Stacy Horn

Thank you in advance, people who have more than passing knowledge of nature. Based on googling I think it’s a honey locust.

From the New York City Pigeon Rescue Central website:

“Have you ever seen a pigeon that has missing toes, a foot or even a missing leg? The chances are that the digits and/or foot were lost from string being wrapped around them.

“I can’t think of anything more horrible than that happening to a bird. Imagine tying a rubber band around your finger as tightly as you can. You know what kind of pain there will be. You can take off the rubber band. The pigeon cannot take off the string. They can’t walk up to anyone and ask for help. They suffer great pain and it can take over a year before the pain goes away along with the toe(s) or foot or leg.”

Sadly, sometimes the string gets caught in trees and the bird hangs until they die. This poor bird got caught in string on a lamppost. Please people, for the love of god, throw away your trash properly.

The picture below is of Prospect Cemetery in Jamaica, Queens. It’s not the greatest shot because I took it from a moving train in the rain. The cemetery is actually a lot prettier than this. I wrote about Prospect Cemetery in Waiting For My Cats to Die. The cemetery had been abandoned and forgotten for decades until …

“A local animal rights activist named Amy Anderson found it again in 1988 while rescuing an abandoned litter of puppies. It was already so overgrown with weeds and wildflowers that she didn’t even know at first she was even in a cemetery. Amy wrote down some of the names on the gravestones, picked up a phonebook, and starting calling people with the same last names at random. This led to Cate Ludlam, who may or may not be a descendant of someone buried there — she’s never actually checked — and now Cate pulls the weeds for dead people no one thinks about except people like me. I’ve been passing Prospect Cemetery on the Long Island Railroad for decades. I couldn’t see the graves until the Cate started weeding roughly ten years ago. Once I could, whenever my train went by it I’d daydream that Prospect Cemetery was my “Willoughby” and I always swore I’d get off someday and go there …

Not long after I do. I meet Cate who …

” … takes me into the Chapel of the Sisters which stands just inside the main gate. Built from fieldstone, sandstone, and black walnut in 1857 by her possible ancestor, Nicholas Ludlum, for his three dead daughters, Mary Cecelia, Cornelia Maria, and Mary, it hasn’t been used since 1936. The chapel consists of a small room, but the ceilings are at least 30 feet high. I dodge swooping pigeons, who come in through holes in the roof and breaks in the stained glass, and notice that the word “incorruptible” still appears in embossed gold lettering on the now gray walls. I walk from wall to wall, avoiding spiderwebs and brushing away feathers that cover the floor to read the names and dates of birth and death of the sisters, who only lived to 1, 13, and 21 years old …

“I pick up a few sordid facts about Prospect’s past. In 1954, the skull of 14-year-old Alice Josephine Smith was taken from the grave she had been buried in 90 years before. Her skull is still missing to this day … The body of a three-year-old boy murdered by his mother was found during a brief cleanup in 1989.”

Cate is much further along now! The Chapel has been completely restored and there’s a Prospect Cemetery website [website has been removed] with the complete history and a registry of the people buried there (over 1,000). I wish I could find my “before” pictures. The Chapel was completely dilapidated and in ruins, but the website has pictures of how it looks today.

The president is in town. There were massive delays on the subways, traffic jams too, I’m sure. I took the picture below on my way to the library this morning. I asked a cop, “Is this for a parade?” “No, Obama.” “When is he going to come by?” “Between 4 and 10. They don’t tell us anything more than that.” “Okay, well, I’ll wait right here then.”

Storms Threaten Ozone Layer Over U.S., Study Says. From the article: “Strong summer thunderstorms that pump water high into the upper atmosphere pose a threat to the protective ozone layer over the United States, researchers said on Thursday, drawing one of the first links between climate change and ozone loss over populated areas.”

I was on the roof last night talking with some of my neighbors and we were saying how some of the storms lately have been downright scary. But they are beautiful and magnificent. So as we’re dying we’ll be going, “Wow, look at that!”