Veronika Wild

Is this really necessary? At the Yulin Dog Festival dogs are beaten to improve the tenderness of their meat and sometimes boiled or skinned alive (This image is from a now closed petition on Change.org. If the owner doesn't want me to use it, please let me know and I will happily remove it) Ending the dog meat trade I have been thinking about animals this week because there have been some very sad stories in the news lately. The first was the one about the Yulin Dog Festival in which thousands of dogs are eaten in an orgy of summer ‘fun’ which involves unspeakable suffering for these animals before they are eventually consumed.  The second was about the mine detector dogs in Afghanistan having to be euthanized because they were being replaced by robots. Last night there was one about a racehorse having to be shot due to a fall, and yet another was about a 'great white hunter' boasting about his 138 elephant kills. To me, the way we treat animals- and our fello...

The dream Image by Sven Lachmann from Pixabay It was momentarily sunny today, so my friend Jane and I went kite flying. Kite flying fits neatly into my idea of exercise. You race around because it’s fun, unlike forcing yourself to do ten laps on a treadmill or riding a fixed bike. The Weather Bureau said that winds of 25 – 40 kmh were expected so it sounded promising. What I didn’t understand was that sometimes it would blow at 25 kmh and at other times it would be 40.    Our kite - Thanks for the photo Jane! We have lift off -            Another Jane Photo Incoming       -Jane's Photo Jane’s very expensive kite shot straight up and then came crashing down, breaking one of its struts. My $10 polyester raptor did a bit better, doing graceful arcs for at least ten minutes, before it got hopelessly tangled in its own string.   After about twe...

At an unamed bay, somewhere south of Hobart, Tas I went fishing on Thursday. I know I should have been finishing my paperwork, but did you know that nearly all Tasmanians are Vitamin D deficient?   Every sunny day in winter ought to be a public holiday. Besides, my friend had been begging me for ages to take her fishing. Not sure why. I know as much about fishing as I do about quantum physics, but I did have a small fishing rod lying around and I did like the idea of catching something fresh from the sea, rather than down in the supermarket. We found ourselves a spot along the lower Derwent where it opens out to the sea. The good thing about fishing here is that you don’t need a licence, though you still need to be aware of catch numbers and sizes. There's a board with that information at the wharf . It was a superb day. Neat fishing boats were tied up at the wharf, gulls wheeled around and occasionally people with dogs wandered by to buy from a fisherman a...