The Glimmering Miles of It

I'm like those birds, keas in New Zealand, who collect the shiny objects: I go out in the world, certain things glimmer at me, they resonate with something inside me it could be the waiting room of a veterinary clinic, an overheard moment of conversation, the way the light is coming through the trees. Whatever it is, it hits that spot in me that says, "Writing-worthy."                                                            
                                                                                                                                  -Pam Houston

It seems 2014 was a year of taking things apart. It is my hope that 2015 will be a year of putting them back together, in more meaningful ways. Being here again, finally, after a long absence, as I begin teaching the nature writing class again, is a starting place. At the Summer Community of Writers this past year, we participated in a writing exercise with Pam that asked us to find and reflect on a few of those glimmers. It occurs to me that last year - one filled with too-muchness - was overfull with them, those moments of utter importance, whether positive or negative. And there's too much to say in any thoughtfully organized way.

On companion animals: Shortly after my last entry, we lost Pepper, a loss that Z. took very hard and which we all still struggle with; we lost one of the cats this past summer, too, and the last cat is ailing.

On avian animals: That rufous hummingbird continued to try to overwinter, even into early January when the temperatures fell to almost zero and I was changing out the feeder nectar every 10 minutes because it kept freezing. My last sighting of him was January 7th, 2014.We bought a house in March and I convinced a neighbor at the old house to keep a feeder out this fall, in case he returned, but she never saw him. I am still hoping against hope he made it, did not freeze to death (as is common among hummingbirds). Our new house has a very puzzling lack of bird life. Even with feeders out, we routinely have very few visitors. Only saw a couple of ruby throats all summer. At our previous house, the birds could empty the feeder within a day. Here, I've filled it once in months and it's still nearly full. I am utterly disappointed. Especially because last semester I completed the Virginia Master Naturalist program and was planning to participate in Cornell's Project Feederwatch in order to gain some of my required volunteer hours for full certification. Perhaps a change of food will help. There is a pileated woodpecker who lives nearby, which is always an exciting sighting. I could, though, do without the resident catbirds, which mewl incessantly and annoyingly, just like a certain cat used to do.

On place: Despite the lack of bird activity and that I no longer have a mountain view out my window, it has been lovely to have a place that is ours again. We are within walking or running distance to both Wildwood Park and Bisset Park, places where we find ourselves often. Here I will finally make good on my promise to the girls that we will have a garden this summer. Gardening is unfamiliar territory and is a daunting prospect, given my inability to keep green things alive. It should be an interesting adventure. The landscape of this house is desperate and needs attention, another project once winter flees.

On travel: When I was younger, I used to travel a great deal, but those days have long been eclipsed by life. I have been teaching at Chatham since 2005, and last spring, had the first chance to be an instructor for one of our field seminar abroad courses. The other instructor and I took a group of 24 students to Belize and Guatemala for two weeks. I last traveled internationally twenty years ago and to say the experience was astonishing would be an understatement. This was full immersion in the natural world, in a place teeming with life and activity. The experience was helped by having a wonderful guide (he says, "loving nature is my language"), who knew I was most interested in the wildlife. And see wildlife we did - my spotted-bird list was impressive, and we saw monkeys in the wild, among so many other things. I hope to one day return. 

On teaching and writing: It was a conflicted decision to relinquish my hard-won full-time teaching job, but that life was wholly unsustainable. I have pangs of regret every day, but know that I made the right decision. Now I must be patient as I search for a more-right path. I did find, after years of searching, the right place for one of my essays, "Giant Forest." Now the task remains to return to and complete the collection. That project has been on hold for far too long, another of the many reasons I made such difficult decisions last year. 

All the glimmers, indeed. Many more to come.  

Mute Dancer

I am sure that my friends have long tired of my obsession with this one very small creature, but I can't get over the rarity: As of today, our rufous visitor remains with us. I hadn't seen him in more than a week, and assumed, as I have erroneously assumed a number of times over these last few months, that he had migrated. So certain I was that I didn't bother to refill the feeder or ask the neighbors to bring it in at night while we were away for Thanksgiving. And yet there he was on the feeder this morning. So he arrived about 3 weeks earlier than last year, and he's already stayed 2 weeks past his departure time of last year - surprising to us all. I wonder what exactly is going on in his mind - or body - that keeps him here, whether there's a chance he may decide to overwinter. I know they are intelligent and able to survive almost unthinkable conditions; their symbolism in native cultures as "resurrection birds" is well earned. But it just seems that he must, must move on soon. How can he not?

In the meantime, I share a lovely article on watching hummingbirds by Diane Ackerman and another of Stan's wonderful photos. And wait.

A Space Filled with Moving

Just five days earlier, I had written here:

I am not-so-secretly hoping they will make another stop here, if they found their way south after leaving (though based on the indignity of the banding, I suspect the female may do anything possible to forget this place exists). It's tempting to think that our home may have imprinted on their flyway path, that we have developed something like a relationship.

And last Tuesday, 9/17, I glanced out the window to discover that my hopes were rewarded: A rufous hummingbird at the feeder! This one was an adult male, even more obviously a rufous than the two juveniles from last year, which were difficult to distinguish from the ruby throats. I immediately contacted Bruce from USGS, who helped trap and band last year's rufous migrants and notified all the local community birders. We theorized that it must be last year's male, now grown, because given their rarity in this area, it seemed too coincidental that we could have an entirely new migrant visitor. This is several weeks earlier than last year, and that adult males migrate earlier than juveniles also added to our theory this was the same bird. Bruce asked me to see if I could get a close-enough look to determine whether the bird was banded. Hmm. This species is much more skittish - hard to blame him, since he's been captured here! - than the ruby-throats, rarely perches, and I have poor eyesight. How on earth was I going to be able to see if his teeny tiny ankle has a teeny tiny bracelet?

In the week since, Stan was able to come out with his Very Fancy Camera and get a few photographs, to get some answers. Some cropping and enlarging and some keen eyes (not mine) were able to make out enough numbers to verify that yes, this is the male who visited us last October. Interestingly, after he left here, he was apparently captured and banded again, as he is sporting bands on both ankles. It's interesting to compare these to the similar images from a year ago; he is so much more vivid and colorful as an adult.

Bands visible - Photo credit: Stan Bentley

Rare moment of rest - Photo credit: Stan Bentley

We're all very curious to learn where he has been in the last year, where else he was trapped. Bruce plans to make the drive down from Maryland soon to see if we can trap him again and solve that mystery.

Noiseless & Patient

I'm not sure who noticed them first, but they are hard to miss. My first sighting was while walking out the door a few mornings ago. A thread had been attached to the door frame in the middle of the night and I tore it free with my exit. This particular Neoscona crucifera, a Hentz orb weaver, was nearly as startled as I was, as she - because we learned that it's only the females who spin webs - skittered up the side of the house. Their webs are impressive and stunning.

We've been in this house for three years but have never seen this particular species, but right now, we've got about half a dozen in various crevices outside. Z. has named the one outside her bedroom window "Orba," while the two other most visible ones are "Peg" and "Meg." She told me that some spiders spin different types of silk, some sticky and some not, so they can move freely across their webs. I guess I had never really considered why it is that spiders don't get stuck in their own webs. The orb weaver typically doesn't spend much time in one place, though, and several days later, most have moved on to new locations. Such excitement this morning when I woke Z. up  with the news that Orba had returned to her location sometime in the night. We're all hoping that there will be eggs and wee spiders (perhaps a thousand or more), before the frosts come.

 When I was in Pittsburgh last summer, one had spun an intricate, massive web along the entire length of my hosts' front porch. It was impossible not to stop and examine it, and I came and went every day, impossible not to admire how much effort and detail go into such a complicated - at least, complicated in my mind - endeavor.

Retroactive Remembering

I'm tempted to cheat on this blog a bit here, because I really ought to date my entry for May - when, according to the scribbled words in my notebook, this actually occurred - but really, it's September and I'm only now getting to this. It was a summer of too-muchness, and things that mattered fell too far to the sides of that unusually busy season, too busy to be fully present and to enjoy my most favorite of seasons. Leaves are changing and soon it will be a very distant thought. Next summer, though, next summer.

My purpose is that I wanted to record this year's arrivals for the archive:

Male ruby-throat first sightings: 4/18/13
Female ruby-throat first sightings: 5/15/13 (much delayed from last year)

My daughter's second-grade teacher-substitute for the next few weeks is a woman who was present for our rufous-hummingbird adventure, and with Z's homework, she attached a sticky-note asking if we'd seen them this year. We're still several weeks from the departure of the ruby-throats and the time when I first noticed the migrants last year. I am not-so-secretly hoping they will make another stop here, if they found their way south after leaving (though based on the indignity of the banding, I suspect the female may do anything possible to forget this place exists). It's tempting to think that our home may have imprinted on their flyway path, that we have developed something like a relationship.

Absolute All

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace.” 

—Milan Kundera
 

 

Pepper, Fall 2002 at the Pittsburgh Collie Frolic

What a difference eleven years makes for our favorite "foster failure." In the 'before' photo (2002), Pepper is about a year and a half old and suffering terribly from demodex mange. It took several years before she fully recovered, and many more after that until she grew in a typical collie coat (I sometimes think she'd rather have stayed hairless, since she hates grooming so much now). She was never meant to stay with us permanently, but she'd been in rescue for a long time already and was likely to stay there. She needed us, and we'd eventually discover we needed her.

 

In the video, Pepper is going on thirteen, is arthritic and is now mostly deaf, but she still knows how to have a good time with her golden retriever BFF Petie, even when he knocks her down in his excitement.

 

Three out of four of our pets are now seniors. I want them - Pepper especially - to be with us forever.

Many thanks to the amazing folks who volunteer their time with the Northeast Ohio Collie Rescue for bringing Pepper into our lives.

Presently the Floods Break Way

The New River can be seen in the background

Bisset Park is reopened (though many of us had been using it anyway) after the epic January flooding, and on Sunday we took Petie & Pepper to the dog park there for the first time since. While the city has cleared away all the debris, it's stunning to see how much the landscape has been altered; the paved and grass-covered riverway park resembles a sandy coastal beach. It's still unclear how much blame exists beyond that of the weather, but one thing is clear: it could be a very long time before the landscape will be the same, if ever.

For now, though, The Girls are enjoying playing in the sand.