Melantrys’ Page

In September 2009 a US American woman, Torry H., adopted a Russian child, Artyom S.

According to H. and her mother Artyom - or Justin, as he was now being called - had been showing antisocial and dangerous behaviour, ranging from hitting, kicking and spitting to uttering threats, compiling a “hit list” and even recently having started a fire in the house.

So this weekend the seven-year-old boy was put on a one-way flight to Moscow by Torry’s mother, apparently carrying nothing but a packpack containing sweets, cookies, crayons and a note from his adoptive mother with him.

The note said: “This child is mentally unstable. He is violent and has severe psychopathic issues. I was lied to and misled by the Russian orphanage workers and director regarding his mental stability and other issues … After giving my best to this child, I am sorry to say that for the safety of my family, friends, and myself, I no longer wish to parent this child.”

“A man” was paid $200 to pick the boy up at the airport and discard him drop him off at the Russian Education and Science Ministry.

(The adoptive grandmother) said it wasn’t child abandonment because a stewardess was watching Artyom on the flight and a reputable person picked him up in Russia.

According to Russian authorities, the boy accuses his adoptive mother of being “bad”, not loving him and having pulled his hair.

I am having several problems with this.

No matter which version is true, or whether both are, we are talking about a seven-year-old child here.

He was taken away from his natural mother by Russian authorities.
There is no information available on why that happened, but I’d say it is safe to assume the kid is carrying baggage from whatever must’ve taken place there before the authorities stepped in.

Then he spent about a year in an orphanage. Nothing six-year-old children really benefit from.

Then he is taken into a strange country.
A certainly frightening experience for such a young child.
He may have exhibited all those traits that the adoptive mother and grandmother describe.
Hell, if you adopt a child, you should be prepared for problems.
If they turn out to be severe surely no one will blame you if you seek help from a psychologist. That’s what they’re for after all.
Well, whatever happened in the US, after a good half year they just decide to discard him like some faulty kitchen appliance.
I don’t even want to try and imagine what that must do to the mind of a child.

Actually, none of us need much imagination here, just click the link in the second news quote, they have a photo there of the boy.
And then look at his face.

And Nancy H. has the gall to bandy words and reject the term “child abandonment”?
What does one call putting a child on a plane with the intent to deliver him onto the doorstep of the Russian Education and Science Ministry?
It doesn’t matter that a flight attendant and then a paid courier were with him at all times.
The child was abandoned at a fucking ministry in Moscow.

As you all had so much fun with the bird riddle I figured I could feature another one.
To make things easier, the search photos contain a much larger bird.

The pheasant.

Of all the scatterbrained fluffballs populating this country, the pheasant seems to range among the most scatterbrained.
Usually a very shy bird, it tends to shun populated areas, except in winter when it comes sneaking in to eat the grains the smaller birds drop at their feeding places.

It will take off - emitting loud and somewhat hooting noises - when spotting a human. The same applies for scary noises, like the “clonk-twanggggg” that the lock of our door leading onto the terrace makes when finally yielding to our wish to pull it open.

On the other hand, the pheasant is the bird that discomfits me the most when spotting it by the roadside.
It will sit in the grass staring at the road.
It will continue to do that until your car is almost upon it.
Then it will leasurely start crossing the road.
If it looks as if you’ve been really close already and will pass the bird before it reaches your path, it will then speed up in a spirited attempt to still get flattened by your car.

Feathered lemmings they must be, I dunno.

Oh, yeah, right, here’s some photos of our winter guest:

first glimpse through window

Then I decided to chance going outside, which startled fluffybrains into running into the shrubbery.
Can you see him hiding from the two-legged noisy monster?

spot the pheasant 1

spot the pheasant 2

I then sat down inside the doorframe (freezing my ass off, I might add) and waited.

After a while sillywings seemed to be unsure about why he was sitting behind a bush.

Had there been something that posed a danger or not? Hm.

Apparently not willing to chance too much, he then started strutting up and down along the fence, occasionally ducking behind a convenient shrub.

.

Now, the odd thing is, at least two pheasants seem inclined to stay here for good.

When I came walking around the house three days ago to pick the first budding autumn crocus ramsons, there was a hectic flapping of wings and some hooting emanating from a pheasant fleeing into the next garden behind the fence.
After a while I heard some other noises, and discovered that there were two pheasants on the neighbours’ lawn, having a heated discussion concerning territory.
I ran and fetched my cam, but the damned buggers kept moving about so fast that there was always something in my line of vision.
This last photo was the only one I managed to snap off, showing at least one of them, with the other one being behind the neighbours’ rhododendron.

pheasant fighting

Looks like they’re moving into the village for good.

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In other news, there will be a bunch of photo posts coming up shortly.
This is mutating into a photo blog.

After all those beautiful pictures it’s time for a little shocker again.

Just a little one; I promise.

During the recent storm one of the roof panels of our greenhouse flew away.
After having picked it up from the lawn and having sunk into the mud with a normal ladder, I went behind the house to fetch a stouter ladder. It doesn’t sink as easily, yet it is rather heavy and was standing behind a lot of other stuff that hadn’t been needed during winter.

While I was still struggling to get one end free of the tomato stakes, the other end tipped over a top-heavy bucket containing several heavy pieces of iron.
Of course this hit me full in the left calf.

I do not recommend standing on tiptoe on a ladder in a storm, half lying on a slanting roof that would not support your weight if you really leaned on it, with a leg that is screaming at you, while you’re wielding some plyers in a frantic attempt to wrestle those weird (and seemingly spring-loaded) clamps that hold the panels in place under the framework again.

The pics I took several days later are rather low quality, the first one being rather blurry and the second way too dark, but I think they’re giving a “nice” impression of the bruise/scratch I got.
Enjoy.

Actually, that would make a cool tattoo design….

And it was even more colourful than any Easter egg.

So…

Happy Easter, everyone!!

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Edit:

Ok, I’ll ge generous and pander to someone’s delusions.
If you click on the image you’ll get a picture of the shark without my bruise.
Both images are - obviously - the property of Frans.

© Frans 2010

In spite of all the frost and snow we got in January, the sun was rather strong at times. Strong enough at least to melt quite a lot of the snow on our roof.
It seems the segments of our roof gutter don’t fit that tightly just above the roses. Thus, quite a lot of melt water dripped onto the roses, immediately freezing again in the cold air.

Here’s some impressions.

Without words.

Each winter when there is frost or snow we use the plum tree as a feeding place for the local birds.
“Local birds” being every two-legged, feathered creature in the vicinity, apparently.
It really wouldn’t surprise me (much) if I were to look out and see an ostrich among the assembly.
Even the crows find something acceptable to eat in the form of the fat & seed balls meant for tits¹ which they simply drag up to the branch they’re sitting on, clever buggers…

The pigeons are too big and unwieldy to partake of the feed suspended from the tree and too brainless to do as the crows, but luckily the smaller birds are messy eaters, so they don’t have to go hungry either.

fluffed up pigeons

The deep snow sure made for some funny impressions:

‘duck’ on a pond

Here’s one of the messy eaters:

feeding bird

And if you’d all take a look at the original photo, I have a riddle for you.
Apart from that yellow birdie at the feeding station there is one other bird in the photo. Can you spot it?

Spot bird number two.

Eyes smarting already? Ok, let’s get on with the photos.
Here’s some sorting through the seed mess on the floor.
Note the duck impression the one in the back is giving.

bird assembly

These two don’t have much going for interspecies relations, stolidly staring off in opposite directions.

Pigeon and magpie: not talking

Two more birdies feeding:

lookout

And for those who need it - the solution to the riddle above:

spot the bird - solution

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1. The songbirds of that name, Caesar, the songbirds… [back]

The title says it all - a week after I shot the pictures in the post before the last one I took my poor camera out into the cold again for an encore.

Also, there’ll be a couple more photo posts up shortly - a few being more or less winter related as well.

But back to this one.
For these parts of Germany we had a rather long and harsh winter, especially in terms of the amount of snow that came down. We’re really not used to that kind of thing anymore around here.

Still, it made for the odd freaky picture.

Behold a cold climate relative of the Blob devouring our neighbours’ driveway lamp!!!

View from the side

As seen from the front

Also, bear witness to the amount of snow that poor me had to shovel off the driveway!
It had to go somewhere, so I heaped it up in the more or less empty spots between the larger shrubbery of our front garden.

Way too much snow…

… and running out of depot space.

You should have seen our poor Christmas rose when that snow was finally gone. It did look a wee bit squashed, the poor thing.

In other blog related news, I managed to finish the update to my smiley page.
And, no, Caesar, I am not open for further suggestions; it took me long enough to add these, and this poor old woman needs a rest now. Plus, I don’t even like popcorn.

I’ve been doing some bi-lingual googling tonight, and now I am wondering…

Why is the general populace so badly informed on first aid measures concerning seizures?

The first thing anyone seems to know is that you have to put something into the patient’s mouth to prevent him/her biting off his/her tongue.
A colleague even named a piece of wood the recommended item.
Well, I hope in contrast a soft woven belt is harmless enough….

Turns out you’re not supposed to put anything into the patient’s mouth cos the risk of getting bitten or damaging the patient’s teeth is higher than the risk of any damage caused by the patient’s actually biting his/her tongue or cheek being truly serious.

Another oldie but goodie seems to be the advice to reach into the patient’s mouth and pull the tongue to the front, so that the patient cannot swollow it.
Apparently only recently this helpful “fact” got aired on Turkish tv for Germany.

One: The whole swallowing one’s tongue thing is a complete myth.
Two: Yeah, pull the tongue to the front, so that the patient surely cannot fail to bite on it.
Three: Hey, who needs fingers anyway; they’re way overrated.

It took me five seconds to google a comprehensive list of first aid measures, including what not to do.
Then why is the public knowledge (at least apparently in Germany and Turkey) on the level of the last century or so?

Witnessing a seizure is a scary, scary experience.
I’d be helpful if one at least had a real clue of what (not) to do.

So, it snowed again today.

After spending some time cussing (with good reason…) and shovelling the snow off the driveway, I grabbed my cam and took a few pics.

Enjoy:

the neighbours’ fence

snow supported on hibiscus seed pods

snow invading the partially roofed backyard

Path?

What path?

the greenhouse

paw prints…

… from the neighbours’ tom

snowy blanket covering every pot, shrub and barrel

*ducks and runs back into cover before getting stoned by everyone*

The Swiss were asked today to vote on a referendum that was mainly brought in by the nationalist Swiss People’s Party (SVP) concerning whether the building of minarets should be forbidden and this ban added to the constitution.

Early polls showed a 37% minority in favour of the referendum.

All other political parties called upon the Swiss people to vote against the referendum.

Today 57.5% voted in favour of the minaret ban.

The four (!) minarets that are already in existence (and don’t broadcast the call to prayer outside of the mosque, mind you) are allowed to stay, but there will be no new ones.
This goes against the Swiss constitution (freedom of religion, human rights anyone?), but the will of the Swiss people as expressed in a referendum carries more weight than even the constitution, someone explained on tv today.

The only hope for a reversal of this decision would be if the Swiss supreme court or the European Court of Human Rights ruled this illegal.

If not, this will be used by anti-Islamic groups all over Europe (I could name a few here….) to further their cause.

The vague fear of the Islamisation of the western world that’s been flowing through Europe has borne the first ugly political fruit.

This is a very sad day for Switzerland, and it will have repercussions in the whole of Europe.

I am saddened, shocked and appalled.