9-14-12 There's a bench at the portage site, for those preferring to soak up the sun, and apparently, a few brewsky's. Apparently the drinker of these Red Hooks is rather neat, since they left their empties in a tidy row that seemed photo-worthy.
Paddled upstream and came across this raccoon again, now with fur drying, and belly-up, and still, blending with the environment so you might easily miss him. It's teeth are large! I wonder how he died. Old age? Disease? Heart failure? There's no apparent external injuries.
Just finished reading Life Everlasting, about the undertakers of nature...insects, animals, and bacteria that step in when life leaves a body and which begin the process of consumption and conversion. Whether a tree, a mammal, a person or a plant, things that die are re-purposed and recycled and utilized as food for a range of other living beings. The book raises the issue of what is a natural post-death experience. To box people up and deprive the aforementioned of a cadaver meal is to cheat nature of an extensive source of raw material. Hey...we eat other things, why shouldn't they eat us when we die?
It also raises the issue that to be cremated in this modern age is not an environmentally beneficial thing either, since it takes an enormous amount of energy to toast, roast and ash-ify us. Burning bones is not easy. Nature takes care of bones quite efficiently, if left to natural processes. I want a green burial. Or better yet, just fling me out into the fields, forests or ocean. Nature will take care of the rest.
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