Aha! Nature Mystery Uncovered!

I guess the reason I haven't been able to identify the type of hawk that lives around here - the one's that I've seen circling together in gigantic (i.e. 50+ members) groups - is because it's not actually a hawk at all, but a black vulture . There is also a huge turkey vulture population here as well. Interestingly, these populations seem to be specific to radford, VA in particular . Saturday has been proclaimed official "Vulture Day" in the city and there are all sorts of planned day-long festivities. We are actually considering getting up REALLY early saturday morning to watch them emerge and listen to lecture from one of the RU biologists. There was a lecture on vultures last week that I had hoped to attend. Now I'm sorry I missed it.

I love learning new stuff like this!

Nominee: Worst Idea of the Year

Here's the most singularly, spectacularly stupid idea i've heard all year:

• China is building a freaking road up the side of Mt. Everest

New River Valley Notes

Tin roofs. I had heard of them, but until living here, had never actually seen them. They are very odd (but, as I'm beginning to learn everything in this place is a bit *odd*). And a little ugly, if practical.

I thought by now I would have some concrete opinions about this place, but I find myself oddly ambivalent and UNopinionated. I remain surprised and pleased by how sunny it is here. It's rained exactly twice since we've been here. Mornings are always foggy - maybe from living right next to a sizeable river? - and then it burns off to reveal sunshine. It's like the complete polar opposite of Pittsburgh.

Our cellar-thingy (it's basically a disgusting dirt cave under the house) is, as I horrifyingly learned last week, INFESTED (seriously, seriously infested) with about a trillion Very Very Nasty camelback crickets . Am going on an aggressive and desperate house hunting mission to get us out of this dump. Assuming we stay.

A Few New Home Things

I'm still mulling over my thoughts about this place. But I will say that I feel here more like the proverbial fish out of water than I ever did in Iowa. And until now, I really didn't think that was possible.

Turns out that the groundhog that met a sad, pickup-truck-collision demise last week is not, in fact, the groundhog living under our porch. I feel a little relieved about that. My students had me feeling really guilty that I'd somehow sent out the *go-away-now-intention* that it had picked up on and that I was, in a roundabout sort of way, somewhat responsible for said dead groundhog. I did have a little talking-to with him yesterday - feel oddly like it's a "he" - told him that if he didn't choose to relocate voluntarily, we were going to have to make that choice for him. I can't explain why, but I get a sense that he is a stubborn and brazen little groundhog who is quite happy where he is and has no intention of leaving. At least animal control here participates in a trap-and-release program! That is a relief.

Urban Nature Writing

A student in my summer nature writing class sent me the link to a really fascinating article called "13 Ways of Seeing Nature in LA," which I highly recommend. The full article is in 2 parts:

• Part 1
• Part 2

I am definitely going to add this as required reading for our segment on urban nature. Good stuff!

More Thoughts on Place, Specific Ones

Speaking of nostalgia...

In Googling something yesterday, I ran across a couple of online photo albums of some guys' trip to Mt. Whitney, a trail which begins where I lived and worked in Sequoia National Park, and continues through the park's backcountry along the High Sierra Trail. Seeing those photos makes me remember exactly why that place was, is, so amazing to me. Naturally I feel compelled to share (some of the photos are duplicates, but they're all worth looking at!):

• First album and trip journal
• journal with photo links;

Incidentally, this is the view from the porch of Bearpaw Meadow Camp , where my brother worked for several summers. imagine getting up and being able to look at THAT every morning!

Also incidentally, nearby is Precipice Lake , subject of a slightly-obscure ansel adams photo titled "Frozen Lake and Cliffs, Kaweah Gap" . During many years it never even thaws out enough to see the truly astonishing colors . I have a photo I took of this same lake in 1992 that, not to sound boastful, is way better than the pictures i found on Google!

Sigh.

Some Thoughts on Place

Amusing interaction:

Me: Poor M [one of the few co-workers I like]. As I was jumping up and down sharing my news of getting to quit, she told me that her partner got into Duquesne Law School, and she'll be stuck here at least another four years.

J: That sucks. She's not a Pittsburgher, right? Isn't she from Pennsyltucky?

Me: Um, 'scuse me?

J:[holds up right hand] Yeah, you've got Pittsburgh over here, [holds up left hand] Philadelphia over here, and [gestures wildly with both hands] everything else in between, Pennsyltucky.

Me: [falls down laughing] HAHAHAHA!

J: Hmmm. I suppose now we're moving to Virgintucky.

Seriously, though, I was musing on and talking with J. about some of the things we were discussing in LJ recently. I was meditating on just what it is, specifically, about particular landscapes that makes them un-appealing to me, why I prefer certain places over others. And J. said something really insightful, something that really gets at the heart of the issue, in light of his trip to VA, his initial impressions that that place, while pretty, just doesn't *do it* for him.

And here is the common thread: The places that don't resonate with me seem to not do so because they're disturbed landscapes. It's definitely not exclusively a geographic issue, not that I can only fully appreciate Western Places (though those are clearly my favorites). Because I can adore say, the NJ Pine Barrens, the all-too-few-remaining longleaf pines of GA, the murky swamplands of FL. No, often the places that don't feel *right* to me are degraded landscapes. Western PA has bazillions and bazillions of trees and forests, but they're all forests that have been clearcut, probably several times. Iowa has been completely leveled and cleared of its lovely, prairieland to make room for corn and soybean and corn and soybean and corn and soybean crops.

Maybe I have an overly-romanticized attraction to pristine places, native places, landscapes that do not bear the obvious mark(s) of human impact. Maybe I'm stuck on this notion of "wildness," whether that be here or in the South or someplace out west.

I'm sure this whole idea could use a LOT more meditation, that this is only one small part of the larger picture. but it's interesting to have isolated something more concrete than just a sense impression, a feeling.