A Trip West

 On a clear day in late November we hooked the popup to the Chevy and pulled out of the drive to “head down the road a piece,” as dad would say.  We would return some six weeks later, after doubling our expected time away and logging more than 5700 miles.

Such an excursion has a short list of requirements: a functioning vehicle, gasoline, a capable driver, time.  We had a couple destinations and a general route in mind but no real schedule, so where we landed on a given night and precisely how we would get there was up for grabs.  Not so different, I suspect, than the travel planning done by a migrating bird.  

Because we were traveling during an escalating pandemic, we took precautions.  We carried all of our food, wore disposable gloves at gas stations, and avoided public restrooms, the latter resulting in improvisations and discretions that at times impressed us both.  In the end we felt as safe as if we were holed up at home.

We traveled west, through once great plains and prairies, across the Rockies, the salt flats of Utah, the arid landscapes of Nevada, not taking a substantial rest until we reached the Sierras. There we dawdled a few days and took hikes among towering pines and firs and cedars, walked the shores of mountain lakes, logged new bird sightings, watched coyotes walk with attitudes through neighborhoods in the middle of the day.  Later, we moved on and set up at the edge of the continent, on a headland within earshot of crashing surf, where great whales migrate and scoters and marbled godwits gather to feed, and kelp skeletons litter the beaches.

What a trip!  Breathtaking scenery, geologic wonders, wildlife, all combined and threatened to overload our senses.  With it came reflections on land use, engineering marvels, monumental achievements for the sake of travel. Rivers spanned with masterful bridges, mountains moved or tunneled through, prairie potholes drained, all accomplished with energy inherent in ancient fuels, the same fuels that allowed communities to spring up with conveniences near at hand— water from taps, heat from furnaces, food from groceries.  The same fuels that moved the Chevy down the road, quietly and smoothly, generating surplus heat that kept the cab toasty warm; climbing mountain passes, crossing expanses of what were to early settlers endless prairies or vast, parched and inhospitable lands.  Cradled in lush upholstery, we covered distances that required months for our predecessors.   Effortlessly we cruised, propelled by fuels that today threaten our very civilization. 

Pulling the popup, the Chevy averages no better than 14 mpg, so in driving 5700 miles we burn over 400 gallons of gasoline and release more than 8100 pounds of CO2.  For the sake of the planet we could have stayed home, perhaps should have.  But we did not.  We instead had a phenomenal trip, spent quality time with our sons (both live in CA), visited spectacular parks, traveled roadways and saw country new to us.  

This wasn’t our first trip to the west coast, but one the Chevy and popup have made several times.  With each trip there is the promise of new places and adventures, and a refocusing on challenges of the day.  We can pick a topic from the nation’s headlines— the pandemic, racial or economic inequality, political divisiveness, corruption, corporate control— and know that nothing we face is new to history.  But dramatic declines in populations of songbirds and insects, a sudden increase in extinction rates, dying oceans, melting glaciers and permafrost are all relatively new.  We are headed for global temperatures never experienced in human history.  All other headlines should pale in comparison.

I recently read a post from Canadian Marc Doll saying we should savor 2020 as one of the last good years, that the illusion we are somehow disconnected from our environment, that our actions do not have consequences to every living thing, and that all living things are not inexorably connected has come to its logical end.  We can’t consume our way out of this.  A return to normal isn’t an option.

We are back home, having been spared any of hundreds of potential mechanical failures, an accident, or COVID.  The news is spewing many of the same concerns as were being reported before we left, as were being reported a century ago. People are moving to coastal cities and the desert Southwest, not questioning whether these places will continue to be livable.  Weather patterns and events are viewed as the new normal, as if we’ve reached a plateau, a stopping point.  We haven’t. 

We’re home, and the birds have found the feeders. We saw a group of 25 turkeys preparing for roost, watched several bald eagles fly over the north field, and yesterday more than 200 sandhill cranes were singing wildly as they winged and circled and generally made their way southward over the house.  It’s all good, I want to say, and indeed some of it is.  

Someday, I’ll write something without letting the greatest ecological threat to mankind weave its way in.  Maybe I’ll write about a trip we took and stay focused only on the extraordinary, life enriching adventure it was, ignoring any alarming realities on the periphery. Maybe I’ll get home and turn up the thermostat and go online and buy some stuff and just squeal like a jubilant pig.  Maybe. But I doubt it.

No News Today

I’ll not listen to the news this morning.  Instead, I’ll pull up Jay Ungar with his smooth fiddle rendering some Asheton Farewell and Margaret’s Waltz.  There's a soft rain falling on a cool and gray dawn, an October day that feels like November.  There is fresh hot coffee, dough rising, an oven warming.  In 500 degree heat the bread will split and its insides will spew out and make a ragged loaf with a blackened crust and chewy crumb.  Within an hour the entire house will smell of artisan bread seasoned with garlic, onion and sesame. 

A fire in the wood stove sounds nice and will feel even better.  The first fire of the season is a celebration of a grand event, another ancient cycle of reproduction completed, the threshold for days filled with rest and dormancy.

I saw a photograph this week of a heavy snow falling on a town softened by street lamps.  It looked to be one of those three inch an hour events, where within moments of beginning there is a muffling of sound and the air has a smell and taste of snow.  It comes with a relentless urge to bundle up and walk to no place in particular.  And whatever angst we have towards difficult travel and clearing walkways and adjusting planned activities is set aside for a moment of quiet appreciation, for unsurpassed peace and beauty in a landscape transformed, blanketed in white, insulated and put to sleep. The photograph makes me wish we lived in a Great Lakes snow belt where such events are more assured. 

Recently we watched a David Attenborough documentary entitled “A Life On Our Planet”.  In it, Attenborough reflects on some of the incredible experiences from his 93 years of observing the natural world, highlighting the changes wrought on this planet by humans.  True to the Attenborough reputation, the film is exceptional.  He points to wild diversity as the key to our continued existence and offers solutions to address an ecological crisis currently underway.

Yesterday we took a break from garden clearing and sowing cover crops and hopped in the car for a leaf drive.  The colors are superb this year, by our recollection the best in a decade or more.  We found ourselves in unfamiliar territory, on the rim of the Eel River basin in the next county.  The road snaked through an area forested on both sides and the maples and sassafras were afire with such brilliant reds and glowing oranges they appeared to emit their own light.  And the hickory and walnut and locust, which so often display a mix of faded tones, were blazing yellow.  There were pawpaws in the understory, yet to be influenced by seasonal cues, and their summer green added contrast and variety to a pallet of exceptional color.

I thought about Attenborough and the need for diversity and a rewilding of a portion of the planet, thought about how extensive forests ranged across our state and country and world a mere two centuries ago, and how quickly they would reclaim their former area if given half a chance.  That action would lock into place countless tons of carbon to help stabilize the climate and in the process allow species diversity to flourish.  Attenborough says it’s actually doable, but it will take a change in our diets to include less meat, and grants or other incentives to persuade landowners to transition their acreage to a higher purpose. 

I need a break from endless political noise.  Take me to a quiet place, Jay Ungar, and I’ll sit near the stove with warm bread and a steaming cup. I'll think about seasonal change, a bountiful garden put to rest, a forest ablaze in color, a heavy snowfall.  I'll think about the immensity of time and the forces that have allowed life on earth to evolve and flourish; about Attenborough, his wisdom born of experience, his heartfelt concern for all species, the solutions that are within our grasp.  None of this is news, but it’s all I need today.

Knowing What We Know

It's breezy and cool this morning, and there are changes in the trees lining spring creek. The rich greens of summer are fading to dull yellow. Scattered leaves of walnut, tulip, and river birch have begun to litter the ground.  Here and there are rogue blazes of red, on the sassafras and sumac, on the Virginia creeper climbing the bole of a sycamore.  There is a crunch and smell and feel of fall. The crickets are singing almost incessantly, and squirrels are cutting on hickory and bur oak. Summer is fizzling.

And 2020 is waning.  Its most tumultuous days might still lie in wait for election results or an earthquake or a declaration of war.  We don't know. Certainties are few compared to beliefs and opinions.  We don't know what caused the death of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of songbirds recently in the southwest.  It might have been a lack of food, a weather event, the influence of wildfires, or a combination of all.  But the birds are dead, and their demise will add to the 29 percent decline in the total number of songbirds over the past 50 years.  Twenty nine percent equates to three billion birds, or the loss of 1.5 per second over the past five decades.

Blue jays are fussing at the yard edge with an alarm call not easily ignored.  Perhaps a predator is lurking, a coyote or fox, and the jays have foiled its hopes of a surprise attack.  A cottontail a short distance away pauses mid-bite, its senses on high alert. 

I read a report yesterday describing the certainty of mass migrations of people in the very near future, within our own borders, as areas of the south and west become unlivable from the effects of climate change. Intolerable heat, a lack of water, crop failures and wildfires will gang up to force permanent evacuation.  Where the migrants land will wreak havoc on the infrastructure of municipalities. Ironically, in the years leading to this exodus there has been a great influx of residents to these same areas. Few are taking the news seriously. Yet.

We can be blindly and stubbornly unwilling to listen and accept facts. A cottontail whole heartedly considers the jay’s alarm, while a good portion of us choose to deny obvious warnings. We've seen droughts and floods, fires, heat waves, and each had their end.  “It’ll start getting cooler, you just watch.”

It's the first of October, and aside from an occasional day where a blue sky is painted white with smoke, all seems well in the Midwest.  Fall approaches, grain harvest is underway, early season hunters take to the field, leaf color maps light up.  We awake to crisp, invigorating mornings, feel a spring in our step, remember better years, and are spurred by an attitude of optimism.  We look to the future with expectations born decades ago. We are hell bent for normality, as if we don't know what we know.

Ah September

It’s September and summer is winding down.  Ripened fruits abound, stickseed collects on pant legs and tangles the dog’s hair, overripe tomatoes droop on the vine then plop to the ground.  In odd areas goldenrod, beggar-tick, and ironweed bloom. The Cornell Bird Lab monitors bird migrations in real time through their BirdCast project, and it forecasts 13 million birds in the sky over Indiana tonight.

It’s September and Election Day is less than two months away.  Many are saying the outcome is a toss of the coin.  Most have already made their decision and will not be swayed.  Information that goes contrary to our beliefs is deemed fake and ignored.  Our convictions are strong and have divided a nation and sometimes driven a wedge within families and between friends.  As elections go, it seems uglier than usual. It's nice to have a southbound squadron of gadwalls sit down on the pond for a few days, to see native bees working zinnias.  A few nights ago we were behind the house and saw a great horned owl fly across the face of a full moon.  There are things infinitely more therapeutic and comforting than politics. 

We sold our business eight years ago, and since it was at our home, it marked the end of daily activity around the place. Multiple vehicles in and out were no more. The pea graveled areas used for displaying container plants were now empty. Rotted sawdust, for years used to heal in field dug plants, had disintegrated and left behind rich organic matter with no planned purpose.  Ornamental plants remaining in the field were abandoned. With attitudes that embraced uncommitted time and few visitors, we were happy to put our energies toward things other than routine maintenance.

It’s rather remarkable, now, to look back at the changes, the sometimes subtle but consistent efforts by nature to cover herself, to reclaim all that we once regularly disturbed.  Of particular note are the graveled lanes and lots which are now reduced to two tracks of limestone marking the path of a single vehicle used sporadically.  Mixed, tough-site vegetation like plantain and chicory, yarrow, violets, and annual grasses, has taken root and is claiming the stone.  

Before this rewilding, before the mixed weeds and grasses became established, we would have periodic blowouts in the driveway, ruts and washes gouged during periods of heavy rain, and waterborne stone deposited in our yard and on our walkway like glacial outwash.  The roots of encroaching plants are binding stone to stone and knitting together a more resilient substrate, resistant to wash.  Over time, given continued protection from periodic disturbance, the crushed stone would one day support more substantial plants— brambles, shrubs, trees— and any hint of the lane would be well gone to the casual observer. 

Few things we do are not eventually undone by physical forces.  With the proliferation of plastics in our world we have greatly extended our impact, but they too, eventually break down.  The earth measures time in billions of years and from its perspective our collective activities will be short lived.

In our society there is a pervasive mindset towards land use that is focused on manicured neatness and has us mowing 40 million acres of lawn annually. It invites a huge chemical industry bent on selling lawn management plans with the goal of producing insect free monocultures of turfgrass.  The plan is perceived attractive and satisfying, viewed by many as a responsibility, a sign of good stewardship and decency, while everything about it runs contrary to the variety and community found in natural systems.

Many of us find a home in the woods appealing. Yet, the only thing separating an appealing wooded suburb from it’s sprawling, sterile counterpart built on repurposed cornfields are a few decades of relative neglect.  An interesting study would follow a Midwestern city block with routine mowing minimized for a period of 50 years, and changes in flora and fauna documented.  The study would be a hard sell, both for municipalities, that typically require properties be kept groomed, and by our own lack of appreciation for the adolescent plant communities that are part of the natural transition from open land to forest.  This is an unfortunate truth as early successional stages support a greater assortment of insects and wildlife than either manicured grassland or mature forest.  

Aldo Leopold wrote, “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community.  It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”  Incredibly, there are more US acres devoted to lawn than corn, and there is three times more irrigated turf than irrigated corn.  Our devotion to mowing and our preference for nonnative landscape plants deprives us of massive environmental wealth.  

Picture an office or industrial complex surrounded by acres of manicured lawn.  Now picture it as a September field with mowing restricted to select open spaces and meandering walking trails.  There are wild sunflowers, raspberry stems painted with glaucus bloom, blue cardinal flowers, ripened sumac. Which is more inviting?  Where will you more likely see songbirds, pollinators, hawks, or cottontails?  Which saves money, curtails pollution, and contributes more to the biotic community?

It's a great country, where we can choose to mow our lawns or mow our driveways, and in spite of our destructive and misguided tendencies, there are persistent ecological forces to heal and restore. It’s a great country, and in wild vegetation and migrating birds and the flowers of September is a hope for renewal.  It’s a great country, and in less than two months we have the privilege of choosing our next leader. Based on past performance only 40 percent of us will bother with indicating a preference. Only half will be satisfied.

Grandpa, Bugs in the Garden, and Where To Go From Here

I was in my early teens sitting at my grandpa’s kitchen table when he announced I would be cutting down the horseweeds along the west side of his house.  “Looks like nobody lives here!” he growled.  I wasn't much interested in the job and thought the horseweeds looked just fine, but headed out to follow orders.  The weeds were impressive, some approaching two inches on the stump, and I ended up enlisting an axe to complete the task.

Turns out they weren’t horseweeds, which are technically asters, but giant ragweeds, and in more than 50 years I've not looked at one without remembering that day.  They are common as flies in these parts and grow impressively in a single season.  Just yesterday, while adding weeds to the compost pile, I realized that in a mere three months the giant ragweed were towering 12 feet overhead and threatened to overtake the pile, so I began pulling them out.  Nearly all of them broke clean near the base, its stem having been hollowed and weakened from the feeding of the common stalk borer.  The plants otherwise appeared flawless, stout as mules, racing jubilantly towards maturity.

Evolution has provided the giant ragweed with a tolerance to the borer so the plant is rarely killed, in much the same way parasites coexist with their hosts. Native oaks tolerate a raft of insect larvae which in turn feed millions of birds which then contribute mightily to the local ecosystem.  It's a beautifully functional machine, one easily disrupted by removal of a single component or when complicated by the introduction of nonnative species. 

The infested giant ragweed will complete its life cycle while the borer does the same.  To some degree we copy this strategy to manage our vegetable garden.  This spring we had a large number of squash bugs on our cucumbers. We did nothing.  As a result, the cucumber season was shortened but not before we were bursting at the seams with canned pickles.  We had earworms in the sweet corn, did nothing, and still had ample for freezing.  Our tomatoes are sick with blight but we are getting a harvest that will more than satisfy our needs.  In past years we've had issues with voles eating potatoes, maggots infesting carrots, beetles eating asparagus, potato bugs riddling leaves, but almost always we have had more than adequate harvests after doing nothing to address problems.

Today I visited a local organic grower who produces incredible vegetables as a livelihood.  He, too, has a live and let live attitude towards many common pests. Earlier this season he had the most serious infestation of aphids on pepper plants he had ever seen, but did nothing.  Within days he noticed a virtual army of ladybug larvae emerging, which it turns out, are voracious aphid predators, and in short order the problem was no more. Had he used an insecticide, even one approved for organic production, he would have almost certainly killed the developing ladybugs as well. 

In a world addicted to chemical pest control we have been programmed to reach for the pesticide at the first sign of danger.  Almost all are potentially lethal to the user and most are broad spectrum killers, taking more than the targeted species.  They are, to no small degree, responsible for an alarming reduction in insect populations worldwide, including those we rely on for pollination, including those that are fundamental to food chains and support entire ecosystems.  And both weeds and insects have an incredible ability to quickly gain immunity against chemical concoctions, forcing chemists to constantly develop new, more lethal agents in their quest for control.  It's a quest without end. 

On a typical morning I'll see several rabbits in and around the garden. Last year they took a liking to tomatoes, taking big chunks from low hanging fruit about a week before ripe for our picking.  We responded with fencing and the problem was rectified.  This year the tomato loving rabbits were back and we did nothing, lost a few low hanging fruits, and the problem is no more.  Earlier this year the rabbits were eating our green beans, so we draped the patch with chicken wire.  When the plants were larger we removed the wire and the rabbits came back and nipped a stem here, a leaf there, but from two short rows of beans we’ve canned enough for weekly meals to last a year, not to mention a couple dozen meals of fresh.  We're still picking today, the rabbits are still nibbling, everybody’s happy.

In a small way our gardening strategies help to support the local ecology.  If we had more ambition we could apply proven natural control measures and have even better results.  It’s a stretch to compare our experience with the ag industry, but a published report by US scientists in 2016 adds credence to the fact that the world’s food requirements can be met using organic methods, and in years of stress, organic yields will exceed those of conventional ag.  

The USDA Organic label has taken a hit over the years with some producers finding loopholes to satisfy label requirements while continuing practices detrimental to soil health.  In the soil is 95 percent of all life on land, up to a billion invertebrates per healthy acre and countless bacteria. There is ample evidence that modern agriculture is turning soil to dirt, destroying organisms essential to healthy function, administering toxic, manufactured pesticides and petroleum-based fertilizers in an effort to produce another crop.  The process is grinding away crucial soil components, a fact recognized by leading soil scientists. 

An improvement over organic is regenerative agriculture, which focuses on soil health and expounds the benefits organic provides.  Among it’s chief perks is massive carbon sequestration.  Conventional practices are responsible for up to 25 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.  The environmental benefits of a total shift to regenerative production is beyond measure, with every living system being positively influenced and contributions to the climate crises grand and inherent.

There is a parallel between all of this and the introduction of wolves to the Yellowstone ecosystem 25 years ago.  The cattle ranchers and elk hunting guides surrounding the park predicted it would deliver a fatal blow to their businesses but today they are still there.  That’s not to say there haven't been problem areas with cattle and sheep lost to wolves. And there are fewer elk, some whose habits have changed making the guide’s work more challenging and, for some, more satisfying.  While there will always be individuals opposed to wolves, a growing number whose livelihoods have been negatively impacted can see and appreciate the merits of having a top predator reestablished.  The ecological consequences of introduced wolves have gone beyond expectations. Reduced browsing by elk has allowed willows to return to stream banks which have attracted beavers which have worked their magic with dams.  Long lost ecosystems have been restored, diverse species have returned, and river courses have been modified which will ultimately influence geologic features.  It's a taste of the dramatic, life enriching, unpredictable repercussions of working with nature in land management.

Imagine a society embracing a principle to preserve the environment first and foremost, where a commitment to live in harmony with nature is instilled from birth, the doctrine guiding economic growth, the core of school curricula.  If some tolerable crop loss to insects, disease, competition, rodents, were viewed inevitable, anticipated, even appreciated, what would be the impact to overall ecological health? 

I'm not sure grandpa ever heard of global warming, though it was being predicted in the scientific journals of the day.  He probably didn't spend a lot of time contemplating the web of life, though he was an ardent outdoorsman.  He was instead consumed with work and earning a living, receptive to chemical concoctions that held the promise of improving yields.  He was living by the ethics of the day, putting to practice the recommendations given him, getting results favorably perceived. 

A half century later and not much has changed, other than a steady deterioration of our planet.  The window of opportunity is closing, but doesn't have to. The solutions are within reach.

A Rumination On Migration

We awoke this morning to dozens of northern rough winged swallows feasting on insects over the cattails. Like many other birds, they form groups after the breeding season and prior to departing on their fall migration to far away places, which for rough winged swallows means Mexico or Central America.

Seasonal migration is an awesome subject and is applicable to birds, insects, fish and mammals.  It’s a behavior as old as life itself, and movements can vary from as little as a few hundred meters for the blue grouse to a mind boggling 44,000 zig zagging miles for the Arctic tern.  

There are mysteries at work, and specialized adaptations for navigation are always being discovered.  The magnetic poles play a prominent role, but exactly how they are processed in animals is still in question. Magnetism alone does not explain how an oriole flies thousands of miles before returning to our backyard to rest on a deck rail where nine months earlier was a jelly feeder.  This level of accuracy indicates a detailed memory, or an extremely refined GPS system. 

If we can be baffled and humbled by a tiny hummingbird making its way to Central America and back each year, wrapping our heads around butterflies and dragonflies that require multiple generations to complete their annual migratory trek is beyond comprehension.  Indigenous peoples believed that medicine men were born with the memory of what their predecessors had learned. The concept must apply to migrating insects as well, some sort of message in their genetic code that details their migratory routes and destinations with impeccable accuracy.

Lake Superior measures 160 miles north to south.  Monarch butterflies migrating south from Canada manage to flutter nonstop across the open expanse.  It's an impressive enough feat if the migrants set a straight line route, which they don't.  Instead, at a certain location they make an abrupt eastward turn and stay that course to a prescribed point where they again turn south, adding unnecessary distance. The belief among scientists is that Superior once contained a mountain of ice, or some sort of obstruction of such height that the insects could not fly over but instead flew around, and the memory has not been lost to time.

Native Americans would often have seasonal migrations between summer and winter hunting grounds, and in the US today about a million people head to Florida to lay out the winter while others seek the dry mild air of the desert southwest. But migration applied to humans generally refers to movement in only one direction, a dispersal often spurred by force or desperation.  Worldwide, a person is being unwillingly uprooted every two seconds.

Unless we are direct descendants of native peoples and have remained within our ancestral borders, we all have a migration or two in our histories.  Over the decades a disproportionate number of us have migrated to coastlines or mountainous regions. We jockey for prime locations in beautiful natural settings such as lakeshores, then moan about aquatic weeds and mosquitoes, beavers that eat our yard trees and deer that eat our hostas.  We build on the coasts then fear mudslides and earthquakes and hurricanes. We speckle homes in mountainous areas then expect fire suppression where uncontrolled wildfires had managed forest ecosystems for centuries.  We move from cities and bring demand for Starbucks and fine restaurants and nightlife. Entrepreneurs respond, more folks move in, and soon congestion fills the quaint mountain or seaside town. In every migration there are hopes and heartaches, losses and gains, assurances and uncertainties, but with none comes an iron clad guarantee.

Think of the risks associated with seasonal migration, the extreme outputs of energy.  A bird, having fought hard to establish and defend its nesting territory, abandons it, assuring a repeated effort the following season.  If it's nest fails there might be a second attempt, with fledglings too weak to make the arduous cross country trip.  What great advantage to sit tight, keep the home fires burning, and bring reproduction to strong completion.

Food is a driving motivation.  There are no flowers in winter for nectar seeking hummingbirds, no plankton in cooling waters for feeding whales, no browse for elk in the high country.  Yet some of the great blue herons in our region move south while others stay to endure the cold, banking on finding food not locked in ice.  There are questions unanswered.

Climate change is affecting every life form.  Plants are moving north, and along with them food sources for associated species.  Everything alive is a candidate for redistribution, and the impact on human cultures, food supplies, and migration behaviors is phenomenal.

It’s August and the great seasonal spectacle has commenced.  Weather radar picks up the activity at night, masses of birds streaming southward.  Shorebirds, especially, are well underway.  Most of the orioles have left the feeders, as have the grosbeaks.  Their work here is done, and the shortening days have flipped an internal switch which cannot be ignored.  

A mysterious and finely tuned seasonal mechanism for so many things wild, a hope-filled and sometimes final alternative for millions of people, migration lies intricately woven in the quest for survival.

Saying It Again While Singing Some Peggy Lee

I was out early one morning last week to get the garden irrigated.  The dew was heavy, and it weighed on the asparagus so it bent and glistened under a silver veil.  In the distance a screech owl called.  The grass, cut the day before, clung to my bare feet.  The humidity rested at 92 percent.  The first rays of sun carried an assurance it would be a hot one, well in the 90’s, with stifling air to drive home the discomfort.

There will be more of these days, not necessarily this year, but in general.  It comes with a warming planet.  The reality is now broadly recognized and accepted. If we stopped emitting all fossilized carbon today we would still face advanced warming for decades.  Coastal cities will be vacated.  Heat stress, droughts, floods, food shortages, mass migrations, pestilences, pandemics, now underway will only ramp up in frequency and magnitude. The trigger’s been pulled, the ramifications unleashed, and yet there seems a strong inclination to let everything that brought us to this point continue, to dust off the old vinyl and listen to Peggy Lee sing “Is That All There Is” while planning our trip to Greece.

Recently we awoke to see a deer floating in the pond.  We pulled it ashore and found it to be a young lactating doe with no obvious wounds, looking good and healthy aside from being dead.  Dying in the water at this time of year points to hemorrhagic disease, since infected animals seek out wetlands for relief from fever.  Animals may or may not exhibit physical symptoms such as swelling around the neck, lumps on the roof of the mouth, discolored tongue, etc.. We filed a report with the DNR.  The cause of death will never be known for certain and a jubilant gathering of vultures in our north field aren't asking questions.

Hemorrhagic disease is spread by biting midges whose range is extending north and east with a warming climate.  Shifts in the ranges of birds, plants, and insects are being widely documented with climate change.  The state of Vermont’s rich history of maple syrup production is in its last generation of sugar maples so the industry will soon be lost to Canada. Hatches of insects, their timing critical to nesting birds, are occurring earlier, shrinking breeding windows and threatening brood survival.  

One of the best examples of how seemingly minor climatic changes can have dramatic consequences is found with the red knot, robin-sized shorebirds that migrate up to 9300 miles each way from their Arctic breeding grounds to the southern coasts of Chili and Argentina. On their route north they stop along our east coast to rest and refuel, seeking primarily the eggs of horseshoe crabs.  As oceans have warmed, crabs are laying eggs earlier and finish before red knots arrive.  At the same time arctic temperatures are rising so spring insect are hatching earlier, depriving birds the larvae essential to their developing broods.  Red knot numbers have dropped precipitously and surviving birds are physically smaller due to the effects of malnutrition. Their migratory movements are spurred by day length, not temperatures.  Their future looks bleak.

Carbon emissions have slowed a bit worldwide with the pandemic but it’s just a lull.  The concept of man-caused warming might be mainstream but consequential action is minimal. The stage is set for climate conditions never experienced by Homo sapiens as we enter a new era with no assurances.  There are big distractions: the virus, the economy, unemployment, injustice, corruption, while the biggest threat of all looms before us, its ultimate impact growing steadily with business as usual.  

A family of little green herons dart around the pond daily, screeching.  No man ever heard a screaming pterodactyl but surely herons learned from them.  Today the weather has moderated significantly.  We got a much needed soaking rain.  The pond temperature dropped to the low 70’s and Lee and I, being the weenies we are, donned wetsuits for the daily swim.  It’s August.  The field crops are looking good, the garden even better, the pantry’s nearly full and the tomatoes are just coming on.  Butterflies are showing up on the zinnias, monarch caterpillars on the milkweed.  Songbirds are everywhere. 

It’s so easy to fall into complacency, to think: Is that all there is to climate change? Is that all there is?  If that's all there is, my friends, then let's keep dancing.  Let's break out the booze and have a ball.  If that’s all there is.

On Doldrums and Dementors

We are fast approaching the doldrums of summer, when tomatoes and sweet corn ripen, cicadas and crickets sing, and a string of oppressively hot days suck the energy from us.  Mere months ago we were preparing garden soil for seed, concerned about late frosts, and now the thought of delightfully cool, fall air and the smell of crisp dying leaves is a cruel and unimaginable tease.  On a shaded limb of the white pine a squirrel lies prostrate, legs hanging limply, offloading excess heat.  Birds at the feeders gape.  The air, laden with moisture, seems to have weight, and in the blistering sun there is a nearly audible sizzle.

A fine harvest of onions has been laid out in the shade of the barn for curing, joining the garlic from a couple weeks ago.  Pantry space is filled with canned green beans, pickles, and jams, cabbage is turned to kraut, sweet and crunchy carrots pack the refrigerator vegetable drawer, packaged zucchini and broccoli are added to the freezer.  Other crops, including some that welcome a relentless heat, march on towards maturity. 

In an effort to control mold and buckling floors, and with incidental consideration for our own comfort, we are running the AC like never before, and it is a godsend. Our trips outdoors have grown brief and largely limited to mornings and evenings when the heat subsides, except for our daily swims in the pond, to which we remain stubbornly dedicated.  Like any exercise routine it is not always easy to be willing and ready, but also like exercise routines it leaves us with a feeling of vitality and renewed vigor.  

During the summer doldrums there is a strong inclination to get the swimming done early in the day when the water is a tad cooler and photosynthesis is just gearing up.  We have, as do all untreated ponds, a healthy crop of string algae, as well as chara, a branched, bristly form of algae that is anchored in the soil and spreads arms upward to three feet.  We have stretched a 100 yard swim rope across the pond to keep us in line and measure distance, where it crosses shallow areas we apply a band of copper crystals to control the chara so we don't have to fight our way through it.  

String algae floats by day, the result of oxygen generated by photosynthesis being trapped and providing buoyancy so the plant rises to the surface.  At night, no longer held up by oxygen, the plants usually sink.  Some of it lands on and entangles dead and dying chara, so when daylight comes and photosynthesis resumes, the ballooning string algae brings with it a decaying chara skeleton.  Viewed from below water, the scene holds a similarity to a floating jellyfish with long tendrils trailing.  Sometimes the chara is black and putrid with decay, reminding us of the Dementors from the Harry Potter movies, so that is the name we give it.  It appears with increased frequency as the day rolls on, and drifts aimlessly with the wind.

When chara is in a state of advanced decay, it can be on the verge of disintegration, so when bumped by a focused swimmer it collapses in a cloud not unlike the ejected ink from a retreating octopus. Sulphuric compounds stored in the chara are rapidly released, leaving a stench that cannot go unnoticed by anyone with a functioning olfactory. 

But wait, there is more.  Hidden in the detritus are microscopic cercariae, the larvae of a parasitic trematode, or blood fluke, that spends its adult stage in waterfowl.  There are different kinds of trematodes and the details of their life cycles vary, but generally go something like this: Fluke eggs are passed in the bird’s feces and hatch into miracidia, which have no mouth so can't feed and must quickly find their way to an intermediate host, typically a snail.  Once inside the snail the miracidia develop into free swimming cercariae that are eventually released, swim about, and ideally penetrate the skin of a waterfowl where they then migrate to the blood vessels and become adults, completing the life cycle. 

It turns out that cercariae, in their zeal to find a suitable host, will latch onto almost anything, including people.  After penetrating our skin they do not develop into adults but instead die, leaving a tiny bite known as swimmer's itch.  It's not a serious problem and the bites clear up in a few days, and it's a sporadic event, so not always an issue. Cercariae can be anywhere in the water, but do seem to prefer hanging out on vegetation, or with Dementors, whom as Harry Potter fans know, feed on human happiness even without the aid of cercariae.

There are flukes that pose serious risks to man but this one does not, so in what would broadly be considered a warped viewpoint, there can be a tinge of excitement in being included in its world. With that annoying itch comes an invitation to learn of its life cycle, to appreciate its incredible adaptive behaviors and anatomical features that have allowed it to find a niche and live a life that does not weaken or kill its hosts.  In waterfowl it finds a free ride to new frontiers where it can inhabit new waters and recruit new snails to assist in its survival.  True, it's a parasite, a freeloader, but faces its own risks, and those that burrow into our skin have reached their end.

The doldrums of summer, the magic and bounty in a vegetable garden, photosynthesis, the Dementors, blood flukes, all invite us to be better aware. Weather conditions and mind boggling intricacies in the natural world are not always physically enjoyable, but do beg our appreciation and understanding.  It’s about seeing and seizing the wholeness of life. The more familiar we are, the more respectful we’ll be. 

A Beaver and a Conundrum

It is the nature of beavers to bring change. Where they go, new and improved ecosystems follow. What was once a slow, babbling brook becomes a pond or lake, resplendent with life. What was cropland becomes a marsh with minnows and amphibians, shorebirds, waterfowl, and aquatic insects. Beavers leave a wake of biological diversity. 

And so it was that when beavers moved into Spring Creek and laid claim to our property there was great celebration. By deed we controlled a reasonable length of stream so the consequences of a dam or two would affect us without influencing neighbors who relied on certain creek elevations for field drainage. We welcomed the beavers, looked forward to their impact, and prepared ourselves for the accommodations that might be necessary to support and encourage them. 

On a single night one early fall, the season when a beaver is actively building its winter food cache, we had a row of trees magically disappear from our plant nursery, which at the time was a primary source of income. The trees were about 2 inches in diameter on the stump. They had been cultivated for several years and were prime for conversion to currency. But on that fateful night they disappeared, not a twig or stem remained, only short, pointed stumps and a few chards of wood bearing tell tale impressions of beaver incisors. 

Rarely does a man’s land use objective coincide with a beaver’s intended purpose. Over the years we have had to abandon flooded irrigation pump pits, repair chewed power supply lines, relocate property access lanes due to standing water, stand by as nursery crops were inundated, lost valued yard trees, all due to beaver activities. But there have been extraordinary benefits: a gathering of nearly 100 migrating waterfowl in a flooded lowland, a deafening chorus of spring peepers and chorus frogs where there had been none, a pair of sandhill cranes staying through the nesting season, and endless opportunity to view changes to a landscape where habitat diversity and wildlife use increased on a logarithmic scale. 

In the years before beavers we had three ponds constructed. The two most valued covered three acres and put water within feet of the house, giving us a commanding view from our kitchen and patio. The largest of the ponds was built by pushing up a berm running parallel to Spring Creek over a distance of several hundred feet, so the pond and creek were separated by a sliver of land perhaps 30 feet wide. 

The current perceived problem is a new beaver dam which is backing water onto the berm, providing an open invitation for muskrats to burrow. The berm was designed wide enough that muskrats burrowing in from the pond side should never succeed in digging through to the back, thereby causing a breach. But now, with the stage set for muskrats to excavate from both sides, the risk of losing berm integrity becomes a clear and present danger, and I find myself rehearsing the day when I pour a cup of morning coffee and look out the window to what was the pond but is now a hole of putrid, dying algae resting in a black soup. 

I had read enough to understand the futility of removing beaver dams-- those blown out with dynamite or completely deconstructed via excavating equipment are typically rebuilt in record time-- but I had never had the experience of removing one by hand. I felt my time had come, so on a hot afternoon I waded in. I picked a point mid-dam, and standing in knee-deep ooze and water to my waist, began disassembling. In short order the details of a master engineer came into view. 

The dam was composed of primarily dead woody material which was sealed on the upstream side with large quantities of fresh green grasses, rushes, and sedges laid horizontally and packed with mud. As I scooped up handfuls of the topmost layer, a small torrent of water ensued, providing welcomed aid in loosening and carrying additional material downstream. In time the torrent grew to such force that even 6 inch diameter logs of 8 foot length were dislodged and easily launched downstream through the sluiceway. Occasionally, in the assorted construction materials, were lengths of wild rose and greenbrier, randomly placed so my bare feet and hands were soon embedded with thorns. I could have imagined these were located purposely, to discourage the very activity in which I was now engaged, but stopped short of giving the beaver such credit. 

With every log dislodged, with every bundle of sedge and mud swept downstream, I thought of the beaver and the effort and time it would take him to rebuild. I pictured him working methodically, steadfastly, employing ancient skills to transform a landscape for the benefit of many. I imagined him in a burrow somewhere upstream, perhaps sensing a drop in water level, perhaps hearing a rush of water where before there was none. I occasionally glance over my shoulder to see if he's come to assess the source and extent of damage, but he has not. I continue my work, and eventually create an opening near 10 feet wide with a newly established water level fully a foot lower than when I started, a level that no longer invited muskrats to the berm, a level I could live with. 

As expected, within three days the dam had been returned to its former magnificence and water covered the lower aspects of the berm. I let the situation ride for about a week before launching a second attack. I had learned from my first experience to wear a pair of lined gloves, but remained barefoot, and with the first step into the ooze landed squarely on a cluster of greenbrier thorns, embedding them nicely in the arch of my right foot. I again imagined the beaver, taking time out from his dam repair, hunched on the shore and contemplating my entry point, then carefully placing and concealing the prickly deterrent. I hobbled on and with an earnest effort opened up a section nearing 20 feet in width, again lowering the water level by about a foot. 

I now convinced myself the beaver was indeed fully aware, even from the confines of its burrow, that something was amiss. In my mind I saw him venturing out at dusk to document the damage, his long nights of labor intentionally and inexcusably destroyed once again. I see him reacting without rage or judgement or dread, but with calm acceptance of a task at hand, and gets to it. 

My first real experience with beavers came while doing research on moose and wolves in Isle Royale National Park. Beavers were incidental to our focus but their influence surrounded us. Their dams peppered the island and provided welcomed bridges across wetlands during field work, their ponds provided aquatic vegetation invaluable to browsing moose, their habits benefited a raft of life as they always do. It was on the island that I first heard the resounding flap of a beaver’s tail on water, signaling alarm. It was there I first breathed air rich with castor, marveled at a beaver’s ability to fell and maneuver trees, looked with appreciation on the massiveness of their winter food caches, heard them vocalize, watched them groom. 

Those memories only fuel my appreciation of having them on our property today, and not before now have I tried to enforce parameters on them. This is big ag country, where opportunity for beavers to work their ecological magic unrestricted is exceedingly rare. 

Within a week the dam is again rebuilt, the water resting against the berm. Once more I do the deed, begrudgingly, not because the task is difficult, it's actually invigorating, but because I'm not totally convinced it's necessary. Maybe I'm wrong about the muskrats. Maybe they won’t threaten the berm. I love the new wetland, it's waters filling the original serpentine course the stream held before it was straightened, the mounds of spoil dredged decades ago transformed to islands. It's all beautiful, and beautifully functional. 

It's been several days with no evidence of rebuilding. I won't pacify myself with the prospect of an accord being met. The beaver is likely demonstrating an exaggerated lack of urgency, has been picked off by a coyote, or has moved upstream with the hopes of finding a more welcoming site. If it's the latter, he will be backing water onto a neighbor who holds a loaded gun and no appreciation for beavers.  

I'm staring down a conundrum, digging greenbrier thorns from my feet, waiting. In a world of multiple crises, I'm hoping to find common ground and do right by a beaver, an animal slaughtered by settlers, once extirpated over most of its historic range, despised by row crop practitioners of today. An animal gifted like none other to bring life to a desperate and abused land, to offer a free environmental service that contributes to flood and sediment control, restores aquifers, and contributes mightily to wild diversity. I'm on its side, with no apology.

Dog Days

It’s wild raspberry season and our morning routine has been amended. We head out while the dew is heavy and are soon wet from wading through brambly patches, but the dew is cool and welcomed on days that are hot and muggy even as they begin.  We enjoy berry picking and the growing pile of frozen fruit in the freezer that will be rationed out for morning oatmeal all year long.  It’s an activity as old as humankind, wrought with simplicity and wholesomeness, and takes us to hinterlands where birds nest and box turtles lurk and deer flies and mosquitoes find value in us.

These are the dog days of summer.  The Old Farmer's Almanac has it commencing July 3 and ending August 11, a period of 40 days.  The Greeks and Romans associated it with the rise of the star system Sirius and deemed it the hottest time of year, a time of weather related distress, mad dogs, lethargy, and just bad luck, sometimes catastrophic.  

Catastrophe seems to be teetering on multiple fronts: COVID, racial protests, economic strain, dysfunctional and corrupt governments, take your pick or add your own.  The Arctic just recorded a temperature exceeding 100° F, the highest in 12000 years, but little has been reported of its link to misfortune. 

In our pursuit of raspberries we encounter invasive species, bush honeysuckle and brad pear being most common.  Back when we had the plant nursery the industry promoted both species, ignorant of their invasive tendencies. Today they are everywhere, on river banks, in odd areas and woodland edges.  Honeysuckle has tremendous shade tolerance and can claim the understory of woodlots, outcompeting native plants and bringing tree regeneration to a standstill.  In some instances, the existing woodland trees are essentially the last. When they’re gone, the woods will be a shadow of its former self. It’s a tough reality. 

Invasive and nonnative plant species have gotten a lot of press in recent years, most notably from entomologist Doug Talamy who has researched and written books on how these plants do not support insects and so do not provide food for native birds.  His work and books demonstrate an incredible potential for pollinating insects, songbirds, and other wild species if we simply start using more native plants and mow less grass in our man-made landscapes, 

So there is something we can do, regardless of the size of the land parcel we control or influence.  Think native. But there is another problem. Invasive plants are typically tough to control.  Physical removal or killing plants with herbicides does not remove dormant seed which can remain viable for years. On larger tracts particularly, the commitment is significant and requires vigilance and a dedication that might need to last hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of years while we await natural processes that will keep populations of introduced species in check. Meanwhile, in forests and conservation tracts, on riverbanks and wildlife areas, wherever war on invasives has been declared, chemical treatments will often be implemented for the foreseeable future. There will be collateral damage to non targeted species and general poisoning of some environments.  

Our property is surrounded by acres of rampant honeysuckle so a steady seed source is assured.  If we commit to its eradication, our efforts will last only as long as we do unless subsequent owners take up the charge.  Ultimately, on many properties, honeysuckle will win.  This is not a defeatist attitude but a common sense concession. 

Every threatening global calamity could be met with the same attitude of inaction. If we ignore economic and social injustices, ignore climate change, ignore pandemics, everything will eventually get sorted out in the immensity of time, but what remains may well be radically different from what we know and experience today.  We must choose our battles. 

Lee and I have started rereading Rachael Carson’s Silent Spring.  Lee can only take a few pages at a time, any more is bad for her general welfare. Many of the chemical atrocities that spurred Carson’s warning of 60 years ago are still alive and well.  DDT, the highly persistent insecticide that causes egg shell thinning in birds at the top of the food chain, has been banned in the US but is still in use elsewhere.  Aldrin, which was pelletized and broadcasted over SE Michigan by aircraft for Japanese beetle control in the late 1950’s, left a swath of dead birds and animals and sick people. It, too, is still being used outside the US.  Worldwide, 5.6 billion pounds of pesticides are applied annually, more than a billion pounds in the US alone. Our first reaction to pests is almost always a chemical concoction, often with poorly understood environmental consequences, sometimes with dire consequences that are understood but ignored. 

In the dog days, raspberries ripen and sweet corn and garden peppers grow with great zeal.  But there is an underlying restlessness, a foreboding, a wish that these days would pass and be replaced with better ones. 

Tonight we took a late drive through the country. In the darkness we could not see the invasive plants claiming the understory of woodlots. We poked along under a full moon on mostly unpaved roads. The heat of the day had retreated, the dog’s head was out the window, her nostrils engaged, deciphering unseen details of the night. Over a distance of less than 20 miles we saw a couple dozen deer and nearly as many raccoons. There were opossums, broods of killdeer, several cottontails, including one in the jaws of a red fox. The corn stood 5 and 6 feet tall, fireflies hung over beanfields, the air was sweet. The dog days with all it’s predicted unpleasantries had taken leave. Tomorrow will be a new day, and there will be berries to pick. 

I Heard You. What’s For Dinner?

NOAA and USDA have issued an early drought warning that includes all of our state.  I prefer exceptionally wet conditions to drought.  Even in times of flooding I can usually catch moments between downpours and walk barefoot across cool, soft grass and feel soft earth and have a sense that plants and bugs and birds have had more than enough water but will be just fine.  In drought there is widespread anguish, the parched grass is like walking on sea urchins. If plants had teeth they'd be gnashing them.

“We’ve had droughts before,” he said, “don’t make it more than it is.”

It’s a long term forecast, speculation based in science but with a significant probability of error.  It might get dry, it might not.  And if it does, it's happened before, countless times, and here we are, and here are the birds and plants and insects, living proof of our perseverance and adaptability.  We endure.

My wife is an ardent feeder and observer of birds, keen to recognize when things are amiss.  She commented yesterday that she has seen only two chimney swifts over the pond this year where they are usually frequent, searching the sky for insects.  On her trips to town she likewise notes an absence of swifts, that like to nest in chimneys, and nighthawks, that like to nest on flat rooftops.  “Populations do have ups and downs,” I say, and she responds with a litany of species that seem fewer this year: goldfinches, yellow warblers, vireos, buntings, tree swallows, and I have to agree.  In our speck of universe it seems so. And given that most songbird species are in steep decline, seeing fewer birds sooner or later is, sadly, a realistic expectation.

“They’ll be back,” the old timer said. “I remember a year we hardly had house wrens, and look at them now!”

We have a gig doing bat surveys for the DNR. We fit the car with a microphone and GPS-linked computer and drive predetermined routes through the countryside at 18 mph, commencing about an hour after sunset.  Apparently, bat numbers are declining everywhere. In Indiana, of the 13 known species, five are endangered, six are of special concern.  This survey is part of a federal program to monitor populations across the country.

“Bats carry rabies,” she said, “and they’ll get in your hair and give you lice!”

“They make a mess in the barn”, he added, “Filthy animals. They’re responsible for the coronavirus, aren’t they?”

The surveys present a great time to be out in the hinterlands, poking along at a time when nocturnal life is on the move.  We see deer and raccoons and opossums, occasionally foxes, owls, skunks, coyotes.  We see fireflies, sometimes few, sometimes many.  We record a few bats.  But what we find blatantly obvious is the lack of insects in the headlights.  I wasn't counting, but last night, over a 20+ mile distance, the number of moths flitting across the road certainly totaled less than ten.  I specifically remember three.

“Maybe someday we won't have to call the exterminator,” she said.  “I’ll keep the bug zapper plugged in,” he said. “Say, when’s the yard guy coming?  Pretty sure we have grubs.”

Remember the days when a drive through the country at night left your windshield, bumper, grill and headlights splattered with insects?  Remember when bats were a given in a twilight sky?

Fishing is a popular pastime enjoyed by millions across the globe.  In Florida, charter boats load up with hopeful anglers and head to offshore reefs in pursuit of grouper and snapper and amberjack.  They are often successful, and the catch is hung against a board advertising the charter service and happy participants gather around for a photo.  The biggest fish gets special recognition. But what is not recognized is that the biggest fish is dwarfed by the biggest fish in a similar photo taken decades prior, and the overall catch is pitifully small, comparatively, in both size and total caught. 

“What a great day on the water!”, they smiled and said, “What a tremendous resource!”

What we accept as normal, whether it be weather events, bird sightings, insect numbers, fish caught or a thousand other observations, is changing.  The old farmer can accurately recall all the drought years but enlightened farmers now expect them more often, as they expect episodes of frequently wetter, hotter, and cooler weather.  Normal is no longer. 

“The weather’s gone topsy turvy,” they say.

Insect numbers worldwide are crashing from chemical poisoning, climate change, and habitat loss.  Up to 40 percent of all species are in decline and a third are endangered, according to a global scientific review. Fewer insects necessarily leads to decreased pollination, fewer bats and birds, and ultimately, fewer people.  It takes 6000-9000 caterpillars to rear a single brood of chickadees.  A bat needs to eat about the same number of insects each night.

“It's a hoax,” they said.

“It's a conspiracy,” some countered.

“Only God can control the climate.”

“I’ll be happy when things are back to normal.”

“It’s all overblown.”

“It's out of our hands.”

“What's for dinner?”