and wander through the forest...

Panther tree

I saw this tree on top of Fort Mountain State Park in north Georgia. I think it looks like the head of a mountain lion.

A lot of sausage

I thought this quote was interesting...."Mike Stone is having sausage made from the rest of the animal. "We'll probably get 500 to 700 pounds," he said."

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Hogzilla is being made into a horror movie. But the sequel may be even bigger: Meet Monster Pig. An 11-year-old Alabama boy used a pistol to kill a wild hog his father says weighed a staggering 1,051 pounds and measured 9-feet-4 from the tip of its snout to the base of its tail. Think hams as big as car tires.

If the claims are accurate, Jamison Stone's trophy boar would be bigger than Hogzilla, the famed wild hog that grew to seemingly mythical proportions after being killed in south Georgia in 2004.

Hogzilla originally was thought to weigh 1,000 pounds and measure 12 feet in length. National Geographic experts who unearthed its remains believe the animal actually weighed about 800 pounds and was 8 feet long.

Regardless of the comparison, Jamison is reveling in the attention over his pig, which has a Web site put up by his father _ http://www.monsterpig.com _ that is generating Internet buzz.

"It feels really good," Jamison, of Pickensville, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "It's a good accomplishment. I probably won't ever kill anything else that big."

Jamison, who killed his first deer at age 5, was hunting with father Mike Stone and two guides in east Alabama on May 3 when he bagged Hogzilla II. He said he shot the huge animal eight times with a .50-caliber revolver and chased it for three hours through hilly woods before finishing it off with a point-blank shot.

Through it all there was the fear that the animal would turn and charge them, as wild boars have a reputation of doing.

"I was a little bit scared, a little bit excited," said Jamison, who just finished the sixth grade on the honor roll at Christian Heritage Academy, a small, private school.

His father said that, just to be extra safe, he and the guides had high-powered rifles aimed and ready to fire in case the beast with 5-inch tusks decided to charge.

With the pig finally dead in a creek bed on the 2,500-acre Lost Creek Plantation, a commercial hunting preserve in Delta, trees had to be cut down and a backhoe brought in to bring Jamison's prize out of the woods.

It was hauled on a truck to the Clay County Farmers Exchange in Lineville, where Jeff Kinder said they used his scale, which was recently calibrated, to weigh the hog.

Kinder, who didn't witness the weigh-in, said he was baffled to hear the reported weight of 1,051 pounds because his scale _ an old, manual style with sliding weights _ only measures to the nearest 10.

"I didn't quite understand that," he said.

Mike Stone said the scale balanced one notch past the 1,050-pound mark, and he thought it meant a weight of 1,051 pounds.

"It probably weighed 1,060 pounds. We were just afraid to change it once the story was out," he said.

The hog's head is now being mounted on an extra-large foam form by Jerry Cunningham of Jerry's Taxidermy in Oxford. Cunningham said the animal measured 54 inches around the head, 74 inches around the shoulders and 11 inches from the eyes to the end of its snout.

"It's huge," he said. "It's just the biggest thing I've ever seen."

Mike Stone is having sausage made from the rest of the animal. "We'll probably get 500 to 700 pounds," he said.

Jamison, meanwhile, has been offered a small part in "The Legend of Hogzilla," a small-time horror flick based on the tale of the Georgia boar. The movie is holding casting calls with plans to begin filming in Georgia.

Jamison is enjoying the newfound celebrity generated by the hog hunt, but he said he prefers hunting pheasants to monster pigs.

"They are a little less dangerous."

5.5 miles and 2 big black snakes

Today in two different places I saw a large black snake. One was on a fence. One was along a trail. I ran 5 and a half miles. I ran on the Silver Comet Trail. Then I ate some good mexican food at Nuevo Laredo. Now I am sitting in front of a fan. I think one day I would like to be in a bi-a-thalon.

rolled up pants

today
i took my truck to get
worked on
and i left it

the man said
DO YOU NEED A RIDE ?
and i said no man

and i got my bike out of the back
and rode it home

it was fun
i rode in traffic and got all sweaty and rolled my brown work pants up
and showed my brown striped work socks

and got stick up hair

in the wind

like the guys from a prime time soap opera

Strap your dog down

Today I taught my dog to ride on a bike. I started off walking the bike with her in a crate on the back. Then I started riding slowly. I kept telling her to sit and stay. We rode around the neighborhood. I think she liked it. We went fast and we went slow. We rode high and we rode low. We rode around for a while and things were going well. But we had a small mishap. We started to wobble and I am not sure if she fell or jumped but Pup went overboard. She got a case of road rash. I feel bad. I put some medicine on her dog leg when I got us back home. She did not seem to be upset. I gave her a treat and now she is resting. I will come up with a safer solution. Then we will ride again. Yes the dog will ride again!

Downtown Atlanta and the Cat Children

Last night I had read an AJC article about the 40th birthday of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Atlanta. I decided to ride down there with my dog at 9:30 pm. Atlanta sits on top of a tall hill. I have seen old pictures when homes were in this area. I tried to imagine how it would have looked a hundred years ago. The main street of Peachtree runs the length of the hill's crest. On one side the water flows to the Atlantic and the other flows to the Gulf. Downtown is weird because of much concrete and steel and glass..or the lack of grass and trees. No deers live there. I did not see any possums. One time I did see a fox downtown. He was in an empty lot near North Avenue. I saw herds of 30-somethings walking the city blocks. They must have been out on the expense account. They seemed lost. I wonder how many people from Atlanta live downtown. I would imagine it is mostly tourists and business folk. Maybe soon I will go down there and take some pictures. It is quite difficult to take pictures vertically while you are driving in a horizontal fashion. I imagine a lot of rats and cats live downtown. My grandpa used to catch cats at home and release them on Spring street. I am sure there are a lot of cat children now.

Tiger and Little Girl