National Poetry Month--Day 17--Haiku--Honey Badger

On this glorious spring day we are doing Haiku's. Not only is it US national haiku day, but international haiku day, so there. If you still don't know a thing about haiku, go here. And here are my haiku offerings:

 Honey badger kit
Helpless tiny furry babe
Soon you'll be a FORCE.

©2020 by H. Linn Murphy

Little green gecko

Sunning on the rocky wall

You've no tail. Lucky? 

©2020 by H. Linn Murphy

Hippo lumbering

Knocking down the furniture

Wait. You're human! 

©2020 by H. Linn Murphy

In Praise of Honey Badgers--Poetweet

He's all brains&fangs/Has hunger pangs/4 lions&hippos&snakes&thangs/Killer bees R the guys w/whom he hangs/I'm glad he can't use boomerangs!

© 2016 by H. Linn Murphy

So this is a Poetweet and I wanted to make sure it worked right on Twitter. Hope it did. If you'd like to know more about Poetweets, go here. If you'd like to know more about honey badgers, there are some great vids on Youtube about them. They're fascinating little creatures and have my deepest respect. You don't mess with these guys and walk away un-mangled.

Honey Badgers and Cobras and Grumps, Oh My!

Huh. Well look at that. I actually LOST readers doing Poetry month. Who knew? I'm either going to have to get funnier or lump them all in one long post like I've done in the past.

Welp. Let's just say I'm a bit tapped out today. I've been doing chores and I'm in it to hit the rack with a good read. So I've decided to favor you with a snippet of something I'm working on called YEAR OF THE HONEY BADGER. So here goes:

That night Sabra lay awake, staring up at the tin roof, wondering what she'd actually expected. It wasn't like she'd thought there'd be a five star hotel with jacuzzi and spa nearby. But it seemed not too much to ask to have a shower and maybe a stove to cook on. She sat bolt upright in bed. There had been a stove. She distinctly remembered it sitting there in the corner of the room next to a tiny, ancient refrigerator.
“Ha ha. You got me Stirling, you eel-brained toadstool. You probably have regular food to eat too. At any rate, the next time we go to town, I'm getting my own supply of food. And I'm going to start building the ratels a better place to live tomorrow. That all right, Darwin?”
The honey badger had hunkered down and was licking his paws. She could hear his tongue rasping on his teeth.
Finally the cares of the day crashed down on Sabra and she fell deeply asleep.
Until the slight scraping noise woke her. There it was again.
Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
Slowly she reached down into her shoe and grabbed her flashlight, flicking it on.
There, right in front of her hammock, lay a snake.
It's tongue flickered, tasting the air.
The snake rared up, weaving slightly as it got its bearings.
Sabra tried not to move, not to breathe.
Her heart hammered like rolling thunder in her ears.
She noticed the distinctive markings on its head and must have jumped slightly.
It flipped its hood open, hanging there in front of her as if examining her curiously.
At first Sabra locked up, petrified. What could she do?
Then she remembered Stirling and how much sneering he'd do if she let herself freak out her first night over a snake.
Her mind sped between possibilities.
Nothing viable came to mind.

The snake could strike faster than she could throw anything.
What could she do, throw a shoe at it? No.
She had to wait it out. And hope.
She stared at the cobra until she thought she'd pass out from holding her breath.
Spots swam in front of her eyes just as the snake, with a last flick of its tongue, lowered itself and slithered away.
She couldn't move, but she took a tentative breath, slamming her eyes closed as the rasping of its scales disappeared into the further corner of the structure. It was after rodents that feasted on the badger's food. Clearly she'd have to make the place more secure in the morning. But what about tonight?
Then she remembered the fearless little animals she had come to study. They regularly went up against cobras. Their thick hide rarely let a snake's teeth sink in. She slowly slipped out of the hammock and crawled haltingly over to the cages. Contrary to what Richie had said, he hadn't clicked Darwin's lock shut. He'd have been out in a nanosecond. Sabra wondered why he wasn't already. She opened the lock and swung the door wide. Darwin's eyes gleamed in the dimness. She backed away from the cage, hoping the little creature would make his escape and go snake hunting.
At first the animal simply sat there.
“You're probably wondering why I'm letting you out, my friend. I bet you're thinking I'm going to do something to you. I'm sure nobody lets you out on purpose unless it's for blood draws or something. It's safe, though. You'll get it soon. I'll bet you're more intelligent than those lunks in the house.” Sabra stopped, realizing she was rambling. The cobra had thrown her more than she liked to admit. Clearly her voice was confusing the ratel. She climbed onto the table, sure that being up there wouldn't save her from the badger or the snake. It would simply make them take longer to get to her. Staying awake was the real reason she was up there.
Finally, after it had been quiet for some time, she heard the stealthy rattle of the cage door, then the skittering sound as Darwin's claws hit the wood of the cage on the way out. She heard him snuffling and the click of his claws as he padded around the room. She was just about convinced that the cobra had beat a hasty retreat when a commotion sparked in the corner. She heard the hiss of the snake and grunts and growls from the angry mustelid, as well as thuds and thumps as the two circled and writhed.
Oh how she wanted to turn on the flashlight and see what was happening. But surprising a honey badger in the middle of a fight was never a good idea, especially if the snake wasn't dead yet. She huddled on top of the table hoping it would all end well.
There was a yelp, as if the snake struck something vulnerable. Then a growl and a couple more thuds and the place went quiet. Sabra was just about to turn on her flashlight and check, when she heard the snuffling and padding of clawed feet. So it was over. And now, just like in the Dr. Seuss book with the mice and cats in it, she had to figure out how to deal with the H. B., as Richie called it.
She turned on her flashlight and squawked. Blood spattered the walls of the corner and badger tracks made trails all over the area. Darwin sat beneath the bank of cages chewing contentedly on part of the snake as if it were a popsicle. Sabra wanted to toss some of the snake into his cage, hoping he'd jump in there himself to finish it off. It would have been the simple solution, except getting between a honey badger and its hard-won food was an even dumber idea than turning on the flashlight in a fight.
Finally Sabra spotted a chunk which had, for some reason, rolled away. She jumped down, grabbed the piece, tossed it in Darwin's cage, scurried back to the table and skidded on. Darwin barely looked up from his snake snack. With her luck, he'd be too full to bother with the fragment in his cage—too full and too smart to fall for that ploy. But it was all she could think of at the moment. She flipped the flashlight back off, hoping the badger wouldn't smell the snake on her skin and come exploring.
She hugged her knees, waiting, wondering if she would catch heck for letting the badger out. Her eyelids grew heavy and she could barely keep her head from hitting her knees. Tomorrow she'd have to work on closing up the holes in the walls.
If she survived.

Chapter 4--

“What the heck?” The words woke Sabra from an uneasy sleep atop the table. She looked blearily up into the face of her new “best friend,” Stirling. “Why is the cage open? And where's the badger?”
“Mwaf.” Sabra had never been her best in the early morning.
Stirling stalked over and bent to peer into the cage. “Crazy!” he exclaimed, reaching up to shut the door and click the lock. “He's in there asleep!”
That got to Sabra. She scrambled off the table and over to the badger's cage, worried suddenly that the snake had actually made contact with a vulnerable part of its vicious opponent. She pushed Stirling out of the way. Could Darwin be dead in there? She scratched on the bars and the little animal shuddered in its sleep. Thank heavens. I couldn't live with myself if Darwin died to save my life. She breathed a sigh of relief and stepped back. If Darwin showed signs of having been bitten, she'd have to say something. Otherwise? No. Why add fuel to the fire they were building up about how she shouldn't be sleeping in the badger shed?
Sabra refused to tell the guys why she couldn't hold her eyes open that day. They were already ribbing her about being an up-at-noon princess. She simply ate her oatmeal mush and got to work shoring up the gaps under the door, around the corroded glass of the windows, and in the corners of the lab. 

© 2015 by H. Linn Murphy

Honey Badger = Chuck Norris

I can kill you with my brain.

I've said before that my favorite animal is the hippopotamus. Granted that though hippopotami are chunky and they can kill you with their little toenails, they have sunk to second in my estimation.

The new fav animal? The honey badger. Everything else comes a distant third or more. "Why do you say this," you ask. Because those things can just about write their own ticket. I imagine in a few years they will be. Those critters are smarter than a first year college student.

Isn't he sweet?

The other day I saw a documentary about the little cusses. In spite of every effort by the studying scientists to keep them penned safely inside, the warts got out and raised Cain. Strains of Trashin' the Camp from the Tarzan cartoon ran through my head as I watched them empty the refrigerator and rubbish bin in the scientists' bungalow. They raided beehives, easily enduring thousands of stings. They rumbled with hyenas.

At one point they even burrowed into the lion enclosure and picked a fight with some lions. I've seen them take on full grown cobras, get bitten, pass out for a few minutes, and wake up a couple of minutes later to finish biting the head off the snake.

These bat-flappin' crazy animals are also known by their Afrikaans name: Ratel. Their scientific name is Mellivora capensis. They live natively in Africa, India, and Southeast Asia, mainly in dry, forested, or grassland areas. They are fantastic climbers and swimmers. They can live as long as a quarter of a century in captivity.

Come at me, loser.

These honeys are part of the weasel family and are related to skunks, weasels, ferrets, otters, and other kinds of badger. Like a skunk they have scent glands at the base of their tails for marking territory or if you scare the crud out of them, and are therefor a species of mustelid. Just noting that I don't want to meet that thing that can scare a honey badger in a dark alley. They are some of the most fearless animals on the planet.

Honey badgers stand about 9-12 inches tall at the shoulder, they're anywhere from 29 to 38 inches long with their tails being about 4 to 11 inches long. An adult male can weight from 19 to 35 pounds and a female 11 to 22. It's mostly black but has a wide gray-white stripe almost like a skunk that runs from the tip of its head to the end of its tail. It has wicked long claws great for digging or tearing things to pieces and a squat, strong body.

Say "Baby Bees."

You'd think that honey would be their favorite food with a name like honey badger. But what they really crave are the juicy bee larvae. They're rather like my son, though, and will eat almost anything that doesn't get away from them fast enough.

All these pictures look so warm and fuzzy.

These lovable fuzz balls (not) are generally nocturnal and hard to observe in their natural habitats. If they make their own burrows, they are around nine feet long and up to five feet high. They are perfectly fine with subletting from other animals, though. Who's going to tell them 'no'? You don't start a fight with a honey badger and expect to get the upper hand. With their strong skulls, loose skin, razor-sharp claws and nasty scent glands, you'd be completely insane. And shredded. If you hear their deep, ominous growl, you're in for a world of hurt.

Honey badger dads don't hang around. With a wife like that would you? In the six to eight weeks it takes her to have one or (rarely) two babies she could flay you alive for looking at her funny. By the time the little darlings are fourteen to twenty four months old they're just like their parents and ready to trundle off and bite the heads off cobras.

Gnoshing on snake-kabob

Have I piqued your interest yet? If not, get this: These animals are smarter than apes. Sure, an ape can use a stick to dig insects out of a hole. Woo hoo. Great tool-using skills. But check it out. Honey badgers can get out of almost anything using a wide variety of tools. I've seen them use bending tree branches, sticks, rocks they piled up themselves from all over the enclosure, dirt balls they made themselves, and carelessly abandoned rakes. If they're hunting for food, they can do the whole ape/stick thing to flush out termites. These little bounders are the epitome of resourceful!

There are some things whacked out enough to go up against a honey badger and win: lions, leopards, and the occasional hyena can take them down, along with a man with a gun. I personally would rather watch them with a telephoto lens from the inside of a van.