water-bugs dancing

Ghosts--they come in all shapes and sizes and forms. This week we discovered the image of a bird on our window.  Our theory is the bird--probably a dove--was fleeing from a hawk and in its panic mistook the reflection of the window for the sky.  The image left on the window is ghostly.  I can see individual feathers.  I can see the eye.  I can see the life and the fear.

Ghost of a bird
Photo by Wes Reid 11/2014

This ghost, this moment, is captured in an image.  Some moments are captured in sounds (those songs from middle school dances take me back every time).  Some moments are captured in taste--chicken soup at Grandma's house. Some moments are captured in smell.

My observations this week seemed to center around smell.   The smoke drifting from the chimney takes me back to backpacking trips--those chilly mornings when I build a fire while Wes is off fishing and Marisa sleeps in the tent (field-notes 11-8-14).  Earlier in the week, I raked leaves and again it was the smell that stood out to me.  I found myself raking the leaves with Megan and Marisa and watching them jump in the leaves, laughing and squirming when the itchy bits of leaves crawl into their clothes (field-notes 11-4-14).  I'm sure the act of raking was, in part, what took me back to those days, but I think the thick, decaying smell made the memory more real.

I'm not sure if everyone is moved by scent, but it seems to be a strong catalyst for me.  I know that when I run down the Sparks Boulevard path past willow bushes and cattails, the smell of the willows takes me back to the ditch banks of my childhood--building forts with my brother and cousins, looking for wild asparagus, watching water-bugs dance on the ditch water.   These smells seem to carry moments from the past that hover over the present, merging the two.

In many ways, I think the past is always hovering waiting to remind us of previous joys, previous sadness, previous life.  In the novel Beloved, one of Toni Morrison's characters, Sethe, is explaining to her daughter, Denver,  that places hold memories, that the past lingers  In the novel, Denver asks Sethe about the past:
                        "If it's still there, waiting, that must mean that nothing ever dies.'
                        Sethe looked right in Denver's face.  'Nothing ever does,' she said" (Morrison 44).

I think the point is that memories have life; they linger like ghosts, and, I believe, there are triggers that evoke those memories--wanted or not.

Morrison, Toni.  Beloved. New York: Vintage, 2004. Print. 

leaning in

the second barrel (actually a traffic cone)
Photo by Wes Reid 10/2014

Ok, well my blog just took a turn (no pun intended).  I spent some time at my parents' ranch and was able to ride my horse, Riley. Riley is actually my dad's horse, but I fell in love with him years ago (like I've loved no other horse), so my dad and I have sort of--without words--agreed Riley is my horse.  Over the years people have offered quite a bit of money hoping to buy Riley, but, well, I guess, my dad loves me as much I love Riley, because he continues to refuse to sell him.

Riley is a registered quarter horse and is quite talented as a roping horse--which makes him valuable. For those of you who don't know what a roping horse is:

from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqmk-_88wKU

me on Riley, my dad on Biscuit
Photo by Wes Reid 10/2014

So, let's get this straight--Riley can do that; I can't.  I ride for fun, mostly on long quiet rides with my dad who rides his new horse, Biscuit. My dad can rope.  In fact he was a national champion cowboy back in the seventies.  I have, however, in the last couple years, decided I love to barrel race.  I am not fast, but Riley plays along and digs in around the traffic cones that my dad got for me.  Compared to competitive barrel racers, Riley and I move very slowly but the adrenaline and power of the run are exhilarating and I always cross the finish line laughing in pure joy.                                                                                                                                                                                         

coming to the finish
Photo by Wes Reid 10/2014

Well, like I said, I got to spend some time on my horse, and my plan was to blog about how much he loves his after-ride-apple, how he waits for me to return to the barn and would bite my fingers in his joy if I didn't palm the apple, how he gets jealous when I pause to give Biscuit a slice, how his lips smack in joy as he chews. 

Riley eating an apple
Photo by Wes Reid 10/2014

That was my plan.  Then, I got home with my notes and my photos and decided to post several photos on Facebook.  I got one comment that changed my mind about the blog.  A friend posted about my photos, "Courageous (I don't trust horses)."  Honestly, I was a bit shocked by his comment. I know people who don't ride often see horses as big, intimidating creatures, but I never feel any kind of fear when I saddle up Riley.  I don't feel courageous; I feel lucky. 

Then, I began thinking about the parenthetical comment--actually, I couldn't quit thinking about it.  I realized that the key is not only trusting the horse, but also the horse trusting me.  

Riley trusts me; we trust each other.  I'm not sure why--perhaps due to years of consistency and apples and laughs; perhaps due to years of cattle drives and "booney bouncing" (galloping through the sagebrush) and loping in the arena and laughs. As I was thinking about this, the familiar comments about teaching high school started echoing with the comment about Riley. 

Similar to this friend's comment, people often say that teaching high school must be scary, must take courage. I can't count how many times people have asked me, "Aren't you afraid?"  when I tell them I teach at a high school.   And similar to my reaction about courage in riding, I usually am astonished by these questions about teaching.  It does not take courage to teach, but I do think it takes trust--both from me and from my students.  I don't mean that without trust, students are going to attack me with knifes in the hallways or that without trust they are going to...I honestly don't know what people think my students might do to me. 

But, I do think for learning to happen there must be that mutual trust.  Perhaps this trust is built out of weeks of writing and comments and frustration and laughs.  Perhaps this trust is built out of weeks of apologies for misstatements and epiphanies and success and growth and laughs (all of these are hopefully both on my part and my students'). I do know that I trust my students.  Again, when I get ready to go to work, I don't feel courageous; I feel lucky. 

leaning in
Photo by Wes Reid 10/2014

to the core

As apples fall they occasionally impale themselves on the green wire fence that Wes constructed to keep the dogs out of my cutting garden.  It isn't a fence for aesthetic purposes; it's more about controlling the dogs and in a way controlling the plants.  Along with the fence, he also constructed a raised bed out of thick lumber that is intended to keep the flowers in and the grass out (field-notes 10/19).  

Photo by Wes Reid
20 Oct. 2014

These apples must fall with a lot of momentum because usually they impale themselves to their core. Some even end up on lower rungs of the wire fence.  I spend a lot of time outside but I have never seen this happen.  An apple just fell.  I heard it but didn't see it.  The sound of an apple falling is unique: it starts with a rustling in the drying leaves that gets progressively louder, then ends with a thud when it hits the ground or the neighbor's back patio or the wooden fence, or a lighter thud if it hits a plant underneath (field-notes 10/21).   Oddly, of the thousands of apples that have fallen, I've never seen one fall.

I started counting the impaled apples; the number reached seven before they started falling from the fence.  It seems that the flesh of the apple softens enough over time for the apple to break in half and slide to the ground.  I have found the severed pieces decaying in the rich soil at the base of the fence nestled in the grass that has found its way into my flowers.

The fence was not constructed to keep apples from the soil, but, as I've been watching the apples and the grass that has found its way into my flowers and the flowers that have found their way into my grass, I began thinking about my desire to control nature, to shape it, to make it look the way I think it should look.  Last week Wes Reid wrote  about how a farmhouse can be "taken back by the land."  He was referring to the power of nature and how our efforts to control nature are often short-lived and a bit futile.  I would go so far as to say our attempts are often arrogant (and I am part of this effort).

We, Homo sapiens, tend to think we are bigger and badder and more powerful than all living beings.  We are the rulers of Earth.  I guess in some ways we are but...

Photo by Wes Reid
20 Oct. 2014

I was thinking about all this when a Ted Talk  came on the radio.  On this show, Louise Leakey, a paleontologist, was talking about the history of humans on earth.  She said one way to think of our history is to use a 400 sheet roll of toilet paper.  Unroll the toilet paper in a line (a long line).  Leaky explains that if we see the sheets of paper as the age of the earth, the first aquatic life would appear on the 240th sheet.  She goes on to say that dinosaurs would appear about 19 sheets from the end (that represents now).  The dinosaurs would disappear about five sheets from the end.  And then we have us, the mighty Homo Sapiens: "Our story and place on the timeline as upright walking apes begins only in the last half of the very last sheet.  The human story as Homo sapiens is represented by less than 2 millimeters of this, some 200,000 years" ("Louise Leakey...").  Our existence is a tiny speck in the picture of this planet and yet we think we are the it of all itness (field-notes 10/21).  Perhaps our existence will last a bit longer if we learn to be humble, to work with our surroundings (like the apples and the grass) instead of trying to control and shape those surroundings.

Works Cited

"Louise Leakey: A Dig for Humanity's Origins."  TED. Feb. 2008. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.  

Reid, Wes.  "Third: The Pear Tree."  Hexagon. Blogger. 18 Oct. 2014. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.  

supporting its own universe

About a month ago I heard a story on the radio about a whalefall, what happens when a whale dies. The decaying whale supports a universe of life.  This includes at least 55 species that exist nowhere else other than on dead whales.  A whalefall can support a community for up to 70 years which is about the same time a whale lives ("Everything and Nothing"). You can see a bit of this at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQbGk4sHROg.

As I have been observing my tree, I keep thinking about whalefalls and how life supports life.  I have counted at least five species of birds that eat my apples: scrub jays, starlings, flickers, crows, and goldfinches.  Then, there are the bees and flies and butterflies (a variety of each) that feasted on the buds, and the different flies and slugs and ants and horses and humans that eat the apples after they have ripened.  

Apple cake made with 8 ripe apples on September 27,2014
photo by Wes Reid

Slug on a fallen apple, October 5, 2014
Photo by Wes Reid

I can't say all these creatures need the apples the way those species need the whale carcass, but I know my life is enhanced by apple cake, apple pie, apple butter, apple bread, apples.  I also know that my horses will walk a long way in the heat of the day from the middle of the pasture to the gate hoping I have an apple in hand for them.  What slugs think, I don't know, but the one on my apple seems happy--as do the flocks of birds that jockey for position in the tree.  

And, although I think these creatures could live without my apple tree, their activity in the tree points out the cycle of nature that is so obvious, yet so easily overlooked: we are linked in the loop of nature, as are the slug and the tree.  If we do away with the slugs, will the trees flourish?  If we do away with the birds, will the bees flourish? If we do away with any one species, how many are affected?  It seems like the ripple would be endless and tragic.  

Work Cited

"Everything and Nothing." Craig Smith.  Radiolab. NPR. KUNR, Reno, 30 Aug. 2014.  Radio.  

community

 Starlings. These birds were first brought to this continent by man who wanted to honor Shakespeare.  He brought them to central park and from there they have become a prevalent songbird across the continent (http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/european_starling/id). I've always thought they were a nuisance but while listening to my tree, I have become enamored with their squawking, their chatter, their cluck, their song.  I tried to capture it on video--not very successfully.  

For a better listen go to http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/european_starling/sounds and listen to the first recording. 

I started researching starlings because they are eating my apples.  They show up in noisy clusters and move through the tree pecking at, and eating the still hanging fruit.  As they eat they chatter and chortle and whistle.  It's not a pretty sound but it's definitely alive and vibrant.  

So, as I began researching and found the fact about how they got to this continent then I found this. You must watch this.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Q-EbX6dso  Watch it.  Please. That nondescript bird does this.  

This is what a seemingly unimportant, unimpressive creature can do if he unites with others--truly unites and believes in the community.  If we could somehow come together this way    

underdog

from Flikr online

      Underdog

      I’m for the little guy –
      Blue black tan gray green red white

      I’m for the guy that lost the fight
      That day on the school yard
      When the bully stole the nerd’s hat,
      And the nerd let him have it –
      The hat that is. And it wasn’t right.
      Demanded fight.
      So the little guy Nobody stepped forward
      And said ‘Hey, you can’t do things like that.’
      And the bully laughed, ‘Oh yeah. Watch this!’
      And pushed Nobody’s face/into the chain link fence;
      Massaged it there/while the nerd looked on
      Mewling,/’It’s only a hat. It’s only a hat.’

      Until the little guy Nobody
      Had had enough of being a hero,
      Feeling the knots of the chain link fence
      Cut into his cheek,
      And called it quits.

      I’m for that guy
      Walkin’ away feelin’ like s--t,
      Feelin’ as if he’d lost somethin’
      Losin’ to a guy twice his size –
      Because, in the movies
      A real hero chops those bullies down,
      Sets right the situation.

      But it never worked out that way for this kid
      Righteous though he was.
      And in his lifetime he found out
      That bullies were always winning,
      And the nerds were always helpless.
      And caught between them,
      Forever pathetically engaged,
      Were guys like him
      Trying to set things right,
      Trying to undo the damage,
      Trying to live in accordance with ancient ideals
      That even in ancient times
      Must have been just that,
      Ideals.

      But what the hell. I’m for him,
      Whoever he is –
      Because, even today,
      When it comes to a stolen hat,
      A stolen chance,
      A stolen you name it,
      He stands up right in the face of it,
      Come what may, and says,
      Hey. Hey. You can’t do things like that!

                                                Marc Smith The United States of Poetry 

I tend to root for the underdog. Actually, that's an understatement; I always root for the underdog.

Well, this is the story of an underdog winning:

Midsummer, I was at the nursery as I often am, and I spied a plant that was discounted because it was sort of sick looking.  (The nursery often puts undesirable plants on sale.)  I felt bad for the plant--about 6 inches tall and in a four inch pot, it had yellowing leaves and vivid blue flowers.  I bought it not because it would fit my aesthetic, but because I felt bad for it.  It was trying to live, to be beautiful, and it was homeless.  I took it home and planted it even though it didn't fit with its surrounding flowers.  It thrived.

It continued to bloom and grow, but, honestly, it never captured my heart the way the surrounding wild geraniums had.  It never made a splash with the bees and butterflies the way the already spent bee-balm had.  It simply bloomed and its leaves curled in as if it was not quite sure it liked me or my garden any more than I like it.  Then, it started growing pods, long giant, green green-bean like pods--not pretty.  Then the pods began to yellow--still not pretty.

On September 22, one of the pods burst.  At first I thought I was seeing a spider's web.  There was this white ethereal film in the foliage.

Wes Reid's photo 9/19

 I looked closer and realized I was seeing seeds something like those from a dandelion but much bigger.  Inside the now open pod were hundreds (if not thousands) of the compacted seeds.  Once released, the seeds were silky white ballerinas that danced in the breeze.

I was taken by the gift from my underdog.  I can only hope the seeds settle in and next year those blue flowers mingle with the geraniums and the bee-balm that seed in a much less glorious way.

Seeing

I've spent thousands of hours in my backyard so I genuinely didn't expect to notice anything new.  Actually, I'm not sure if I have noticed anything I have not seen before; what's different is the lens I'm seeing through.  Instead of looking to see if things are dry and need water, I'm looking to see what I can see. 

I'm sure I've seen little blue-white butterflies (a long tailed blue butterfly) before but I never saw the orange eye on their wing.   




from: The Firefly Forest: Discovering and Enjoying Nature



I wonder if the eye is about scaring off predators?   "The butterfly had little color except for orange eye shaped spots on the lower back corner of his wings.  The orange mirrored the orange of the flower."   Field-notes, 9/15

I've seen thousands of slugs but never paid attention to how quickly they can move.  I plan to find out if they are what is so quickly devouring my fallen apples.  I think it's going to take a trip outside with a flashlight to find out if the slugs are working alone or if there are other night dwellers joining in.   "...this one [fallen apple] had a relatively large slug feasting on the broken and softening flesh. The apple was sort of bubbling in its wound and the slug was bellied up to the sweet liquid." Field-notes, 9/14

I've seen those little birds (lesser finches)--about three inches from beak to tale.

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Lesser_Goldfinch/id 

I've seen the deeper yellow male and the more grey female.  I've seen them in the garden but never looked closely at what they are doing.  "They seemed to be gathering seeds out of the spent flower pods. The worked quickly and silently--holding on sideways to the swaying plant and twisting to gather their food." Field-notes, 9/13 

Field-notes 9/13

I wonder if, when these creatures see me, they see me? Or am I simply an annoyance to be avoided?  A part of the backdrop of their world?  Do they see any beauty in my existance?