Phil Miller's Blog, page 4

The Broken Shell

“Get your hat and gloves, Benjamin. It’s cold.”

“I know, Grandpa, but brighter than summertime.”

“Yep, winter sunlight bouncing off the yellow grass where we’re heading — it’s blinding.”

“Where’s are we heading, Grandpa?”

“Whispering Lake. I’d rather explore the marshy shore on a winter day than when it’s swarming with bugs. . . .Oh, wait for me! I can’t go down the hill quite so fast.”

“It’s okay, Grandpa. I’ll just get that bleach bottle. Someone littered.”

“Bleach bottle. . . . Out here in the meadow?”

“Uh, Grandpa. C ‘mere!  Take a look!”

“Hmm, what is that? Why, Benjamin, it’s the shell of an Eastern Box Turtle. See? It still has a dome-shaped top, the carapace. The bottom part, the plastron, is in better shape.”

“Grandpa, why isn’t it brown like other turtles with orange or yellow designs?”

“Its shell got sun-bleached after it died, Benjamin.”

“What happened to it?”

“It could have been attacked by a hawk or an owl, or by a fox or raccoon. If it sensed it was in danger, it would have pulled its head and four limbs into its shell and clamped it shut. That’s how Eastern Box Turtles protect themselves and live a hundred years.”

“Something broke its shell, though.”

“You know what I think, Benjamin? I think it was a tractor mower. I saw a turtle shell on the road last year that had been crushed by a car, and I think this one got crunched when they mowed the hay in this field last spring.”

“Aw, that’s sad. Well, Grandpa, I’ve seen other turtles around here. I saw a little baby one on your driveway, and on the road last summer I saw one this big with red eyes.”

“Ah, red eyes; he would have been a male. I saw one in the yard with yellow eyes, which means she was a female. She started digging a hole in the yard.”

“To lay eggs?”

“I thought she might. All of a sudden, though, there was a loud clap of thunder and a huge downpour. Well, Mrs. Turtle scampered away into the valley to hide under the leaves.”

Will she come back?”

“Good chance, Benjamin, next spring. They usually stay within a couple of hundred yards of their home base. For now, though, they’re hibernating.”

“Where do they sleep?”

“Under piles of leaves and logs, in holes, often underground a couple of feet.”

“What do they eat?”

“Young ones like worms and grasshoppers and crickets. As turtles grow, they eat bigger animals, even dead ones. They can eat birds and their eggs if they catch them in a ground nest. As adults, around here, particularly, I suppose they eat blackberries and mushrooms.”

“Box turtles are cool, Grandpa. I wish this one hadn’t been killed.”

“And I wish the one on the road hadn’t been killed, either, Benjamin. I watch out for them when I’m driving. I’ve even seen people stop their cars to get out and move them off the road.”

Engineering our Extinction

Time for thorns, or berry prickles, to be more precise. Conscience jabbing, or scratching anyway.

A replay of an interview from last year was still fresh for me when I heard “Fresh Air” a few days ago. Terry Gross interviewed Elizabeth Kolbert, who wrote The Sixth Extinction. Kolbert’s book recounts the first five extinctions, times when many organisms across many groups died out never again to appear. The fifth, most recent extinction included the dinosaurs.

The sixth extinction, she explains, has begun.

It can be measured and analyzed. Kolbert has traveled throughout the world observing changes taking place and investigating the causes. She has swum in cold water to see how carbon dioxide isn’t merely changing the air around us but the oceans, which distresses organisms that live under water. The pH balance of sea water is becoming more acidified, which is causing organisms to drop out. Combine that with overfishing, bottom trawling, and ocean warming, she announced, and by the end of this century “your oceans really start to look sort of like the underwater equivalent of a vacant lot.”

Terry Gross, the clever interviewer, asked why we should care. Elizabeth Kolbert gives two answers. First, she says, we are unraveling “the beauty and the variety and the richness of the world, which has taken tens of millions of years to reach this point. And if you don’t care about that, what do you care about?” Second, she admits that no one knows for sure where the changes that are happening now will lead. Scientists can study the “experiment” modern technology is imposing on the planet. For instance, they can document that forty percent of amphibians are endangered. They can project the end of sea coral growth. But they aren’t sure how many species will become extinct, or exactly how that will impact human survival.

Later the same day, I was reading Barbara Kingsolver’s essay, “A Fist in the Eye of God.” She invites an imaginary guest to sit down for a cup of tea. The guest has asked, “In two hundred words or less, can you explain to me why I should be nervous about genetic engineering?”

Sound bites aren’t big enough for science, so for the next ten pages, Kingsolver answers the guest’s question. One thing I learned is that the real reason to be nervous about genetic engineering isn’t its effects on human health but its impact on biodiversity.

Just one example: An agricultural mega-corporation manufactures a seed to grow super corn. They have genetically modified the seed. They have taken an existing pesticide, safe for humans, and built it into the DNA of the plant so that the caterpillars that harm the plant will explode. The wind blows pollen from that corn onto other vegetation, where different types of caterpillars (would-become butterflies), which pose no threat to agriculture, explode and start to die out.

What to care about? For me, the challenge is to care in a way that makes a difference.

Sylvester, Tweety, and Benjamin

“Has that cat been around lately, Grandpa?”

“Sylvester? It’s been a while, Benjamin. Then again, I may have seen footprints.”

”Sylvester? Is that his name?”

“Oh, I just call him that.”

“Why?”

“He reminds me of a cartoon I used to see when I was a boy like you.”

“Cartoon?”

“Yep, Sylvester the Cat and Tweety Bird. Sylvester is always trying to catch Tweety, a yellow canary. Sylvester looks like he’s dressed up in a tuxedo. His head high and never gives up. But he always loses.”

“Do you feed the real Sylvester?”

“Naw. He feeds himself.”

“How?”

“I’ve seen him drag a squirrel into the woods. That squirrel had more meat on it than the birds the cat usually eats.”

“Birds?”

“Sure, Benjamin. Not maybe, or probably, but certainly. And he’s better at catching birds than the cartoon character.”

“You’re sure?”

“That’s what I’m telling you. A billion birds a year.”

“A billion?”

“Yep, it was on the news on TV. Made some cat-lovers mad.”

“Who counted?”

“That was their point. It’s a guess. But even cat lovers admit that at least thirty million birds lose their lives to cats each year.”

“Cats — like pets?”

“Partly. One of my friends adopted a little gray tabby. Her cute pet cat goes outside in the evening and brings home a trophy.”

“A prize?”

“Yep. A chipmunk or mouse sometimes. The cat lays the prize at my friend’s feet at the back door. Often, it’s a songbird.”

“Her pet cat?”

“A pet cat that leaves the house to hunt. I know people with pet cats that never go outside, but some people don’t pay enough attention to their pet cats. Those cats run away, get lost, and become strays. You can spot a stray cat. It stands up straight and will let you get near it, but it doesn’t’ really have a home anymore. Probably that big gray cat that comes around here is a stray. It may have been a stray for a long time.  It seems a little friendlier than a feral cat. It shows up during daylight hours. A feral cat would prefer to come around after dark.  ”

“What’s a ferrow cat?”

“Feral. It has an L at the end of the word. It means a cat that has never had contact with people so it keeps its distance. It only likes the cats in its own family. It stays low to the ground and wraps its tail around its body. It never purrs or meows. It runs away if you get close. A feral cat feeds itself without help from people by hunting for small prey — mice, squirrels, and songbirds.”

“That must be a sad cat, Grandpa.”

“Maybe so. It’s a cat that’s the size of a pet cat but with the behavior of a wild cat.”

“Are there wild cats around here?”

“Let’s talk about that some other time, Benjamin. I have two friends I’d like to let you hear from about wild cats.”

 

 

 

Things Disappear

Things disappear in winter. Rice-button asters, profuse in September, are nowhere now. Where blossoms decorated roadsides, leaves are molding in mud. Overall, the diversity of living things has plummeted.

As a college senior, I was profoundly impressed by writings of the French Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

From Teilhard I acquired an image of a geometrical shape like a football. On the left end I pictured the beginning of the created order; on the other, the ultimate destiny of all things. Things became more diverse, yet things have a way of coming back together. This figure gave me an orderly way to comprehend the overwhelming pandemonium of the universe, particularly the long history of our tiny planet and the shorter history of its living occupants.

Winter seems to cut down the number of living things. Other than oaks rattling brown remnants roughly in windstorms, the hardwoods have dropped their vibrant leaves. Wildflowers have lain down and dissolved. Winter wipes much of the surrounding flora from sight. The bears hide and sleep. Butterflies and bees vanish. I frankly welcome winter’s relief from scorpions, ants, chiggers, and biting flies. Now, if only pesky lady bugs wouldn’t invade our cabin and our morning coffee!

We take it for granted that the diversity will return with spring. A long view of nature shows cycles: birth, growth, reproduction, hibernation or dormancy or death, and then rejuvenation if not outright resurrection. It’s no coincidence that in the Northern Hemisphere holy days like Passover and Easter take place in spring. What would have seemed catastrophic (the death of first-born children, or the death of the one in whom the disciples had placed their hopes) becomes an occasion of miraculous triumph.

Yet, in closer detail, the destiny of a particular species is less certain.

Scientists make a compelling case for despair. While those who profit from coal or oil or real estate development, for example, dismiss despair as ridiculous as long as the survival of our own species does not yet appear doubtful, every year various species lose their habitat and the resources required for their survival, and they disappear not merely for a season, but forever.

Just as I was grateful for the vision of Teilhard de Chardin, now I appreciate the words of Wendell Berry, Barbara Kingsolver, and Bill McKibben. When they speak against the forces that are wrecking the environment, their aim is to stir up hope. It would be foolish to hope everything will turn out well if these forces aren’t stopped. But if enough people wake up and work for change, the narrow end of that football-shaped ellipse may not be the meaningless extinction of all living things, but a fusion of hope, peace, beauty, and joy in the spirit that gave rise to our planet’s wondrous diversity.

Meeker in the Clouds

Fog is a blanket. We’re enshrouded in a fog, caught up in a cloud. The fog we’re under hampers visibility, so drive with caution. Fog binds earth to sky, tree and rock to hill and stream, a massive cobweb.

Other dangers lurk in clouds above timberline: Electricity! Lightning!

Hikers are warned. In the thick of the forest you’re safer from storms. Get up before dawn! Get up the mountain by ten! Get down before the clouds catch you by surprise!

We were just looking, Bob and I, from Ouzel Falls, from a high clearing, viewing three tall peaks close enough that they weren’t blue. And we saw the clouds. I never climbed those two, Orton and Alice. But Meeker is carved in me, engraved in my hand unforgettably, always for five decades now.

I was just eighteen when, with three friends in one day, I dared to conquer Meeker and Long’s Peak, the park’s two highest mountains, making our own trail. Just after breakfast we stood atop Meeker and aimed for Long’s Peak. A knife-ridge saddle led to the west side of Long’s, and there it happened. Working our way up, my feet dangled down a crack just for a moment, but at that moment as I was third in our line, a partner cried, “Rock!” To dodge the granite, big as a cinder block and coming at me fast, I jumped with my hands as if on parallel bars and got a deep gash.

Well, Meeker is more, not just the second highest peak in the park, but a town named after a man named Nathan Meeker, founder of Greeley. By the way, it was Horace Greely who said to go west, precisely which Nathan Meeker did. A New York Tribune journalist under Greeley, he went West with a plan. Greeley helped with funds, and Meeker developed land. He was a success, but then he became Indian Agent over the tribe known as Utes.

White men craving land crusaded, “The Utes must go!”

Meeker meant no harm; neither did the Utes; yet things got out of control once the army came. It is remembered as “the Meeker Massacre” when he lost his life. Shortly, many Utes lost their lives, too. All the rest were marched to Utah.

Now, when I see it — Mount Meeker — even photos, more than a hike long ago, more than a man whose name a town keeps alive, I’ll remember the tribe who lost their land and horses to strangers who hankered for more.

Here, there’s winter fog. In the Rockies, mountain clouds connect earth to sky, nature, history, stories from my memory, stories from long ago. Like the scar I bear, there’s a reminder only partly healed: The Utes still struggle to protect their land and to conserve their water.

The Snowshoe Hare

Each morning, as Bob and I left Estes Park to drive to a trail-head for a day hike, it was still dark. On the day our plans would change due to the washed-out bridge at Ouzel Falls, we hit the Wild Basin trail at six.

We hadn’t gone far when we spotted a little creature stirring among some clover.

The best time to see a rabbit or hare, as you may know, is at dawn or dusk. Rabbits like to eat in the dark. All summer long, little Cottontails sneak into our yard to nibble on leafy weeds when the sun is not yet shining directly over the ridge, and again before it sinks too far below the mountain to see.

While I have rabbits in my yard, Bob has had live bunnies in his basement. Looking back, Bob might say keeping bunnies in the house was neither his happiest experience as a homeowner nor his most successful one as a pet owner. Even so, he knows rabbits more intimately than I ever will.

The animal we saw wasn’t much bigger than a Cottontail. It was merely half the size of the Jackrabbits I used to see running around an Albuquerque tennis court or zigzagging in front of the quarters at Sheppard Air Force Base near Wichita Falls, Texas. Also, under the circumstances, this Colorado creature behaved like a Cottontail by freezing in place as we softly knelt down for a closer look.

Even so, given its habitat, a tall coniferous forest, I’d say it was more closely related to a Jackrabbit than to a Cottontail.

I asked this little creature to lift a leg to confirm that its hind foot was disproportionately large and furry on the bottom. That way, I could identify it as a Snowshoe Hare, but the clover was too dense to see the fur under its big foot.

Size is but one difference between rabbits and hares. Rabbits build nests, shallow holes near a shrub or tree, where their litters are born blind. Hares just have their babies wherever they happen to be at the time, and the youngsters can see from the get-go. Moreover, rabbits freeze in place when they feel threatened and rely on their fur as camouflage, while hares depend on their humongous ears to hear a fox sneaking up so they can get a head start running and jumping to safety. A Cottontail can run as fast as I can ride a mountain bike, but a Jackrabbit can run faster than the city speed limit.

There must be many of your species in the Rockies, Ms. Snowshoe Hare, but we saw only you. Sorry to have startled you by using the flash on my camera, but I didn’t have a tripod and didn’t expect you to hold still long enough for a time exposure. Thank you for letting me catch an image of you before you scampered away. I wish I could see how white you’ve turned for the winter.

Floof!

“Benjamin, let’s drive down to the birdseed store.”

“Empty bucket?”

“Yep. Somebody’s hungry lately.”

“Which birds are eating the most, Grandpa?”

“Hard to say, Benjamin. The first guy to show up in the morning is the Tufted Titmouse. He favors the window feeder.”

“I know, Grandpa. When the blinds are still closed, I hear him hammering on the edge of the feeder to crack open a seed.”

“Then comes the Cardinal. He sits on the hanging feeder for a while. Actually, Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal both come.”

“They’re bigger than the Titmouse. Do they eat more?”

“Hard to say, Benjamin. The Mourning Doves are even bigger, but when they come to the feeder, it doesn’t seem like they take much. The Titmouse comes and goes morning and afternoon.”

“What about Goldfinches, Grandpa? There’s a flock of them.”

“Yep. Some of them just chill out on the hanging feeder. Only thing that makes them leave is when a Pine Siskin zooms in and flaps his wings at them.”

“Pine Siskin? Who’s that?”

“The Pine Siskins? Well, they’re small like Chickadees, but they’re finches and have some yellow feathers under their wings. So you might think they’re Goldfinches at first, but there are a couple of ways you can tell them apart.”

“What ways?”

“First, their bill is thinner, sharper, than the bill of an American Goldfinch. Look and you’ll notice the difference.”

“Okay, Grandpa. How else can I tell the Pine Siskin from the Goldfinch?”

“The Pine Siskin is very streaky. Its feathers seem more striped. I know you’ve seen some stripes on the backs of Goldfinches, but by comparison, they seem to be wearing more solid colors, especially on their breast.”

“Ah! Now I know exactly which birds are Pine Siskins, and I bet they’re the ones eating the most seeds.”

“Really, Benjamin? They’re such little birds.”

“Yes sir, but there are so many of them, even more than Goldfinches, at least this year. Not just on the hanging feeder, but on the deck floor. They pick up the crumbs the Titmouse drops from the window feeder. Then they go downstairs and clean up the seeds that drop from the hanging feeder.”

“You’ve been paying attention, haven’t you, Benjamin?”

“Yes, sir. One day I tried to count the ones I saw on the deck under the window, and I counted — well, I think I counted at least thirty of them!”

“Oh, my! Thirty?”

“At least! I’m not making it up.”

“Weren’t there any Dark-eyed Juncos helping them?”

“I don’t know. Most the birds I saw were little guys with striped backs and striped tummies. Then they saw me through the glass doors, and floof! — up they swooped onto the branches of the trees.”

“Floof?”

“Yes, sir. That’s what they did.  Floof! And they just sat up there waiting for me to go away so they could come back and eat some more seeds.”

“Then we’d better get to the store so we can keep up with their appetites, right?”

Goldenrods: From Mud to Magnificence to Memory

Lately I’ve remembered remarks my mother (gone from this world a quarter century now) made about trees and flowers, including the Goldenrod. Until we moved to the Appalachians a couple of years ago, I had but a meager awareness of this flower.

Now Goldenrod wildflowers are my neighbors, my companions, my teachers.

In the cycle of seasons, we see their first sign not as blooms, but as small leaves peeking up from the mud. At this moment, I’m with two grandsons. The younger can barely glance with blue eyes still learning to focus, while his older brother lives in an imaginary world with muddy construction sites under his earth movers and wrecking balls. Who they shall become fascinates me much like the little leaves in a mucky spring bog.

By September, the Goldenrods achieve a pinnacle of magnificence. I watched for this sight during the past summer, having been awe-struck by it the year before. Such a spectacle must be what made my mother extol this flower’s beauty. When no one is around, a roadside aflame with yellow blooms provides plenty of company. Each flower adds to the majesty of the whole. I would like to believe that in some small way I likewise contributed to the better features

of my generation.

In mid-November, some smaller flowers caught my eye. They were reaching their zenith when most asters were fading. These, too were Goldenrods — a distinct variety called Anise Goldenrod. Bees swarmed over the blossoms, industrious servants of their queen, ensuring her survival through the winter. These flowers reminded me of friends called to step forth from retirement, as volunteers or for pay, to provide something useful for the coming generation.

Winter arrived, and these flowers gave way to dwindling daylight and stiffer frosts. Now the Goldenrods age gracefully, fair-haired among the shadows of low-light days. They bring to mind James Weldon Johnson’s poem, “Go Down Death,” where the preacher says, “She’s not dead, She’s resting…” I know this phase won’t last, but it matches the graceful aging of a number of my friends, and I enjoy this stage as much, if not more, than any.

How, then, shall I look forward to the imminent, inevitable collapse brought on by winter’s harsher storms?

The more closely I bond with the Goldenrods, the clearer it becomes that I share their fate. Hypothetically acknowledging that our days are numbered isn’t as mind-boggling as feeling the fibers of one’s being giving way more with each successive storm. Lately I’ve been thinking, “If the Goldenrods and Goldfinches can go there, so can I.”

Goldenrods sow their seeds; Goldfinches lay their eggs. So, as I lie back with a one-week-old grandson resting on my shoulder and listen to him coo and sigh, I give thanks for the season yet unseen, a time when I won’t be around as an individual, but these two boys will grow through their phases into magnificent men.

 

Totally Tubular, Man!

It’s good that my body has made me slow down. When I hiked fast, I would scarcely have noticed the flowers Bob and I saw on the Sandbeach Lake Trail. This was our unplanned jaunt after returning from Ouzel Falls, where the washed-out bridge cut our day’s itinerary in half. I was feeling tired yet happy to stop and look at small things. The trail climbs a ridge diagonally, gradually, looking out over the Wild Basin. This trail’s wildflowers more than make up for its unremarkable view of the basin.

An avid gardener might say, “Of course,” or “Oh, sure;” but I could only say, “Oh, wow!” at the sight of one particular species.

Observing solitary lavender flowers balanced atop square-shaped stems, the gardener would open a mental file of names. Herbal medicine types would think, “Bee Balm.” They would know this name doesn’t imply that the flower can soothe a bee sting, but that it has been used as a balm for many other aches and pains. It seems each Native American nation had its own purpose for this flower, whether for headaches or stomach aches or muscle aches, as well as its own method for applying it to the body, whether drinking it as a tea or chewing the leaves and stuffing them into one’s nostrils. The “bee” in the name derives from the flower’s appeal to bees, butterflies, and birds, who favor its sweet nectar throughout the summer months.

Gardeners from wet climates, such as the one where I live (we get more rain in Blue Ridge than our relatives do in Seattle), would covet the conditions on the Sandbeach Trail. Just enough moisture in an arid atmosphere prevents the mildew that causes problems for cultivating this perennial.

Gardeners with sensitive noses would take a whiff and pronounce the name, “Horsemint,” which suggests a substance used to refresh the air in a stable. Exactly how or why this flower received the name Horsemint remains a mystery to me although the name accurately places this flower in the mint family. Most of us like a minty smell, and an experienced sniffer can distinguish among various mint flavors.

Others with sensitive noses would prefer the name “Bergamot,” a fancy name for a fragrant, oily substance extracted from the Seville orange tree. We are more likely to find this tree in Italy than anywhere else today, but its name implies that it grew in Spain. That’s where Nicolas Monardes lived some five hundred years ago. He was a physician who pioneered the use of herbal medicines.

In his honor, the formal name of the flower is Monarda fistulosa.

The fistulosa are tubular structures emerging from the blossom. Not so long ago, according to the Urban Dictionary, the word “tubular” meant the same thing as awesome, cool, rad, sweet, gnarly, amazing, groovy, fantastic, excellent, or great. In that sense, I have no hesitation in proclaiming that this flower is totally tubular, man.