Somehow September

It's somehow September and the tomato plants droop with the weight of ripe deliciousness while the canner rattles away on the stovetop. The pantry is stocked with juice, diced tomatoes, marinara, salsa, and the fruit just keeps coming. 

Somehow, the horseweeds are eight feet tall, sticktights are clinging to our pant legs, and millions of birds with their fledged young are winging south. Rogue red leaves dot the landscape, the potatoes are tucked in the root cellar. Didn't we just plant the garden last week?

A few decades ago my wife and I had the privilege of working with Pete Edisen, a Norwegian fisherman who made a livelihood gill netting herring and lake trout in the cold waters of Lake Superior. His methods were timeless— a wooden skiff, a net, a couple of weathered buoys, and a working knowledge of where to find fish. We helped him tend nets and clean and package the catch on cool September mornings and made memories that are among our best.

In those days time moved at a crawl, but I remember Pete saying we’d spend the first 25 years of life pulling our sled uphill and it'd be downhill thereafter. He didn’t mention the influence of gravity, that each year would pass more quickly than the one before, and how in a half century we‘d be speeding wildly towards an uncertain end catching glimpses of our lives in a rearview mirror.  

The goldenrod, jewelweed, snakeroot, and wingstem are in full bloom. Monarchs are fueling up on zinnias. Crickets are singing non-stop. September is the great in-between, when summer wanes and autumn organizes. At daybreak the pond wears a heavy mist. There’s  an anticipation in the air, a transition afoot, the way water shimmers before the boil, the way silence grips the theater as the opening curtain is drawn.

This morning, for just a moment, the sled slowed and we seized a rare look around. It was mild, calm, cloudless, perfect.  Orange pumpkins lay scattered among dying vines, sweet peppers glowed with warm ripeness, goldfinches fussed over remnant seeds of thistle.  Every odd area that had escaped the mower held asters or chicory or some concoction of weeds and grasses, and nothing about it looked unkempt or short on beauty. 

In this particular September we approach a political transition as a divided populace prepares to vote red or blue. In the quest for commander-in-chief, one candidate runs a campaign of fear and revenge, the other, hope. One is well known for spreading falsehoods while the other favors truth. One has been twice impeached and convicted by a jury for multiple felonies, the other has no criminal record and a history of defending human rights and freedoms. One is a man who openly idolizes dictators and the other a woman who is ready to stand up to the best of them. Somehow, a close race is anticipated.

And so goes the month in-between. In a few weeks the woodlands will be blazing with color and the pumpkins covered with frost and we’ll be back on our sleds screaming through time, come what may.  If we’re lucky we’ll have good health and our candidate will be sworn in and we’ll grab snippets of life until another September suddenly comes.  For those of us who can see the bottom of the run, it’s enough. 

An Apology and a Thank You

Date: July, 2024

To: Ken Lacy

From: Joe Scheidler

Re: An Apology and a Thank You

Hi Ken—

If I'm not mistaken, you and Diane live in Charleston, IL.  We had reason to be in that fair city a few weeks ago but failed to look you up, and I’ve regretted it ever since. After 40-odd years a reunion was long past due.  I don’t have a good excuse but there were two things dominating my mind that day: a battery needing a charge and a dog I wasn’t sure I wanted. 

We drive an electric car, and traveling to Charleston meant we would have to pick up a few kw’s along the way. We’d had little experience at public charging stations and I was fretting about it. Turns out there was a DC fast charger at the Cadillac dealer, and while we ate lunch at the deli next door the car’s battery picked up 144 miles.  Easy peasy and a bunch of stewing over nothing. 

I want to mention you were solely responsible for the dog I wasn’t sure I wanted. You’d shared a Facebook post from the Coles County Animal Shelter that caught Lee’s attention. It was a photo of a frightened, rather weird looking mongrel huddled in the corner of a kennel. The image haunted Lee, and by extension, me, so after a few days I agreed to have a look. 

The dog was around six months old and was mostly black with silver highlights on her face.  Her lower legs were brown and tan and she wore white patches on her throat and chest. Her face was bearded like a terrier, her paws webbed like a lab’s. She was bull legged, weighed a mere 25 pounds, and her history was unknown. The shelter staff named her “Agnus” (sic).

We spent time with her in an outside kennel. She was energetic and seemed happy but showed little interest in us.  She had an irritating, yappy-dog voice and overall we were both fairly unimpressed. But we had decided we might be ready for a dog and here we were with the dog we’d come to see. For a few minutes we hesitated, weighing our footloose freedom against the raft of accommodations and responsibilities that define dog ownership. We considered the probability of the dog outliving us. We loaded her in the car. 

Within a few minutes of getting home she shit on the floor. She was filled with unruly energy, bit us incessantly, jumped on everything, chewed anything. For the next two days we seriously questioned our decision and I concluded there was no shame in returning a dog to a shelter, no law requiring us to endure a stressful relationship with a rambunctious canid. Not all is meant to be. 

She’d been spayed the day before we picked her up and was under doctors orders to be restrained. It was a challenge. There were endless distractions: rabbits, groundhogs, squirrels, butterflies, ants, all demanding her swift and aggressive response. There were limbs and logs and spruce cones and no end of things to be picked up and carried with the regality of a show horse. She was an adventurer in a new land, a hard drive starved for data, a whirlwind spinning through our peaceful homestead. By the end of the second day we were bitten and bruised and exhausted. Then around the fourth night she leapt onto our bed and snuggled into the crook of my neck and damn if she didn’t start to grow on me. 

Her name meant nothing to her and we had trouble spitting it out so we changed it to “Ouiser”.  Aside from Shirley MacLain’s character in Steel Magnolias we’d never heard the name, and now it was rolling off our tongues a hundred times a day. It seemed to fit the dog and she accepted it without argument.  

It’s been a month since we brought her home, and while she’s improving by the day she still has much to learn and puppyhood to outgrow.  Yesterday afternoon I was stretched out in the yard struggling to get the deck reattached to our lawnmower. I was in an awkward position, laying on my side, both arms occupied , trying to line up a couple holes to insert a pin. I was straining and frustrated when Ouiser pounced on my head and started licking my face and pulling my beard hair through clinched incisors. She didn’t see it as unacceptable behavior, and I tried to reprimand her but couldn’t quit laughing.  My frustration vanished, the holes aligned, and the pin slid right in. 

And I realized for the past few weeks Lee and I have been distracted from a world dominated by political threats and environmental disasters and endless injustices. Instead, we’ve been preoccupied with an innocent, exuberant pup driven by an inquisitive spirit and bent on discovering every speck of goodness her surroundings hold.  She is good for our sanity, this dog. 

Tomorrow at some point there’s a fair chance I’ll be ready to strangle her, but today she’s golden— an entertaining ball of energy ready to prove her worth and loyalty, looking to us for direction.  And it’s all your doing, Ken. Thank you. 

Again, my apologies. When we’re next in Charleston I’ll be sure to let you know. We’ll be somewhere near the Cadillac dealer with a bearded black dog looking out for us. 

Our very best to you and Diane.

Joe

 

The Tenacity of Raccoons

It’s a morning in early June and social media is abuzz with college commencement speeches. I sit barefoot on the deck with a good cup of mud just as the sun is clearing the eastern treeline.  A light mist drapes the pond. Fish are jumping. The birds are busy with daily announcements, proclamations, warnings.  A breath of wind carries the sweetness of wild grapes in bloom. It’s nice. 

The raccoons raided the bird feeders overnight, bent the shepherd's hooks to the ground and licked up the hummingbird nectar. The shepherd’s hooks have aluminum cones near the top to ward off climbers but the raccoons shimmy up the poles, poke their noses in the cones and use their weight to bring the whole contraption down.

We have a platform feeder five feet above ground on a wooden post. I wrapped the post with repurposed vinyl making a tube about eight inches diameter and four feet tall. That night we saw raccoons on the platform.  I put out the scout cam and caught the buggers jumping to the top of the tube, so I raised it a foot off the ground. The raccoons climbed the pole inside the tube. I packed the inside with scraps of rusted chicken wire with prickly ends. The raccoons pulled it out. I reduced the vinyl to a six inch diameter. I’m waiting. 

They are thinking, conniving, persistent animals, admirable as they are maddening. They pull out newly planted snapdragons for the sheer joy of it. They wash their grubby paws in the birdbath just to watch the water turn brown. The other evening one was poised at the edge of the yard, watching a family of grazing geese. The gander knows a raccoon will take a gosling given the chance. The goose charged the coon and nipped it in the butt, sending it hightailing for cover. 

At night we hear the coons squealing and squalling amongst themselves— over food or territory or whatever it is they squeal and squall about. They are handsome with their lush fur and ringed tails, but are best known for the black mask worn about the eyes. It’s a befitting trademark shared by common thieves. 

A southern breeze has brushed the mist from the pond but the birdsong goes unchecked. Several dozen species— cardinals, catbirds, thrushes, orioles, finches, wrens. The variety is impressive and their voices mask the fact that bird numbers are decreasing worldwide, some dramatically. From our experience, it was common to see upwards of 20 orioles at once 15 years ago where now there are three. Where there were 20 swallows dipping low over the pond, today there are half that. But their songs remain, carrying the illusion that all is well, or well enough. 

We found a snake under the jon boat last week, a milk snake, and realized it was the first we’d seen in more than a year.  They used to be regulars. A lot of snakes were regulars. These days we see a handful a month if we’re lucky. We could make a list of similar declines: dragonflies, frogs, toads, butterflies, grasshoppers, meadowlarks. The list would be long and legit. If trends continue, regional and widespread extinctions are certain and a cascade of ecosystem disruptions will follow. 

Not everything is declining and not everywhere.  There are pockets of abundance, including some relative newcomers. My grandpa would never have imagined an Indiana with widespread white-tailed deer, resident Canada geese, river otters, wild turkeys, and bald eagles. Animals with broad geographic ranges, those less picky about diet and good at adapting to urban environments, are doing especially well. Think rats, coyotes, feral cats… and raccoons.  

It’s mid morning and the sun has lapped the dew from the cattails and is sprinkling the wild raspberries with sugar. My coffee thermos is empty.  I thought I’d write something light, descriptive, maybe mildly humorous, and for once avoid environmental concerns. But the threat of biodiversity loss wormed in as it does in our everyday lives: insidiously, often without our knowing. When the birds are singing and fish are jumping and I’m enjoying a fine cup of brew on a warm and peaceful morning, how bad can it be?

Another year of graduation ceremonies and another cohort of brilliant, creative minds unleashed on the world. They are a formidable force with grand dreams and expectations. Many are looking at a June sunrise for all it is and is not, and see they have everything to lose. The challenges they face are complex and intertwined and require transformational solutions, but these youngsters have the tenacity of raccoons and are hell-bent on healing the wounds of an ailing planet. Stay out of their way. 

Life Sustaining Life

 

It's May in the Heartland and after feasting on morels we harvest mild, crisp radishes and an assortment of greens— spinach, arugula, romaine lettuce. Spears of asparagus, tender as butter, are tossed in the breakfast skillet with chopped green onions and a scramble of eggs. And on the side is a bowl of fresh picked strawberries that might be the sweetest the world has known.

The birds have returned and nesting is in full swing. Several groups of goslings now patrol the yard. There have been mixups, so one family of nine includes the young of three different ages. They move around through the day— from yard to pond to creek to somewhere unbeknownst to yard again— covering hundreds of yards in the process.

A couple weeks ago one of the nine turned up lame with a leg dislocated at the hip. It couldn't stand. The bird would wave its stubby wings, push off with one good leg and land on its belly with the bad leg dragging behind. And there it would lay, nibbling grass rather contentedly, until it gained the muster for another lurch. 

Initially, the parents and the balance of the brood moved on, but the peeping from the disabled one brought the gander back and the entire regiment came to a halt. The day’s movements would be modified. 

There was a point we considered intervening, perhaps bringing a rehabilitator into the mix. There was also a point when I thought dispatching the bird was justified, but decided otherwise. By late afternoon the gosling showed marginal improvement and had earned a name: Gimp. It could now balance on its good leg for a moment before collapsing. Near dusk the family moved into the pond and waited expectantly. It took awhile, but Gimp eventually lurched its way through the tall sedges at the pond edge and went gliding swiftly across the water in an arrow straight line, propelled by one foot. The family left the water on the opposite shore and Gimp peeped miserably but finally made it out to join its clan for the night’s roost. 

We didn’t expect it to survive.  No doubt the entire family was at greater risk of predation due to their accommodating Gimp. But the following morning all were accounted for, and within a week, daily movements returned to normal. Gimp became quite proficient at standing and hopping on one leg, and could do so without flapping wing stubs for balance. The handicap now seems almost a nonissue. Gimp is off to the races. 

There was a related experience a year ago with a quite different outcome. On that day there came a lot of splashing and vocalizing from the pond as a half grown gosling was being pulled repeatedly underwater. It was suddenly free and attempted to join its family which had left the water and was standing on the bank, highly alert. When the gosling reached the shore its wounds were apparent: a leg had been stripped of skin, and poking through the muscle was a jagged end of fractured bone. The bird hadn’t the wherewithal to haul itself ashore. Its family stood by attentively. They followed the wounded as it worked the shoreline attempting to pull itself out. They offered encouragement with outstretched necks and soft murmerings. But in about a quarter hour they moved on, as if recognizing the magnitude of the injury and the futility of their efforts. 

Under the circumstances it seemed most humane to dispatch the bird, so with rifle in hand I began a slow approach along the far shore. At one point I had a clear shot but then the gosling spooked, and I caught a movement in the dark water directly below where the bird had been. The movement took form, and there was the massive, angular head of a snapping turtle in all its sinister glory. It saw me and made a slow, ghostly retreat to the depths. 

Our suspicions were confirmed. We had identified the culprit and it was following the scent of raw flesh and blood hoping to complete a task. And I was faced with an option: I could step aside and allow a classic predator-prey interaction to come to its natural end, or I could intercede and bring it to rapid conclusion. I chose the latter, and led by some delusional sense of justice removed the carcass from the water, denying the turtle its rightful quarry. 

In May, billions are added and billions more are taken from a complex and dynamic web of life. We claim our favorites, those we want to be winners. Few of us would root for the dung beetle snatched by the bluejay, the leech swallowed by the largemouth bass, the meadow vole that finds its end in the talons of a red tailed hawk.  We give even less consideration to the green onions ripped from the soil and chopped and added to our breakfast scramble.  

There are no rules of engagement, no enforced standards, only an age-old need for energy to be transferred for the sake of balance and productivity. Life sustaining life. The process includes harsh realities, but the results are beautiful. 

Birds on the Move

Last night as we slept, countless millions of birds passed overhead in waves, guided by stars or magnetic fields or some mystery we have yet to unravel. Some were traveling long distances. Shorebirds like godwits and red knots and curlews fly nonstop for days on end, covering multiple thousands of miles without rest or food.  Even tiny species of warblers and hummingbirds find the energy to stay airborne day and night, fueled by a few grams of fat and muscle and raw determination. They fly with incredible accuracy and can land within yards of where they nested the prior year. 

My wife is a lover of wildlife and a dedicated bird feeder. Among her offerings is grape jelly, which she dobs on a small plate attached to our deck rail as soon as the first oriole arrives. If this year is typical, on a day in late April or early May we’ll hear the song and find the bird perched on the rail eight feet from our patio door. And here will be a bird which has just flown from as far away as South America that has not only found its way back to our yard but remembers with pinpoint accuracy where there was something to eat a year ago. Rested and fortified, it will fill our days with song and flashes of flaming orange as it feeds, pursues a mate, and rears its young.  And then in August it will feel a restless wanderlust and disappear beyond the southern horizon as if nothing at all spectacular were happening.

About 40 percent of the world’s birds migrate. We might assume it’s because their nesting grounds become inhospitable in winter but that’s not always the case. There are seasonal movements of insignificant distance, a hundred miles or less, with no obvious difference between summer and winter digs.  And the majority of birds don’t migrate at all but stay in a given area year round. It doesn't always make logical sense but who are we to question an animal that’s been around since the Jurassic era?  Birds have had plenty of time to sort things out and find their place. 

We’ve come to appreciate the role birds play in providing environmental services. Their contributions in seed dissemination, pollination, nutrient cycling, scavenging, and pest control are well documented.  Beyond their ecological value, they give us a sense of environmental wellbeing wherever diverse and abundant populations are found. They sing, lift our spirits, color our days.

We’ve seen the number of orioles that liven our summer landscape drop by more than half over the past 25 years. Across the globe there are far fewer birds than fifty years ago, fewer still than fifty or a hundred years before then. Their decline has been driven by our propensity for clearing and draining and fouling land that had been prime habitat. Ridding ourselves of so many birds was never a stated objective but a predictable outcome, and it continues today in the name of growth or dominion or some misguided sense of what we consider expendable.  We are slow to give up old methods and behaviors even when we know or suspect they have damaging consequences.  Ecological systems show remarkable tolerance for abuse but they have limits and we’re exposing them. 

Across the US and Canada more than three billion birds have been lost over the past 50 years, with populations plummeting in almost all habitats. More than 90 species not yet recognized by the Endangered Species Act have declined by half or more in the same period.  If these trends continue, more extinctions are inevitable and every bird species will eventually be impacted.  Losing birdlife is both a part of and a contribution to a larger environmental calamity. 

This morning there is a literal symphony outside our window— a riot of birds. We live in a state known for agribusiness and manufacturing, a state that has drained over 85 percent of its wetlands, cleared the majority of its forests, led the nation in toxic air emissions and been recognized for having the most dirty waterways.  Yet, the birds!  If ever there was a testament to the resiliency in nature it is here, for the time being, on a bit of midwestern wildland at the dawning of a spring day. 

Like the canary in the coal mine, bird varieties and their densities are a litmus test for environmental quality. In the night skies a migration has commenced, an age old event filled with determined and admirable and essential participants. They will carry on as long as we let them. 

A Watchful and Responsive Mother

On a mid afternoon in January we watched a bobcat stroll nonchalantly across the headlands of the North American continent. Its belly apparently satisfied, it soon sat down and began grooming itself on a bluff overlooking the rocky Pacific shore.  Oystercatchers, godwits and curlews fed on a reef a hundred feet below, among dozens of harbor seals that were sprawled on the exposed shale during low tide. Nearby, burrowing owls perched outside underground digs, highly attuned, I suspect, to the cat’s proximity. A white tailed kite soared overhead, western bluebirds flitted over open pastures, brush rabbits moved from the cover of coyote brush to nibble succulent greens. Within a square kilometer was life in abundance, wild and relatively unchanged over hundreds of years. And from our vantage point we could see the city of San Francisco and pick out its downtown, its culturally distinct districts, Golden Gate Park. The city known for tech superstars, master artisans, and eclectic spirits lay a mere 15 miles distant but seemed a world away. 

Life in the city and on the headlands and in every nook and cranny is linked by a thread, and it moves beyond the living and winds its way through rock and water and branches into the atmosphere so everything is connected. The Gaia principle, first proposed by English scientist James Lovelock and named for the Greek goddess of earth, says the living interacts with the nonliving to form a self-regulating system that maintains life. It’s a perspective that views the entire planet as a living organism, having the tendencies of a nurturing mother. Indigenous societies recognized the principle long before science.

Stephan Harding, a former student of James Lovelock and a deep ecology research fellow at Schumacher College in England says, “It’s our natural humanity to feel the earth as alive and as a mother… (But we) don’t relate to Gaia with our aboriginality; we relate to her through our greed and our desire for more stuff and more money and more prestige…We’ve pushed nature back, evoking feedbacks… (and if) we don’t do anything about greenhouse gasses and the destruction of biodiversity, which helps us control greenhouse gasses amongst other things, we haven’t got much hope, really, not in the long term. That’s the science.”

Such dire warnings might raise an eyebrow but convictions and behaviors are slow to follow. The majority of us don’t take environmental threats seriously enough to modify our actions or spending habits. We have friends whose wealthy neighbors express heartfelt concern for the environment even as they shop for bigger sailboats and plan yet another European excursion, and when given a choice between a rooftop solar array and an updated bath, a new jacuzzi is the sure winner.  This isn’t to say we deny ourselves nonessential travel or reasonable home improvements, but the true costs of our activities should be weighed against personal efforts to lessen our environmental impact. It’s a matter of respect and gratitude, where carbon neutral or carbon negative living is the goal and extraneous indulgences are earned. 

The predicament where we find ourselves— questioning the earth’s ability to continue its support of human life—  is not helped by an economy and GDP formula in serious need of updating. Canadian scientist David Suzuki points out that essential services such as those provided by soil-building mycorrhiza, pollinating insects, and aquifer-replenishing wetlands are viewed as “externalities” in our quest for wealth and given no monetary value at all, yet without these we’re subscribing to an economy better suited for Mars.

Home and building valuations are also behind the times, at least in some states. Not long ago I met a home appraiser and asked what price he put on insulation or improved energy efficiencies. “None at all,” he said. “Banks and lenders are only interested in general building conditions, number of beds and baths and total square footage. Besides, 75 percent of owners don’t even know if their homes are insulated and there’s no easy way for me to measure it.”

Aldo Leopold warned of two spiritual dangers: one is supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery and the other that heat comes from the furnace.  Both are pleas to understand our deep connection to the earth and the need for a land ethic rooted in sustainability. Today there’s a third danger: supposing that humanity’s greatest environmental threat is for someone else to fix. 

The bobcat stood up and yawned and stretched and began a meander southward. The kite stopped mid flight and hovered, scanning the grasslands for errant gophers.  Small bits of fractured rock broke free from the bluff and rained onto the reef below. A coyote appeared on a rise to our east, an exceptionally handsome specimen unconcerned by our presence. We looked south towards the great City on the Bay, thought about its long and colorful history, the talent and spirit of its people, the risks it faces from rising seas and storms that grow ever stronger. 

And standing by was a watchful and responsive mother, prepared for any outcome. 

Remembering Yellow Dog

A few decades ago Oscar Theodore Blank was contemplating his mortality, organizing his final wishes, and asked if I’d say a few words at his memorial service. I agreed. As the years skimmed by and he showed no evidence of slowing down, I began to wonder if I should have been the one making arrangements with him. But here we are, as he intended. 

My wife and I first met Ted when we were hired to move a spruce tree from the yard of his friend Jud Druck to Ted’s yard at 301 Davis Road. Lee and I had a landscape and nursery business and in that first meeting Ted showed an interest in helping us out on a part time basis. We felt an immediate connection with the old farmer and a deal was struck. 

On the week he showed up we needed someone to man a booth at the WSAL Home Show and we asked Ted if he’d stand in. He seemed a bit shocked by this vote of confidence, but agreed. Late in the evening we slipped in and found him sharply dressed, exuding professionalism. He was with a prospective client, paging through a book of plants as if it were a well practiced routine. He was listening respectfully, responding with humility, fostering a relationship. We knew we had a winner. 

From that moment his friendship, value and dedication were rock solid for the nearly 15 years he helped us out. He became a surrogate grandfather to our two sons, a sounding board and a source of advice in all matters of business and personal life, and a man we leaned on and worked, in his words, “like a dirty yellow dog.” And then, at the tender age of 83, he announced he would pull stakes and move to Bainbridge Island. 

It surprised us. His history and livelihood, his community, his long established and close friends were all here. He was by definition not a young man, but he set his jaw to moving cross country and pulled it off. In no time he was volunteering at the local art scene, counting wild salmon in area streams and raising oysters in Puget Sound, all while transforming his yard into a garden showcase and establishing himself as Bainbridge Island’s new troublemaker. Few that met him could resist his charm and humor and home spun simplicity. 

I’d never known a centenarian before Ted and often wondered what allowed him to exceed the century mark with gusto. Maybe it was diet: half and half on breakfast cereal, biscuits and gravy, lots of bacon, marbled steaks, rich pastries, daily martinis. Maybe avoiding the dentist chair played a role, or an aversion to exercise for exercise’s sake. It could not have been for lack of worry because the man worried— about family and friends, community, country, money. He’d get fed up and claim he didn’t care. “To heck with it,” he’d say. But he lied.  He cared deeply. No doubt his longevity was fueled by his social life, his broad range of interests, his curiosity and willingness to engage. He had a trap line requiring daily tending and it kept him abreast of goings on. Years after he moved away we’d call Bainbridge Island to get Logansport news and he’d always have it. 

He had a memory like an elephant and his ability to solve math on the fly left me astounded. Give the man a string of numbers and he’d tilt his head and squint one eye and spit out the answer as sure as a Texas Instrument calculator. He was quick to embrace new practices in agriculture but carried to the grave a disdain for home computers and modern gadgetry. He was a hands-on manager who kept business transactions under his thumb and clearly recorded on lined paper. When information deemed personal began showing up on the internet, he drew the line and would have no part of it.  There was a limit to what a man could accept having had intimate experience with workhorses and threshing machines and home butchering. 

He would often remind me that there was no better advice than what came from an old farmer, and that I was indeed fortunate to receive said advice free of charge. He was driven by persistent effort, careful planning, and balance sheets free of red ink. We once had a prominent location in town to sell Christmas trees and we asked Ted if he, with other employees, would run it for all the profit it held. He took to the job like a boar in a pen full of receptive gilts, recruiting family members to assist, and over the years it arguably became the best Christmas tree stand in the county. The trees were hand picked and of finest quality, and if the customer needed home delivery and the tree placed in a stand inside the living room window, so be it. You won’t find that kind of service at Walmart. 

Back at the nursery, when a plant combination didn’t suit him, he’d say, “That looks shitty,” or if Lee was present, “Pardon me, Lee, that looks shitty.”  If he disapproved of something I said he’d remind me that I fell from a tree and hit my head and had yet to fully recover. Every morning he’d arrive at the office ahead of the other employees and pull a notepad and sharpie from his overalls chest pocket and scratch off pertinent news and thoughts for the day. His concern for us and our welfare sometimes exceeded our own. He was thrilled on the days he could report he was “making bag,” and apologized on those when he felt fine but just didn’t want to do a damn thing. His presence in our lives was a constant, his service and companionship beyond measure. 

A man who valued education, hard work, and integrity, he was at once a jokester and gentleman, a devoted husband, parent, gramps and great grandpa. I was always moved, long after his relocation to WA, by his requests for fresh roses on Helen’s tombstone and evergreen blankets for the graves of his mom and dad on Christmas. He was a respectful man and it earned him the same. 

When Ted asked me to say a few words on this long dreaded day, he insinuated that I not be remorseful but instead say something smart, liven the mood, celebrate. I’m not sure I’m entirely capable. I often called him an old goat, which he said wasn’t very nice and it probably wasn’t. Nevertheless, today I want to thank him for being the stubborn old goat he was: stubbornly dedicated to friends and to being the best he could be, stubbornly determined to spend his earthly time well, to smile and laugh often, to encourage by example. His influence will live on for generations. Well done, Mr Blank, very well done. We’ll miss you, ole Yellow Dog.