My farriers are Amish, and I went by their shop to schedule a farm visit to trim Mister Buckles. I found them in their butcher shop, father and sons, and stayed to chat a while.

I have no respect for religious belief, faith, but I have much respect for the Amish, and would convert, except for the god stuff, and all that hard work. Everything else, I'm good to go.

This respect has roots from junior high years, from passing through Eastern Elkhart County, and being completely subsumed with awe by the Amish farms and life I saw there.

And in the early 80's, there was an article in Rolling Stone. In those, and earlier years, Rolling Stone wasn't just a music mag, making a RockStar out of Annie Lebovitz. Incidentally, the last I heard, Annie was facing default on a $24 million(!) loan, that day. And it wasn't just the money. As collateral, Annie had posted rights to all her work, past, present, and future. The equivalent to mortgaging your soul.

In those years, the magazine had a social consciousness, long since gone, from society and the magazine. In the day, they gave Hunter Thompson his best voice, and printed a blazing expose' of the fraud Evel Knievel, by Joe Eszterhas. Joe went on to write screenplays, including the smashes Flashdance and Basic Instinct, probably best known for the view of Sharon Stone's mommy parts.

And the mag published A Quiet Killing in Adams County, documenting the killing of 8-month-old Adeline Schwartz on August 31, 1979.

This is the best piece of journalism I have ever read, and it drove a stake in my heart that remains.

Four turds were driving around Berne, Indiana, throwing broken pieces of clay tile at "Clapes", clay apes, Amish. Two were in the cab and two in the bed of a pickup, and they chucked some tile at a buggy where baby Adeline was a passenger. Here's a good time to remember some high school physics, where the velocity of an object thrown from a moving vehicle travels at a speed equal to the acceleration of the throw and the speed of that vehicle, that pickup.

The Schwartzes, when they got home and found Baby Adeline murdered, contacted Adams County Sheriff's Department, and the human garbage was apprehended almost immediately. Subsequently, the Schwartzes refused to participate in legal proceedings.

The four shitstains in the pickup were found guilty of numerous previous attacks on Amish, yet none did time for the murder of a baby. A judge, found competent by the majority of those who cast votes in Adams County, Indiana, ruled that guilt could not be determined between the two submorons winging lethal projectiles at defenseless people.

Justice served.

Become familiar with the Amish concepts of god's will be done and bible-mandated forgiveness. Witness the 2006 Amish school slaughter in West Nickel Mines, PA. Funds sent to the Amish were regifted to the family of the shooter.

I was troubled by this. As a non-believer I am more an eye-for-an-eye type, and don't hold with divine forgiveness. And I had sent a sizable (for me) donation, and I would sooner dig up the shooter (Charles Roberts, if you're keeping score) and shit in his skull than give money to his family.

Another, and for me, much, much larger difficulty with this spirit of forgiveness, fueled by the bible, and respected by local authorities, comes with "respect" for the closed community, and a hands-off attitude towards possible crimes.

The death of Krystle Danae Gingrich, late on a very cool night in June, 2009, stinks on ice. Krystle was a most beautiful 14-year-old, and chose tackling a semi to going into her home.

I visit her often, as the Amish ignore the buried, which is very convenient when your fucking "faith" makes you forgive a murderer in your house. And her death must have been a relief to a most troubled household.

There was a hawk perched on a fencepost behind the shop, and Mr. Otto called it a "chicken hawk", and it was most surely a sharp-shinned hawk.

And Ed asked me what he could do about a hawk after his chickens and I said "Take a very deep breath and yell 'Hey!' as loud as you can."

Yesterday we went to Pearson's Mill SRA. Some of the worst litterers, from Slim Jim wrappers to dead bait, are bank fishermen. I am baffled as to why someone can enjoy a few hours in outdoor sport, then soil and spoil the very spot you enjoyed.

So there is a a dead-fish deposit at the ramp-end at Pearson's Mill, and my puppy got into it the last time we were there. It is a stink you cannot believe, and almost impossible to get out of a long-haired dog. And the drive home is just too, too far.

I put a collar with a leash on Sun through the area, and Abbe took the challenge, and found the offal, and dove into it.

I took a towel and jammed it with snow and wiped her down, then used six hand-wipes on her, and she stunk up the truck cab past tolerance. So, instead of going home across Red Bridge, I retraced SR 13.

And perched on the roadsign for Mier, barely six feet off the ground and six feet off the highway, was a most gorgeous red tail. So very close I could fully appreciate the gold mottling in the white breast without glass, and surely as close as I've ever come to a red tail.

He sat stolidly, and was most surely the hawk I saw on the other side of the highway, on a speed-limit sign, a bit higher, a couple weeks ago.

I am absolutely amazed with what the surgical team did for me. Awesome is worn, but useful, and surely apropos. And I rejoice two and three times a day that I can walk again, for it's been the most enjoyable part of my day for years and years.

But you don't really need to get out of your car to see wonderful, beautiful, wildlife.

Just slow down. See those kestrels on wires, those red tails on the posts and power poles, in roadside trees.

You will surely feel blessed.