A Proper Naturalist I Am Not

So, I've admitted that I'm pretty good with identifying and knowing more than *normal* people should about a wide range of animals (don't get me started on my dull, but exhaustive knowledge of freshwater mussels...), save birds, since I have peculiar bird issues and they kind of creep me out (I'm working to overcome the creepy factor, slowly). But I also have to admit that I am really, painfully ignorant about trees and plants. I guess we all have elements of the natural/non-human world that we are more drawn to than others. And plants and trees just typically don't capture my interest all that much. Well, if I happen to learn about them I find this knowledge interesting, and useful, but I don't go outdoors with a guidebook in hand trying to figure out what things are.

So I have decided that to better appreciate where I am living, I should learn a whole lot more about this landscape. Today I started with identifying the beautiful pink trees that have exploded in bloom ALL OVER the place in the last week or so. Not a hard task: they're Cercis canadensis, the very common Eastern Redbud tree . I do like knowing the names of things.

It occurs to me, and maybe this is something L. should comment on, that my own interest in the natural world is often prompted simply by aesthetics, by my own perceptions of beauty, particularly when it comes to plants and trees. Things which I find attractive compel me to learn more, to uncover a meaning, name and significance.

Hidden Among Small Milestones

Am very much looking forward to going out in public this week to attend this campus author lecture: "A Natural Sense of Wonder- Connecting Kids with Nature Through the Seasons" . I had been wanting to meet this guy ever since I read on the English Dept. website that he had this book in progress. J. is actually the one who heard about it and suggested we both go. Right after that I will attend the anthropology lecture, "Comparative Settlement Pattern Research on Early Chiefdom Communities in Eastern Inner Mongolia, the Northern Andes, and Mesoamerica," because it's being given by a friend and former fellow grad student of J.'s back in Pittsburgh.

Am even more looking forward to the impending spring here in Appalachia. All the cherry trees are blooming and this entire town is swathed in an explosion of yellow forsythia blossoms. Purty!

What Next??

Haha! Today I discovered that there's apparently a whole lot of mice living in one of our bottom kitchen cupboards, the one right above the cellar-dirt-cave-thingy. At least now I have an explanation as to why, for the last month, I have found The Pest sitting in the kitchen staring at the space right below the dishwasher. She does this constantly. This is the third house we've lived in that had a mouse problem, so I'm not freaked out in the sense that I've not been through this before. I just really don't feel like dealing with it. I actually burst out laughing when I found the remnants this morning - is there NOTHING about this current house that doesn't suck? :-)

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.