Barbara J. King

@bjking

Anthropologist; animal advocate; science writer, next book coming on cats; caretaker of aging cats. Books include How Animals Grieve; Animals' Best Friends: Putting Compassion to Work for Animals; see www.barbarajking.com for more.

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Barbara J. King @bjking· 12d

Had mammogram, Dexa scans at hospital today. Got excited when among patients and staff I spied ONE other person masked...'til I saw it was below her nose...oh well. Onwards. What I'd do without @michael-hoerger.bsky.social's data, encouragement, #CovidCautious community, I don't know. #stillmasking

A white woman with glasses and hair pulled back is wearing a black Tshirt and a KN95 mask.

Barbara J. King @bjking· 14d

The entire museum is terrific.

Barbara J. King @bjking· 14d

Discovering #WindowsWednesday! Here's a photo I took last week at the Shaker Museum in Enfield, New Hampshire. Part of a Shaker dining room filled with white and light to emulate heaven. #Shakers #museum #light

Bright window light illuminates Shaker-built white cabinets in this dining room at the Shaker Museum

Barbara J. King @bjking· 16d

Beautiful pollinator at the gardens of The House of 7 Gables, Salem, Massachusetts. #bees #insects #pollinators #nature

This large yellow and black bee is at a bright yellow flower.

Barbara J. King @bjking· 17d

"A military power beyond conception, a judiciary power with severe, restrictive laws, and a school system to educate senseless brutes in the ecstasy of self-sacrifice; such is the outlook." My #SundaySentence is from The Oppermanns (1933) by Lion Feuchtwanger. Translated by James Cleugh.

The cover of the book features images related to the rise of Nazism in 1933 Germany plus plump white children.

Barbara J. King @bjking· 18d

A special Caturday for me because I am in Massachusetts visiting dear family, spending time with my grandcat Binky. He is a diabetic cat my loved ones rescued and he is wonderful. #Caturday #cats

A white woman with long hair and glasses sits on a brown chair with a large grey tabby cat in her lap. She looks very happy.

Barbara J. King @bjking· 20d

Saw my first-ever evening grosbeak yesterday! In an aviary - for good reasons of bird rescue. As always visiting the birds at Vermont Institute of Natural Science in Quechee is enjoyable. #birds #nature #animalrescue #Vermont

The bird has a yellow breast, yellow patch on black head, light bill- and is pretty big!

The sign explains that songbirds in tne aviary are injured and cannot fly, because of things like window or car strikes or cat attacks.

Barbara J. King @bjking· 22d

Hello Vermont! Quite the drive from Virginia, and I'm happy for your mountain summer coolness. #Vermont #roadtrip #worklifebalance

Three colorful panels at the Guilford welcome center on I 91 welcome drivers to Vermont. Orange and flame-colored autumn trees and cows catch the eye.

Barbara J. King @bjking· 24d

It cannot be fixed and it cannot be unmade. -- My #SundaySentence this week is from Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep by @paultremblay.bsky.social. This novel (don't miss the acknowledgments) pulls towards the glorious humanity of art, the irreplaceable humanity, and I loved it. #Booksky #horror

The cover is a black background with white letters and a swath of blue, in the middle of which is a wide-open green eye with a black rabbit at the iris. There's a praising blurb by Ed Park.

Barbara J. King @bjking· 26d

When Gabapentin does its job and your super-nervous cat dreams through the vet visit. #cats #veterinary

A large and drug-altered calico cat rests in a wire carrier on a veterinary table.

Barbara J. King @bjking· 28d

I've just discovered and purchased Lisa Stevenson's Life Beside Itself: Imagining Care in the Canadian Arctic. This is not a new book, but new to me! #ethnography #anthropology #Inuit #Arctic #books #deathstudies #death

The cover shows a scene drawn with buildings, an angel with wings, possibly- I am not yet sure- a body.

Barbara J. King @bjking· Jul 13

Wishing all birders an excellent new week! #birds #birding #nature

Photographed by me yesterday in my Virginia neighborhood, this turkey vulture is perched low in the tree canopy. The large bird is mostly brown with a red head.

Barbara J. King @bjking· Jul 12

... into a synthetic machine that could summon philosophy and science and literature in the same breath. -- from The Summer Without Men by Siri Hustved.

The cover is bright yellow. The title bisects a small image of a woman stylized in red with black hair with arms thrown up in the air and face tilted up.

Barbara J. King @bjking· Jul 7

Sweet backyard bunny #rabbit #wildlife #nature

Close up of the head, alert ears, and partial body of a brown cottontail rabbit standing on bright green grass in our back yard. This rabbit and two others comes to eat bird seed fallen onto the ground.

Barbara J. King @bjking· Jul 5

But it doesn't seem to matter that the worst didn’t happen, because it feels like it is all still happening all the time, on some sort of horrible subterranean level, like something cold and awful is wrapped around my esophagus, pulling it down, pulling it out. #SundaySentence Emily LaBarge-Dog Days

The cover of this memoir is black with a large figure of a woman draped in a black voluminous dress dotted with purple stars and pale face partially visible

Barbara J. King @bjking· Jul 3

We're at 113F heat index and climbing. Wishing everyone as much safety today as allowed by our #climatecrisis. Please please put out water for animals if you can. #heatwave #extremeheat #animalwelfare

The photo shows for Hayes Virginia a meteorological statistic right now of 97 degrees F, heat index 113.

Barbara J. King @bjking· Jul 3

Who else is putting out cool water in the yard (or courtyard or wherever) through these brutal days for not only birds but also small mammals? This Mama raccoon visits our yard frequently. #wildlife #animals #heatwave #extremeheat #climate

A small raccoon with white and black face and ringed tail visible eats seeds from below our backyard bird feeder.

Barbara J. King @bjking· Jun 30

New (out today) @paultremblay.bsky.social novel acquired! Let the horror begin. #horror #Booksky

The title is Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep. There's a large eyeball on the cover- green with black center and a figure that looks like a rabbit to me in there as well.

Barbara J. King @bjking· Jun 29

People who live and breathe at the intersection of animals, animal liberation, and writing, specifically poetry: this new anthology edited by Ashley Capps and Allison Titus is marvelous. #animals #animalrights #animalliberation #poetry #poets #Booksky #writing

The book title is The New Sentience: Reimagining Animal Poetry. The cover is off white with two colorful splashes, the top one sky blue with two white birds, the bottom one red with a deer-like animal and tree.

Barbara J. King @bjking· Jun 28

In this place, books no longer remembered by anyone, books that are lost in time, live forever, waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader's hands.-- My #SundaySentence is from Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind, translated by Lucia Graves. Reading this novel at last! #Booksky

The cover is red-orange threaded with black, with a cutout hole in the middle showing the figure of a man in black in the mist. Stephen King's blurb is "One gorgeous read."

Barbara J. King @bjking· Jun 21

Unnerving how, if you smile at another person and that person does not smile back, you feel annihilated, as if your mirror reflection has vanished. - My #SundaySentence this week is by @joycecaroloates.bsky.social in "The Bicycle Accident," part of the new collection (very strong!) The Frenzy.

The cover features green sea waves below a gray sky filled with blackbirds; there's a black rift/tear in the sky over which the word 'Stories' is printed.

Barbara J. King @bjking· Jun 18

Indigo bunting in the yard-- what a rush! #birds #birding #nature

A bright blue bird sits in a bright green bush. The bird's dark eye and light-colored bill is clearly seen.

Barbara J. King @bjking· Jun 16

Last night this Cooper's hawk arrived in our yard and I could see them consuming a meal- best guess from later inspection of fur remnants, a young rabbit. #birds #birding #nature #ecology

Barbara J. King @bjking· Jun 15

Sometimes on a Monday, with writing deadlines, the blue sky is enough. #sky #nature #Mondaymotivation #writing #writingcommunity

White puffy clouds in the Virginia sky surround patches of beautiful sea-blue and wispy pointillist clouds. At the right edge, part of a green tree is visible.

Barbara J. King @bjking· Jun 14

I would gladly run all the way to Random House to throw my arms around his neck because somewhere deep inside myself, in a place inaccessible to me since I was nine, I had missed him every day of my life. - Ann Patchett, Whistler, #SundaySentence. (A magnificent novel I love.)

The cover shows a riderless, saddled brown-red horse standing on green grass alone against a deep blue sky.

Barbara J. King @bjking· Jun 13

And I could not resist purchasing from a local art vendor....octopus pillows! #octopus

Two square decorative pillows have a white background and colorful bluish octopus bodies with arms shown in motion/ in anatomical detail.

Barbara J. King @bjking· Jun 13

I live one town over from Yorktown, Virginia. Great Sailfest going on this weekend, history and art on the water. #history #tallships #YorktownVA #community #VA250

This banner gives the Sailfest name and June 12-14 dates.

The Godspeed, a ship from Jamestown, opens for tours at Sailfest.

Barbara J. King @bjking· Jun 9

When a crow flies in with a comically large piece of bread, washes it in the water you put out in the yard, then flies off. #crow #crows #corvid #birds #nature

An American crow stands in green grass with a piece of white bread in their open mouth, just before dunking it in the water bowl.

Barbara J. King @bjking· Jun 6

Today I celebrate the harsh antibiotics finally leaving my body after Caroline sank her canine deep into my thumb! (A high risk bite site.) We premedicated her with Gabapentin for her annual vet check up but she distinctly had other ideas! Good thing we love them, no? #Caturday #cats #veterinary

Barbara J. King @bjking· May 31

It had felt the entire time as though we were speaking through long, telescoping tubes, our words diminished and metallic by the time they reached the other's ears. -- My #SundaySentence this week is from Larissa Pham's novel Discipline, about art, and old male professors and young women students...