huginn-muninn

A note from Ephemera…..

Sis….well done. Fine writing. Fluid and touching. I am thankful to have the opportunity to walk with you through the woods and ice of winter in the beloved haunts of our roots. As for Kola…she is a sweet hound. Her spirit betrays the war wounds that decorate her. Five is young and where we currently reside. Life is rather more in the moment, than in the age. A child could see the face of god and an old man may still see love in its purity. Age matters not. For none of us. It is the spirit with which we live life that matters and such a thing cannot be measured by years. But by moments. May we all have them in surplus. And may we all recognize their purpose, when we are touched by them. Once again, thank you for the words. Keep writing them. Reflection of the grandeur is lost when kept only by its owner. Share…share. Peace and Grace. Your Brother.

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Mike, the great equalizer and voice of reason, tells me that dogs get ugly with age.  Kola, Queen of the River, seems to be doing just that.  She is sprouting lumps here and there, a wart now and then, and at six, limps after too much outside work.

And so it is with Winter as well.  What two months ago was a magical transformer and a boon to the spirit is getting mighty unattractive in her advancing months.   Our consistent multi-inch snowfalls have melted away leaving three inches of bumpy, slick ice behind.  The little snow left on roadsides is black and pitted.  The cottonwoods along the river were ringed with tables of ice a few weeks ago, making the whole place look like a fairy world, missing only teacups and vases of hoar-frosted goldenrod on their shelves.  What remains at the river are planks of ice extending beyond the banks, over the water, inviting human or dog to peer over the edge into depths far warmer than the air.  I am seduced daily there, onto the six inches of ice which look as if they could support a tank, but are in reality fragmented, uneven, and treacherous.   The continual flooding, freezing, receding, thawing and re-freezing has created massive platforms of ice with  twelve inches of nothingness between them and the frozen soil.  We never know, with each step we take, when we’ll be on something solid and when we’ll crash through to earth, usually in mid-sentence, tongue between teeth.  I have learned to walk through winter with my mouth shut.

We’ve been in the belly of it since Thanksgiving, when our first snow fell.  Relatively speaking, that’s not a long time.  Two months.  And what’s ahead of us is a lot–we’ve only received half of our expected snowfall, and have another eight weeks before we can really count on the end of sub-zero nights.

But, as the weather gods are intuitive gods indeed, they knew we were tired of Winter and sent us  40+ degrees over the weekend as reminder that the world will one day come un-frozen.   They didn’t give us much, but it was something. And the world, in response, sent up a collective cheer and went outside.  I found a goldenrod spider dangling from a line of silk in the woods, and though I warned her that she was too early to come out of her hiding place I  guessed she was just testing the air and  basking in the promise of another Spring, as were Kola and I.

There’s a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks.  I will be able to force buds and then flowers out of forsythia and crabapple branches in a few weeks.  Thanks to Naomi’s phenological work, I know that by the 5th of March the Red-winged Blackbirds will be back .   The males, noisy and welcome, show up in my cottonwood and pussy-willow in late February most years–and if i pay attention, I may notice the females return a week or so ahead of their mates.   Maple buds will be swelling by mid-February, and Great-Horned Owls will be on eggs by Valentine’s Day.  A scant four weeks from now Red-Tailed Hawk pairs will start flying together again, whoever of the skunk and raccoon people is yet asleep will wake,  and there will be new squirrel kits in their nests.  And the crows……they will let me know Spring is truly waiting when I see them wheeling through the sky together, rolling and diving their black-winged way toward the sun.

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The view from Shertz's Road, November 2009

The sign stands, a hole punched through its center, a beacon and invitation to some and a warning to the rest, in the middle of a newly cleared corner of our two roads.  It proclaims its intention, calling to any who have the means, hinting at nothing of the ruin.  Secretly we wish swift and terrible loss to any who might be contemplating its promise. Clearly the plan is laid out, partitioned, intersected, and plotted. We are all quiet about the inevitability–acknowledging the possibilities make them more real for all of us.  The children, even the ones who cannot yet read, know what it means; illiteracy is no escape..  We understand what lies ahead, and that it is just a matter of time.  Land for Sale.

One hundred acres, completely unremarkable save the fact that forty are still in timber.  Some farmer a couple hundred years ago either tired of the toil in clearing the rest or ran out of the funds to do so. I like to think that he wanted something left to sustain the wildlife he was driving out with his plow, but the most likely he fell short of time, money, or both.  The fields are rented, plowed, and planted by a neighboring farmer, and sprout soybeans in some years, corn in others. When they are planted in corn they are mazes for all our children, cool green forests of symmetry.  When it is a year for soybeans, they wilt in the August heat and are ignored until fall when it becomes a game after harvest to find the pods left on the ground behind, some soggy and empty, others still full of beans and ready to be eaten.  Something no child wants to eat on a plate is rendered exotic and magical when found in an October field.

This however, has been a year for corn; the walk across the field is bumpy and littered with the ears the deer have not yet found .  Left behind too are the impressions made by the roots in the soil, tender fossils waiting for a thaw to release them again into the mud.  The treeline looms, tangled and wispy in the late afternoon sun.  As usual, the dogs are way ahead of me, alternately running, glancing behind to check my follow and sucking in the olfactory mysteries of the earth.  Approaching the transition between field and timber, where the goldenrod still stands, a lone antlered yearling buck bolts from the cover and makes his way across the field, aiming no doubt for the woods across the road.  Dogs and I turn and follow. We all three know treasure awaits.

Within minutes of sighting it, the deer is forgotten.  What had started as a hunt for the missing antler has morphed into a pilgrimage to the pasture.  The wind was too loud and chilling to stay up top anyway.  For the nearly twenty years I had known this family, I had never understood why anyone called it pasture.  In the suburban pathways of my brain, pasture looked like a grassy place, full of clover and daisies.  This place had no clover, no cows, and looked suspiciously like the woods.  But once it was all those things, save the clover.  Time and and cowlessness had changed it into a wonderland of oak, wild roses and pokeberry. The stream, surely once muddied and fouled by the livestock, is clear and quiet.  The snows of late have melted, but not contributed much to the watershed.  In places it is knee-deep with undercut banks suggesting a time of high water, but mostly it is rocky and shallow, stones littering the water’s path.  Here and there the deer roads cut through, leaving a trail of mud on either side.  The dogs take their drink and fuss in the water, run the length of the stream until they are forced to land by an impassable downed tree in their path.  Looking into the water for signs of some life I see nothing.  It’s there, under the surface, waiting on spring, but invisible to me.

Walking one’s own land is a mental as well as physical endeavor.    Thoughts confront me there which would not while exploring territory owned by others whether the ownership is by friend, family, or government.  Public lands feel never wholly mine, no matter if I am alone while walking them.  Knowing that the rocks and soil, the forests and waters are tended by someone else somehow diminishes them, if only subconsciously.  A matter of trust, I guess. The problem, I think, lies in the ‘tended’ part.  Nothing here is improved, nothing cleared, made neat and comfortable.  The trees rot where they fall, the roses claim the space they can.  While I love the land that I have a right to by citizenship, it is not mine.  Hiking with my brother in his southwestern deserts is discovery, surprise and wonder, but it is not mine, not my history.

Walking here, in the microcosm of my acquired family, I find the stones that have lain for hundreds of years, the trees not cleared by my husband’s people, and the knowledge that my path, which today I  borrow from the coyotes and deer, is the same path that the people who lived and hunted, prayed and danced here, walked for ages.  I am not wracked with lust to fill my pockets with stones and moss the way that I am in other places, always a vain attempt to make the land mine, if only by theft.  The rocks strewn throughout this stream are pocked with fossils—each one a certain stowaway in my pack were I anywhere else.  Here they are companions, landlocked captives that I am comforted to know will not leave in anyone else’s  pockets.  I can let them lie because I know that they are mine, that they may stay in their eternal homes because one day I too will make this place my home, if only in spirit and dust.

Memory too, is the binding agent between this place and I.  I do not know if it is truly a genetic memory, brought on by my bond with this soil, or simply one conceived by the victories and lessons wrought in these woods.  Each step reminds me of what we, my husband and children and I, have found and lost here.  The found list is thankfully longer than the lost list.

In the field above me now is the place we found the owl, mortally wounded and dazed.  The place I stand is where we tended to her, hoping to patch her up and send her on her way for the evening’s hunt, and there is a spot not five minute’s walk from here, the exact location known only to my husband, where she was given back to the earth at his hand.   Where the two creeks come together is the place we have lain under an early May moon, listening to the howls and screams of the owls until the new light came, when the day was given over to the cardinals.  This spot too, where I roam looking for signs of our owls, is where many thanks have been given; by Mike for the deer he dressed and carried back to the house and by the coyotes for what he left behind of her, steaming in the November dusk.  Back in the field is where Mike’s father and grandfather found the arrowheads, turned up by their groaning tractor. This is the place we brought our children to camp for the first time, the place where our old dog napped, dreaming of her youth and rabbits, after an afternoon of exploring.   Up the hill are the morels, climbed to and discovered by the children; down the creek are the skunk cabbage whose scent fascinated them, and across the stream are the giant roots of an oak that made a perfect resting spot for a little boyspreading around him like great lazy arms.  Blocking the creekbed farther along is the Big Rock.  Five feet tall, three times as big around, it is impassable by water or human.  The granite is mottled by lichen and pocked by age; a constant source of wonder for all of us.  The nettles are asleep now, but come May they will surprise us again with their bite and delight us once they are carefully picked, steamed and eaten.  Yet further along the deer roads, down past the roses and through the trillium, dutchman’s breeches, and wild ginger, is a barbed wire fence, beyond it someone’s land, but not ours.  The edge of the earth.

As much as I try to resist the thoughts, I cannot help but wonder the value of this place; I know its value to me and my people, but to an outsider, seeing only space and prosperity, I wonder…..how much would all of it fetch?  One hundred acres, plowed and tiled, ready for tract (or better yet, custom) homes could mean a windfall to us, even after splitting the spoils.  It could mean financial security, a new house, a bigger car, or simply more land, somewhere else.  Bigger, better land to leave to our children for them to sell, divide and conquer.  We could have the place across the mountains we talk about, the land for our old age, the spot for new rambles, different treasures.   But to what fate would we be leaving this place?

I am nudged from my mental wanderings by the crows calling to me from over the ravine, speaking in a language I do not yet understand, or have somehow forgotten.  I cannot make my way to them fast enough to find out what they are yelling about, but know that they have found their day’s treasure too.  Mine is not the shed antler I had hoped for, but a soggy and compressed package of fur and bone.  The dogs have shown it to me by way of exaggerated grunts and snuffles.   Before it can be ravaged further by their noses I scoop it up, turn it over and gingerly slip it into my pocket.  It will be a present for the children, a mystery to be either saved, whole and unscathed, or dismembered and forgotten. It will be up to them what to do with it, but I like to think they will marvel at what it holds, yet leave it as it was found.  We carry on, the dogs and I, me noting the coming dusk and deepening cold and they beginning to think about supper and sleep.  The walk back to the house, which now glows warmly from the far side of the fields, is uneventful but happy.  Supper for all three awaits us as well as the giggling of the children and the sound of the tea kettle humming.  The next time I walk here it will be spring and the bottom will be grown up again, barely navigable and thorny.  The stream will be full and the birds will be nesting.  There is still now, the time when I will climb the steps and pull open the ancient door that does not lock, wipe my boots and ready myself again for family. Tenderly, I will pull from my pocket the afternoon’s treasure, pass it to whichever child greets me first, and hope for the best.

……………………………………………………………….

Since I wrote this two years ago we’ve lost one dog to the gods and two parcels of land have been sold.  A house has appeared on one.  Two years in a row now we’ve found poached deer dumped in our ravine just off the road. This year the dumper also left beer cans, liquor bottles, a motorcycle magazine, and receipts bearing his name and address.    Antlered and unmolested, the sight of the two bucks senselessly, wastefully tossed onto our property was more heartbreaking than the selling of the adjacent land.

The world continues to confound me.

So my dear friend  Naomi nominated Huginn-Muninn for an award.  I am not a frequent winner of awards, so naturally, I was intrigued.  The only issue I have with this particular award is that I really don’t get it.  I suppose that I understand the point of the award, but I don’t understand the name.  I would bet Naomi doesn’t really get it either, but she’s polite.   I am not going to make this a point of contention but rather express my gratitude for the honor.   Unfortunately, I have to do more in accepting than just say “thank you”….I have to nominate other blogs  as well as tell the world ten (interesting) things about myself.   This is really the hard part.  I don’t much care for talking about me.    My initial impulse was to reveal every horrible vice, character flaw, and hang-up that I harbor, but that seems unhealthy for everyone involved.   Additionally,  being limited to ten items makes choosing from my myriad (sorry, Mike, I know you hate that word) flaws  exhausting.  So I’ll just figure it out as I go, I suppose.

Anyway, here’s what Naomi had to say about the Honest Scrap award:

1. You express your gratitude, Oscar-style, at getting the award and you credit your nominator. You also paste the Honest Scrap picture on your blog.

2. You tell 10 honest, interesting things about yourself in a blog post. For some bloggers, that may be simple (or hard because they already reveal everything about themselves in their blogs). For me, it’s “hard” because my personal idiosyncrasies are really not the purview of my blog — I mostly keep my other pursuits out of the internet world. Also, I am not predisposed to brag on myself, but nor do I wish to disparage myself in public (as it were). But this will be an atypical entry, I suppose.

3. You choose 7 other blogs to nominate for the award, and notify them, so they can do the same thing. (I read anywhere between 7 and 10 nominations, but I’m going on the low side due to point #3 below.) Of course it’s optional, and I almost didn’t do it… but then I figured…. why not? It’s cool that people — or at least one person — wants to know more about me. And I enjoyed reading her 10 things, so…”

And at this point she goes on to reveal ten things about herself, a few of which were news to me.   My favorite is the revelation to the world that she is a reality TV whore.  Kind of a strong word, but I think she would agree with its use.  I also didn’t know she had major calendar issues–I gave her one of the calendars she is referring to, and now know she will never receive another from me since she isn’t using them properly.

Anyway, here are the seven blogs I do sort of follow, or at least check in with every month or so.

1.    Nature Nerd…A Phenology Blog One of the two I read daily.  Even though I talk to Naomi every day, sometimes she saves the really good stuff for the blog.  Her drawings are amazing.

2.  Chicago Gardener’s Journal The second blog I check each morning…..Chris keeps the world updated on what’s going on in his head, his garden, and his kitchen.  Oddly enough, he also has four calendars in his house which currently show the wrong month.  Bizarre.

3.   Fractured Thoughts I love reading the Veteran’s progress as a somewhat new naturalist.  I also enjoy the fact that he has diverse interests and isn’t afraid to write about them–progressive rock posts married with fungi posts is definitely a good thing.

4.  Greentangle What a great quote he uses in his header….I stumbled upon this blog and was compelled to read just because of that quote.  I was was happy to find that the rest of his blog is just as interesting.    His picture reminds me a bit of Edward Abbey, which also makes me like him.  I must remember to list in my ten revelations that I am impossibly shallow.

5.  Rurality Just plain fun to read.

6.  Rocky Mountain Photography I don’t remember how I came across this photography blog, but the photos are incredible.  Cody makes the life of a wildlife photographer sound exactly like what it is–hard work.  I also realize, after perusing Cody’s photographs, how incredibly sucky Illinois wildlife is.  No elk, no lions, no bear.  We do have chipmunks.

That’s it.  I am supposed to have a 7th blog, but I don’t.  Six is all I can handle anyway.  I think reading blogs is part of the reason for my inability lately to read actual books.  My attention span which was short to start, is getting shorter.  On that note…..

1.  I don’t like salad as much as I should.  I also like salad even less when I have made it myself.

2.  I secretly love People magazine.   I can’t really even explain this.  Nor do I want to.

3.  I like Kola better than most people.  And if you knew her you would feel the same way.  My children call me a Dog Hag.  I don’t know what this means to them, but I find it amusing.  There are worse things to be called.

4.  I didn’t finish college.  I am not proud of this and it is a source of daily regret.  I am however, proud of the fact that most of what I do know, I taught myself.    But no-one is going to give me a job I  because I read some books.  They’re all looking for that special piece of paper which I don’t have.  This might be okay right now though because what I think I want to do changes from one day to the next.

5.   I talk to birds.  This really irritates the children, but I do it anyway.  I say good morning and goodbye, ask what they’re doing, how they’re feeling, if it’s cold, how the hunting is, etc.   It seems like the right thing to do, so I will continue.  I don’t care that they don’t answer me.  Someday, one of them will.

6.  I can do a lot of things, but none of them expertly.  I should pick one thing (fly-tying, jewelry-making, tanning, photography, writing, drawing, gardening) and work to do it really well.  Instead, I do a lot of stuff, and all of it half-assed.  There are too many great things to do in the world and I hate choosing.

7.  I was not my fully formed self until I was almost thirty.  I spent a good deal of time being outside as a kid, but I don’t think I loved it.  It was a source of irritation and embarrassment for a lot of years (as in, why are we going to a forest preserve when everyone else is going to an amusement park over Spring Break?) and I let it fall away for a long time.  Sometime after our son was born I picked up a copy of  Desert Solitaire for a reason I cannot remember, (possibly because my dad had been badgering me about reading Ed Abbey for years) and that was it…..I have not looked back since and my only regret are the years (five of them before we had children) we could have been camping, walking, climbing and wandering.  Strangely enough, Mike also did not become his real self until around the time I did.  I am glad we moved together and in the same direction though. It would have sucked if I wanted to be nature girl and he took up gambling or hot-rods.  Or, conversely, if he wanted to camp and I started getting manicures.  Now that I think of it, my honeymoon was spent in a one-room, no running water cabin in Michigan, and I was horrified.   That gives a good idea of how different I was.  A honeymoon that sounds like a dream now, but eighteen years ago, I was not down with it.

8.  I enjoy the occasional Gordon Lightfoot disc.  And I had a rather brief, yet thrilling conversation with him on the radio at the age of 11.   Gordon was the first record I ever owned, given to me by my dad.  My musical taste continues to be somewhat odd.

9.  I either love or intensely dislike everything–there’s not a lot of in-between for me.   I’m also not into moderation, except for weather.  I hate it when it’s under 20 or over 85.  I have 65 degrees in which I can be happy.

10.   I wish I was a runner. I have dreams about running about as often as I do about crows, which is at least once a week.  I probably won’t become a runner, but I sure wish I would.

11.  I’ve had to employ Mike to get this list finished, and his last offering is that I have fingers resembling those of  a tree frog.

So that’s 11.  I had no intention of adding the last item, but Mike thought it was too hilarious a fact to leave behind. He also gets credit for remembering the Gordon Lightfoot thing.  I hope I did this right–I have not informed the bloggers I nominated, but I will do so soon.   Which leads to #12…I have a procrastination problem.

Unidentified fly roosting in a penstemon flower. September 1, 2009

The last time I posted, it was August.  August 18th, to be exact.  Meteorogically speaking, summer was on the wane, but from a practical standpoint it had really just started.  The temperatures behaved in a summerlike fashion for a few weeks and then either spring returned or fall came early, depending on which of these two chilly seasons you prefer.  I can’t remember everything of the last almost three months, but I know a few things.

The grape harvest in September was rather disappointing.  We pruned the vines too hard last winter and had far fewer grapes than we would have liked.  This was especially unhappy for Naomi, who had her eye on the grapes for jam purposes.  Mike harvested every last bunch when none of us were around, and sent all to the freezer for winter consumption.  By the end of the summer, however, we had strawberry jam, salsa, pickles, and tomatoes put up for the winter.  The only problem being that I gave away most of the jam and salsa before September.   Naomi’s larder, I believe  is yet full, as she was far more dedicated to farm-wifery than I and ended up with at least six varieties of jam and a lot of salsa, pickles, pasta sauce, applesauce, apple butter, as well as a whole mess of other canned and frozen goodies.

Hen of the Woods season has come and gone.  Mike was of the opinion that the season starts when we have a few cool nights followed by rain, but we determined that those conditions do not necessarily produce mushrooms.  The season was short and we never had the motherlode of fruit we have in past years.   We ate mushroom suppers two nights in a row, sent a bag to the freezer, a bag to friends, and that was it.

Goldfinches, who were just finishing raising their broods in August, are now elsewhere.  Robins flocked up, ate like crazy, and are mostly gone as well.  Red-Winged Blackbirds are still hanging around in limited numbers–they became vocal and numerous about a month ago, making me think it was spring again.  Each time I heard their trill, my brain said “Spring!”  and I was momentarily fooled.  I never realized how much I associated their song with late March.  I am happy they’ve quit their attempts to confuse me because it was a bummer.  Juncos are back from wherever it is they spent the summer.   Starlings, though they never left, are everywhere.  I don’t know what they do all summer, but they thankfully are absent from my yard until October, when they show up in the Cottonwood each morning  in very large numbers.   The Blue Jays, also non-migratory, are insane lately.  They appear in the tree out front by 7am and begin yelling like mad.  From inside the house, I interpret this yelling as “Bring us peanuts!” and do their bidding.  I don’t know what they are really going on about, but my translation is working so far.   They are smart enough to arrive before the crows and end up eating a pound of peanuts before I re-fill the dish when the crows do finally make their morning appearance.  Both jays and crows have been having their peanut meals in the front of the house for the last six weeks–probably not a good idea on my part.  Neighbors may not enjoy pulling into a cul-de-sac littered with crows.  There are seven of them all told;  they prowl the sidewalks and generally make themselves known. While six eat and goof around, the seventh perches as sentinel to watch out for everyone on the ground.  I’ve lost a lot of time on Saturdays watching them when I should be cleaning the house.

Trips have been taken, though sadly, none by me.  Mike has backpacked and fished in Canada, hunted dove somewhere downstate, taken Kola to South Dakota for pheasant, grouse, and prairie chicken,  gone to the farm for a deer.  The fish have been consumed, as have a good deal of the grouse, pheasant, and prairie chicken.  The doves will be eaten this evening, baked with cornbread dressing, roasted root vegetables, and morel sauce.  We are, however, venison-less so far this season.   Both Mike and the boy returned from trips to the farm empty-handed, and Mike has decided to take a few years off from deer, for reasons which remain his own.   This weekend husband, son, and dog head to the Champaign area for pheasant, and there has been talk of a January trip to Kansas for some upland bird, though I don’t remember which.  Pheasant are my least favorite eating bird, but their numbers seem most numerous and thus appear in our kitchen more often than the preferred grouse, woodcock, and prairie chicken.

The garden has been overhauled thanks to the efforts of Chris and Naomi.  After listening to my whining about the inefficiency and nightmarish quality of the vegetable garden, Chris drew up a plan to fix everything.  We spent a beautiful October day (when Mike was away gallivanting through South Dakota with Kola) working, and the result is beautiful and functional.   We put 25 cloves of garlic in one bed and have plans for the other beds–as soon as seed catalogs begin arriving in January I will start the mental planting.

I now feel like I have caught up, at least to a degree.  While I put a lot of thought into at least a dozen posts over the last ten weeks, the combination of work, family, dog, cooking, etc., made completion of anything nearly impossible.  I never meant to quit, but there were days when I really thought I would never get back.  Though things have not really calmed down, the slowly closing window of good weather does add a little time to each day.  For the next few months (realistically, more like six) I won’t be outside for hours except on the best of days.   For now, though, temperatures are still in the 50’s and the days of rain have stopped.  Most of the trees are bare save their fruit, the prairie has gone brown, and the sunsets have taken on their winter characteristics.  While summer sunsets are beautiful, nothing can compare to the way the evening sky looks in late fall and winter.  Maybe it is only the absence of color in the rest of the landscape which makes the winter sky so magical–matters not, though–it’s something to look forward to while we wait for whatever the rest of the season holds.

Snail shells September 2009

Great Horned Owl feather September 2009

Wild Grape September 2009

Damselfly September 2009

Unidentified caterpillar September 2009

Evil chipmunk on the porch October 2009

Brother crow making off with a peanut October 2009

When life releases its grip on me I’ll get back to Huginn-Muninn.  For now, everything is too crazy and I need a few weeks to catch up.  I hope there will be someone patient enough to stick around ’til then.

” What I would do for wisdom, ” I cried out as a young man.  Evidently not much.  Or so it seems.  Even on walks I follow the dog. –Jim Harrison, from Braided Creek ,  A Conversation in Poetry

Star Trails Above a Fire…

For all my whining about not having enough time to write during the last six months, I have done an abysmal job of keeping up the last six weeks.  Life has been busy, but time has not been a factor in my not posting; motivation, or rather timing and inspiration have been the culprit.  I’ve learned what most real writers have known for ages–that when the mood strikes everything must be stopped to favor the muse.  All summer the inspiration and the words have come in the middle of the night or in the middle of a walk.   I haven’t once  gotten up at 2am to answer the call; instead I have tried to tuck it all away until a more convenient time and thus found that it’s gone.  What flowed easily in the dead of night is like moving rocks the next day.  So I am left with a tangled mess of ideas, thoughts, and half written but ultimately abandoned essays on everything that I’ve encountered since the end of June.  I’m doing my best to squeegee the windows of my brain of the residue.  About all I have left are the pictures–and the best of them are not even mine, but ephemera’s.   Here they are.

The midnight view from our campfire, image courtesey of ephemera

A skimmer for Naomi to ID more precisely

Woodfern spores

Water strider

Unripened Spruce cone

Bolete

Juvenile Bald Eagle, courtesy of ephemera

Juvenile eagle hunting, courtesy of ephemera

Waterfall

Well, it’s happened earlier this year than most; the point at which summer resembles the dead of winter.  Ten days ago the temperatures struggled out of the 70’s, and today it’s supposed to be 92 degrees for the third day in a row.  The weather gods say this will continue until Saturday night.  Even as I became crabbier and hotter I fought the urge to seal myself off from the world and enjoy the A/C,  but succumbed Tuesday evening when it was still 80 degrees with humidity nearly as high.  These are the conditions which make me feel as if it’s February–I’m in the house, reluctant to go out, and waiting for something to change the weather.  I have a while to wait.  We usually are not faced with the “turn it on/tolerate it” question until late July or August.

This morning, as I write this, it’s 82 and ungodly humid. Going out to get the newspaper for a whopping 30 seconds was unpleasant and I was happy to get back into my bubble.    Now that I’m in here (where the temperature is closer to 70 with no humidity) I am stuck. The Red-Tailed hawk who has been hunting the yard from a fencepost lately may be here, but I won’t know.  The Downy woodpecker fledglings may have arrived with their mother to learn about eating suet and dodging the Cooper’s Hawk,  but again, I have no idea. Same goes for the Cedar Waxwing babies who come in the morning and stay all day to snatch insects and eat last year’s sumac berries.  I usually know when they’ve arrived because of the trill coming from the sumac forest on the fenceline, but this morning all I hear is the blast of air coming through the vents.  I’m wrapped in a sheath of cool and have disconnected from outside.  So, for all my complaining about humanity losing touch with the natural world in countless ways, I have joined the ranks.  And it’s making me almost as crabby as if I had no air conditioning to turn on.  Almost being the operative word.  When the air goes off, unfortunately later rather than sooner, I will treat outside as if it were April—I’ll have to reacquaint myself with the gardens and the pond, pull weeds and just sit for awhile to soak it all in.   A lot happens in four days (my estimated indoor sentence) and I am sure that there’ll be a great deal to do to make up after the exile finally ends.

The river is little respite —due to almost four inches of rain in a 24 hour period last week the banks are lost under a lot of water.  Kola and I can’t get anywhere near our usual spots—there is actually current running through the woods where there should be maturing Jewelweed and blooming Rugosa.  She and I usually get away from the main paths and into the thick of the river’s deer roads as soon as we can—it’s on the deer roads where we are free from other humans and are more able to participate in the nitty-gritty of what’s going on.  Nothing happens on the human paths—all the action is reserved for those who are willing to brave the mosquitoes and dodge the poison ivy along the narrow roads made by the deer and coyotes.  Right now I imagine the Cedar Waxwings have arrived in their familial droves and that there are young Kingfishers learning the way of the world from their parents, parading up and down the current from dawn till dusk.  Late June is when the Mayfly hatches really heat up as well.  Kola and I sit down wherever we see the most bird activity and spend a half hour reading the river.  Floating on the top, the mayflies struggle out of their shucks and are released into the air.   They’ve been relegated to the floor of the river for at least a year and possibly three, to finally emerge winged and gorgeous, with a precious day and night to dry, search for a mate, and lay eggs.  Their effort is more often than not rewarded with becoming a meal.   Waxwings are either patrolling the current or waiting in the overhanging branches for them, and they rarely miss.  I have become adept at differentiating between a bubble on the river’s surface and an emerging Mayfly—I try to follow my chosen fledgling along the water and follow it up into the air and to wherever it chooses to land, but 9 out of 10 are never allowed more than two seconds of flight before the birds get them.  So we move on, hopeful that there will be a bug or two who made it to dry on a tree trunk farther into the woods.  Therein lies the current problem; we can’t get to those trees right now because of the floods.  I suppose we could get there, but I’m not willing to wade in up to my chest.  The water is of a depth which is more reminiscent of  early May and is not receding at all—from one day to the next I am usually able to see the water line on the tree trunks  gaining a few inches each day.  There’s been no change in five days and it could be another two weeks before our paths are walkable again –and that estimate is assuming there’s no more rain ahead.   A bummer, to say the least. 

Thus, I will spend the day in here, where the air is numbing and tolerable, cleaning and reading and pretending that this is what I am supposed to do.  But I know better.  All the action is outside, but just as I did in February, I am ignoring it and waiting for the weather gods to comply with my narrow band of temperature tolerance.  I hope they’re listening to my pleas, but I am pretty sure they’re busy raising the humidity.