Halloween Eve

What are the chances on the eve of Halloween to almost step on a big snake in the park at dusk? After I gathered my wits, I actually looked around to see if anyone had planted it. It was big, colorful, and looked kinda dead. I looked around for a stick to move it just in case it was only sluggish from the chilly day we'd had. Luckily, Henson was busy out at the end of his leash and remarkably, missed the whole thing. It was in fact alive, although it looked like it had a dent in its side and its head, which I'd thought might have been squished was just an interesting dark blue.

When I touched it, it moved, albeit in slow mo. That gave me pause, but I explained I had to get it off the asphalt path and into the safety of the leaves so it wouldn't get further damaged. It flattened itself out, effectually doubling its size, and writhed a little to the left and then a little to the right, half-heartedly acting as thought it would strike if it felt better. Mission (or rescue) accomplished, we went on.

The park was nearly deserted, with only a few other dog owners and some frisbee golf enthusiasts out. It was easy to hear the birds conversing, the distant roar of the waterfalls over the dams, and the squirrels rustling and rifling through the piles of fallen leaves. The deer were silent though, and barely stood out from the gloom. We walked right up on a buck as we cut through the woods. We all stopped and stared at each other. He was young, only two points, but regal none the less. The hound was dying to chase the hart, and I had to walk for a ways with his leash wrapped around my waste so he wouldn't pull my shoulder out. My right arm is already longer than my left!

Finding the snake reminded me of the time Fergus and I were walking the upper trail along the river (people around here call it a creek, but it's too big and mighty for that; there's been a full grown tree, roots and all, caught in one of the dams for days that came down the river in last week's torrential rain storms). It was early spring and we were passing an area were the bases of the trees were covered with old leaves recently free of snow. I noticed Ferg's ears prick and he tilted his head toward the leaves. I could hear rustling and something else myself, so I took a closer look and got a better hold on his leash just as we both realized it was dozens of writhing garter snakes. They were all about the same size, not real little, but not looking full grown. They looked more like they'd just stopped hibernating and were selecting mates. Ferg would have loved to dive in to catch a few and I could picture him grabbing several in one mouthful and giving them a shake. They were hissing and tangling and untangling with each other, gliding over and under the leaves, completely and seriously absorbed with checking each other out. Except for one. He or she came slithering over to Ferg, raised itself up like a Cobra, hissed loudly, and attempted to strike, several times. Thems fightin' words to a terrier, but by this time he was all reeled in, his leash wound around and around my arm. We backed up a little, but didn't back off until I felt like I'd seen enough to remember it forever. That was a once in a life time find!

My Parents' Best Idea

A follow up to America’s Best Idea

The motor home we rented and drove through Glacier National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, Mount Rushmore, and Yellowstone

My parents were visiting me recently and my mom brought one of her travel albums with her to remind me of one of our family trips after reading my segment on the National Parks (below). She always writes a “travel journal” after a trip, complete with photos, historical and geographical information, details of the experience, personal commentary, and gastronomical adventures. We laughed at the drawing I made on our first night out, the crush I had on what’s-his-name (apparently I never knew; I was too shy to ask), and our attempts to entertain ourselves when we were stranded in Glacier National Park.

According to her journal, within three hours of departing, drivers on I-94 in downtown Chicago were beeping their horns to alert us that the motor home was already falling apart. A hose and the door to something important blew off and were unrecoverable. Subsequently, we overnighted in places so cold and windy the pilot light wouldn’t stay lit, and halfway up the tallest mountain in Rocky Mountain National Park we had to do a u-ey with no real maneuvering room because the transmission was overheating. People stopped to help and keep my dad from backing off the side of the mountain while my mom and her dog stood on the side of the road (apparently she left us kids and the other dog to perish with dad; which would have been easier than controlling us as he did what must have been an amazing asterisk turn—forget a K turn!—so we could head back downhill before the engine caught on fire). We had several flat tires and numerous other mechanical issues along the way, all of which were documented along with reports on the nice people who helped us get out of these situations.

My drawing of our first campsite

Our first night was spent at a deserted campground with no facilities, but something to draw about. Our most memorable interaction with park rangers involved a stray dog that started following us around in Glacier. I remembered they said they would take care of it, and my mom remembers what they actually said was they’d take it back to the office and shoot it, which sent all three of us kids, but especially my sister, into hysterics. (Memory has a funny way of making things seem less traumatic than they were at the time!) I don’t know what they were thinking, saying something like that to little kids. I couldn’t believe there was a photo of us with the dog, and my mom couldn’t believe I was so excited about that! Her journal reminded me that my sister’s horse kept heading back to the barn on the dude ranch, and that my shy little brother was chosen from the audience to participate in a Vaudeville act under a big-tent "mellerdramer" in the Black Hills for which he received an official certificate. And we were all thrilled to belly up to the bar for a sarsaparilla in frosty beer mugs.

I remember us kids making a sign that said “We have cruise control. What’s your problem?” and holding it up in the window as we passed the same cars over and over (see future installment on my attitude about driving). I remember the cupboard doors banging open and all the pots and pans and food flying out as we bumped out across the fields of the bridgeless Indian reservation. I remember lots of rain. It used to rain every day around 3 pm in the mountains, but I don’t know if it still does. I remember we couldn’t drive through parts of Yellowstone because it was half closed due to snow—in July! We had a snowball fight, which was awesome for us even though we regularly had 4 feet of snow, more than anyone could want, in the winter. I remember Glacier National Park still had a dozen glaciers, and am sad that now it’s down to one. And I remember all of the beautiful flowers and animals we saw, including moose, which I’ve never seen in person since.

The family and the stray dog

My parents sent me on several camping trips with the Kalamazoo Nature Center in later years, which accounts for some of my other national park experiences. I think it was on the first one of those that I took my first photos. When I got home, my parents were pretty well flabbergasted that I had captured such nice shots. I still have them somewhere and can picture many of them in my mind more clearly than details of the experience. It was a little traumatic being that far away from home, sleeping outdoors with strangers and bears, using public bathrooms, and eating other people’s cooking (I do fondly remember how comforting canned baked beans and Dinty Moore Stew were on cold afternoons after hiking mountains, fording streams, sliding across glaciers, and walking through clouds). I had become a travel pro by the second solo trip, though! Those trips were an integral part of the foundation of my personality and appreciation for nature. When I bought my own house, my mother took the opportunity to bring me two trunks full of stuff she’d been saving for me since my childhood. Among the treasures were little notebooks in which I kept lists of the birds and other flora and fauna I’d seen and learned about growing up. People often are astonished when I identify a female cardinal, for instance, not only because I know what type of bird it is, but that I can tell the difference between the sexes. That cracks me up! Of course they can identify all of the cartoon and other TV show characters I never got to watch, but I don’t feel deprived about that!

Every kid should have the types of nature experiences I enjoyed. There should be funding to send them on trips like those so they understand how we fit into the world and what we should feel responsible for protecting. As I mentioned in the original parks post, I am very active in supporting numerous organizations, whether by being a member, making donations, or writing my legislators about protecting them. I just signed a petition today asking Congress for funding to educate children on the environment, which I’ve included below. Then I sent it to everyone I know. If the link is active through this blog page, please sign it yourself.

Dear A, Our country is in dire need of education that stops water pollution and habitat destruction. Nearly half of our population does not know what a watershed is; let alone which one they live in. Right now, your U.S. representative has the opportunity to support a bill that will increase funding for key environmental and watershed education programs. This bill will educate America 's youth about their local watershed and provide opportunities for them to experience their watershed firsthand. Clean watersheds are not only essential to wildlife survival on land and in the water, but also to our health. By investing in our youth through environmental education, we can secure healthy watersheds for years to come! Ask your representative to help build the next generation of habitat stewards today. Sincerely, Julia Marden Online Grassroots Coordinator National Wildlife Federation alerts@nwf.org

Almost Fall

This is a disconcerting time of year. It's getting light later, so I'm oversleeping. It's getting dark earlier, so I'm not sure when to stop working or when to eat anymore, or if I have time to take my usual walk in the park or need to take a shorter route, or what the heck to wear!

The bugs that usually start making noise at dusk and carry on till daybreak are frantically chirping, whirring, and violining all day, which makes me sleepy at the oddest times. You have to watch out for mad bees, furiously gathering as much nectar as they can and unafraid to see whether they can get it out of you.

Leaves shock me as they pelt my face without warning and fool me as they cover dips and holes in the grass. Walking is even more hazardous with walnuts underfoot, falling out of trees and narrowly missing your noggin. They really should have a warning "incoming" kind of whistle. Ditto for the Osage oranges!



But it's beautiful! It's time to rake leaves, cook comfort food, curl up with hot cider and a good book, get the wool out. And look forward to a little of this!



All photos taken by me. Please do not copy or use in any manor.

Mushroom Mania

I see mushrooms everywhere. And fungi. I have been taking pictures of them for years. (see Year of the Mushroom post below.) Most of these are in my local woods, but some were taken in Michigan and some in Vermont. Many thanks to my neighbor for being the dog handler today, when I went back to document some of the shrooms Henson and I found yesterday on our walk. I have a mushroom book, but didn't bother to look any of these up. All names are fictitious (except for Indian Pipes). Some were hideous, some looked edible, and some were well past it. I think I have writing about mushrooms out of my system for a while!



These looked like oyster mushrooms, embedded between the legs of a tree trunk.


No one knew this 4-foot long, 2-foot wide fungi was 30 feet up on this tree trunk until it fell down in a storm. The trunk is bigger around than me.


Just hanging out mushrooms


Tall (2 ft) dark and handsome mushrooms


Front porch sized shelf mushroom, 8 or 10 feet above my head, 3 feet around, 2 feet deep


Moss mushroom


Purple potato mushrooms


More Indian Pipes


Lost button mushroom


Mushy upside-down mushrooms (although it looks like these got so slimy the tops slid down to the bottom, this is how they grew)


Mushroom land


Mushroom buddies


Bundle of mushrooms


Lotsa Lichen




Fungi on cow's tongue mushroom


Dead mushrooms


Ancient Indian Pipes


Colorless coral mushroom





All overexposed pictures taken by me. Please do not copy or use in any manner.

America's Best Idea

I told everyone I know to watch "America's Best Idea," the National Parks Series by Ken Burns on PBS this week. I have watched every night so far and it brings back so many memories and reinforces my commitment to continue working toward saving the parks for the rest of my life. Some people have complained that the series is a little boring, with all the black and white photos of people. I’m learning a lot from that, but I too wish there was a lot more color footage of the parks today. I hope there will be further segments, whether by Burns or others, that get the message into the heads of every voter, every school child, every visitor to this country that these are monuments to the natural history and natural habitats of North America which must be protected, expanded where possible, supported monetarily, and promoted as OUR property, our heritage, our responsibility.

I fell a little in love with John Muir the first night. He was my kind of eccentric, sitting next to a plant new to him for an hour or a day to see what it had to tell him, spending a stormy night in a tree to feel how trees experience weather, standing behind waterfalls to relate to how the rocks lived, looking at the world upside down, between his legs, to see the “upness” of things. I would happily have followed him anywhere. A couple of nights later, I fell in love with Steven Mathers, a tall, prematurely white haired, blue-eyed manly man who worked and thought and depressed himself into nervous breakdowns more than once, but always bounced back to the beauty and the cause.

Thanks to my parents, the national parks are part of my personal history. They piled three kids and three dogs into rented motor homes and dragged us on thousand-mile trips, kicking and screaming and fighting the whole way. If we weren’t bickering, we weren’t speaking to each other, so my parents wouldn’t know until later how much I enjoyed—no thrived on—those journeys. I kept journals and took pictures and wrote letters to friends and relatives that revealed the impact the scenery had on my pre-teen and teenage brain. In those pre-digital days, I took hundreds of pictures that are stuffed into shoe boxes and grocery bags, tucked away or stacked up throughout my house. I vow to dig them out, scan worthy ones into the computer, and share them over time.

Millions of people visit the National parks each year, amazingly, considering how little air time they get, yet millions more have no idea how important and beautiful they are, how tenuous their existence is, or how many of us, and I can count my family and many friends, have fought to keep them clean, safe, and free of development and industry. I’ve signed countless petitions, written Congress, and donated lots of money to preserve these places. I am or have been a member of every organization you’ll hear about on this series. My Congressmen and Senators hear from me almost weekly, begging them not to open these areas to oil, coal, and gas drilling, sport and aerial hunting, ATV and snow mobile riding, new roads, and to protect them from poachers and vandals and mean-spirited people. You want to know why?

As John Muir’s writing and several of the commentators expressed on the show, you felt like you had gone home when you arrived in these places. There is a natural affinity that can only be explained by déjà vu, by having been there before in your unconscious memory, your past lives. Sometimes it almost hurt. We’d come around a bend, maybe it had just stopped raining and everything was sparkling and wet, misty mountain crags created shadows and rainbows and sun shafts created contrasts in light. It was an achy, haunting feeling; actually a little scary and confusing sometimes to be distracted by this sense that I’d been there before, or this was where I belonged. Even the camping out rang bells. Riding under the stars on dude ranches felt natural, not new.

Campgrounds echoed with children’s voices, dogs’ barks, and the sounds of axes cutting through firewood. The trees creaked, the wind whispered stories, the chipmunks took cherry Lifesavers from my steady hand. I could be a reincarnated pioneer, itinerant tinker, range rider, or park guide. (According to my high school aptitude test, I should have been a mounted ranger. If I’d followed that path, how different life would be.)

My family got trapped in Glacier National Park by a flashflood. They said the bridge was out, but it was still there, in the middle of the river with 50-yard gaps of missing road on either side. We were staying on an Indian reservation and they didn’t have the money to repair the road, which they couldn’t do until the water level went down on its own schedule anyway. We spent four exciting days (for me; I’m sure my mother was having one long panic attack) exploring the areas we could reach on foot. They helicoptered supplies to us. We huddled around the radios and park rangers for updates. I fell in love with a dark-haired boy whose name I’ll never remember. I pined for a glimpse of him, or a flirty walk. Finally, the Indians came up with enough cash to rent heavy equipment that could drag motor homes across the fields and meadows to the nearest road. I still remember the fear, excitement, remorse, and thrill of my dad gunning the motor, the motor home bumping and bucking its way free of the camp ground. I ran from the front window to the back, my emotions alternating between the elation of freedom and regret of lost puppy love, waving goodbye to what’s-his-name. Those extra days at Glacier cost us. We ran out of time to experience the Great Salt Lake, so that’s still on my to-see list.

Speaking of lists, these are the parks I’ve been to. I didn’t know there were 58 of them until this week, even though I’ve been a member of the National Parks Conservation Association for years, and I didn't realize how many I'd been to until I went to the National Parks link (above) and clicked on each state. This list leaves out hundreds of state parks, state forests, national historic sites, and remote wilderness areas I’ve been lucky enough to spend time in here in the US, or in Canada, Mexico, and Europe. I’ll list more of those in another post. And write about my Rocky Mountain National Park concussion, my Grand Canyon meningitis, and my underaged Acadia beer drinking days.

My National Park visits:

Glacier

Little Bighorn Battlefield

Yellowstone

Grand Teton

Lake Mead

Golden Gate National Recreation Area

Muir Woods

Bryce Canyon

Grand Canyon

Canyonlands

Continental Divide Scenic Trail

Rocky Mountain National Park

Badlands

Mount Rushmore

Chimney Rock Trail

San Antonio Missions

Mississippi National River Area

Trail of Tears (several states)

Indiana Dunes National Lake Shore

Automobile National Heritage Area

Father Marquette National Memorial

Keweenaw National Historic Park

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

Appalachian National Scenic Trail (several states)

Acadia National Park

Hudson River Valley

Delaware and Lehigh Valley National Heritage Corridor

Delaware Water Gap

Valley Forge National Historic Park

Manasses National Battlefield

Everglades

Florida National Scenic Trail

Dupont Circle

Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site

George Washington Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

National Mall and parks

Rock Creek Park

Jefferson Memorial

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Korean War Memorial

Washington Monument

White House

Eulogy for a Frog

Confession. I killed my resident frog. All summer, I kept the dog from bothering him, I kept the garden overgrown to shade him, I kept the roll of tree bark I rescued from the loggers at the park perfectly situated to provide him shelter, I kept reminding people as they came up the driveway on foot to watch out for the frog. And then I ran over him. It was dark, it was late, I thought it was a mouse who would clear the car and slip under the garage door by the time I got to the spot where I'd seen him hopping along. But my frog went tharn, apparently, and I ran over him, with audio (the windows were open).

I freaked out. I rolled up the windows and lamented at the top of my lungs that I didn't mean to hit a mouse, I couldn't believe I'd hit a mouse, I'm so sorry I hit a mouse (I do overthink things). I climbed out and there he was, right below the door. I left the dog in the back seat, opened the garage door, got several plastic grocery bags, and bent over to scoop the remains into the bag. That's when I saw it was not a mouse (of which there are obviously too many), but my frog (of which there are no longer enough).

More wailing. Willies, too. I carefully dropped the triple bagged body into the garbage can, turned on the hose, and thoroughly washed the driveway. I am sad that he will not be scampering out of harms way, or sharing the porch with me, or hibernating in my yard. If you don't count countless bugs, I've never killed anything with my car before, though I've hit two deer (well, one jumped onto my car, the other merely sat on the hood because I was able to almost stop), run over a groundhog (when I was just learning to drive a stick; put the clutch in instead of the break, but he wasn't dead), had a red squirrel bonk its head on the undercarriage (and run off), and clipped a dog racing across the road (again, at an almost stop; she was ok).

Sorry, Mr. Frog. I can't decide if I'm glad I took a picture of you just a week or two ago or not. I'm not sure if it makes me feel more guilty or I'm glad I documented our time together. I hope one of your relatives will inhabit my garden next year. I will be more careful (not to mention grateful).

Year of the Mushroom

Monkey Bread mushrooms

Here’s an understatement—this summer was rainy. If it was not raining, it was spitting or misting or down right pouring. We had deluge after deluge. The park flooded so many times there are spontaneous, ugly dams in all the creeks and the whole area reeks of river mud. Trees fell, mold grew, basements got mildewy, even the car smells faintly moldy because so much water washed over it or bounced up into it from the driveway.

And the mushrooms grew like crazy.

Buttermilk Pancake mushroom

Up at the lake, on the first day of sunshine in weeks, I decided to read in the hammock. As I lay there, listening to the waves and the breeze through the trees, a putrid stench kept wafting over me. Finally, I disentangled the dog, gently tilting the hammock until he could jump out, and went in search of my dad.

“There’s something dead near the shed,” I told him. “We have to find it before one of the (3) dogs does.” But our search didn’t turn up anything. Later we took a walk and could smell the ‘carcass’ up by the road and decided it must be higher up the hill than the shed. Still later, I was standing on the deck and the smell filled my head strongly again, perhaps because it was wafting up between the boards, which meant there would be no routing it out for disposal, the Boston terrier being the only one who can fit under there.

The next day, when it was back to raining lightly, I took the dog for a walk around the “circle,” which is mostly connecting dirt roads (read sand roads; dirt is scarce up north) except for a short stretch along the paved main road. I smelled the same stench numerous times and realized it couldn’t all be dead animals (whew!), but must in fact be decomposing mushrooms. I’d overlooked dozens of those as a possibility as my eyes I scanned the yard for a carcass. We do have fox, mink, coyote, eagles, and possibly bear and bobcat up north, so I assumed the remains of a turkey or small critter was decomposing somewhere. But it was the mushrooms!

Birdbath mushroom

One the size of a birdbath rose up a few days later. Others ranging in size from a peppercorn to a thimble to a deck of cards emerged here and there. Some were delicate. Some looked like rubber or plastic or the consistency of movie-theater Dots. Others were mushy or woody. Some grew in tight groups and some stood alone. They poked through leaves, wearing them like skirts or hats. They clung to trees and downed branches. They grew in between steps and under ferns. They were everywhere. And in seemingly every color: orange, red, yellow, white, gray, black, red, brown, rust, purple, etc. We drove past a neighbor’s house and I said “Look, someone left a soccer ball out so long, the black has worn off.” It turned out to be a puffball mushroom we should have eaten the day it got that big.

Puffball mushroom

I’m sure all the Morel hunters who didn’t manage to find much during the unusually warm dry spring were very disgruntled to see so much fungi bounty in the summer. My sister, who is to morel hunting like hogs are to truffle hunting, was completely trumped this year—after I convinced her to overnight me a box full of them, she found only 3 in as many weeks. However, later in the season, friends collected bags of Chanterelles for stir fries and cream sauces. There were whole stands of the elusive Indian Pipe.

Indian Pipes

Squirrels and chipmunks nibbled on all sorts of varieties we wouldn’t consider edible. Slugs and other creatures bored through still others. Shelf fungi lined trees top to bottom, and lichen bloomed rampantly, so thick it started overlayering itself on all sorts of surfaces.

See text for vernacular

When we got home, where it had also been raining for 2 weeks, Henson and I discovered all of the mulch in our neighborhood was sprouting dog pecker mushrooms (or stink horns, as more genteel people call them) all along his favorite pee-mail routes. It’s continued to rain more than shine for the better part of a month and the wind is full of leaf mold and mushroom spores. The air in the woods is dank, the atmosphere is gloomy, and those of us who can, lift our spirits and remark on the loamy smell of the land.

Nesting mushrooms

All photos were taken by me. Please do not copy or reproduce in any manner.