My Death Shrine...

I am fascinated with dead things. In particular, I find skulls to be very beautiful. I have a collected a few skulls along the way, which includes those of an otter, a raccoon, and a small bird which I believe is a sparrow.

I also have gathered the bodies of a few dead insects, including two dragonflies and two cicadas. One of the cicadas is the common annual cicada (tibicen linnei), and the other is the elusive 17-year cicada, or magicicada, that appeared two summers ago (2007). I love having one of these in my collection.

I actually have a death shrine in one of the hallways in my home. It's a recessed shelf in the wall were the telephone should sit. My house was built in 1935, so there are some cool features in the design. My dead specimens sit there for those who might appreciate them.

As far as my skulls go, I bought the otter skull completely intact from a store in South Dakota. The bird skull I found when gutting a house; it was inside the wall. I found the raccoon skull in the woods in Bull Valley any I had to clean it with a bleach and water solution and let it sit in the sun. There were still a few maggots left in the brain cavity.

A few weeks ago, a dead robin was found in the corner of my driveway. The bird was completely intact and feathered, looking as it did in life aside from the obvious lack of movement. I wanted to cut its head off and boil it to collect the skull, but Yankee Girl didn't think it such a hot idea. We agreed I would let nature take it's course for a few weeks and let decay settle in before I cut the head off.

Well, this past weekend, a wild animal had come by and removed the head, legs, and wings from the body. The body was missing and the head, legs, and wings remained in the corner of my driveway. The skull had begun hollowing out, so I decided to boil it. However, it was too delicate and a lot of tiny bone fragments began splitting off from the skull in the pot. Also, many of the feathers were not falling off. Thusly, I had to give up on collecting this one.

I really hoped to earn a skull this time, but I learned my lesson. Be patient and just let the flies and sunlight do the work. I wound up destroying something beautiful.