The Violet Connection

It is too hot too soon. These past three days, the thermometer has topped over 90 degrees, forcing the flowering shrubs and trees to drop their flowers and concentrate on their summer duties of surviving and procreating. I hate the heat more and more each year. I melt down quickly but spring chores must be done.

Ken and I share homeowner tasks, which has evolved into his doing most of the indoor work and my doing most of the outdoor tasks because that is what we each like to do. Last weekend, I noticed the grass getting long in the back yard and decided it was time for the first mow of 2009.

I gassed up my little Honda mower and off I went, being careful to mow around the violets that grow at random in our pesticide-free lawn. Ken laughs at this and thinks it’s nuts for all the work it is to spin circles around each purple blossom. He doesn’t know that I am thinking about my mother’s mother as I edge around each one, my Nana who died when I was only six months old and don’t remember. Every spring my mother told me that violets were her mother’s favorite flower. I’ve heard many stories about Nana over the years, and have a few photographs, yet she remains mysterious.
I think of Nana the whole time I am mowing and decide the violets look even prettier next to random patches of golden dandelions, so I mow around them too.
The yard looks a little weird right now, but I figure she-who-does-the-mowing gets to decide when and how it’s done. The moguls of uncut grass protect the wildflowers that bond me with a woman who once loved me, and remind me that Nana and I are still connected, every spring.

Citizen Scientist! 2009 Grassland Bird Survey

(Tree Swallows)

After working indoors all week, Suzanne, BirdingBev and I spent a magnificent Saturday morning in a stuffy meeting room at NJ Audubon's Plainsboro Preserve so we could be trained as volunteers and participate in a rigorously controlled study of grassland birds throughout the state. It is a collaborative effort between NJ Audubon and NJ Fish Endangered and Nongame Species to collect data on bird abundance and habitat characteristics. The data will reveal the success of a government-funded program to determine if protected grasslands will indeed result in the increase of populations of New Jersey's threatened bird species.

We are to visit our assigned sites three times between now and June 15. Some are roadside "controls" to establish a general number of birds in the area to define an overall trend. Others were properties of 10 acres or more owned by people who had contracted with the State of NJ Fish & Wildlife to follow mowing management plans that would encourage grassland birds to breed. Some of the birds we will be looking for are the sparrows: Vesper, Song, Grasshopper, Savannah; but also Bobolinks, Horned Larks, Northern Bobwhites and more.

The protocol is much different than the Great Blue Heron survey Suzanne & I are doing. For the grassland survey, we are to arrive on our site, wait two minutes to let the birds recover from our arrival, then count birds for 5 minutes, separated into 3 and 2 minute intervals. Birds both seen and heard will be counted (many of us "bird by ear," which is accepted in official counts and sometimes is the only way of confirming identification of birds that look the same, like Willow and Alder Flycatchers).

I have been birding for fun a long time, so it feels good to contribute to a project that could have some meaning. Unfortunately, the funding for this program has been cut, so this is the last year any landowners can sign up for their 5-year stint. Nevertheless, it will deliver valuable data to how urban sprawl is affecting NJ birds, and perhaps someday, lead to a solution that will allow humans to survive without annihilating the most innocent among us.

Spring Crone

Here is one of my secrets: One of my favorite poems by Claudia Van Gerven:

Crone Drives through Spring

She can hardly bear to look
out the window:
earth seems to break
loose, fidgets, squirms, restless spasms
of green, and the sky
a whirligig of birds. She cannot keep
the car on the road: it wants
to canter across fields abandoned
to the wanton purple of
tiny nameless flowers. The precision of
snow unbuttons itself
like a girl's blouse, but she is too old
to come spilling out, unlatching
the seat belts, freeing the Toyota.
What would they make of
this aging runner, white hair streaming
down her stooped back, slack
thighs vaulting irregularly
down the astonished creek bank?
What could she be but
an embarrassment
to traffic laws?
to city building codes?

Forest Fire on Windbeam Mountain

I drove over to the barn this afternoon to brush a few horses but the place was almost empty, just one rider in a usually busy ring. She told me they had all gone for a day-long trail ride. Ahhhh, I thought. A perfect day for this--not too buggy yet, the trails are dry, it's not too hot or too cold. I was glad to know they were out there after a long winter of walk-trot-canter in circles in a cold indoor arena.
On my way home, I noticed fire vehicles parked alongside the road close to "my" heronry that I've been monitoring as a volunteer for NJ Fish and Wildlife since March. Worried that something was going on that would affect the nesting birds, I pulled over in time to see a Forest Fire Service helicopter roar overhead while towing an enormous orange basket. Windbeam Mountain was on fire. A little too close for comfort for my friend, Suzanne, as well as a big chunk of the town. Gulp. As the crow flies (and flames jump) it's not all that far from where I live either. Gulp.
I stood with a small group of volunteer firemen as they coordinated with the Fire Service rep about where to hike to re-establish the fire line. Turns out the fire began last night and the flames jumped the line this morning.
"Watch out for rocks falling, and just stay away from that guy," he instructed, pointing at the aircraft that had just dumped 500 gallons of water on the smoldering mountaintop and was spinning back to the other side of the reservoir for another load.
I shivered. And am keeping an eye on the treeline.

Recovering the Wild Side

My blog has fallen into a hole. I think about it at the end of the day, or when I’m driving or starting a new project at work, or organizing staffing for the next month. I haven’t blogged a thing lately. I remind myself to post something, and then the next thought is: What shall I write about?



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An article about a travel writer, Jill Shenshul (North Jersey Media Group) caught my eye this morning. She is preparing to go on a vacation to volunteer for two weeks with PAWS (People and Wildlife Solutions) Namibia Conservation and Big Cat Rehabilitation Programme. This isn’t exactly candy striper work. She will be dismantling windmills, clearing brush and repairing fence lines to help restore the former farmland to its natural state and return Namibian wildlife to the area, particularly the big cats. If she’s lucky, she will accompany the staff when a cheetah or leopard is returned to the wild. Unfortunately, she is deathly afraid of snakes. How inconvenient to go where your phobia could be curled behind a bush.

I put the article down and thought: I’m not afraid of snakes. I imagined the people she would meet, the animals she might see, the big blue skies of Africa. For a moment, the fog cleared from the buried creativity of my brain and I caught a glimpse of the energy lying there. I may not be able to go to Africa and help in wildlife recovery, but I can go to New England and rediscover my creative spirit among the white pines and spring sun.

When I told my sister I was thinking of driving the Vermont/Lake Champlain birding trail, she said, “I hope you’re not coming to Vermont and thinking that you won’t use our house as your home base!” I smiled.

I was planning on stopping in at some point, but hey...can’t pass that up! I’ll pack the usual: the scope, binoculars, laptop, camera, notebook. Spend the days wandering the Lake Champlain birding hotspots, hop a ferry to loop through the Adirondack side and generally indulge myself in doing whatever comes my way. Maybe write myself back again, when there is something worth saying. Then return to my family, pour a glass of wine (or two), laugh, enjoy good conversation, and sleep.

It will happen in a few weeks. In the meantime, my wonderful blogger friends whose writings and photographs I enjoy every day, hang in there and wait for me. I’ll be back, maybe sooner than later.

Good News for a Sea Turtle and for Us

Associated Press photo
The Record April 10, 2009

Good news is hard to come by. As the world grinds through the current economic crisis, it gets even tougher. I rarely pick up a newspaper any more and only keep our subscription because Ken likes to read it. I pick up whatever I might need or want to know from the internet or the radio on the way to work and find I do better without a force-feed of “we have yet to hit bottom of the economic downturn,” “unemployment rate hits the worse since 19___,” or “ (fill in the blank with your favorite politician) goes to jail for money laundering,” or whatever.

We have a plethora of electronic gadgets to stay current, we have advanced in communication devices and techniques, but our mental and emotional abilities to adapt to the reality of wars and assassinations, hurricanes and tsunamis in real time is based upon the same biological rules of adaptation that caused us to climb out of the primordial soup. In other words, we are not always so good at being able to handle the constant influx of world events. Some people shut down emotionally. Others explode and do harm to themselves or others. I stopped reading the newspaper.

From time to time, Ken pulls a page out of the paper and says, “Here: Read this.” Today, it was a story about a disabled green sea turtle that arrived at Sea Turtle Inc. in South Padre Island, Texas in 2005. They think 5-year old “Allison,” lost a flipper to a shark attack. Despite the severity of her injuries, she managed to survive but faced a lifetime (approximately 150 years) of swimming in circles with only one flipper.

But Tom Wilson, an intern, came up with an idea to fit Allison with a neoprene wetsuit outfitted with a carbon-fiber dorsal fin that functions like a rudder so she can navigate normally through her wet world. The article said, “...watchers wept the first time Allison dived to feed at the salad bar of waving Romaine lettuce.”

There is more good news here than Allison’s ability to swim straight. What is most heartening to me is the spirit of individuals like Tom Wilson, who used his creative mind not to destroy another chunk of the planet, but to help an innocent creature live normally. I am connected to the watchers who wept because of a sea turtle. One small thing has been righted in a world full of wrongs. Learning that a captive sea turtle can graze among lettuce beds will not change my life, but knowing what the human spirit can reach for and create is enough to get me out of bed in the morning.

Mary Oliver and "Aunt Leaf"

The poetry of Mary Oliver is always a good way to start the day:

Aunt Leaf
Needing one, I invented her-
the great-great-great-aunt dark as hickory
called Shining-Leaf, or Drifting-Cloud
or The-Beauty-of-the-Night.

Dear aunt, I'd call into the leaves,
and she'd rise up, like an old log in a pool,
and whisper in a language only the two of us knew
the word that meant follow.

and we'd travel
cheerful as birds
out of the dusty town and into the trees
where she wold chanae us both into something quicker-
two foxes with black feet,
two snakes green as ribbons,
two shimmering fish-
and all day we'd travel.

At day's end she'd leave me back at my own door
with the rest of my family,
who were kind, but solid as wood
and rarely wandered. While she,
old twist of feathers and birch bark
would walk in circles wide as rain and then
float back

scattering the rags of twilight
on fluttering moth wings;

or shed slouch from the barn like a gray opossum;
or she'd hang in the milky moonlight
burning like a medallion,

this bone dream,
this friend I had to have,
this old woman made out of leaves.

Passion and Practicality

I am steadily recovering from a cracked rib caused by an “involuntary dismount” off the horse I was riding during a lesson last week. Secondary aches and pains have moved in as if waiting on line but a toss of ibuprofen and a slow walk on the treadmill or around the lake loosens it all up. It takes six to eight weeks for a rib to heal so it will be awhile before my butt hits a saddle again.

Having finally returned to the “horse world;” however, I do not want to lose my tenuous hold on what has become an important part of my week. That one hour on Sunday has provided me with a sense of pride and purpose that I am reluctant to give up. But the incident has given me pause for thought: I am the breadwinner of our little household. If anything happens to me (and I know “stuff happens” around horses) there will be immediate and catastrophic consequences. I must weigh passion and practicality equally.

I am not making any decisions about future riding. Frankly, I am as happy brushing a horse as I am on its back. With that in mind, I stopped by the barn yesterday afternoon to watch lessons and chatted with Sarah, my riding instructor and one of the two women who run the business. I wonder, I asked, if the door could be kept open for me to come in on a Sunday afternoon and brush a horse or two or three. Or help out with some barn chores or office work. Take pictures at a show for the Elite Equine website. I have an array of skills to offer that would keep me in touch with what I love and help you at the same time.

I was barely finished with my speech and she was nodding her head, of COURSE! There is always work to be done around a barn, they would be grateful to have my help. Come any time, whenever you want to! And we can swap your work for riding lessons, whenever you're ready.

In fact, she said, glancing down the aisle, Quarterback needs a good grooming. The shedding blade is the tack box over there....

Looking for a Break in Routine

It’s been months since I have had time off from my daily routine. As grateful as I am to have one, and as valuable as it is to establish structure in your life, routine can become a trap. When you do the same thing day after day, week after week, month after month, you don’t have to think about it any more. Your brain goes on autopilot. The light of creativity fogs over.

Since I have been in my current job for many years, I have accumulated the maximum of vacation days, a coveted treasure of time. My husband is not overly fond of traveling but does not mind if I take off now and then. He takes care of home and hearth, gifting me with worry-free time to indulge my birding habits or visits with family.

I prefer quiet, nature-oriented vacations. A Perfect Day for me would be to wake up in my little log cabin in the woods, sip my coffee next to the lake while watching the loons, and then wander on some local roads or woodland trails with my binoculars, camera, nature guides and notebook to lose myself in what I love. Learn the name of a new wildflower (including relearning the names of the ones I have forgotten, which seems to be happening more and more these days). Perch on top of a rock for hours and watch a flock of Common Mergansers pick their way along the shore, search out ways of looking at the world through a camera lens, and most of all, surrender to the words in my head that flood the page writing about what is right in front of me.

I feel kind of dried up now and need to go back to the well. One of my favorite places used to be a tucked-in resort in the Adirondacks, a mere four hours drive from home. I spent the days roaming the woods and roadsides by myself, and in the evening enjoy a glass of wine or two with other guests for a community social hour and dinner. Unfortunately, the place has changed hands and the qualities that made it so special have disappeared. I am looking for a new “personal retreat home” to recover, rediscover, reclaim and realign myself with the natural world, the Grand Physician of my heart and soul.

Do you know of a place that provides a simple, quiet lifestyle in a natural setting, yet is not too isolated or expensive? Making my own meals would be fine too (and possibly make it more affordable). Searching sites on-line are fine but pictures can be deceiving, as can other important features like meal quality, or do they allow noisy machines or music, or like one place I checked out; you have to share the bathroom with occupants of three other rooms.

Any ideas?