Reverend Skreven Hellwalker, Mystic Philosopher

06/27/2024

Shug and Anthony got photobombed!

06/27/2024

I found a fantastic way to use my Pokemon Go game.

These are the doggos in my neighborhood. In my neighborhood.
In my neighborhooo - ood!

This is Shug, posing with my giant evolved Growlithe tiger thing Anthony.

06/22/2024

Rev Skrev was on the job today.

It's been so beastly hot. Yesterday, I took two disposable food pans to the parking lot and created two bird baths/watering holes.

Also in the lot, from the other day, was a headless pigeon. One of the raptors in our neighborhood, probably a hawk or kestrel, caught one and got it's head off, but didn't get much of a meal. Probably was scared away by a car. But it's been there for a couple days, on the asphalt, in this heat.

I made sure I had a glove in my purse, retrieved a stray plastic shopping bag by the house fence. Glove on, bag inside out, I sighed a sigh to the Ancestors and picked it up. Unfortunately, the intended trash can was too full. I went the other way. I could have gone back around the train side, to take advantage of the significant drop in temperature on the other side of that huge, thick cement wall. But no. I went down the street side, the shade from trees offering just enough protection between sun dashes. lol

But there was another co**se. Huddled at the bottom, a juvenile that fell or took a flight and wasn't strong enough to fly back up. The heat killed it. Glove still on, bag not knotted, this one I took by the tail. Got it into the bag just as the tail feathers failed. Couldn't get the bag tied up fast enough. wowsers, but pigeons have a funk when they get to it.

Trash at the end of the street, on the corner, I looped around through the parking lot again.

Doesn't matter if they drink it, bathe in it, or both. Pigeons and sparrows alike need the water. Maybe some of the parrots might think about coming down. I don't know where they go for their water unless it ponds up on the tracks.

Anyhoo. I stood in the lot and caught some pokemon. There was an event going on. I opened the game and there was the invasion.

03/13/2024

I love nature.
I love animals.

But the lantern flies have GOT to go!

Are you ready? Have your fly swatter?

Trust me, you need a fly swatter.

These things have almost no natural enemies in the USA. Praying Mantis eat them...but there really aren't a whole lot of wild praying mantis in NYC. I'm sure some of the carnivorous birds are trying, but lantern flies are pretty much all fluff and reproductive system.

A google search did pull up a reference to yellow jackets. So we may finally have a good use for yellow jackets other than personal revenge!

Still, if you want wine to be made from New York grown grapes, we need to keep up the effort and kill as many of these flying menaces as possible in as many places as possible.

Here's the Challenge!

The little xenomorph looking are about to start hatching. They are black with white spots.

The second wave is the red walker. Looks like a blood drop walking on those black xenomorph legs.

Third wave, the red walkers who survive will molt one more time and become the ashen wing egg-laying menace. But these first couple weeks, they are young. While young, they CAN fly. Short distances, to be sure, but they're not fat yet. Being young, strong, and LIGHT, they can launch themselves and fly ten, twenty, thirty feet.

Don't bother stomping after them. They will have you lookin' like a complete fool.

FLYSWATTER TIME!

Big, hulking human? Yeah, they see us coming and can avoid. Flash of a swatter? Not so much.

Also extends your reach up tree trunks. Adults like to perch on tree trunks. They like the ones with papery bark, because they can hide in the crevices where the bark lifts. And they like the ones with really deeply grooved bark because they blend in really well. The eggs also look like this kind of bark, so if you see one on this kind of tree, it may be female and laying. Kill the t**t!

Fourth, as they age, they get slower. Kill them anyway. Unless they're dead, they can still breed, far as I'm concerned.

Rack up them points!

Egg cluster: Send me pics of the egg cluster, before and after! You get 100 points for destroying an egg cluster.

black walkers -- these are slow and there will be a LOT of them. If you find one, you can probably find ten more. Bronx Zoo, last year, put up a curved piece of very stout mesh they can't walk through. Shaped to the tree, it funneled the evil little xenomorphs upward to a plastic bag with water (or some other liquid whose identity is unknown to me...seems a little water for drowning is all they need). Almost every tree had one in some places in the park. Each bag had dozens to HUNDREDS of these little fu***rs.

You get one point each for the little black walkers. 20 points if you get "seven with one swat" (extra five points for knowing the reference)

Red walkers -- these are survivors. They've made it through the egg, hatching, and first molt. But they're still slow. And they can't fly.

Five points each.

Young adults -- don't underestimate the genius of their stupidity, or their ability to fly. 20 points each.

Older adults -- they don't hop as far. They don't glide as far. They can't really get lift on their own...but they been playin' the game as long as you have this season. There's no telling how many attempted murders they've survived.

50 points each

"I can't tell if it's alive or not" on the ground.
1 pt each. Kill 'em again just to be sure!

Is there a vacant house with a tree on it on your block? Guess who is inhabiting that tree completely unencumbered. If you see the bugs on the tree, report the infestation to 311. Maybe they'll do something about it. Let me know if they do!






What's the prize?

The satisfaction of knowing you are helping the farmers of NYC, NYS, NJ, PA, CT, MA, RI, NH, and any other neighboring states I've not mentioned.

12/27/2023

Continuing drama with the baby pigeon. We've decided on she for now. Her name is Avery. If she's a he, Avery works just fine.

She is Avery Amtrak.

I saw a very bad terrible horrible the day I took my daughter and her fiance to the Bronx Zoo. I couldn't do anything to help the catastrophe at that time. Nope, not going to describe it, except to say what happens when you drop a watermelon from 50 feet? Now think bird. And it didn't die on contact with the street. It's a vision that has traumatized me for life.

So if I can save another baby pigeon life, I will.

Baby has had a bath and is much cleaner now. Needs more of a bath, but she decided to start a protest.

She's resting in a nest of soft towels.

She's had one hell of a day.

Check out TylerRose. Author's video.

12/27/2023

RevSkrev was on the job today.

Walking home from work, I turned to go between buildings rather than up to the corner and around.

That's a nothing decision, isn't it? Most people really don't think about the path they take and why. They just do it, letting autopilot be their guide.

I choose my direction as the path of least resistance or whichever way is calling me.

I was called between the buildings.

Passing the metal framework around some drainage pipes, I saw a little spiky bundle huddled on the ground. Shivering, alive. Barely. Very young.

One of the last pigeons of the year. Mom was really going out on a limb trying to have one last offspring before winter.

Looking up, the hole it had fallen from was way to far up for me to ever hope to reach.

I went straight for the new pizza place and asked for a pair of gloves. I wasn't going to pick the thing up bare handed if I could help it. (*note to self, start carrying gloves) Pulled them on while hurrying back.

It hadn't moved. It was so cold and so young it didn't have the energy to protest. Didn't even try to peck my fingers.

Little baby dinosaur bird eye peering up at me, I felt it shivering in my hands. I'm sure my hands around its body were the warmest blanket ever.

I talked to it the entire way to the other end of the parking lot. The entrance is at the top of a hill. The drainage holes are actually level with each other all the way across. The hill is what makes them higher up.

I'd looked on my way up the hill, to see if any had nesting mothers. Not one. They've either fledged or been lost and this one seems to be the very last of the year.

That little head turned a few times to look up at me. I kept talking to it, gently, encouraging.

It was so young its first plumage was poking out of its skin, making it a spiky baby.

All the way up the hill, it made not one single protest. Not one peck at me. We reached the last slot. I reached up with both hands, on my tippy toes because it was still a bit over my head, and gave a little push into it.

Gladden my heart. Little baby knew exactly what to do, and toddled as far back as it could. Which put it onto the remnants of the nest of the last inhabitant.

My hope is that it started peep and the mother found it.

Second hope is that the mother was watching me and saw where I put her baby.

Duchess and I are going to go that way in the morning, see if it's still in there. Hopefully it is. If so, we'll give mom a piece of scone. Some fatty carbs wouldn't go amiss.

10/01/2023

09/10/2023

Sometimes there's really good news in the world.

It gladdens my tiny Grinch heart.

Ecuador's government has announced it will spend $3.4 million on reintroducing 12 endemic bird and turtle species that have disappeared from an island in the Galapagos archipelago where Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution. Observing its wonders led British scientist Charles Darwin to de...

08/27/2023

08/25/2023

Strays wasn't as funny as I had hoped. I left before the end.

I was compelled to leave. Literally said I don't want to be here. Lol
Now I know why. I had to play Peekaboo with a not quite toddler girl. And somehow our engagement prompted the father to recognize they were on the wrong side. I got off the elevator. they stayed on to ride backup.

This is why I had to be at the movie; had to leave when I did; didn't go back to Target. My timing prevented a father from ending up in Queens instead of lower Manhattan.

Save their lives or health? No.

Save them from confusion and aggravation? Most certainly.

And from having to carry the big carriage/stroller down another flight of stairs to get a train back to Manhattan. There's no guarantee he would have realized it to use Lexington instead.

Sometimes I don't know why I do what I do.

Sometimes I don't know why I walk the path I do.

Sometimes I walk through Hell.

Sometimes I es**rt someone else through their own personal hell, when they are already there. Confused and panicked, in an unfamiliar place. Lost. At that point, they are quite literally lost in new york city. I have walked through stations, walked a couple extra blocks when needed, to put them in the place where they can finish it on their own.

One woman, I walked directly to the address. There was a language barrier. It was easier to go there with her.

Sometimes I prevent them from that hell, putting them back on the right path when they are in the right place. It's easier. The anxiety is alleviated, panic avoided. Crisis entirely averted.

Sometimes I catch them just before they take that last step through the gate.

I am Reverend Skreven Hellwalker.