Life Gets Wild

It’s 4 pm and I’m trying to save an article I’m writing that’s heading off a cliff called mundane when a shadow passes across my face. I look up and a jumbo jet-sized wing blocks my view of the mesquite tree.  It’s not a plane, it’s a bird; an owl to be specific. He lands on the rocks not ten yards from where I now stand, camera in hand. We have a staring contest. He wins.

I’ve wanted all my life to be this close to one of these magnificent creatures, and here I am in my office blogging about it.

He stays on the rocks for quite awhile, aware of the bunnies cavorting around him (dumb bunnies) but uninterested. The ground around our desert house is littered with body parts that tell us he is well fed. Later he lifts into the air, circles at minimum altitude and ascends into a neighboring mesquite tree. There he stays for quite awhile, but now he’s back down on the ground upsetting the cactus wrens. His chin feathers beat to the rhythm of his panting breath. It’s 111 degrees outside. I want to bring him a dish of water, but I know better.

This beats anything I’ve seen on TV, except maybe for Gabby going for gold. This is a CBS Sunday Morning moment of nature. When the bunny we’ve been watching hops right in front of the owl, I write the headline for this blog: Murder on the Patio. I see the talons grip the furry body, the beak tear the baby bunny limb from limb, the blood fly...but it doesn’t happen. I think I could have watched it though. I surprise myself.

I’m watching him now. He dips his head at something in sight. He raises his head and his throat vibrates. He looks at me and I confess; I don’t know very much about owls but I don’t think he should be here. I hope he’s okay.

Quire in the hole

Quire: a collection of 24 or sometimes 25 sheets of paper of the same size and quality.  Would it be stretching it to inquire if the depression under our orange tree cares naught about who lowers a warm body into the cooling oasis at its roots? Yesterday, it was a bunny. Today it’s a covey of quail, roughly the same size as the bunny and sharing the similar qualities—the desire for shade and a safe place to nap. A dimple in the rocks visible from our living room window provides us with endless entertainment!

Bunnies and bells

At sunrise this bunny hops across the rocks to the orange tree in our backyard. Sheltered by the leafy canopy, she rises on her tippy toes and gently nibbles the vegetation. Then she capers up a rocky incline and sits erect and still, facing the morning light. Do bunnies meditate? I think they do.

We go about our business and so does she until about two o’clock. In the heat of the day, she shows up under the orange tree for her nap. She’s scooped out a place in the rocks where she can lower her belly into earth cooled by irrigation. She wiggles down, gets comfy and places her head on a rocky pillow for a snooze.

These bells were once employed by my son-in-law’s family to call ranch hands to meals. Now they grace the wall of our desert getaway. I’ve always enjoyed the process of setting up a new home. It’s a chance to create change. We will live differently here. If I can keep distractions at bay, I will write more. It’s that’s a big “if,” because it’s my nature to engage.

“You went to water aerobics,” said my friend Sandy. “That’s a slippery slope!” She’s right. I also signed up to hear the pastor of the church we attend in the desert present his vision for senior ministry, “just so I can get ideas to bring home to our deacon board,” I assured my husband. Can I strike a balance between being neighborly and being reclusive? I hope I can.

Bad Kitty

Bonnie (aka Charlie) and Clyde are not living up to their reputation. The evidence is stacked against them; no bloody tribute lay on the doorstep but this morning the mousetraps in the wine cellar were muy ocupado. Dang! While the mice play B&C nap all day under the shed,showing up for kibble in the morning and evening.

Our property is teeming with wildlife. Birding isn’t in their job description but ya gotta wonder…this morning the quail hooted out front prodding a dozen babies the size of ping pong balls. Could B & C be bothered? Noooooo.
 
Tasty lizards scooted this way and that and a snoring buck with fuzzy antlers was really put out when he had to rouse himself off the porch side steps and trot off. It appears that B&C have joined a forest menagerie that eats and sleeps on our dime.

Ideas? Anyone?

Mice

While digging through my kitchen towel drawer I turned up a dead mouse.  I don’t find them foraging in my pantry; they seem to be nesting in drawers crammed full of cozy fabric—sewing drawers, towel drawers—ugh!  Note to self: Time to do some serious drawer cleaning.

I hate to admit it, but the mice have moved in. They pay no rent and give no notice to any of my eviction strategies. I stomp around upstairs. I plug devices into my electrical outlets that buzz to discourage them.  I’m using old-fashioned mousetraps. Occasionally they sacrifice one of their own in a trap, but it’s a ruse.  For every crunched critter there are litters of critters line dancing behind the sofa.

 I stopped putting out poison, intending to pound a sign into my lawn: Perimeter Patrol Wanted—Feral Cats Only Need Apply.  This problem started when the last cat in the neighborhood died, but none of my neighbors will own up to seeing a spike in the mouse population. This is discouraging. It seems that my house is the party house. It’s demoralizing. I’m outwitted by a piece of fuzz at the end of a stringy tail. It’s disturbing. I lay awake at night while they slide through cracks in window casings, skirt under doors, slither along baseboards and fall into my drawers to slumber in pillow-top luxury.

Too bad Gila Monsters prefer the desert.  It would make my day to hear some lizard lip smacking a mouse kabob.   

96 and rising

Basting away again in Ocotilloville
Searchin’ for the most perfect malt
Some people claim that this desert’s aflame
But I know when to exalt.

Ocotillo bursting into praise

Behold what lurks in yonder swamp

What a thrill to leave the flow of the St. John’s river, haul keel over the swamp grass and settle in beside an alligator sunning himself under the watchful eye of a heron. And then to turn around and see cattle grazing chest deep in the murky water—who knew that they fancy the water hyacinth?

Birds of Prey

Late morning, a hawk’s shrill victorious shriek slices through the quiet Sierra sky.  Fair warning furry creatures that forage in the field or run on the road. This day your life will be taken from you. From the sky above a quick pounce will stun you. You will be lifted up and split open, your vital organs pecked from the glistening cavity where they nest.

Late evening, an owl’s incessant call strums the moonlit sky like a rhythm guitar. Flurries of bug-inhaling bats escort her down an unmarked aisle. Earthcrawlers cringe under the shadow of her wings.

I love birds of prey! While it is proper for man to control his bloodlust, raptors get a free ticket to indulge their bloody appetites. It’s the balance of nature.

photo by Steve Ryan

Our political landscape changes. The furry animal that is fair game for the carnivore once kept people warm. Sensibilities changed, perhaps around the time that options for keeping warm expanded. Still, no one is likely to suggest a synthetic diet to an owl or an eagle.

These birds command airspace without regulation. They don’t go rogue, they do exactly what’s expected of them -- provide shelter, feed and raise their young. They revel in the updrafts that lift their wings. They take their posts and focus merciless eyes on territory they claim as their own. They are fearless. They are magnificent.

In these confusing times, it lifts my heart to know that there is a creature who knows what its mission is and executes it flawlessly.

Plunder

The economy hasn’t affected the California sea bird population.  They dine on a bounty of shellfish delivered in waves by attentive Neptune. Like revelers at a melodrama downing sudsy brews and tossing peanut shells on a plank floor, sabre-beaked sandpipers long step through foamy surf to catch up fresh crabs and toss them down.

The wasteful Pacific Ocean piles up the leavings on the beach, shells of former selves who have moved into larger quarters or been sucked from their habitation by greed.  Up the beach a lone cormorant unable to fly waddles into the surf and bobs like a cork out to the sea and certain death, enjoying the fine day as the tide carries it away.

Waste and greed, reviled by Take Back Wall Street, are celebrated on Sunset Beach.

Sunday in the park

If you are ever at a National Park on a Sunday, take a little time to attend a worship service conducted by ACMNP (A Christian Ministry in the National Parks). These inter-denominational services are led by seminarians and college students honing their abilities to lead worship.  They get a lot of help from nature’s most impressive object lessons. 

“No one ever stands in front of Lake McDonald and says ‘Wow, I am awesome,’” Paul from Georgia concluded in his homily. Still waters and green pastures are God’s therapy for us who are over involved with our own needs.

If the heavens declare the glory of God in a national park, then the stand of fire-ravaged tree trunks that circle the lake have a message as well. I regenerate. At water’s edge the forest is greening. A shadow of green pushes its way back into the forest like a watercolorist bringing a sketch to life by adding subtle hues.

 Lightning, the world’s most careless and uncontrollable arsonist, has burned away the pine and cedar duff along with the trees. Now, new light shines in an old dark forest. In the transitional habitat, lodge pole pines that required heat to burst their pods are gaining ground. Song birds increase 200 percent after a forest fire.

Nature gives the best sermons.

Wanderlust

I am blessed to live in a mountain town with the peaks of Yosemite in my backyard. When I go to the Farmer’s Market at funky Mountain Sage – part nursery, part coffee house, part art gallery, occasional music venue for amazing talent – I may not have a choice of vendors of  a vast array of designer vegetables, but I know the back story of most everyone I encounter.

And yet…

I miss access to a state-of-the-art fitness center, easy walking distance to boutiques and museums, the availability of a nearby college or university that hosts artists and writers (no disrespect meant to Columbia College, which turns out firefighters who keep us safe and chefs who tempt our palates at local restaurants).

Closed in by oaks and pines, I yearn for open pastures. Up here on my mountain I long to be gazing across a glacial lake or skimming my eyes over gray coastal tides to lose myself in a horizon that pulls the sky down into Poseidon’s fathomless depth.  I want to light incense in my living room that smells like Montana.

No matter how good it is to be home, I’m always looking forward to the next adventure.   

Montana Skies

Truly Montana is big sky country. On a canvas stretched across eternity, clouds charge across the sky like Disney animations on steroids – empty-eyed flying dragons strike at fat furry bears that fly by, nipping at the tails of celestial squirrels. 

Look below and a different drama unfolds. Cavorting through the tall grass a wild black bear forages. It pokes, unconcerned about the people pile-up on the road – anglers for a glimpse of a creature that is cute and uncontrollable, darling and dangerous.  

  In a meadow a lone bison lounges undisturbed, chewing his cud. We joke that although we appreciate his ubiquitous quality – his stolid, preternatural presence – if he gets paid per viewer he will lose to the bear.

It’s the vistas that most enchant me – the lone dwelling settled in a pasture of sweet grass dotted with prairie flax looking like a pointillism masterpiece. A warm speck of life against a majestic snow-capped mountain, it whispers in the wind: Here there is time and space.

Watercolors

I took my first watercolor class yesterday.  Let’s put a frame around that.  I took a watercolor class at the Yosemite Art and Education Center; with my five and seven-year old grandkids (GKs); on a day when sunlight tangoed with the trees in the meadow and the falls spilled snowmelt like a bosomy matron in a bikini.

I’d spent the past two weeks observing the GKs who sponge new experiences with thirsty glee. On this year’s summer visit, they learned to keep a horse’s head up and out of a tempting salad of poison oak and swim without water wings to the platform in the middle of the lake (don’t tell their mom). The boy improved his aim with the BB gun he keeps here and the girl learned to knit. (I will make no comment on gender roles; it was their choice.)

It was interesting to see how differently we all approached the lesson as we sat in the meadow and sketched our view of Half Dome. The five-year-old drew big a teepee-shaped rock in the middle of his paper and then filled in detail around it from his imagination. After the seven-year-old pulled her attention away from the “eeuuuwww” factor of small bugs flying into her face she produced a very credible sketch. I, on the other hand, put pencil to paper and froze.

As I pulled my pencil along the pebbly paper a refrain started up in my head – I am really bad at this.  I pressed on, filling in more detail than is appropriate for a watercolor sketch and assessing my progress at intervals – the perspective is off; the scale of the tree in the foreground is wrong; this looks more like Mt. Fuji than Half Dome.    

We returned from the meadow and pulled out the paints.  At the end of the day, the children each had a drawing they were proud of and I had a soggy piece of paper. They learned the difference between poster paints and water colors.  I learned some life lessons.

Where to begin -- the sky or the grass? No, begin with the focal point. I may make that a daily practice.

A sketch is a roadmap for your painting.  It should be drawn lightly enough to be erased before you add color. It should include notes about color choices. Note to self: what in my life could benefit from an eraser and what needs color?

Blending watercolors is a delicate and mysterious art.  Who knew that gray wasn’t black dumbed down a little with white. “Try pulling in a bit of yellow into that muddy drop, or a little blue, and see what you get,” our teacher suggested. We got thrilling purplish and peachy grays. 

So much to learn – like any art, watercolor must needs be learned from a master and practiced over time.  I wish I’d started earlier. I return to my writing with a fresh perspective.  There are so many rich experiences in life to pull in.  

Springtime in the Mountains

Driving on our mountain road I saw an amorous vulture hovering upright near the top of a tree. He opened his wings like a theatre curtain and bared his intentions to some little vixen hiding in the pines. The sunlight glanced off his great  glossy wings spread in horaltic stance and he expressed his ardor in a slow, seductive, “come hither” movement.

The doe that settled in at the end of the front porch breezeway grew a big belly and disappeared. She’ll be back with twin or triplets – it’s been a good year for these foragers. Her man came by one evening, walked right up the front porch stairs and eyed us through the screen door.

Old Man Winter is not giving up without a fight this year. My sunflowers that have just settled into their pot and wiggled their roots down into the dirt are in for a nasty surprise. Tomorrow the Old Man plans to hurl everything he has left in his arsenal at pretty Spring – thunder, lightening, fierce wind and snow.

The oak trees shake the pollen from their leafy crowns like long haired dogs rising from creek beds to rattle their bones and let the water fly. The detritus coats our eyes and makes us itch and weep.  It cakes all we possess with scummy, soggy gold muck.

The birds don’t gather on the deck off our bedroom to fight for space in the fountain like they used to. They lost their home in the last big storm – the mighty live oak tree that nested so many of them pulled itself out of the ground and crashed to the forest floor, groaning in protest as it went. It left behind a fan club of smaller trees blinking in unfamiliar sunlight -- new real estate to be explored by the jays and finches, hummingbirds and sparrows.

We’ve set the table a bit early for Spring, who wanders into our mountains on her own timetable. We’ll be glad to see her when she finally arrives.

Zoo-awe-lo-gy

When I saw the world through a child’s eyes monkeys in the zoo performed hilarious antics, tigers paced their cages with the thrill of the hunt in muscle memory, and lions lazed on warm rocks, allowing children to admire jungle royalty at a safe distance. We took for granted that wild animals were caged for our benefit, to develop our curiosity about the world and foster our appreciation of nature. The world was a big place.


Today the world is smaller, and the zoo serves a larger purpose. I reflected on this at the privately owned and operated Wildlife World Zoo and Aquarium in Litchfield Park, Arizona.

South America is too small now to accommodate the Andean Condor, who has the largest wingspan of any land bird. Today this solitary bird spreads his wings in a mesh net enclosure.

An appetite for bushmeat in the Congo has sentenced an entire species of monkeys to life behind zoo bars. They will never return to the wild. If they are to be preserved, it will be in captivity.

Nothing inspires awe so much as God’s handiwork in the animal kingdom. What a fashion show – bold designs sported by big game in Africa are recycled in intricate detail on small fish that dart about in the Caribbean waters.

Every form of human behavior can be observed in animals – the ADHD otters constantly in motion, the parrot couple carping at each other – he talks incessantly in her ear, she lifts her wing to distract him, he smoothes her feathers, then gives her a rude bite on the foot. Her squawks are unintelligible, but his are discernable. He articulates a litany of English words. He is an abandoned pet.

The popular animals are the mutants – an albino alligator so white he glows eerily in his dimly lit indoor swamp, an albino boa conscripted into the animal show to demonstrate reptile habits – the freak show in the circus.

A hymn set to an English melody is a proper tribute to the animals who find sanctuary in the world’s zoos, and to their keepers who tend to them with respect.

All things bright and beautiful
all creatures great and small
all things wise and wonderful
the Lord God made them all.

With all due respect for the human need for space, food and fuel, let’s sustain as many of these marvelous creatures as we possibly can.

A Desert Meditation

A Desert Meditation took first place this week in the FaithWriters weekly word challenge, advanced category.

Early mornings in the Sonoran Desert

eternity teases you off the treadmill of time

draws you up into the stillness of a moment.

Hold a pose then, like the Saguaro Cactus –

spiney arms goal posted to frame the sky

prickly limbs pointing – There! See?

shoulders holding a perfect port de bras of praise

so gather eternity inside you like water

feel it transpire from ramified roots

to cool and nourish the thirst in your soul.

While time hangs a misty veil over the valley

and eternity beckons you to the desert edge

walk the White Tank Mountain trail

stand where water pooled in the rocks

to sustain the Hohokam

let the Word petroglyphed on your heart

give mute testimony to the One who

walked this earth before time.

Like the Saguaro Cactus

know that your roots in this world are shallow

let your reservoirs tap Living Water

Christ in you, the hope of glory.

The Palm of Madagascar

The Palm of Madagascar won first place in the FaithWriters weekly writing challenge.  I get to move up a level --a writer high akin to playing video games.

Once in every hundred years
a Madagascar palm tree blooms
the sweetness of its flower spears
toward heaven and as quickly dooms
the nascent blossom full of life
dazzling in the summer sun
to lose its strength in deathly strife
and so its days on earth are done.

Just so are we allotted time
in which our bloom is but a flash
illuminating skies sublime
then cooling in a bed of ash.
In days of old were men endowed
with children over centuries
and yet it seems time disallowed
their progeny their God to please.

Though man may age ten times tenfold
Or seventy times seven years
It matters not how young or old
man’s worth exceeds his greatest fears
if love is borne like tiny seed
to nourish life afar and wide
the gift is in the loving deed
the wounded hands and feet and side.

By this we know that we abide.

1 John 4:12 & 13

January Snow

A fresh snow in January spreads like hope for the new year. Like a new resolution, it allows the eye to skip over distractions buried beneath – the rotting leaves of past seasons, the new buds of the season to come. They are there, like the seeds of weeds that will plague us in springtime, but we don’t see them in January when it snows.


For a time, vision cross country skis in exhilarating rhythm over paths we don’t normally trod. January is a time to abandon ruts, set our feet on new tracks and just go! Buried below our feet may be a pavement edge engineered to warn us away from a meadow, but just now we are free to wander.

Time and space expand at the beginning of a new year that has clothed itself in a thick, glistening robe and swept its train across the landscape. January is a blessedly long month in which to recover from December’s revelry. Soon enough, muddy holes will burn their way through the fabric of our winter, presenting obstacles to our best intentions.

Now, rest.

The Ahwahnee Spotted Grass Tussler

Happy are we who have a National Park in our backyard. The squall of tourists has calmed and so we ventured forth. Why take your daily walk to the mailbox when you can walk a horse trail from lower Pines Campground to Mirror Lake?


At lunch we observed through our tableside window the Ahwahnee Spotted Grass Tussler, the house ground squirrel. We noted that a white ruff circling the neck and shoulders is this year’s fall fashion. Collaborative behavior, not so much. If I have an acorn in my mouth and you have a bigger one, I want mine and yours too. I will roll you, pummel your chest with my tiny forefeet, grind my back feet into your furry tummy and box your ears to get what you’ve just stashed in your cheek – you cheeky bastard – what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine too!

Do you think they might be Democrats?

Generations

Butterflies pass through stages much like people do. Each stage involves a transformation, a becoming. Maturity is perhaps the most beautiful stage of a butterfly's brief time on earth. After much struggle, a lovely winged creature emerges and graces our world with transient beauty. Bittersweet, its time is short, its beauty fragile and soon gone.
I too am nearing the end of my winged cycle, aware of how short it is -- this time to gather all my energy and fly.
Butterflies appear to flit more than fly. Flowers that offer sweet sustenance are their destination. The struggle on the ground is over. They take to the air for a brief period, beat their wings a prescribed number of times and then beat them no longer.
Butterflies are solitary creatures, choosing the society of flowers. They are polinators, ensuring the next generation of fields and orchards. Each generation of butterfly moves the species forward. Butterflies are pro-growth.
Choose carefully the flowers you visit. They will be the ones you help perpetuate.