A Roadkill and a Dream of a Better World

The call came after dark on a cold and rainy November evening: there was a road-killed deer south of town, ours for the taking. When we arrived a squad car was directing a spotlight on a buck lying at the base of a slope, several yards off the roadway.  It was a big deer, well over 200 pounds, wearing a headdress of eight polished points. The investigating officer had to put the animal down. 

There was little external sign of injury except a rear leg broken at the knee. Field dressing and processing would show there had been a spinal injury, enough to disable the deer’s hind quarters.

It was an unfortunate end to a beautiful animal, just entering the prime of life. Tooth wear indicated the buck was two and a half years old. A deer in the wild can live up to 10 years, though few do, particularly males which are selectively targeted by hunters. 

Almost immediately after a deer dies there is a dramatic change in its eyes— an attentive and alert gleam gives way to dullness.  It is common among mammals, explained by a lack of blood flow and a breakdown in neurological function. But it can seem that something bigger has happened, something grand and ghostly. 

The native Americans embraced a belief in animal spirits, and most world religions make reference to a sentient if not a spiritual existence among nonhumans.  The question begs consideration at that somber moment when the light in the eyes of a whitetail fades. It persists, days later, as meat is meticulously cut from bone, packaged and frozen.  It returns when the backstrap is searing on hot cast iron, when preparing steak fajitas, meat balls, smoked summer sausage, shepherd's pie. 

In a world where most wild populations are in steep decline, white tailed deer are holding their own, sometimes thriving to the point of nuisance within city limits and protected parks.  Over much of their range they are the only significant big game animal, observed frequently, almost universally appreciated.  They rely on instinct, wit, and learned behaviors to find their way. They are given little consideration if their habitat is lessened or destroyed by urban sprawl, infrastructure or agriculture.They, like all wild species, exist mostly on the shirttails of man’s ambition. Their forced objective is to survive in spite of us. 

I don’t think much about the animal that provides my morning bacon. A grunting, rooting, coarse-haired ungulate is less endearing, despite its proven superior intelligence. But appearance and intelligence has little influence on our demand for pork chops, barbecued ribs, ham, and sausage. Almost one and a half billion hogs are slaughtered annually worldwide.

Before reaching the killing floor, before the light fades from their eyes following a short life, the vast majority of hogs are raised in an environment far removed from what they would have chosen.  Advocates say that animals raised in factory farms are pampered relative to their wild counterparts, fed rations developed by nutrition scientists, given easy access to water and shelter. If they get sick, a licensed veterinarian is standing by.

In a recent airing of NPR’s Living on Earth, author Frances Moore Lappe talked about the high environmental costs of meat production and the urgent need to adjust our diets to one that is more plant-based.  According to Lappe, our food system globally contributes almost 37 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and about 40 percent of that is from the livestock sector.  Of equal significance, industrialized agriculture, as it stands, will not feed a planet of eight billion people and counting (https://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=22-P13-00046&segmentID=1).  

There are new, promising technologies. Our grocery shelves may soon include meat that is biosynthetically produced using selected animal cells, grown without a living animal that requires food, water, and housing. A California firm is one step closer to earning USDA approval using the technology (https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/food-and-farms/climate-friendlier-meat-just-got-a-step-closer-to-your-plate).  

There is also work being done with Precision fermentation, a refined form of brewing, where microbes are multiplied to create specific products.  One method uses microbes that feed on hydrogen, water, carbon dioxide and fertilizer to manufacture a flour containing 60 percent protein, compared with only 37 percent found in soybeans, and the process requires 1700 times less land mass (https://apple.news/A9dWnaLjHSCmZGYh0EbhPhg). 

Millions of acres now used to grow animal feeds might soon be producing foods we consume directly, with much improved efficiency. With more corn and bean acreage up for grabs, hemp may finally be brought to scale, providing a superior alternative for manufacturing paper and fabric and building materials that are actually carbon negative, all from a crop requiring little or no chemical inputs. Even more exciting, with less demand on acreage for food production, rewilding could enter the mainstream and bring with it our greatest hope for storing carbon, controlling climate disruption, and halting the sixth great extinction. 

Maybe there’s a world in the near-future free of confinement livestock operations and killing floors. In that world, perhaps they’ll be autonomous vehicles so advanced that collisions involving deer will all but disappear. It’s an encouraging possibility. But for now, there is a hundred pounds of fresh venison in the freezer from an animal that will be long appreciated. His spirit, or whatever it was that put the spark in his eyes, lives on. 

A Connecting Thread

We are driving 650 miles north, to a cabin in the Algoma wilderness. For 23 years it’s been our escape from the routine, a place of solitude, a link to the boreal forest and its maze of rivers and lakes.  A colleague once said unless his travels took him beyond the eastern deciduous forests he really hadn’t gone anywhere. I’m inclined to agree. 

The cabin overlooks the Michipicoten River, less than 20 miles from where its tannin-tinged waters empty into Lake Superior. Upstream, by way of a chain of lakes, rivers, and portages, a wilderness traveler eventually heads downstream to the great James and Hudson Bays. In a different era the voyageurs loaded with furs and trade goods would have passed the very spot we see from our cabin window. Today the route is interrupted with hydroelectric dams and water control structures, but the wild country— a land of cedar, pine, fir, spruce, birch and aspen— remains as a million square miles of contiguous forest stretching from Alaska to Newfoundland. 

It’s quiet there in November, almost eerily. In an entire day the silence may be broken not more than once by the chatter of a chickadee or a raven’s raucous squawk. But there is solace knowing that bears, moose, lynx, and wolves are in proximity, and there are an array of songbirds every spring. The forest stores 208 billion tons of carbon, critical in a world where atmospheric CO2 has reached concentrations exceeding anything humans have ever experienced.  

There is a wholesomeness in hauling water by the bucketful from the river, in warming a chilled cabin with heat from a crackling wood stove, in finding ourselves unplugged from the world except for two radio stations whose broadcasts reach us. There’s value in having the essence of fir and spruce fill our lungs with every breath, with letting the wind and water steer our skiff as we drift downriver, in landing a 30-inch pike following a hard fought battle. Time spent in the north is contentment grounded in the simple and uncomplicated, where daily living is reduced to the basics, where an eagle soaring overhead or a beaver cruising upriver is entertainment enough. 

Our stay is short, and too soon we’re back home, plugged into our devices, drawn into political battles and a world of crises. But still fresh in our memories is a place of reverence and simplicity, a place that lifts our spirits, resets our priorities and refuels our resolve to focus on worthy causes.

This morning I heard a white-throated sparrow sing. He’s left his seasonal home in the north to overwinter here. His experience, the quality of habitat he finds, will determine whether or not he’ll return to his breeding grounds next spring. He sings in the spruce-fir and he sings in the oak-hickory and both destinations are crucial to his existence; two ecotypes explicitly connected by a traveling songbird. 

No place and no thing is truly isolated. The fish we catch in the north contain levels of mercury, emitted from industrial sources and carried hundreds or thousands of miles on air and circumpolar river currents. Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment warns of eating more than one meal of fish per week. Whitetail deer in Maine and several other states have meat tainted with dangerous levels of PFAS, forever chemicals used in household products such as cosmetics and detergents and non-stick cookware, that follow a connecting thread from contaminated soil and water to wild ungulates. PFAS are not restricted to deer— they are widespread in our water supplies, in the soil and some of the foods we eat, in the air we breathe— we carry them in our blood. 

A coral reef dies from ocean acidification and 25 percent of marine life is disrupted. A warming climate melts glaciers and influences weather patterns, threatening water supplies in some regions while flooding others. Midwest farmers, homeowners, and turf managers, send nitrogen and phosphorus down the Mississippi and 6000 square miles in the Gulf of Mexico become lifeless. The Living Planet Report from the World Wildlife Fund and Zoological Society of London shows a nearly 70% decline in vertebrate wildlife populations since 1970 due to such things as habitat loss, over harvest, pollution, and climate stress. Declines send ripples if not tsunamis across ecosystems and are never without consequence. 

We talked about these things on a still November afternoon as we sat next to a fire on the Canadian Shield. Accepting that nothing acts alone or independently is a way of making the earth a smaller, more intimate space, where a flippant or less than reverent regard for the environment should never exist. But that is not our history, and even as we better understand our place in the ecological community, our response to the damage we inflict remains far from adequate.

The wind shifted overnight and is blowing straight in from the north.  I convince myself I detect the essence of spruce-fir flanking the Michipicoten River, and take a deep breath to feel the connection.  If it’s all in my head, there is still a sparrow singing in the back yard that is truly linked to a place where simplicity reigns and contentment is found in the rudimentary. The connection spans 650 miles then continues on, linking an entire planet with common fiber, binding everything together with magnificent purpose.  Nothing is unattached. 

An Advanced Intellect vs a Stone Wall

Everyone enjoyed the great autumn colors this year and for obvious reasons— they were rather spectacular. At our place a bald cypress in the middle of the pond took first prize with a rust-orange radiance, but there were serious contenders: a pawpaw that literally glowed with yellow light, a black gum holding every shade of orange on shiny waxed leaves, a sassafras set afire. A dry fall is typically an excuse for poor leaf color and our records showed we hadn’t  had appreciable rain in six weeks. But we didn’t bother looking for explanations— the time to enjoy fall color is fleeting. 

In towns across the country, the leaves that were destined to contribute rich organic matter and nutrients to the soil were raked and piled curbside to be trucked off to the composting facility, or worse yet, the landfill. Complex soil communities composed of mycelium, bacteria, and insects will suffer the consequences. Mulching leaves where they fall is far more practical and beneficial and still provides the look of tidiness we seem to crave. 

Lee and I are conducting a bit of an experiment here at the home place, a study of what happens when fields used for nursery production are suddenly abandoned. The results are rather predictable as the vegetation that follows field abandonment is well documented, but this is land we are intimately familiar with, and we need to call it an experiment lest we be accused of laziness or poor stewardship or worse. 

Along the south field where it borders the county road are segments of dry stone wall interrupted with sections of rail fence. It was once a pastoral overlook— a combination of native stone and rustic timbers with a manicured nursery beyond. Today the wooden rails have largely collapsed but the stone wall stands firm, fashionably trimmed (“weedy and unkempt,” to some), with remnants of seasonal grasses, goldenrod skeletons, lingering asters, and milkweeds casting their silky seeds to the wind. 

A well built stone wall holds a somewhat unique promise. If it is not intentionally or unintentionally deconstructed, it stands a reasonable chance of existing long after the buildings and trees and roadways it borders are gone and forgotten.  The wall’s only guaranteed threat is the elemental forces of wind and rain which eventually erode it away. 

Last weekend the wall lured a passing car into our driveway. The passengers included a high school senior and a couple photographers. They were on a mission to find picturesque backdrops for senior photos. They pulled in and said, “we thought this place was abandoned!”  “Abandoned by design,” was my reply, feeling rather complimented. They were immediately attracted to the bald cypress, and based on their excited chatter and whooping, it must have satisfied their objective. 

The study has proven entertaining, frustrating, and intriguing over its 10 year history.  There is no shortage of pioneering tree species such as elm and sycamore, but there are more oaks than expected and for some odd reason a few white pine seedlings are showing up, which is a rare occurrence almost anywhere in the state. Our frustration stems from the invasive and highly aggressive Bradford pears, autumn olive and bush honeysuckle which compete with native vegetation with a vengeance. 

Then there are the vines, the hops and mile-a-minute, that may have hitchhiked on nursery stock we handled and now delight in smothering the crowns of plants young and old. Other native vines like grape and poison ivy are abnormally abundant and are showing exceptional vigor, which is a verified response to increased atmospheric CO2. 

Sprinkle in brambles and multiflora rose and an assortment of ornamental plants that remain in the fields and we have a nearly impenetrable mass of vegetation occupying the study area, which the birds and deer and rabbits appear to find quite acceptable. For the foreseeable future it is theirs, while we continue to monitor changes. 

It’s fall and the mice have laid claim to the house with bold aggression. I catch glimpses of them sprinting along baseboards, dashing under furniture, ducking into desk drawers left slightly ajar. Almost always, they make their moves at the periphery of my vision so I question myself, but they cannot hide their stockpiles of sunflower seeds stolen from the sack on the back porch and stashed in closet shoes and gloves. Neither do they attempt to muffle the sounds of their waltzing and racing and gnawing inside our walls. Our century old home with a crumbling stone foundation provides an open invitation.  A few mice are a given and don’t bother us, but they reproduce like flies and have no concern for our preferences so inevitably their numbers exceed our tolerance. Today, traps smeared with peanut butter and laced with sunflower will be set.  Step gingerly, little vermin, your days of free and reckless frolicking are numbered. 

If mice had advanced intellect and if we assume wise judgment would come from it, they might anticipate the consequences of over abundance and gauge their numbers accordingly. Instead, they liberally procreate as long as resources hold out or until disease, famine, predation, competition, or a detrimental shift in their environment puts an end to their growth if not the mice themselves.  

All too soon the last of the color fades to brown, the curtain drops on the finest of seasons, and the animals of highest intellect rake the last of the fallen leaves curbside and perceive a future of growth and prosperity free of limitations. The season of dormancy moves in, an abandoned field nurtures the seed it’s given, and a dry stone wall stands with a promise to outlast it all. 

An E-bike and a Cleansed Mind

In late summer, to celebrate my wife’s 70th birthday, our sons offered to buy her an electric bike, and I, not wanting to be left out, decided to get one as well.  After an exhaustive search of makes and models and learning more than we realized there was to learn, we chose bikes offered by a recent start-up having great reviews and a promotional price second to none.

E-bikes have battery powered motors that can be used all the time, not at all, or only when the pedaling gets tough. When engaged, the motor delivers an invisible push allowing the pedaler to maintain cadence and speed. Because the amount of motor assistance is rider-determined, anything from a thigh-burning, oxygen-starved workout to a casual cruise is up for grabs.  I view pedal assist as a morphine pump— when the sting in my thighs reaches a critical limit I touch a button for instant relief.  Hills and headwinds are of little consequence. 

There’s a peacefulness out there on county roads seldom traveled. I notice things, like the crunch of dried leaves between tire and pavement, the praying mantis at the road edge, a newly hatched snapping turtle, a northern redbelly snake, wooly worms and grasshoppers. I hear the tapping of deer hooves on the road as a family crosses a dozen yards ahead, a squirrel clawing at asphalt in a sprint for safety, the cries of migrating killdeer as they settle in freshly harvested fields. So much is missed from the seat of a passenger vehicle. 

We have in our possession nearly every bicycle we’ve owned, and at a time when we are trying to minimize, we buy two more. We are masters at justifying our wants, using aging bones and the need for healthy activity to explain our actions.  We joined “Ebike Cyclists Over 60” on Facebook, and in our first month logged over 300 miles on our new toys.

The e-bike industry is booming. It has inspired aging folks to get back in the saddle, but interest is not limited to the over 60 crowd. My brother, a lifelong biker and career bike shop employee, mentioned with some disgust how fully 50 percent of the 30-somethings entering his shop are in search of electric bikes. There’s sometimes a rift between traditional bikers and the pedal assist gang, with the former accusing the latter of cheating or downright laziness.  There have been complaints about e-bikes traveling too fast, and too many clogging roadways and parking areas. In places, including some national forests, new rules are restricting motorized bikes. While some concerns may be legitimate, the bigger problem could be too many cars and a lack of accommodations for bicyclists. Ask anyone from the Netherlands. 

None of this applies to rural Cass County, where on a typical 15 mile jaunt we see no other bikes and maybe three or four vehicles. The wooly worms and squirrels, and wild, unexpected delights far outnumber any manufactured conveyance. 

The riding experience stimulates mental cleansing.  When worldly concerns are reviewed while muscles are strained and our brains are pumping dopamine and endorphins, the result can be a fresh perspective, a clearer understanding, a bit of hope.

To date we’ve not been run over, audibly cursed, or splattered with rotten tomatoes hurled from roadside gardens. Instead, we’ve noticed a disproportionate number of folks who wave hello— far more than if we were driving a car— and a basic courtesy shown by people on the road or sitting on porches or at work in their gardens.  It suggests we live among good, civil minded folks who look out for one another, have similar needs and wants, and an equal claim to a clean environment, opportunity, and fair treatment.  It’s a perspective worth holding onto as midterm elections approach and our differences are brought into sharp focus.

We pedal up a long grade which I choose to climb without motor assistance.  I think about how our biking experience and lives might differ if we were part of a minority demographic. I wonder if we would get as many friendly greetings or have the luxury of new bicycles.

We turn into a headwind and my head clogs with concerns for our democracy, a changing world climate, a capitalistic ideal run amuck. I cringe at the flow of misinformation that bombards everyday life. 

But then the dopamine and endorphins kick in, and I see a maple tree so ablaze with color that it appears to generate its own light. And I think about the incredible fresh apple pie waiting at home— four pounds of apples in one pie, spiced and baked to perfection, with a tender and flaky crust that relies on a generous dose of lard. 

I take a shot of imaginary morphine and we ride on. There is hope on the road ahead. There has to be. 

A More Certain Future

There’s a heavy mist rising from the pond this morning. A pair of geese, barely visible, send ripples across the surface. The northern hemisphere tilts toward the season of dormancy. Meteorological fall has begun. 

It’s 40 degrees, and a 64 degree house feels cooler than when the outdoor temperature is, say, 60. I don’t understand why. Late in the afternoon we take a bike ride into a stiff north wind and quickly learn we are underdressed.  The road exits the woods and enters a protected sunny stretch, and without thinking our pedaling slows and we take in the warmth.

Corn harvest has begun. We flush a group of five pheasants huddled roadside, the first we’ve seen here in years. Crop fields are not ideal habitat but offer some benefit, especially when no-till practices or cover crops are used. As seasonal grain harvest ramps up the effect is not unlike a forest fire— suddenly millions of acres of cover and travel corridors disappear, and wild residents are forced into new routines. Predators take note. 

In the news this week the CEO of Chase Bank said the bank will continue to provide loans to the oil and gas industry because not doing so would put America “on the road to hell.”  The four biggest US banks: Chase, CitiBank, Bank of America, and Wells-Fargo are the world’s largest lenders to the fossil fuel industry. According to an article by Bill McKibben from The Crucial Years, these same banks also continue to make loans to Russia and its fossil fuel efforts, effectively supporting the war against Ukraine. That means every time we swipe our CitiBank card we’re supporting Russia and Big Oil. It won’t be swiped again. We have options. We all do. 

The Chase CEO said the world needs to produce 100 million barrels of oil per day over the next decade, which is an increase over current production and blows a hole in President Biden’s plan to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030. A year ago the four big banks signed onto the Global Alliance for Net Zero, an organized effort to wean lenders away from the oil industry, but now they’re threatening to back out, claiming “legal reasons.”

We subscribe to a local online meteorologist who backs up his forecasts with explanations I appreciate.  In recent years he’s made several references to events that were particularly rare and unexpected, sometimes destructive.

A study published in ScienceDaily says that as the temperature difference between the North Pole and equator lessens, the ability for forecasters to accurately predict weather, particularly flooding events, becomes more challenging. The atmosphere is behaving differently, and the models used to predict weather are becoming outdated. 

Meteorologists are quick to mention when they get a forecast correct but can be tight lipped when they don’t.  A couple years back I sent my weatherman an email suggesting he mention climate change when, say, a “chance of rain” becomes a flooding event. It might help him save face while doing his part in keeping an existential threat in the public’s eye. He responded saying the topic was politically charged and he had inclinations to steer clear, but agreed it was something he needed to do. He hasn’t. 

In a few days September will pass the reins to October. Our weatherman suggests peak leaf color and first frost dates could be delayed.  The planet is getting hotter and drier and wetter all at once. Big banks, and virtually everyone alive, continue to support an industry which ensures a climatic shift back to a world where no man ever lived.  

We’ve started watching the Ken Burns series on PBS: The US and the Holocaust. The longer I live the more I realize how frequently I must have dozed off in high school history. I didn’t know that Hitler drew inspiration from what he observed in the US.  Our forced sterilization practices, our treatment of native Americans and slaves, the support shown for improving the gene pool, all intrigued the fledgling German leader. I didn’t know that many of his countrymen opposed their commander and assumed his aspirations would be short lived or controlled by reasonable people close to him. I didn’t realize how restrictive our borders were towards accepting Jews desperate to leave Europe. Most unsettling are the parallels that can be drawn between the rise of a crazed dictator in 1930’s Germany and the current state of affairs in the US.  We can be a complicated and frustrating lot, set in our ways, easily drawn to conspiracy, blinded by deep rooted racial prejudice or religious intolerance. 

I get it. A good part of my life was oriented towards career and earning a respectable living, looking no deeper into the world than required to complete the task.  I didn’t think about the prejudices I might hold or the fault in my work ethic, and was the perfect candidate to be influenced by snippets of news from biased sources.  I would never take the time to analyze my opinions, which I knew could be readily affirmed by friends equally consumed by ambition.  It shouldn’t have taken so much time to get my head screwed on and it no doubt is not yet securely fastened. I have to admire the youth of today who are viewing the world with eyes wide open.  My hat is off to them.  

We live on a remarkable blue sphere.  By inconceivable design or improbable chance it evolved into a beautifully functional living machine, but our sheer numbers and misuse of resources has thrown a wrench in the works. While doing great things we allowed our progress to be undermined by greed, superiority, and a warped sense of dominion. We failed to respect our role in a world where everything is connected, and crippled the bedrock systems that support life.  Even as our understanding improves, we are reluctant to let go of destructive behaviors and practices. 

I think about all this as we cut up our CitiBank cards and take a bike ride into the first big push of autumn air. The earth tilts on its axis and continues around the sun, just as it has for billions of years, just as it likely will for a few billion more.  It has the luxury of time to heal its wounds, and a future more certain than ours. 

Remembering CMK

I first met Dr Charles M Kirkpatrick a couple years after I graduated high school.  I was at Purdue for a day on campus, registering for classes.  Kirk, as he was known to colleagues and friends, was sitting behind a desk in the old Ag Annex Building. He was lean, white-haired, and wore a scowl befitting a man bored with the prospect of signing up another new student. He sat quietly, reviewing my paperwork.  “Greensburg Indiana,” he said, making eye contact. “My home town.”

I’m not sure it meant much to him, but it did to me.  I had never met someone schooled as a wildlife professional, and did not expect my first to be someone intimately familiar with a tree growing from a courthouse tower in Decatur County. He had to know Sand Creek, the way it brushed the edge of town before meandering south and west to merge with the White River. Maybe, in a newly fallen snow, he’d found a fresh fox track where the creek passed under the railroad, and followed ole Reynard half a day as I had. He’d be familiar with Cobbs Fork and its limestone bottom, perfect for wading and looking for salamanders. Perhaps he’d thrown spinners to smallmouth bass in Clifty Creek where they held tight against the bridge abutment on the Vandalia Road, and hunted squirrels in the rolling oak-hickory woodlands east and south of town.  I reasoned that the experiences that led me to this campus likely influenced him as well, and I felt a kinship with the man and a confidence I had come to the right place.

In high school I focused on industrial arts and worked part time as an electrician to get me out of the classroom. I was not college material. Then two weeks before graduating I walked into the office of Miss Risk, my guidance counselor, and said, “I want to study wildlife science.”  “I know,” she said, smiling. Geneva Risk was a seasoned professional who had counseled my dad a generation before, and knew what students wanted sometimes before they did. She laid out a plan for evening courses at a nearby technical school where I would pick up math, economics, and other classes Purdue required.

I wouldn’t have C.M. Kirkpatrick as a class instructor until my junior and senior years but would stop in his office occasionally, maybe to appease my home sickness.  He was editor of The Journal of Wildlife Management, a technical publication with the latest findings in wildlife research, and was a stickler for proper verbiage, both written and spoken. I was a lad with little respect for either.  At one of my visits he abruptly asked, “If two Fords are traveling single file down the highway, what time is it?”  I hadn't the faintest idea. “Tin after tin,” he said. It was a joke, but its purpose was to have me listen to myself and my hillbilly lingo. “It’s ten, not tin; get, not git.” He wore professionalism and integrity like a well tailored shirt, and would subtly and patiently demonstrate to a group of backwoods students that there was infinitely more to his science than a love of hunting and fishing. 

I can picture him now walking the aisles of the classroom, handing out a freshly mimeographed lesson, his brow furrowed. He approaches a girl who is not yet my wife and their eyes meet. She’s intimidated, but reflexively offers him a Milk Dud. He gladly accepts.  

I came to learn he suffered from frequent migraines and wondered if they explained the scowl he often wore, but there was rarely a time he would not break into a smile and chuckle given the slightest incentive.  It would happen as we reminisced about squirrel hunts. “Amazing, how vivid the memories,” he once reflected, “the details of particularly difficult shots.”  It happened anytime we spoke of home turf and families, or the north country, or the Rocky Mountains of the west. 

His specialty was wildlife physiology and he had studied under the tutelage of the great Aldo Leopold at the University of Wisconsin, the man who said, “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds… (He) sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.” Leopold’s science-based revelation that healthy ecosystems require top predators and his philosophical insights of a land ethic encompassing all living things earned him worldwide acclaim.  

Kirk was among the fortunate to know Leopold personally.  When Aldo’s beloved dog, Gus, was accidentally shot on a bird hunt, it was Kirk who drove the car to the vet, a distraught Aldo in the backseat, a wounded dog on his lap.  “Gus, you poor goddamned dog,”  Aldo repeated over and over. Kirk’s admiration for Leopold’s tenets and values would guide him for life, as they continue to guide and inspire today. 

When C.M. Kirkpatrick was offered the opportunity to develop a wildlife science program at Purdue, he quickly accepted and set the university on course to become a leader in preparing students for careers as biologists, researchers, and naturalists. The undergraduate curriculum he designed and implemented was topped off with a senior year I never wanted to end.  Ornithology, mammalogy, ichthyology, wildlife ecology— what not to love?  

Maybe it was the natural consequence of his aging, the decades of discouraging environmental observations and experiences that wore him down, but it seemed Kirk’s hope for a healthy and viable future for the resource he dedicated his life to was waning. Wildlife would always be tertiary to agriculture and industry and the whims of civilized man. The loss of wetlands and critical habitats was ongoing despite their intrinsic value and proven necessity for a healthy planet. Once, while gazing across a section of native prairie turned cropland, he said, mostly to himself, “A  cottontail would have to pack a lunch to cross that field.” At Purdue, he’d be approached by ag industry leaders concerned that damage from wildlife was threatening their livestock operations or field crops. Rarely was there space for compromise, for consideration of harmonious existence. When my wife and I finished grad school, Kirk came to visit and to meet our first born son, and we joked that Jacob was destined to be a biologist. Kirk set his eyes on the boy and lamented, “There won’t be any wildlife when you grow up.”  Jacob turned 42 this year, and the sixth great extinction is well underway. 

In our senior year we were given an assignment to produce a polished scientific report on a particular species, including life history, past and current research, special concerns, etc..  To avoid bias in grading, Kirk required all reports to be identified only by the author's social security number.  Sometime later, I was in his office and the topic of reports came up.  “Which one was yours?” he asked. “Sharp-tailed grouse,” I replied. Wearing a wry smile and tugging the front of my shirt, he said, “Don’t ever stop writing.”

I could have come clean and told him my wizard roommate had voluntarily dissected my report and made it what it was, but I didn’t. But neither did I take CMK’s words lightly. He made me want to be a better writer.  I’m still working on it, his memory urging me on.

Leopold said, “The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, ‘What good is it?’  If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not.” In the introduction to his book, A Sand County Almanac, he wrote, “There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot.” 

In reality, humanity can’t exist without the elaborate interconnections and collaborations among wild things, but not everyone agrees or understands, and our collective behaviors and actions have resulted in a planet whose environmental systems are collapsing.  We need mentors to help us anticipate and navigate the consequences. I’m glad CMK was mine.

Maisy

We buried a dog this week, and not just any dog.  This was a 70 pound, bearded, coarse haired cur named “Maisy,” and for the past 13 years there was scarcely a day we were not together. 

Lee found her on Craigslist. We were, at the time, about three months into a one year agreement to not own a dog, but there was something in the photo of this girl that altered the plan. We went for an initial meeting and found her sitting bolt upright, propped by long front legs, looking regal. She was rail thin, had a urinary tract infection, in need of spaying. We took her home. 

When we got back to our house she leapt from the car and was on a dead run, exploring her new territory. She spied a chipmunk that streaked across the patio then disappeared under the dock at the edge of the pond. In flaming pursuit the dog launched herself full speed into the pond, then began an awkward attempt to swim while remaining vertical. It was a baffling display of thrashing but she eventually made it to shore, and my wife said, “That dog can’t swim.”  “Agh,” I responded, “all dogs can swim!”  It took some time but I was proven wrong— this dog, indeed, could not swim. With training she would eventually learn, but she would never learn to enjoy it. 

Maisy hated obedience exercises. When put on a leash for training she’d assume a dejected attitude as if cruelly reprimanded, and seemed thoroughly bored with the stop-sit-stay-come routine. It turned out she was listening— and learning— but from her perspective there were matters of much greater priority and urgency. 

In her youth she was built like a cheetah and behaved accordingly. She lived to run and ran with artistry, her head steady, legs sending her forward in long strides, covering great distance with impressive power.  Yet, she could turn on a dime, and with these talents would often overcome whatever she deemed as prey. When in a playful mood, she’d work herself into a frenzy spinning in tight circles with her butt an inch off the ground. She was speed and agility perfected. 

She was a sight hound with a hesitancy to use her nose because stopping to smell things necessarily interfered with running. She would barrel through fields of weeds, leaping high in search of anything she might flush, then follow in hot pursuit as long as she could see her quarry. She was interested in anything furred with one exception: she could identify a hawk at 100 yards and would sprint hell bent in its direction, eyes skyward. 

Her posture while sitting was abnormally erect, her spine nearly perpendicular to the ground.  We were never sure exactly what combination of breeds made her, but there was no shortage of speculation from casual observers. Irish wolfhound was often mentioned, as was Norwegian deerhound and Lurcher.  A DNA test indicated she was predominately Airedale, with Akita and other miscellaneous thrown in.  None of it really mattered.  She was a handsome girl, 95 percent sweetheart, and worked her way into my heart like no dog ever had.

She was a perfect traveler, even on multi-day trips. She’d sit or lie in the backseat without a sound or sign of restlessness, content only to be with us and to occasionally hang her head out the window and drool down the side of the truck.  We spent years adjusting our routines so she could be included, taking time for daily walks, making travel plans that allowed for her, forfeiting hikes and venues where dogs weren’t allowed. 

I sometimes resented her need for accommodation and her senseless disruptions.  There were evenings when her inability to decide if she wanted in or out of the house drove me to distraction. But then she’d walk up and with the most expressive eyes in the animal kingdom ask for hearty rubs behind the ears, and I would respond and she would lean into the pleasure with groans of contentment and all would be forgiven.  And then there were nights in bed when I’d look up to find her eyes locked on mine, watchful, with a loyalty beyond measure. 

She slowed down the last couple years, lost her cheetah behaviors as her hips were failing.  She began struggling with stairs and had to be lifted into the car and onto the bed. She showed only casual interest in nearby squirrels and rabbits, fell behind during walks. Then she quit eating. 

We made arrangements with the vet. One of our sons called for an update and suddenly I couldn’t speak. I don’t cry easily. I don’t cry at all. Damn this dog. 

Sir Walter Scott said, “The misery of keeping a dog is his dying so soon. But, to be sure, if he lived for fifty years and then died, what would become of me?” 

It’s different around the house these days. Something’s amiss first thing in the morning and the last thing at night and a hundred times in between. We’re not looking for another dog, we’re still looking for ours. 

She was still warm when we laid her in the ground. Still huggable. I scratched her ears one last time. 

Transitional September

There is a certain quiet in September, when the heat of summer has broken and a light breeze sways the flowers of Queen Anne’s lace. It’s the absence of bird song. Their season of procreation is complete and, for many, migration has commenced. They've been replaced by a chorus of crickets, who accompany me as I pick the last tomatoes, as I watch honey bees working goldenrod and wingstem, as squadrons of southbound swallows dip low over the pond. 

It is a month of transition— no longer summer but not yet fall— and big changes are afoot.  September stands between productivity and dormancy, between bare feet and insulated boots, between flowers and frost. It has come quickly but we’re ready for it, as the root cellar and pantry and freezer will attest. 

In another month the combination of diminishing daylength and cooler temperatures will spawn chemical changes in leaves, and some will scream with yellows and reds that cannot go unnoticed. And squirrels will pack the hollow in the maple tree with walnuts, and the queen hornet will seek shelter in woodland duff, and groundhogs will be fattened for a season of sleep.

This is the month when the unattended flower bed comes to glory, when the beggar tick and thistle and bugleweed make their unsolicited displays, and there is beauty there for those who look. The wildflowers of late summer are no less spectacular than those of early spring. Tidiness in the garden can wait; neglect has its rewards. 

On a September afternoon we take a bike ride along the river and come upon a group of wild turkeys loitering roadside. We coast within a rock’s throw before they move on, showing minimal concern. Around the next curve we encounter a rope-tailed red fox pup, who trots nonchalantly down the centerline for 100 yards before leaping through jewelweed and chicory and being swallowed by underbrush. 

I read a piece this morning written by the director of an integrative health and healing facility on the California coast.  He mentioned how the rhythm of September and October has changed.  What was once a couple months of sunny days and mild temperatures is now a time when he is particularly alert to the smell of smoke, and dinner conversations with friends include news of floods and droughts and evacuation routes. He calls it “eco-grief,” which unlike other forms of grief does not diminish with time, but intensifies. “Our eco-grief not only mourns the loss of what was,” he writes, “but also of what will be gone.”

I am by definition an old man. It’s been my living and the living of my boomer cohort that has led us here, and we have thrown a veil of uncertainty over the aspirations of generations to come. We live on, continuing to support the industrial machine responsible for the mess. A full scale transition to green energy is not easy and we are not united in our resolve to get it done quickly. 

In September, the month of transition, we can appreciate all the natural beauty we still have while looking ahead, adjusting our sights and ambitions.  Today’s eco-grief-stricken youth have everything to lose. They are watching us.

Finding an Exit Ramp

For dinner tonight we had pork ribs brined in salt, slow cooked for three hours, then slathered with sauce and lightly charred.  They were tender and perfect and served up with fresh picked sweetcorn swimming in butter, a sliced tomato the size of a softball, and cucumber rounds doused with ranch dressing.  Ahhh, summer in the heartland.

The sign in the meat department said the hog that gave up its ribs was raised humanely with no added hormones or antibiotics.  It did not mention how much carbon energy and land mass it took to grow the grain that fattened the hog, or how many wild species were put at risk in the process, or any negative impacts to air and water quality. 

The amount of land required to feed global livestock accounts for 77 percent of all farm acreage but provides only 18 percent of the world’s calories and 37 percent of protein.  There is more greenhouse gas associated with the livestock industry than with the entire transportation sector, not to mention associated habitat and biodiversity loss.  

A climate emergency is in progress and the future that scientists warned of is here.  The recent heat wave in Europe that killed 2000, areas of Pakistan that are declared “unlivable for humans”, buckled roads and warped rails in Britain, unprecedented flooding in Missouri, Kentucky, and elsewhere; droughts, wildfires, ocean acidification, melting ice sheets, it's all happening. 

By definition, emergencies call for immediate action, a sense of urgency where everyone’s engaged.  Travel is up following the COVID shutdown, airlines are swamped, RV sales are off the chart, demand for oil increases even with inflated prices. We had ribs for dinner.

A recent survey conducted over multiple countries indicates widespread awareness of the climate crisis but awareness has yet to be coupled with a willingness to act.  It doesn’t feel like an emergency when even those who obsess about the climate continue to contribute to the problem. It feels more like we’re stuck in turnpike traffic and the exit ramps are jammed. 

I saw a reel the other day of a middle aged woman: dark skinned, lean, attractive, wearing colorful beads and small wooden earrings.  She appeared poised, content, confident, and was casually chewing on the end of a broken leg bone from a small ungulate. After thoroughly cleaning the outside of the bone she took a splinter of wood and began probing the interior for marrow, placing tiny morsels on her tongue as if relishing bits of caviar.  At her side was the animal’s fresh hide and metatarsal bones, still covered with shining fur the color of rich mahogany.  In the background another woman was on her knees in the dust, flattening dough on a slab of wood. These women, who have contributed nothing to the current crisis, may be better prepared for it than the majority of us.

My wife turned 70 this month. To celebrate, we drove to Lake Michigan and found Caribbean blue water meeting a cloudless sky. We hiked a marsh trail near the dunes, admired the mallow and red cardinal flower, took note of a few pollinators and songbirds, found a nice cafe with outdoor seating overlooking a marina filled with yachts and sailboats. We ate a good chicken sandwich and washed it down with the best brown ale money can buy.  We made the round trip in an electric car with batteries charged by the sun. We didn’t talk about the sixth great extinction but instead focused on the not yet extinct and the raft of promising technologies and practices that could turn our economy green. The whole day felt good and was a reprieve from a planetary reality that beats us up, plagues us with guilt, and threatens to shadow the beauty that still remains. For just a day, we found an exit ramp. 

A Cathedral and a Hopi Prophecy

A few decades ago we bought a piece of land adjoining ours, a 23 acre parcel oriented north and south in a long rectangle.  Along its east edge runs Spring Creek, straight as an arrow, because years before there was a decree among neighbors to amend the stream for fast and efficient drainage.  There was one holdout, the then-owner of our original 20 acres, who refused to take part. So today the creek has been straightened against its will except for one small segment where it enjoys great purpose as it snakes its way through willows and sedges.  

On the banks of the dredged portion lie piles of spoil from the excavator and remnant oxbows where meanders were forcibly disconnected from the channel. On the spoil mounds the hackberries and sycamores have matured and brambly thickets have formed and mink find den sites. The wounds from the dredge have softened, so today the views up and downstream are rather delightful in spite of prior abuses.

On the western border of the property is a mixed woodland with scattered openings.  It was damaged years ago by grazing cattle, and its healing has been slow.  The wildflowers and understory that typify a deciduous forest have been reluctant to return, but they are returning, struggling as they must against the influence of bush honeysuckle.

Between the recovering woodland on the west and the channeled creek on the east lay nine acres of flat and productive bottomland.  In the woodland a spring bubbles from the ground and skips across the woodland floor a distance before being collected in a riser and carried underground to the creek. 

We used the tillable soil for growing shade and ornamental trees, evergreens and flowering shrubs, to help stock our landscape business.  The land was productive and the plants grew well, but we were haunted by the spring water being funneled away, seemingly wasted. So we sacrificed a few acres of nursery and constructed a pond where the spring could pool and grow fish and wildfowl and offer us a swimming hole before passing through onto the creek.

A half lifetime later we sold the business but not the land, and the “north 20” was left to its own devices. Unbeknownst to us there were plans, established centuries ago, to build a grand cathedral on the site, and now construction had commenced in earnest. There were no architectural drawings, no committees, no fundraisers or budgets, only steadfast development. Already, a choir of birds appeared and were holding dawn rehearsals. And a mixture of plants, goldenrod and brambles and elms and oaks, began occupying the cathedral.  New members showed up unannounced and were welcomed, as the congregation was open to all. And in its willingness to embrace differences, its diversity, value, and function improved.  The soil was free of disturbance for the first time in a century, and in it a complex communication and hydrologic system began to take shape, one specifically designed for the cathedral’s needs.

The work continues today, with no scheduled completion date. This morning we took a tour to measure progress, raspberry pails in hand. The picking was excellent for a crop requiring no cultivation or pruning, fertilization or irrigation, just picking. We suspect a congregation member brought in the first plants, perhaps a visiting raccoon or a member of the choir, and now the ripening berries invite others to join. Such is the selfless giving within the assembly.

While picking, I was drawn deep into the chambers of the cathedral, in and out of shadows, over obstacles, through vines and thorny branches. And I found myself in a clearing with not a single recognizable landmark, uncertain of the way out. Inside a mere 23 acres I was momentarily lost, and it was good.  

The cathedral building crews, with their quiet persistence, attention to detail, and an attitude of acceptance toward participants, has made incredible headway, but things are not exactly as they seem. Within all the positive progress is reason for concern. We have seen, over the past 10-15 years, certain species grow increasingly scarce or disappear entirely, despite perfect habitat conditions. Among them, several snakes: the hog nose, black, fox, milk, even the common water snake. All were once seen regularly, but now rarely. Ditto the eastern box turtle. Ditto many of the frogs and toads, grasshoppers and dragonflies, katydids and mantids. 

The arrival of certain species, horned owls or wild turkeys or a family of foxes, are quick to attract attention and give the illusion that a balanced and healthy system is taking shape. But global threats are at work, extinctions are on the rise, diversity is crashing and the ecological heart of the planet is at risk. To say it will get worse is not negativity, it’s reality. To say we can save ourselves might be true, but will we?  

A recent Hopi prophecy says we are no longer living in the eleventh hour, but The Hour:

“There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.

And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word ’struggle’ from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

Some of us live in denial of environmental threats or feel helpless to do anything, a position requiring no actual study or consideration. Others believe technology will provide solutions and our consumptive economy will go on clicking, which passes the burden of finding a remedy onto a select few engineers and tech wizards. Some who study the threats are anxious and depressed and filled with hopelessness, which beyond being unhealthy, challenges a genuine joy and zest for life. 

A Hopi elder recites the prophecy, smiles at his people and says, “This could be a good time!”  His invitation requires a conscious effort to choose the way we prepare and react to environmental calamity. It means learning to recognize and anticipate our own survival behaviors and putting in their place a generous and compassionate spirit that thrives in community and relationship. 

It’s heavy stuff for me.  My gut reaction is to head to the North 20 and pick raspberries and leave my concerns under a tangle of brambles. I’d rather be at peace with my lower animal self and focus on tending the garden and filling the root cellar and doing practical and wholesome things because I enjoy using less and being self-sufficient, but not because I’m preparing for a painful and difficult time. An attitude of celebration will take some work. 

Teddy Roosevelt said, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”  He was addressing troops during the Spanish American war, but they are solid words for today.  The Hopi elders would agree. 

Their Destiny is Ours

Spring’s big bang has melded to summer and the riverwalk path is smudged with mulberries.  Motherwort blooms, the sweet fragrance of wild grape hangs in the woodland.  In late evening Canada geese gather in the pond near the house, motionless, bellies full. They’ve cropped the grass around the pond as short as a putting green and for the past hour have been dabbling duckweed.  The air is heavy and has a summer stillness as the geese settle in for the night. A wood thrush sings a final song. Bullfrogs begin their serenade.  

After dark we run a bat survey for the DNR. We drive a 20 mile specified route and the Anabat computer picks up chatter from about a dozen feeding bats.  The number is low, but not surprising in the big ag country we survey. No habitat, no bats. We see few insects in our headlights. There will be more later in the season, we say, as new generations are born. But insect numbers are not what they were a decade or two ago, which is true of too many wild things. 

We’ve come off a week of drenching rains and now it’s hot. Dangerously hot. Further west the drought deepens and fires rage. In the far north, tundra burns.

Volatile herbicides from area crop fields curl the leaves on our garden tomatoes, burn the tips of other veggies, defoliate some of our flowering shrubs.  The chemical companies call it “drift”, and it happens even when application protocols are followed to a T.  It’s an Achilles heel for operators, who can be held liable for damage, but a risk justified for the sake of weed free fields.  

In exchange for geese on the pond we have a manure speckled patio and annual flowers nipped to the ground by foraging fowl. In exchange for the efficiencies in an industrialized food system we have chemical drift, degradation of soils and water, massive destruction of habitats, dead zones in the oceans.  In exchange for an endless stream of conveniences and comforts made possible by fossil fuels we pollute our environment, modify our climate, and keep landfills humming.  Everything has a price. 

The Cornell ornithology lab developed an app to aid in bird identification. Among its features is a sound ID, which uses a smartphone to match songs with birds.  On our walks, the app typically picks up a half dozen or more songbirds at any given time, and without it we might never know we were passing a prothonotary warbler or northern parula or warbling vireo.  

We trade hours of field study for the luxury of pressing a button and having a bird identified, and in so doing we support the extraction of “blood minerals” our smartphones require. Few of us think about the cheap labor used to assemble our phones, or the likelihood they’ll someday join a mountain of toxin-oozing gadgetry discarded by a society that fails to embrace a cradle to cradle mentality.  Most of us don’t consider the data centers “in the cloud” consuming massive amounts of energy to process information so we can have the collective knowledge of the world at our fingertips and say, with no field work or study invested , “that’s the voice of a great crested flycatcher.”  

Early in the month I was mowing in the south field, collecting mulch for the garden, and nearly ran over a fawn not more than a day or two old. At the last moment it leapt up on uncertain legs and stumbled to safety among the brambles.  I found it later, bedded down, chin flat to the ground, watchful eyes locked on me.  

Written in those eyes was a 10,000 year history of an herbivore crucial to apex predators and critical in providing food, clothing, and tools for indigenous tribes and European settlers.  Its predecessors survived a massive population decline resulting from habitat destruction and market hunting that reduced their numbers to no more than 500,000.  Today their population has rebounded, 30 million strong, because we wanted them back. 

In the fawn’s eyes lay a question: What value do we give less loved species whose welfare rests on the whims of our land use practices and policies?  Despite a recent history of appreciation and protections for things wild, we still treat the natural world much like a modified version of Jenga, removing individual pieces as the tower draws closer to collapse. Fully functioning ecosystems rely on bats and birds and insects and countless others to provide ecological services essential to us. We control their destinies, and they will determine ours.