below ‘mammal’ do not have individual traits and personality…I offer you…a fish. Renji.
When they were only minnows, and all 12 fit under one rock in the pond, they were different. One orange/white one (kohaku) was often missing from the pack.
As a fingerling—who was the first to find that food collects in the skimmer basket if it escapes? At feeding time, the lot would be chasing food on the surface. Renji would be in the skimmer basket stuffing himself on what they missed.
When the crew wakes from their first winter—who’s the first out? Renji.
When there’s anything new in the pond, the others hide or at least hang back. Who’s the first to investigate it? Renji.
We named him after the Bleach character who’s almost the hero—the guy who’s often the first to discover trouble.
So yesterday, Jane yells from her window that there’s an emergency at the pond. I look and there’s a fish stuck on the 6 foot diameter floating sunscreen that keeps them safe from winter predators. It’s come a windstorm, the thing has been floating this way and that, and there’s a fish lying on it.
I run out, and of course, it’s Renji: apparently he got on the lee side of the drifting screen, and rather than going under the oncoming screen, in shallow water, decided to jump it.
Oops. There he is, and we don’t know how long he’s been there, but he’s breathing: the fabric surface is mesh, and he’s in a puddle, lying on his side. I can’t find the damn pond net. I get the rim of the screen and tip it up as Jane helps me remove it. Renji slides down it and back into the water, for, I hope, a long rest and quick recovery.
Of all quirky ways to get stuck, that’s one we never figured, and thank goodness we were home when he did it.
Screwball fish!
Kudos to the intrepid Renji Kohauku rescuers!
“Yatta!” (To quote Hiro from Heroes.)
(Now I find myself wondering about the origin of “to buy the farm” to mean, to die or nearly die in pursuit of something. I’m sure there’s an origin.)
One is glad a certain koi did not lose his fight with the alien elements of air and dry land. One has no notion whether Renji will have learned from his experience. But one is glad Renji has survived to explore another day.
Is Renji that same koi who fought off the algal crud over the winter? Not particularly lucky, that algae-coated koi. Or perhaps lucky indeed, since that fish got through it and is now well. It depends on one’s viewpoint, the angle of thought….
red-gold and white… red-gold… black… grey… I don’t know if they have black and red-gold… hey, wiki, what sayest thou of koi patterns? beautiful fish, it is no wonder the Japanese admire them.
“Buy the farm” actually goes back to Roman times. If you were a soldier and died honorably in battle, usually your legacy was a gift of land (which might have been your mustering-out price) to your heirs. The price of said farm was your life, hence, buying the farm.
No, that was Denys, a tea-colored koi with orange spots. And we have two black/orange: Banichi and Jago. A note: red spotted koi come from Japan, where the water is different ph; the same fish if reared in America will be orange where the Japanese fish is red. But we do have one fish with a red spot: Ichigo, (strawberry), who has a neat dark red spot on his head, but who otherwise is blue.
I tell you, buying them from the ‘pet quality’ lot instead of the pedigreed gives you some real mixes. We refer to Kenpachi as our ‘imari’ koi, since he is just a patchwork quilt of mostly orange, but with every other color of spot.
Ours were spooky as all getout last year coming out of hibernation, but this year, for some reason, have gotten all friendly early. In another month they’ll be wanting to be fed by hand. And Ari doesn’t mind being petted, if she’s being fed.
A bit more final then than the “40 acres and a mule” bit for early American settlers. (Aha! “40 acres and a mule”…I sense a Seeking North parallel.)
I checked the Wiki article on koi. Wow, so many varieties and color possibilities. Very elegant, beautiful, serene.
I found this, which made me wonder:
[quote]
Chagoi (茶鯉?) lit. ‘Tea-colored’ koi ranging in color from pale olive-drab green or brown to copper or bronze and more recently darker, subdued orange shades. Famous for its docile, friendly personality and large size, it is considered s sign of good luck among koi keepers.
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…And aside from wondering about algae, I noticed two things about Japanese: (1) Consonants can be voiced in certain environments between vowels, but why, I don’t know; (2) One instance of hi versus ki, but whether that is a related consonant change, I don’t know; (h -> k ?) or (k -> h ?) in certain contexts?) (from earlier aspiration or stop to/from fricative.) Hmm…. For the voicing of consonants, that’s similar to medial voicing, a common change anyway. But this looks like… initial voicing when the previous word ends in a vowel? Curious, that.
Blue koi, a sort of wedgewood done in indigo and sky blue? Copper? Bronze? Gold? Platinum? Red, Yellow, Blue, Black, White, Tea-Colored? Very nice.
Actually, based on a little reaearch, the first known written reference to ‘buying the farm’ is from World War I. Some suggest it refers to the six by two hole they were buried in (if they were lucky enough to be buried), others claim the soldiers spoke of going home to the farm after the war, so when they were killed their compatriots said of them that they had bought the farm. Then there are those that claim the term originated when military airplanes would crash on farms, where the resulting lawsuit enabled the farmer to pay off his loans.
Having been peripherally involved, as a Navy student pilot, in the death of a cow in Texas as a result of a wayward missile, I can certainly vouch for that last theory. That misbegotten cow, the raunchiest, scrubbiest cull you ever saw, ended up costing the U.S. taxpayer enough to buy a herd of blood Angus!
lol!
Fair price for a cow a number of years ago was about 300.00. Probably more now.
My uncle used to paint, in foot high yellow letters, COW, on the sides of his herd during hunting season. But that was for fools who couldn’t tell a dove (legal) from a cow. Missile attack? Uncle never had to cope with that.
CJ, I’ve seen examples of painted cattle here in Idaho, too. And no shortage of blaze orange saddle blankets for sale. Pity the fellow who’s making his fall gather in October! You can bet he’ll choose for his remuda only horses as “NOT-TAN” as possible! I’ve even seen guys hang a bell on the horse’s bridle.
Then there’s the usual joke during hunting season: “Okay, pal, simmer down–he’s your elk. Just give me a minute to get the saddle off of him.”
By the way, Renji is swimming about smartly and, as usual, rushing off first and alone where the rest of the koi will eventually go.
My grandparents had a beta. It hated everyone but my grand parents. The fish especially hated my uncle. If he would go near the tank the fish would jump up out of the water. One day the family all went out and when my grandparents got back the fish was laying on the floor dead. Best guess is, since my uncle had been there right before they left the fished jumped out of the tank to attack him when he walked by and no one noticed.
“Lower” animals are smarter than you think. There are one-celled eukaryotes that have a functional eye. Fish are fairly bright, especially cichlids. Some bats have simple languages and social behaviour comparable with that of small monkeys. Horses like to play practical jokes. Some dogs understand hundreds of words.
Oh no! I am so frightened of horses anyway and now you say they might play practical jokes on me!? I will never again walk by the pasture which contain’s my neighbor’s two horses in peace.
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Lol. Horses play practical jokes on people they like, like nosing you in the back, or scampering off with your hat. Unless one of those horses has a crush on you, you’re probably safe—until you’re formally introduced.
Seriously, they’ll do anything on earth to avoid stepping on a human: my good buddy Audrey slipped and fell in the gate as a fool dog chased about 8 horses through. One went right over her, and I thought sure he’d stepped on her—he had, just grazed her leg as a scrape, while being jostled seven ways from Sunday in that gate. The gymnastics that horse went through to *avoid* stepping full in the middle of her would qualify him for the Olympics. They really, really, really hate stepping on anything alive.
I ran the fish department in a pet store for a year or so, and one of the characters we got in was a 4 inch oscar. Anyone who’s had oscars will tell you they grow fast at that size, and this little piggy was always the first to the food, and somewhere around 5 inches, he was bold as brass. I knew his tricks and didn’t think anything of it, but one day when I was off, my boss fed. Boss came to me the next day, eyes big as plates, and told me one of the oscars had attacked him, jumping clear out of the water to get to the food. I laughed and told the boss I knew exactly which one it was. Piggy found a home soon after, but I often wonder if he was the ultimate fool and managed to jump out of the tank.
We used to have Tilapia that tried to flip each other out of the tank. Four males and one female, and we put a barrier between the sexes. She still got pregnant. Eventually we donated them to a breeding project.
I absolutely cannot eat tilapia because of a friendly pair at the local store. Beauty and the Beast, they were.
Besides, I don’t like freshwater fish, anyway: they taste like water weed—and I had to eat fish, back when my family was supplementing the income with fish—lots of fish. We went fishing once or twice a month in those days, and ate fish quick before the ice ran out: no way the iceboxes of that day could keep it. We ate perch, crappie, catfish, and bass, and to this day, I have no taste at all for any freshwater fish.
Saltwater whitefish, however, and salmon—those are quite acceptable. Which I have no guilt at all for: most of my fish don’t mind a fish dinner, given something small enough, though they prefer shrimp.
Er, I was under the impression one would need a solid barrier to prevent the eggs from being fertilized.
Somehow, I have a mental image of a whole herd labelled “COW!” (And tiny print, “Not a Dove, you city slicker.” «¡VACA! ¡No es colón!»
I wonder…I could see lots of army soldiers inventing a farm-related phrase.
When my current 4.5 year old cat was not yet a year old, he did some in estigating while my back was turned in the kitchen. I went elsewhere in the house. That’s funny, where is he? Oh no, surely not…. “Meow? Meow?! Mee-OW!!” This means, “What? Hey, what the…?! Get me outta here NOW!!” He had gotten himself in the refrigerator without my notice. I am usually very careful to watch, too. That was a very chilly, very grateful half-grown cat who hopped out, rather shocked, as was the human rescuer. He was inexperisnced, not stupid, but he IS accident-prone. That’s one of many reasons he’s Goober.
BlueCat, some fish are live-bearers, including–I think–tilapia. Which makes the “impregnation thorugh a barrier” trick much more difficult! 😀
These Tilapia are egg-layers, and then the female carries them in her mouth. The four males were at least twice her size, so we separated her for safety and to protect the babies. The males would sometimes flip each other out of the tank, and we would then have to rescue them. This was my last year doing a math PhD, and we had to find homes for them when we moved. There was a breeding project on campus that was happy to have them.
Horses can have wicked senses of humor. We had an alpha mare who was 1/2 Welch pony and 1/2 quarterhorse and the best cow horse I’ve seen. You could put a toddler on her back and she would just plod along as if she were an old broken down hack. Put an experienced rider on her back and let her get a little bit bored, it was time to pay strict attention lest one’s knee get scraped off against a post, tree or fence or one made intimate contact with a low-hanging branch. She was actually sweet tempered but if she couldn’t chase cows, she was going to find another cat and mouse game to keep her amused. Several times I have had her pull full-out grandstand stops and/or wheels from a full gallop, so far as I know without my asking for any such dramatics. Since I rode bareback 90% of the time, I soon became adept at grabbing on and staying on regardless of what position I wound up in, including at one point hanging under her neck with all fours until she stopped
😆
My silly horse, Cody, was easily bored. I hated making him go just round and round the pasture. He’d tried to train as a barrel horse, but he wasn’t cut out for it. Cutting-horse, maybe.
And he refused to be passed, if he was in a group. So I had to ride him somewhat warily. In the area where I kept him, you could get up a riding group of, oh, five or six. And we were jogging along, quite happily, came to some local construction, and from behind, here comes a gal letting a half-Welch have his head—comes dashing up full tilt and meaning to lead the pack, I hear her coming, and Cody immediately gives that hindquarters drive a rather large horse can apply, intending to run for it, which I won’t allow; and here comes the pony, thinking to squeeze between him and a 6 foot embankment. So, frustrated from a race, he does the next best thing and tries to play pony-billiards. The pony only got slightly bumped, and driven onto soft ground. I was apologetic. But that was my horse: he had this attitude, and he didn’t care how big the other horse was. Pity he wasn’t born a polo pony or the like. He loved chasing rabbits, and he once nearly dropped me on my head—by dropping his head in mid race to take a close look at the only daisy growing on a construction wasteland… The fool had his head clear back beside his feet, just staring at this stupid daisy in mid-run, and nearly killed us both…stumbled, but didn’t go down, and I didn’t fall off, so I called him a fool and he kept running.
The funniest thing I’ve seen a horse do was when the high-strung Arab gelding my brother was riding across a chute of the Rogue river had a 3 foot salmon swim between his legs. The idiot horse collapsed in 3 1/2 feet of water and we would have all been rofl hysterically if we hadn’t been ahorseback.
OMG—-that’d do it. 😆
Horses do indeed play tricks on people. Unfortunately, though they have remarkable memories, they aren’t particularly bright. The long memory means that they will shy at the same place they have shied at everyday for the last ten years, even though a smarter animal would learn that there was nothing there to scare them for the last ten years minus a day. Horses also have distinct attitudes and personalities. Some are docile, some like Nokhada just can’t understand why a rider would want to be at the back of the herd. Some horses delight in rolling in creeks when they are under saddle –no saddle, or no rider and they will avoid going through water because it is scary and they can’t see their feet — with a rider, they go out of their way to walk in the deepest water on the trail and if you’re not paying attention they can be down and rolling in the water, saddle, rider, and all in less than a second. One horse a regularly rode at a riding school always managed to get somebody wet on those days (I knew his tricks, and he never got away with it when I was riding him). One of the things I so enjoy in the Foreigner books are the mecheiti because I can see Babsidi, Nokhada, and Tali in my minds eye. The writing is evocative without being so lush and overwritten that I can’t picture myself in the same situation. Let’s hear it for experience!
While I was away at school, my sister bought an ex-barrel racer, 16 1/2 hands at the withers, maybe 17 at the hips and built like a boxcar; fast, powerful and twitchy. My first time home, we went to gather the cows from the “desert”, a bench divided by a ravine that had a one-lane road cut into the side and an 18″ seasonal waterway at the bottom. I was riding her bareback and one of the cows broke back across the ravine where it sloped about 20% and I went into full pursuit. We bounced down into the bottom at max speed; Missy came to a full stop with no warning, and then immediately gathered herself together and made a huge leap over this virtually dry rill and up the other side in inimitable barrel racer bounding acceleration. I went from her withers to damn near her ears and then I was on her hipbones, which were a long ways back there, with a death grip on the ends of her mane, pulling and scooting myself forward every time she bounded and sent me airborne again. I managed to recapture both the cow and my seat, but I’m still not sure whether I was set up or they simply forgot to warn me about Missy’s psycho response to the least amount of water.