Old Water/New Water—What’s the Diff?

Water should be water, right?  According to my garden, that is not the fact.  My tomatoes, peppers, and okra have a definite preference for rain.

At the beginning of every planting season, every gardener dreams that moderate temperatures and  plentiful rainfall will produce a lush and bountiful garden.  By July, reality sets in and that gardener either gives thanks for a dream come true or that same gardener rises at dawn to get outside before the heat sets in to weed that garden and to water before the heat evaporates off most of the moisture.

Due to this summer’s record-breaking temperatures, I have been diligent about getting outside early with hoe and hose to care for my leafy charges.  While these green guzzlers seem to appreciate my efforts and the sleep I give up, they have a definite preference for rain vs. tap or well water. I have visited with other green thumbs, and they share this observation.  Plants like water, but they really like rainwater.

This confuses me a bit.  Well water is just really, really aged rain water. After all, that aquifer filled due to ancient rains that fell on this land thousands or millions of years ago. In all those years underground, minerals have enriched the aquifer waters, which one would think would be good for plants.  However, I suspect that may not be true, based on the evidence before my eyes.

I make sure my plants have ample water to thrive.  To reward me, they stay somewhat green considering the heat, and they continue to grow and fruit lethargically.  Give them a good rainfall, and they grow at least two inches in a few hours and set on fruit if the temperatures allow.  If I had time stop film on them, it would smoke at their rate of growth.

My initial thoughts were that rainwater delivers some kind of nutrients from the skies, and maybe it does.  What I am thinking now is maybe plants can more easily utilize rainwater than they can mineralized well water.  Perhaps, since it hasn’t been aged in Mother Earth’s cask, it slides down the plants’ metaphorical throats without any hiccups.  I guess I’d choose a glass of cool water over something aged in oak myself.  

I don’t have any real answers about why my garden prefers one kind of H₂O over another, but after several close observations this summer, I know it is true.  I guess the question now is would water collected in a rain barrel continue the natural effects of rain? That would be worth finding out in these dog days of summer.

Autumn Is a Minimalist

As a youngster and up until recently, my favorite seasons were spring and summer.  I loved the green lushness of emerging, blossoming, and fruiting plants that even on a dry prairie hide the landscape a good percentage of the time.  I loved the fertile scents and nose-tickling aromas of hay and native grasses when summer sun heats their resins.  I loved the way the sun created mirages that changed the face of the prairie second by second, like a personal magic show.

With time, I learned to appreciate minimalism even more than I love lush abandon.  Something about the starkness of autumn feeds my spirit more than all that camouflage, rich scent, and visual deception.  Shrinking grasses and losing leaves open vistas; cold temperatures sharpen and clarify scents in a way every bit as appealing as heat-generated and blended plant resins.  Between colder temperatures that sharpen the how far I can see and the unique light we have due the tilt of the earth after the autumnal equinox, everything I look at appears more distinctly than each spring and summer’s views.

Once autumn arrives, it reminds me how much abundance summer hides.  Fields and pastures lush with curly buffalo grass, big bluestem, little blue stem, silver blue stem, side oats gramma, and bunches of Indian grass hide trails of field mice, rabbits, and even deer unless one wanders into the pasture and looks directly at these pathways.   Summer leaves hide bird and squirrel nests.  At the same time, they hide the creatures that live or feed in those trees.

After the grasses shrivel and autumn winds batter leaves from their trees, one can stand, sit, or lie on any overlook and see a previously unknown world.  An entire infrastructure of animal and insect roadways interweave the prairie like all those streets and highways connecting homes and businesses in big cities.  It’s a Google Earth micro-world.  At the same time the dying grasses open a new view, the falling leaves unveil deer and turkeys meandering through the trees until I can see each creature’s individual markings.

At the same time someone notices this world that has remained hidden through spring and summer, he or she might also recognize the sharpness of scents.  Somehow, heat in the summer month causes a blending so that it is often hard to distinguish exactly what one smells on a breeze.  In the brisk fall temperatures, smells hit scent receptors one at a time, allowing one to savor the sharpness of blue berries clustered on cedars.  A venture into a Osage Orange hedge sets off conflicting responses.  At first, citrusy smells, which might explain why someone called this ugly fruit an Osage orange, tickle nostrils.  The squashed fruits with innards peeking out emit a puky smell that assaults the nose.  In nose numbing autumn temps, scents don’t mix. 

At the same time the under-world of the prairie becomes more evident and when scents sharpen and become more individual, autumn’s cool temperatures reduce mirages and misty hazes that often delude the summer visitor to the high plains.  It is easy to stand on a hilltop and see clearly for miles and miles in any direction.  I watch vehicles travel from Ogallah on past Ellis and identify what kind and color they are even though I am miles from them.  Someone who knows vehicles could tell make and model as well.  I can see the elevator at Riga distinctly and the one between Ogallah and Wakeeney is pretty clear even though it is over 15 miles away.  If I go outside at night, that clarity continues.  I feel like I could touch the stars if only I could reach a little higher.

Despite loving summer’s lush richness, I have learned autumn’s starkness appeals to my senses in a way that allows a minimalist’s appreciation for nature.  

  

Nothing Wasted

Nothing goes to waste. . .  An interesting statement all by itself.  In fact, out of context, one would have trouble deciding how a statement like this could be true in modern society.  However, when placed in the context of the outdoors, it is a true statement.  Within mother nature’s realm, nothing is wasted.  Everything has a purpose.

In our world, we have a hard time finding a use for anything dead or diseased.  In the animal, bird, and insect world, that is sometimes when an object or being is most valuable.        Diseased trees are a veritable diner for many bird species.  Amuse yourself sometime by watching woodpeckers as they cock their heads to listen, I suppose, for the sounds of insects who have taken up residence in the dead or unhealthy wood.  We have several birds that entertain us regularly as they feast on invaders in an old elm. 

At the same time, squirrels have turned that tree into gymnastics apparatus as they leap from branch to branch and race up and down the trunk to irritate the yellow dog who lives in hope of the day he will catch one of the sly creatures.  As he sits watching from the ground below, the squirrels gang up on him and throw bits of twig and bark at him.  All the while they are chittering and scolding him for bothering them at play on their tree. 

Further down the creek bank, some trees have deteriorated even more and literally crumble back to dust. On a warm day, I love to watch all the insects who have made this rotting tree home.  As they hasten the tree’s return to the earth, they create tunnels and caverns the Army Corps of Engineers would be proud to claim.  After  tiring of watching the creatures on the old trunk, I like to examine the earth beneath the trees.   

         

The decomposing tree fashions a soil--deep, rich, and vital.  The very energy the decomposition creates makes the affected soil warmer than that surrounding it.  Small green shoots emerge here first in the spring.  The scent rising from this loamy soil seems to shout vitality and life.

Not only do trees recycle, but so do animals that have succumbed to illness, age, or the always bigger automobile.  Lately, I have seen a number of deer carcasses that have provided some dandy feasting for the local coyotes and carrion birds. How completely these animals  pick the bones clean has always intrigued me.  As nature intended, they leave nothing to waste.

Without these carrion eating beasts, it would be a miserable place out here after a great blizzard such as the one we had in 1986 when so many animals died.  As it is, the coyotes fed well and birthed healthy pups the following spring as a result of their good eating.

It is easy to think that downed tree or dead deer is a great loss, but trust me, it isn’t.  Every part possible to use was, and soon we’ll see tender shoots in a deeper shade of green than any of those around them emerging from that particular spot.  In nature nothing is wasted.

Sunset Memories

Sunset Memories

Skilled technicians with the right equipment can create concert and video light shows that bedazzle audiences.  An important component of such expertise is that anyone, anywhere can ooh and aah at  color and light shifting like an on screen kaleidoscope.  Fortunate Kansans don’t have to wait for the light show to come to town. They only have to look west each evening to enjoy Oscar winning productions the setting sun and our clear atmosphere combine to create daily.

My grandfather, a lifelong western Kansan, first introduced me to Kansas sunsets.  I’m not certain who acquainted him with shades of gold shifting to deep purple, lavender, rose, orange,  and magenta, but he was a sunset addict.  Once he acquired a camera, he photographed thousands of sunsets that he turned into slide shows to entertain visiting grandchildren.

As our family car headed home to Kansas each summer, I sat in the back seat and wondered about Grandpa’s incredible sunset pictures. To pass time, I imagined rose fingers piercing dusk’s  lavender  or bright yellow rays fanning across a backdrop of deep red-orange.   I knew I could ask Grandpa to play his entire repertoire of slides over and over again.

During my visits, he invited me to help him capture a few sunset photos. I don’t know if my cousins liked joining Grandpa to watch that golden orb drop into the western horizon, but I loved those moments as much as I loved watching his slide shows before bedtime.

What I have learned since is that Kansas’s pure atmosphere contributes to these remarkable sunsets my grandfather loved to photograph.  Light reflects best in an unadulterated atmosphere, which explains why Kansas produces so many photo ops for photographers and painters.  Kansas doesn’t produce much smog, a result of frequent winds that clear the air.

Occasionally, media spokespeople say dust and pollution create lovely sunsets.  Actually, scientists say dust and pollutants mute color and reflection.  That explains why prairie sunsets amaze Los Angeles, London, or New York residents.  They are used to seeing muted colors as the sun dips into the distance instead of the brilliant hues that Kansans enjoy often.

One  exception to this sunset rule involves volcanoes, which can affect Kansas sunsets.  The amount of dust and particulates volcanoes shoot into the stratosphere creates a unique afterglow unrelated to industrial pollution or smog.  Sunsets following major volcanic eruptions make happy Sunflower State photographers and sunset junkies.

As a kid, I never wondered if my grandfather was taking photos of sunsets produced by pure Kansas air or if some of his photos captured the afterglow of volcanic dust.  What I did learn from both his slides and opportunities to join his photo adventures was to appreciate something many take for granted.  As I look west each evening, I enjoy not only the sunset but also the memory of a man who shared his love of the setting sun with me.

Nature’s Calling Cards

            In Victorian times, people of good breeding and character with time on their hands apparently went “calling.”  As either a pass into another’s home or as a token of the visit, these folks left behind a calling card in a lovely dish placed on some sort of table in the entryway.  These ornate calling cards engraved with the caller’s name held special significance if one bent the left top corner one way or another meaning if a different corner were bent or torn. 

            While this seems terribly complicated, I have found that nature deals with calling cards of a different and much less difficult sort.  Having walked hundreds of miles down country roads and paths, I have observed more than a few calling cards left in the middle of the road to mark borders of local coyotes.  These calling cards, while every bit as clear in their message, aren’t nearly as ornate or as collectible as those left by our Victorian ancestors.

            In case I haven’t made it obvious yet, passing coyotes leave scat piles in strategic and clearly visible patches of road or trail. Over time, I have observed enough tokens of their visits to know they want other coyotes, my dogs, and me to acknowledge their presence in the neighborhood.  In fact, their frequent messages aim to tell me they claim my drive , pasture, and surrounding section roads.  I am the interloper.

            While Victorian cards present the visitor’s name in ornate script, surrounded by the filigreed designs of the time, coyotes leave simple little messages.  If, however, one is attentive, one can read volumes in those epistles.

            Over the summer and into this fall, I put together a list of messages I have interpreted in recent months.  Coyotes tend to be opportunistic feeders, and though they sport a lovely set of canine incisors, they will eat fruits, berries, and melons.  Late spring and early summer notes are more numerous as a result of the fibrous nature of the “ink.”  These calling cards never varied much in theme.  Some of the messages included lines saying, “Hey, check out the mulberries.  Who needs rabbits when the berries fall off the tree into your mouth.” Another card might read, “Mulberries rule, but watch out for the darn birds.”  Later in the summer, I might read a similar message along these lines, “If you thought mulberries were good, you have to try the currants.”   “This season’s currants defy description—flavor and bulk make them first choice of all coyotes.”

            As the berries shriveled and fell to the ground, these calling cards took on a new texture and dimension.  Rodents came back into fashion.  The messages might read, “ Whoa, that was one big bunny!” or “Packrats make great snacks.” Lately I have noticed coyote diets tend to include a little rodent fur and little round seeds I haven’t identified, hence the following motto, “Eat a balanced diet—a little meat, a little grain make a coyote sleek, sassy, and fast.”

            While it may seem odd to relate a coyote’s natural bodily function to calling cards left behind by Victorian gentlefolk, similarities exist.  Coyotes don’t have many options when it comes to leaving notes advertising their presence in home territory.  Left to natural devices then, they leave these scat piles in the road to serve the same purpose as old fashioned human calling cards.  Your dog reads it with his nose.  You read it with your eyes. Take note when you see one.  A wild creature has dropped by for a visit.  Hope it was pleasurable.

            

Nature's Bullies

Whoo, whoo.  Caw. Caw. More raucous cawing.  In fact, it sounded like the set of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. I partially opened one eye to check the time.  The sky peeping around the edges of my shades was barely light--I couldn’t even see a hint of rose or pink tingeing the gray dawn.  What in the heck was going on?

 I tried to ignore the cacophony outside, but that proved impossible.  Noting my husband had his eyes wide open, I asked, “What are they doing out there.  Is it a crow convention?”

“Nope.  Listen.”

For a short while silence reigned and then I heard the quiet whoo, whoo of an owl.  “Did you hear it?” he asked. 

“What?  The owl?”

“Yea, the owl.  That’s what they are after.”

Crows after an owl.  But why?  My now wide awake bedmate explained that people who hunt crows often use owl calls and decoys to lure crows.  I recalled seeing those in the Cabela’s catalogue and at sporting good stores.   He continued to explain that owls sometimes feast on crows in their nightly forays. 

That explained the crows’ animosity, and it got me to thinking about bullyish behavior.  Sure, that owl or one like him had dined on a crow at some point, but the crows outside my window had formed a regular lynch mob, and from the noise they made, this owl faced serious trouble.  The odds were at least thirty to one.

Finally, the owl got the picture that the crows meant business, and he took off for other perches.  At once, the crows croaked a final raucous cry and rose after him.  We could hear their wings flapping sharply in unison, a final sound like someone running a sharp edge along brocade.  I could imagine the barely risen sun glinting blue-black off their wings as these stealth fighters pursued the enemy.

Finally, quiet reasserted itself in our bedroom, and my brain busied itself thinking about other bullies of nature.  Particularly obnoxious are the blue jays who hog the feeder, scolding and pushing smaller birds away.  Last spring we often served up to twelve jays at a time, and they  certainly held their own in screeching contests.   Like all bullies, they don’t intimidate easily.

Starlings can also take over a feeder and run off the small birds.  Once they invade, I can only hope the blue jays will dash back and run them off.  Unfortunately, they usually arrive in such numbers that running them off is a pipe dream.  We have to make life-threatening explosion noises before they get the hint to leave.

These birds are obvious bully types--the kind you remember from the playground--the bigger, louder, swaggerers who pick on littler guys.  You know the type.  Do you remember the other kind of playground bully--the little guy with a Napoleon complex?  He always took on the big guys, or he took on more than one guy at a time.  Sure, they usually cleaned his clock, but he swaggered away from the fight as a victor just because he challenged the big guy. 

Well, nature has the equivalent.  Drive around the countryside on a warm spring or summer day.  Keep your eyes peeled until you spot a hawk or other bird of prey floating on an updraft.  Watch closely.  Chances are you will spot a much smaller bird or birds darting in and out, attacking that hawk.  Those feisty king birds zero in like little gnats, irritating and amazingly audacious.  Amazingly, they do not appear to faze the hawk. 

That morning wake up call certainly took me far afield in my mental ramblings.  Time to get outside to see what is really going on in the bird world.

Mud’s Blessings

        

Sometimes a little time must pass before we can talk about the really nasty, disturbing events in our lives.  Finally, enough suns have set and enough moons have risen that I can discuss something that has gotten to me in a big way the last couple of  weeks.  Mud! 

            Yes, mud.  Icky, gooey, gross, sticky mud.  Like cat hair, it latches onto anything it can, coating and clotting its way from the road and driveway onto my shoes and pant legs and into the house.  I find it in the oddest places—a little speckle stuck to a grocery sack, a chunk by the door, a smear on my purse.

Lately, we have had such an abundance of it that I can hardly remember the color of our vehicles.  Next time you drive through a parking lot, take a look and see if you can identify the country cars and trucks.  We saw one last weekend that had so much mud coating it, the mud finally started calving chunks like ice floes off a glacier.  The asphalt beneath that pickup had enough mud covering it someone could have stuck in a couple of potatoes and carrots and started a nice little garden.

            Mud does not simply obscure a car or truck’s paint job.  It adds a new dimension to driving.  I like to be at least the second person to drive down a mud road, just so I can read the tracks of the vehicle that passed before me.  I know everything will proceed as it should when the tracks follow a straight line in the appropriate lane.

When I see tracks that swing back and forth across the road with sharp little wedges along the ditch that show where a previous driver jerked the wheel hoping to straighten things out, I know I should tighten my seat belt and check for loose items that can fly through the car.   Those kinds of tracks make anyone take a deep breath and send a few extra little prayers heavenward.

Right now, we have an interesting situation the road near our house.  Some of you may have taken your children to amusement parks that have those little roadways with mid-size cars youngsters can drive.  Ever notice the rail that runs around the track to keep the car on the road?  We have one running a hundred feet down the hill, across the bridge, and back up the hill.  Only our rail is mud-formed after weeks of tires surging through it, creating the Grand Canyon of tracks. 

 

Once I challenged it on an icy morning and found myself fender to fence post up the nearest incline.  The road and I parted ways somewhere in my momentary rebellion, but no damage was done.  Fortunately, I ventured only a bit from the beaten path and with few minor groans and grimaces, I re-entered the trail.  After this experience, I suspect mud had a lot to do with the forming of those still present tracks on the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails.

Of course, if you are not in a hurry and you do not mind burying your vehicle, you can hit the accelerator, close your eyes, and scream “wahoo” until you find out exactly where nature takes its course.  I think some of my students call this “mudding.”  Since I am always going somewhere on a deadline, I have not yet enjoyed this thrilling element of mud.  Perhaps when that day comes, my perspective will change.

Driving by the CO-OP, I notice the farmers and ranchers have a handle on the mud situation.  They sport some dandy boots, tall rubbery ones they can hose off when the mud gets too thick.  I think I might need a pair of those, maybe two or three.  I could keep one in the car, one by the back door, and one by the front door. 

My husband has a great pair of rubber boots I like to snitch, but they weigh so much before they get mud covered I cannot walk in them after the mud babies start clinging and clotting in each little tread, especially since they are way too big for my feet.  By the time I make it to the dog pen, I can barely lift my feet.  That short distance adds at least five pounds of mud to each foot, which causes the too large boots to pop right off my feet.  I do not know what he does about this extra tonnage.  He probably figures it is good for him and packs on a few more ounces of goo.

Mud is not only miserable; it multiplies the amount of work to be done.  I know farmers and ranchers must plan extra time into their schedules to feed and work their animals.  It adds drive time to get to town.  Road crews know they have more work coming as soon as it dries.  Housekeepers cringe just thinking about the extra vacuuming and scrubbing.  It becomes obvious why farmhouses have a mudroom or mud porch. 

But…yes, but… Lack of mud means lack of moisture.  It means blowing dirt.  It means watching the dust hang in the air for minutes and sometimes hours after someone drives down a country road.  It means no green winter wheat peeking through the soil, no milo, no sorghum, no soybeans, no rippling creeks, no fish to catch, no wild flowers. 

No mud suggests no life for many of us who love the prairie.  I guess I will get me a pair of those light weight rubber boots and some extra vacuum bags and start counting my dirty blessings. 

Mother Nature Will Help You Release Your Inner Artist

Recently, a friend sent me a link to “Scott Wade’s Dirty Pictures.”  It sounds like something that should make me blush; however, it is actually a site detailing a clever artist who turned his dirty car windows into canvases for spectacular drawings.   With the recent snowmelt and resulting swampy driveway, I  wondered if I couldn’t save some money on art canvases myself and take up sketching on our pick-up and car windows.

When the recent snow first fell, the yard and surrounding pastures converted to pristine white canvases that reminded me of a newly-opened jar of peanut butter.  I hated to let the dog out that morning  because I wanted to keep looking at those unspoiled acres.  Obviously, I had to do the equivalent of making the first knife swipe into that Jiffy jar and let Buster out to see if he could even find a bush to mark in all that deep snow.

For a long while, our little terrier’s dragging belly and four scrawny legs made the only designs in that snow.  Then my husband got busy shoveling paths to shed, garage, bird feeder, and chicken house.  Finally, he cleared several paths so Buster didn’t have to bounce like Tigger through the white depths every time the little guy went outside.   These varying paths created a kind of 3-D sculpture that reminded me of ivory carvings I have seen on Antiques Roadshow.

Soon, I saw hieroglyphic patterns caused by winter bird tracks as they hopped lightly over this unknown substance.  I suspect it has been so long since a really good snow fell that many of our birds didn’t know about this, relying on instinct to direct their maneuverings from feeder to branch.  Their tiny footprints added a new dimension to the constantly changing yard art. 

All this creativity inspired me to scrounge up a dilapidated cowboy hat and blue bandanna to head outside in my own coveralls and mittens to construct an original snow sculpture.  Apparently, the moisture content or the crystalline shapes of the flakes weren’t perfect snowman-making material so I cobbled together a crusty snow-cowboy to guard the driveway.  Despite his shortcomings, it was clear he was a rugged westerner overseeing a gorgeous nature-inspired gallery.

As this snow melted, taking with it all my found art, it combined with dirt, a desirable quality in farm country suffering from drought conditions.   The resulting gooey mud added a new dimension to my concept of art when my friend sent the link to www.dirtycarart.com.  Instead of simply enjoying the Jackson Pollack-like splats and splotches coating our vehicles or trying to analyze the Rorschach type blobs , I keep considering the creative possibilities as this mud dries on my windows. 

I would love to see friends and neighbors take advantage of these nature-inspired canvases to fill our western Kansas communities with original creations.  Take advantage of Mother Nature to release your inner artist with free art supplies.  Just make sure you can see to drive safely.

Mother Nature and Bev Doolittle Share a Common Artistic Talent

                Bev Doolittle’s nature paintings gained popularity for several reasons: they are fine art, they focus on interesting topics for folks who love the West, and viewers enjoy finding the hidden picture in her work.  I am sure there are other reasons art lovers like her work, but those are a good start and lead me to my next point.  Mother Nature shares some of Bev Doolittle’s talent and artistic illusions.

                A good friend and early riser came out to walk with me Saturday morning.  I love to share the beauty of Kansas mornings in our neighborhood, so I was thrilled to have her see Round Mound in early morning pastels and then follow the horizon line past Ogallah to the Cargill Elevators.  The 15 mile view of fields and prairie in between is art at its best.

                At the beginning of our walk, we identified grasses, wildflowers, and tried to figure out where a good -size calf had escaped his pasture and his anxious mother.  Meadow lark trills and a pheasant crowing set up a nice backbeat to our rambles, and we were feeling richly blessed by  a normal Saturday morning.

 That is how I always feel when I look at a Bev Doolittle piece, too—seeing the surface view is pretty darn pleasant even before I find her hidden treasure in each painting.  You can see where this perfect morning story is going.  It got even better.  As we neared the section line road, I pointed out a large plot of silver leaf nightshade, which led to us wondering how it ended up growing so prolifically at an abandoned farmstead.  That led to me pointing out the Osage orange trees leading up the still identifiable drive, which led me to point out  a lone Osage orange growing along the fence line, which  next led to me seeing the V of two little ears sticking up in the tall grass.

 

A white tail doe had hidden her fawn in the shade of that Osage orange tree while she  browsed to take care of her own nutritional needs.  We looked around for the doe and a possible twin but didn’t see anything except the tree, grasses, and that field of lavender wildflowers—oh and a perfect cloud- filled blue sky.  The baby lay there still as could be even though I know it could hear us talking.  Its momma had instructed it well.  Those live freeze models in store windows could take lessons from how well that little spotted fawn held a frozen pose.

On our way back down the lane, I looked again for the fawn and could not see it anywhere.  We stopped for a few minutes until I finally laid my eyes on the baby.  It hadn’t moved an inch.  Mother Nature had done such an amazing job disguising hidden treasure in a morning pasture scene I couldn’t find the baby without looking hard for it.  In fact, my eyes had gone over it a few times before I finally focused in to see it lying there in the grass. 

Bev Doolittle has some amazing training and talent as a painter.  However, she doesn’t have anything on Mother Nature, who does a fine job creating her own little hidden paintings within a gorgeous scene.

                

Morning Rambles

        

    The title for this column came about as a result of my physical and mental ramblings about the countryside.  Lately I have spent more time getting to know and understand the fields and ditches surrounding the section lines in this neighborhood. 

After a busy school year and several summers where I have scheduled two or three lives into one, I decided to spend some time enjoying my own backyard and the surrounding area.  One of my summer goals includes getting up early and taking off for a good hour or so of walking, observing, and thinking.  

I do not know about anyone else in the house, but the dogs have loved my plan.  Though they would love to, both of them cannot go at the same time due to the older dog’s bad hips and the younger dog’s poor discipline.  As a result, I take the older dog for a “short” hike around the drive—a walk of about a mile for me, two or three for him after he chases up a rabbit or two and busies himself marking an assortment of weeds and grasses.  Looking at the world through his eyes, I see the abundance of rabbits and small rodent homes in the neighboring countryside.  His nose is not particularly sharp, and pheasants often surprise him when they erupt skyward right under his nose.

After he enjoys his spin around the pasture, I return to trade dogs.  The younger female waits patiently at the front window with her nose pressed against the glass until she sees us coming back up the drive.  Then that purebred hunting dog blood percolates full speed.  She can barely contain herself as I let the older dog in and turn her loose for her longer ramble.

After doing “donuts” in the sandy drive to show me how happy she feels to go with me, we venture off on whichever road suits our mood that day.   A male mockingbird has made a habit of sitting in a cedar near the road and remarking on our journey with an amazing musical repertoire.  Another feathered friend, this time a cardinal, perches on an overhead line or in a nearby hackberry tree to join in the chorus.  If the dog were not so intent on following her nose to new adventures, I suspect I would find myself spending my walking time watching those two crazy birds at their choral competition.

Early is the operative word here.  These walks need to begin no later than seven to fully enjoy the morning.  I guess the cool air or maybe the need to find breakfast brings out critters I do not see later in the day. 

My favorite walk involves a short hike south to the next east-west section line and following it west.  From there a person can see Riga and under perfect conditions nearly to Ogallah.  To the north, a dark green shadow of  trees marks Big Creek’s winding path through the pastures and fields, and beyond that, lines of cars and trucks snake along Interstate as they head east and west. To the south and west, I see Round Mound, a fine marker for any traveler journeying across this part of the plains.  

At the corner where I turn to take this path, I can easily believe I stand at the center of the universe at the point where the great blue bowl of the heavens joins the horizon line in a giant circle.  Every time I stand there, I think of Per Hansa’s wife Beret in Giants in the Earth and wonder why she feared this vast openness so greatly it eventually drove her insane. Certainly she was exposed but at the same time so was everything else as far as she could see.  She could see all the world had to offer from any direction she turned.  Perhaps seeing so much of that world frightened her.  Despite her reservations about the open prairie, I never fail to feel a huge sense of delight and reverence when I take in that view.

After the brief stop for me to get my bearings and for the dog to check out any scat left behind in the middle of the road by a neighboring coyote to mark his territory, we head west.   Wheat and big blue stem grass wave to our south and a buffalo grass pasture lies to the north.  Pump jacks dot the pastures before us dipping their heads like prehistoric mosquitoes bent on sucking the very marrow from the earth. 

Nearly three quarters of a mile up the road, I see the ruins of someone’s dream.   Hand-turned porch posts and the neatly spaced trees lining a drive no longer used attest to the care its former inhabitants gave to the home place.  Now cattle use the corners of the old house as scratching posts and other creatures have made homes in the recesses and crevasses that time has worn into the structure.  I know it would not be difficult to find out who lived here, but I prefer the freedom not knowing gives my imagination when I think about this old farmstead.

Along the way, the dog detects the scents of quail and pheasant that we have heard calling in the cool air.  Unlike the older dog, this one finds and follows scent trails, pointing several birds during each walk.  She looks back at me as if to say, “What’s up here?  I have done my job.  Do yours.”  No matter how good a dog is, it cannot understand the concept of hunting seasons.  It simply follows the dictates of its senses. 

Watching her racing through the Walk in Hunting Access, I realize we should have named her Tigger instead of Reebok.  Filled with sheer joy, she literally bounces, ears flying and legs drawn up, through the tall grasses.  Meadowlarks and grasshopper sparrows scold her for interrupting their morning.  For a moment I long to join her, though I cannot imagine the intensity of the scents she enjoys.

Speaking of Tigger, just the other morning a bobcat bounced through the wheat field … in search of dinner I suppose, or maybe the joy of the morning filled it like it fills our little red dog.  On an already perfect morning, seeing something so unexpected added a bonus.

Sometimes we find surprises on our walks.  Deer, coyote, and skunk tracks are fairly common.  They merit a pause and a look, but not much more than that.  However, every now and then I spot the trail left behind as some snake crossed the sandy road in search of better grub. On occasion, tiny rodent prints indicate a tiny passerby.  This time of year, I sometimes note a tiny set of hoof prints following larger prints, and I know there’s a new fawn nearby.

Something is to be said about getting to know one’s neighbors, whether they be human, beast, bird, or plant.  These morning journeys give me the chance to introduce myself and to discover exactly who and what shares this little space I call home.  Seeing them through the eyes and noses of two very different dogs provides a vantage point I would miss if I walked alone.

Moon Gazing

If you took an evening walk or happened to look out your window eastward last Thursday, you saw what some call the Worm Moon, a term American Indians introduced.  While these nomadic people didn’t follow a Julian calendar, they knew the importance of using seasonal moon phases to record passing time.

In certain climate zones, snow had melted enough to reveal visible earthworm casts, indicating returning robins.   Thus the March moon became Worm Moon.  Northern tribes might call that same orb Full Crow Moon due to cawing of returning crows or Full Crust Moon due to crusts topping snow from spring melts and freezes.  Eastern tribes sometimes called it Sap Moon because of rising maple sap.  This practice of using seasonal descriptions to name monthly full moons makes each one unique.

It seems calling the moon something specific like Snow Moon (February), Thunder Moon (July), or Long Nights Moon (December) would make humans more aware of passing seasons.  Living a migratory life in tipis or other portable housing would also make it easier know moon cycles and their nature connections.

Although I live in a traditional house, moving from city lights to a rural area introduced me to moon phases.  Growing up with heavy light clutter, I had no understanding of waning and waxing moons or even about full moons unless it had to do with heading to the beach under a June full moon to capture silvery grunion navigating shoreward to lay eggs.  Unfortunately, I hadn’t noticed most calendars indicate moon cycles for the light-clutter impaired.

Driving home from late practices and games, I eventually noticed predictable moon cycles.  After several months, I realized the moon waxed or grew into a full moon from the left, or in a D-shape.  Shrinking or waning moons disappear from the right in a C-shape. A gibbous moon is one that is convex on both sides. Avid moon gazers synchronize with moon cycles to know whether it is a waning or waxing gibbous moon.

Despite studying moon phases using ping pong balls in a grade school science class, it took seeing that butter-colored satellite go through its nightly paces in rural skies to understand what my teacher tried to show me with ping pong balls.

As I became more attuned to moon phases, I noticed we sometimes have two moons in a month. This happens about every 33 months because moon cycles are about 29 and half days.  In recent decades, this second full moon in a month is called a blue moon, hence the saying “once in a blue moon” to mean something that doesn’t happen very often.  Even rarer are two blue moons in one year, which must occur on either side of February since it only has 28 days in most years.  For those of us who love full moons, we celebrate a blue moon in August of this year.  Mark the calendar and plan an extra moonlight picnic or campout.

In the next week or so, the visible moon will shrink to nothing, leaving us with a new or dark moon.  Then we can watch it grow into either an April moon if we’re closely tied to the calendar or to a Grass Moon if we prefer to think seasonal change drives the full moon’s name. 

Monsters in the Garden

            

                Never one to watch reptilian or insect life forms emerge from human hosts on the science fiction channel, I am struggling a bit with the monster show going on in my garden right now.  It all began or at least my part in the drama began a couple of nights ago when I went to show a family friend my “beautiful” salsa garden.  At least it had been beautiful the night before.

 

                Pride is never a good thing, so you can imagine my alarm when I discovered that several tomato plants sported branches with no leaves and signs of little whitish “poopies” on the ground below the plant.  That sent the husband, the friend, and I on a mission to discover a thriving tomato hornworm population having a great time in my garden.  In a recent article, I discussed how clever Mother Nature is at creating hidden pictures.  Well, the tomato hornworm is another one of her masterpieces.

                How something that long (two – four inches) and that round (fat ones must be near an inch in circumference) can hide from two and in this case six perfectly fine human eyes is a miracle.  These creatures can be huge and crawling or hanging around invisibly in plain sight.  What an oxymoron, but it’s true.  In their bold, destructive hunger, they don’t hide.  Something bigger than the stem it crawls on blends in with the plant like it is part of the plant.

                Once again, Nature has worked her magic in such a way that this monstrosity of a caterpillar is exactly the color of the tomato stems and leaves.  A skilled painter could not match hues more perfectly.  A science fiction special effects department could not create a nastier looking monster.  These tomato vine green, pillowy caterpillars come in segments each marked with a white V. Each segment has its own clingy set of legs that give the person who picks them off the vine the willies.  While their front end with the mouth seems uneventful, the last abdominal segment that some might consider a tail has the nastiest looking horn attached.  I’ve found no evidence that this is harmful, at least to humans, and I have never been stung or poked, but it’s evil looking. 

Keep in mind that great numbers of these creatures from the deep can take up residence in a tomato patch, so finding and destroying one is not the end of the gardener’s job.  I found six the other night and two more larger ones the next morning.  I’ve started taking stock of the tomatoes twice a day now, hauling my big coffee can into the tomato patch and tossing those creepy crawlers into it for a feast for my chickens later in the morning.

                You might wonder how something this ugly gets into a beloved garden.  Again, Mother Nature has some fun.  Those big moths that look like humming birds (Sphinx moths) like to lay their oval, light green or yellow eggs on nightshade family plant leaves such as tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and egg  plants.  In six to eight days, the larva—the hornworms—hatch.

                If the gardener doesn’t find these creatures consuming the tomato or other solanaceous plants, these guys hang out and eat for three to four weeks.  When they reach gigantic maturity, they plop off their tomato plant into the dirt like a kid off an air mattress into a pool.  Once in the garden soil, things get nastier.  They pupate for about two weeks.  Doesn’t that sound like a 3 a.m. in the morning SyFy thriller.  Once done pupating, they emerge from the garden like a phoenix from the ashes as a full-blown sphinx moth ready to start the cycle all over again.

                Some folks are so frightened by these caterpillars’ nasty appearance, they head straight for the can of Sevin.  This is not necessary.  These guys are easy to pluck from the stem they call home and dropped in a can to feed the chickens if you have them or they can be drowned or snipped in half to end their tomato plant destroying days.

                At the end of the growing season, experts recommend tilling the garden thoroughly as a means of destroying any remaining pupae in the soil before the next planting.  I have mixed feelings about this.  It prevents finding these ugly Shrek green beasts on the tomato vine, but it also prevents the hope that a gigantic, hovering moth might be a hummingbird sampling the nectar in the flower garden.

                While monsters in the garden are more alarming than monsters on the science fiction channel, they let us know a bit more about nature’s mimicry and her cycles.  It’s worth examining the tomato plants twice a day to shake a few ugly bugs loose.  My chickens second that!

Miniature Dinosaurs on My Hilltop?

As a child I lived in the Southwest where my dad founds bits of dinosaur bone at his well sites and brought them home to me.  These bones-turned-stones gripped my imagination until I had to have a dinosaur tooth and a dinosaur coprolite (fossilized doo) in my rock collection.

When I became a mom, I dragged our two little girls to the Panhandle of Oklahoma so they could stand where dinosaurs stood.  These preserved tracks in a dry wash provided a 3-D snapshot regarding the size of the monstrous creature that left this trail. My daughters’ tiny feet were freckles on those tracks outside Kenton, Oklahoma.  Then they discovered that no matter how far they stretched their little legs, they couldn’t take a step as big as a dinosaur could. Even my extra-long legs didn’t match that long-dead dinosaur’s stride.

Intrigued by these ancient three-toed footprints, I decided they looked like a jillion-time magnified version of chicken prints scattered about my yard.  This made me wonder if my flock and these reptiles thundering about in my imagination did not share some similarities.

After visiting the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center in Woodland Park, Colorado, I realized many scientists agree that dinosaurs and birds share common characteristics, including scales (bird feet); feathers in some dinosaur species; lung, skeletal, heart, digestive (gizzard stones), and  reproductive development(egg laying);  sleeping postures (head tucked under arm/wing); and brooding behaviors. 

Inspired by these common traits, my view of my cackling clan changed.  Instead of only seeing egg-laying machines roaming the yard snagging tasty insects to recycle into golden yolks, I saw tiny dinosaurs stomping across our hilltop.

Did dinosaurs roam their habitat much like chickens do, alert to the slightest motion of a food source? Were some of these vanished reptiles as easy to please as my hens about what they ate?  The girls love their grain, veggies, a crunchy grasshopper, or a stale slice of bread. However, if one of them spies a mouse in the chicken house or yard, chaos erupts as they fight to devour fresh meat.

Did dinosaurs go to roost at dusk as my hens do?  If so, did a group of them gather side by side, chortling dinosaur, “Good Night, John Boys”? Did their good nights sound like supersonic versions of my flocks’ cozy bedtime clucks?

Regardless of how dinosaurs rested, hens running toward a meal reveal an ungainly two-legged, top heavy gait many short-armed dinosaurs shared.  The girls’ epic food battles provide a glimpse of the noise and violence one would experience watching a dinosaur food fight. I wonder if those monstrous beasts wiped their food-crusted mouths back and forth across the landscape as my chickens do to remove beak gunk.

My feathered ladies’ conscientious nesting and brooding over tiny fluff-ball young exhibit a tenderness that would be amazing magnified in much larger dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs may be extinct, but my flock provides an opportunity to imagine those reptiles in their world. Seeing my hens’ three-toed prints in mud leaves me wondering whether a future paleontologist will wonder what kind of dinosaurs lived on my hilltop.

  

Sandhill Migration

            Leaves turning from green to gold and russet, nippy mornings, and blue skies tinged with just a hint of gun metal gray leave no doubt that autumn has arrived, delivering its basket of harvest goodies.  Many of us see the colors of fall and feel the changes in the daily temperatures, but few catch the haunting notes of autumn’s unusual song, trumpeted through the long larynxes of thousands of migrating sandhill cranes.

            These same cranes flying over by the hundreds of thousands herald the first warm days of spring each year as they fly north to their staging areas on the Platte River and later to nesting areas on the Alaskan and Canadian tundra.  Then each fall they tug winter’s frosty blasts behind them as they wing their ways overhead on their return to the playa lakes of South Texas and Eastern New Mexico. 

            Long before I see them, I hear that hoarse, rattling, trumpet that only a bird with a three foot long, curved larynx could make.  It is an old song, one that has possibly been heard for 65 million years, with at least 10 million of those years in the region of what is now Nebraska.  Some part of my brain, perhaps a segment that evolved eons ago when human footsteps were still new in the dust of this planet, responds to these lyrical notes.  Who knows?  What I do know is that like folks who play “name that song” games on the radio, I need only hear a note or two to distinguish the song of the lesser sandhill crane from other migrating birds flying south.

            I first heard it this fall as I opened the car door after work one October evening.  Leaving the pots of still blooming petunias, moss roses, and geraniums and the canopy of golden leaves shading the drive, I hurried into open pasture where I could scan the sky easily to search for the almost reptilian shape of these long necked, long-legged birds.  After seeing their flight silhouettes, it isn’t hard to imagine these birds as prehistoric creatures.  Soon I could determine that their flight path took them east of my position in the open field.  I noted the slow wing beat and the careless grace of a couple hundred birds winging their way south.  The sun would have set that night somewhere between six-thirty and seven.  These birds had another good hour of flight before darkness descended. 

            Keeping the cranes in view as long as I could, I silently wished them a safe journey with plenty of food on their way to the shallow lakes of their winter homes.  Just as I could hear them before I saw them, the last notes of their chorus faded after they had faded from sight.  For a moment I wondered if I had imagined seeing these magical birds on their migration south. Then I heard the arriving notes of another flock winging its way along the same path. 

            By the next morning, I knew why I had heard the crane song so loud and clear the night before.  The birds were literally racing a cold front sweeping in from the North.  We awakened to a frosty world where ice imprisoned the bright blooms of the previous evening and etched windows and lawn furniture with fanciful designs.

            Every now and then when I am outside, I catch the faint notes of stragglers following their fellow cranes south.   I wish them the same good fortune I wished their swifter fellows.  At the same time, I long to hear that ancient song announcing the arrival of another spring.

            

The One Day a Year It Is Okay to Knock and Run

How many remember dancing in a circle while weaving long ribbons around a May Pole or making construction paper baskets covered with crayon drawings? Afterwards, flowers picked from the yard or a kind neighbor’s garden filled those paper baskets. Once you loaded your baskets with fragrant blooms, you sneaked from door to door to hang your homemade containers. At each house, you’d knock and then run like crazy to avoid detection. May Day was one of my favorite holidays from earliest childhood. 

I loved cutting, coloring, and gluing together creative paper cones with my mother and my brother. Even more, I loved choosing the prettiest blossoms to assemble into fresh bouquets. They included everything from my favorite lilacs, to tulips, irises, yellow roses, chickweed and dandelions.

Once we finished our May baskets, we trekked door to door, carefully draping handles over a doorknob, knocking, and then running fast as our little legs would carry us. Naturally curious, we hid around the corner to see our recipient’s reaction.

We always thought we were so sneaky, but we’d hear an older person call, “Thank you, Karen or Thanks, Kent.” We’d giggle like crazy, knowing our target had caught us.

Once I had little girls, my neighbor and I introduced our four daughters to this tradition. Some years we made paper cone baskets and some years we used saved up strawberry boxes and wove string or left over ribbons between the slats to make them pretty enough to serve as May Baskets. The little girls loved roaming our yards picking perfect flowers for their surprise deliveries. Sometimes they filled their arms with blooms and other times they filled their little red wagon bed. 

We lived outside of town, so we’d drive into town to deliver baskets to babysitters, Sunday school teachers, and two older gentlemen who were very kind to Ellis children. I don’t know that sneaky describes the girls’ approach to a  door because they often stood on the sidewalk debating loudly who would hang the basket.

Rarely did our girls escape detection. It took too long to get four little girls into the back seat and buckled in, so our recipients often held baskets to their noses as they waved us on our way.

Each year, May 1 reminds me of May baskets I delivered and those my daughters hung on doorknobs. Had I planned such deliveries this year, finding blooms to fill my baskets would present a serious challenge. Because of the early spring, my lilacs and tulips have gone to seed. By Tuesday, my irises will have peaked. Lack of real flowers would force me to fill baskets with fake blossoms.

Despite the challenges a changing climate creates, May Day is a holiday worth celebrating with big and little kids. It encourages creativity, being outdoors, and giving without expectation of return: all worthy endeavors. Besides, it’s the one time it’s okay to knock and run.

Making Memories and Jelly

Since I have been writing this column for at least 12 years, I have already covered some of these topics, but as the seasons and years go round, so do some of my experiences with minor modifications. I have covered chokecherry picking and chokecherry jelly making before, but this is this year’s pick and this year’s ruby jewel of a toast accompaniment.

Birds conveniently deposited the remains of their chokecherry feast along a barbwire fence near a country road not far from our place.  These bush/trees have grown alongside this fence for years, and if conditions warrant, produce a crop of berries that permits the birds to eat plenty and me to harvest enough to make a batch or two of my favorite jelly.

Since I last wrote an essay on this topic, I have discovered other sources for picking chokecherries. However, since this plant is practically in my yard and I can watch it through the seasons, it is my favorite go-to site. 

Because I see this plant on an almost daily basis, I monitor it from bloom to harvest.  Ol’ Jack Frost literally nipped last year’s harvest in the bud, so you can imagine how happy I was to see a late bloom this spring.  Since then, I have worried that the ongoing drought and triple digit temperatures would dash any hopes that late bloom fostered, but lately chokecherries dance through my dreams.

Watching the little clusters of green berries form and fill fed those crazy dreams.  In the last week or so, I watched the little fruits join my tomatoes in Mother Nature’s magic as they turn from green, to light red, to deep red. 

Once that happens, I can’t miss my minute of glory by much because the birds will beat me to the picking.  To prevent losing all my fruit to my feathered friends, I have been looking twice a day to see how the berries are maturing.  Last night I saw enough crimson clusters to make it worth rising extra early to begin my own pick.

This morning, I rose before dawn, watered, made breakfast, fed the dog, and searched for a DEET product.  Yep, part of chokecherry pickin’ is the bug factor, and I have learned the hard way, it is best to go prepared for the worst.  Chiggers have a way of causing me all kinds of misery so I made sure I coated underwear lines, sock lines, sleeve lines, and my glasses (accidentally) with plenty of product designed to thwart those invisible torture monsters.

Once I had my body protected from bugs, I got a bucket and shears to snip little clusters, and headed off in the coolest air of the day.  Part of picking chokecherries is the ambience.  The prairie sky is a blend of pink, orange, and blue pastels all blended by a master artist.  The birds like the way morning feels too so they add a chorus or ten to brighten my mood.  Not wanting to be left out, grasshoppers and other string instrument players get into the jam session and add their own rhythms.

It all goes together to be one of those perfect moments that I remember when life drains me.  I savored each little piece of the morning scene individually and together as I searched out those perfect berries on reachable branches.  I was harvesting much more than yet unmade jelly.

Once my jelly is made, I’ll store jars of it my pantry to open this winter when I have forgotten how beautiful a summer morning can be.  When I open that jar, garnet sweetness will transport me back to this moment and the absolute contentment I enjoyed as I faced down chiggers to pick nature’s jewels off the chokecherry tree/bush on the road to my house.

Lucky Hunter

         After every rifle season, lucky hunters celebrate their success stories, recounting details of the hunt to their friends and anyone else who will listen.  Over the years, I have heard many a tale about the one little turn of good fortune that transformed the ordinary hunt into the extraordinary hunt.  There is one story I have never heard that ought to be told because that hunter is the luckiest hunter of them all.

            In the past two years, I have learned of at least three such lucky hunters, yet, I suspect, they don’t even realize their fortune.  The story I first heard involves neighbors who live west of us.  The wife came home around dusk the first Wednesday of rifle deer season to discover a high-powered rifle bullet had shattered the family room bay window. 

This happens to be the room where her grandchild plays and naps when he spends Wednesdays with Grandma.  Glass shards exploded through the room so thoroughly the insurance company replaced furniture, carpeting, and window dressings since the splinters of glass couldn’t be totally removed.   Thinking about what would have happened had any human, let alone a small child, been in that room sickens me.

The next story involves a friend who stored his bass boat in his mother’s barn.  Come warm weather, he went to ready his boat for the upcoming fishing season when he discovered a problem with the engine.  It wouldn’t run because it had a high-powered rifle slug lodged in it.  After doing a little detective work, he, too, discovered an errant bullet had whistled through the barn wall, through the boat hull, and into the engine.  Once again, some lucky hunter avoided injuring a human, though he or she wreaked havoc on my friend’s fishing season.

I’ve heard it told that bad luck comes in threes.  Perhaps good luck does also.  This last story involves several pieces of good fortune stitched together.  Just a few weeks ago, another neighbor, who had traveled much of December and early January, called my husband over to show him a bullet hole exiting his barn door that hadn’t been there when our neighbor left in December.

On a mission to discover how a bullet hole exited a locked barn, the two men began their search.  What they discovered made them realize another rifle hunter luckily avoided tragedy.  This individual had fired his or her rifle as he or she came up over the hill by Spring Creek.  The hunter apparently aimed at a deer in our neighbor’s alfalfa field and missed. The bullet pierced the barn wall, went through a wooden door propped against the wall, struck the corner of a wheat drill that split the bullet, sending both fragments through the front door toward the gas tanks in front of the barn.  Our neighbor frequently parks his pickup in this area of the farmyard.  Fortunately, he was gone when this incident occurred.

This is not an essay against hunting.  Hunting is a wonderful way to enjoy nature and learn more about our place in it.  This is an essay that celebrates some hunters’ good fortune in that they did not kill or injure another human when they failed to follow the most basic tenet of hunter’s safety.  KNOW WHERE YOUR BULLET IS GOING BEFORE YOU PULL THE TRIGGER. 

High-powered rifles have made it possible to shoot a bullet an average of 3500 feet per second.  Folks using them have a responsibility to make certain they know where that bullet will end up if it misses their game. 

Somewhere, someone is sitting around bemoaning the fact he or she lost a deer.  Instead, that hunter needs to celebrate not ending up as a statistic in the back of the hunter education manual.

            

Loading the Larder

The mystery of hummingbird nectar disappearing faster than the rate of evaporation and without the aid of the birds I intended it to fuel has puzzled me for a week now.   Yesterday, I got the answer to my vanishing sugar water.

While I washed dishes, I watched summer-plump squirrels carrying nuts and other harvest dashing about the yard and creek bank.  One of these comedic characters ran into the flower- bed beneath the kitchen window, intending to hide his loot in the soft soil.  To his consternation, the late summer foliage hid six hens that would  enjoy his stash, so he swiftly zipped out of range and back up the hill. 

As I watched the squirrel run to safety, the hummingbird feeder happened to catch my eye.  What was that dark blob surrounding the imitation blossoms on the red base of the nearly empty plastic bottle?  That morning, the container had been half- full, but this blob had consumed at least half of that amount, if not more of the remaining mixture.

Peering more closely into the waning light, I could see that the blob possessed moving parts that shifted over one another, but none of them left the food source.  Truly intrigued, I used my camera zoom to figure out what this alien invasion too close to my house actually was. 

On about 25 zoom, I could see a hoard of bees loading up on nectar.  That certainly fit in with all the other wildlife activity occurring in our backyard.  The squirrels are working double time gathering and storing food for the winter.  Every one that I see is carrying something in either its mouth or its paws.  Robins and killdeer pour over the lawn and pasture snagging up chilled insects that don’t move as fast as usual.  Spiders come closer and closer to the house, spinning intricate traps to capture a dinner that will fatten them for coming lean months. 

With the cooler and shorter days, creatures that can’t depend on a trip to the grocery store are loading larders in preparation for the days ahead when food is hard to come by.  What entertains me as I watch out the window is actually survival mode for creatures that share my neighborhood. 

What they don’t remember to dig up this winter may sprout into a new tree in the yard next spring, which will bring another smile when I think about how the frantic storage activities of this fall led to the new greenery.

Life Without Light Clutter

When I talk to friends who love to live in cities, they often wonder what we do for fun in our rural setting.  Even my former students who live in a nearby small town frequently asked, “Don’t you get bored in the country?  All you have to do is watch grass grow.” Anyone who reads my essays knows I don’t get bored even though we don’t have any neon lights or busy city streets lined with businesses that cater to people who just want to have fun.

On that note, one of the advantages of living far, far from an urban area is the clarity of our night skies.  Without the reflection of city lights cluttering the inky background, stars, planets, meteor showers, and satellites pop and sparkle like expensive diamonds resting on black velvet in a fine jewelry store. 

Any clear night is a good evening to sky watch, but August with its Persiod meteors showers bombarding the wee hours’ dark canvas with scores of meteors per hours guarantees even the most lackluster skywatcher a chance to experience heavenly magic.  In November, folks get another chance to see a significant meteor shower when the Leonids show up in the southern sky.  Not nearly as many meteors as the Persiod showers arc through the darkness per hour, but the show is significant enough that it is worth rising early to watch.  The high point of the Leonid Meteor Shower occurred before dawn this morning.  If you missed it, set your clock so you rise before dawn tomorrow to catch its encore.

Even without meteor showers putting on a light show, ten or fifteen minutes standing on a dark hilltop  guarantees an unforgettable view of the moon.  I especially love watching communion wafer–like full moons rising in the east until they create light enough to cast odd shaped shadows about the yard and pastures.  Then my imagination takes off, and I know exactly how ancient people generated some of their stories of creatures that roam the night.

Under darker skies, it is fun to wait for a falling star so I can make a hasty wish before it vanishes or keep watch for orbiting satellites that follow a set path in their nightly orbits.  On rare occasion, we are lucky enough to see the Northern Lights dancing to a tune we don’t hear.

While some might consider us deprived because we live far from city lights, I don’t see it that way at all.  Without those lights, we have a view of the night heavens that few get to enjoy.

  

                

Life Away from the Lens

I swore I would never be a woman who lived her life behind a camera lens.  I wanted to live in the moment, experiencing life as it occurred. 

I achieved this goal until I received a Nikon that captures moments up close and from considerable distance with clicks of a silver button.  Using that telescopic lens, I could see fine details my unaided eye used to see as blurs.

After I got the camera, I went to Valle Caldera in New Mexico where I saw dark objects miles away. I couldn’t tell if they were cattle, horses, or elk, but when I maximized the focus, I counted every tine on those elk antlers.

Power is dangerous, and this camera gave me power to see detail at amazing distances. The trade-off was it limited what I saw. Despite this disadvantage, I found myself behind the camera watching my granddaughter play while I snapped photo after photo.

I traveled across the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming, watching bits of scenery through that vision-limiting lens.  Through the peep-hole, I watched a grizzly follow a buffalo calf in Yellowstone and took a wonderful close-up.

Despite these pictures to show loved ones, I sense I missed out on something I can’t retrieve.  A recent trip without a camera drove this message home.

We traveled through Hill City and Norton on our way to Sidney, Nebraska, right after a dense snowfall.  Weather channels predicted a blizzard, but Mother Nature fooled the prognosticators, delivering snow that, due to its beauty, should be its own coffee table photo collection. 

North of Wakeeney, I realized we would drive through miles of winter wonderland Kansans rarely see. Despite my intentions to capture 1000s of great snow scenes, I misplaced my camera.   Without it, I focused only with eyes and memory, but I saw the big picture. 

Field after field looked as though thousands of pastry chefs had frosted them with elegant seven-minute frosting. Contours plowed into the fields looked like meringue crests while Dairy Queen swirls capped posts and bushes.

Not only were fields and ditches works of art, but trees and poles sported Currier and Ives snow decorations. It looked as if a giant dabbed each branch or pole with a pointed brush. We happened to drive through this as the morning sun took aim and set fire to all those ice crystals.  I didn’t have enough breath for so many “Aha” moments.

I ached to wrap my hands around that missing camera.  I’ll never see so many miles of stunning snow again.  On the other hand, because I didn’t have that lens to focus and that button to click, I saw every bit of beauty surrounding me.

I had forgotten how a lens keeps the photographer from being part of the scene.  I appreciate this reminder even though I wish I could share these scenes with others.