The Zen of Otters

I went to Pennsylvania last week, all the way across what feels like the longest state in the Union. It took me about nine hours to get to Bethlehem PA from southeast Ohio. I know that sounds crazy, because Ohio borders Pennsylvania, but it's true. Read it and weep.

When I passed Shartlesville I happened to be lustily eating almond butter off the end of a ballpoint pen, which was the only utensil that presented itself. On this I will not comment further.

I passed a billboard that reassured me greatly, since I am after all verging on being a senior. I look forward to the tender ministrations of Phoebe Ministries. This is why we have daughters. I will make such a fantastic mother-in-law, too. I hope they make me a nice little apartment with good light where I can grow my orchids and fruit trees.

That's enough ridiculousness. On to the sublime. I got up the next morning at the glorious country home where I was staying. It was cold and misty, especially down in the creek bottom. The ridge you see up ahead is the Kittatinny, what the Indians called The Endless Mountain. It's the famous one all the hawks use as a thermal highway. I found it a tremendous thrill to be looking at The Endless Mountain every day.

Sun filtered through woods studded with hemlocks.

Shy horses peeked out of their barn. A radio played inside.

A fall garden lapsed into lushness, abundance, decay. I loved the little fence, the folk art touches. It was a garden, but also an artistic statement.

There are barns everywhere. This one was so magnificent, but no longer in use.

Inside it was all Wyethy.

And outside too. This decaying horse collar hung in a small alcove. I wondered if it had been moved since it was last taken off a sweaty plowhorse. And how many years ago that would have been. 

A Milk of Magnesia bottle and an old Coke bottle graced another alcove. Judged too good to throw away, I guess.

 In the shivery dawn light, tall yellow sunflowers glowed. I noticed that many old houses in Pennsylvania are smack on the roadside. And I wondered why that might be, and how it would be to live with a double yellow line down the middle of your front yard. It'd be kind of hard on dogs and cats, I'd imagine. Kids, too. Yikes.

I ran on and looked up a quiet creek. The scene was so peaceful that I became very still, and stood listening.

I heard the water moving downstream. It sounded like something was swimming. I became even more still and waited. Whatever it was had a good bow wave in front of it, and it was making a sinuous course against the current. Swimming upstream.

It surfaced briefly and dove. The head was large and squarish. The tail, long and thick at the base. You can see it, shiny and brown, midway down the right margin of the photo above. That's no muskrat. That's an OTTER. Not one otter. THREE OTTERS. And they were swimming upstream, right under the bridge where my amazed self was standing.

I can't even tell you how I got these photos with my phone. I was so excited I was bursting, my hands trembling. I couldn't see jack in the bright morning light. I just pointed and shot, pointed and shot, hopeless of getting anything worthwhile, but compelled to shoot, to try to record so I could share. Practically every photo on this blog is taken with my iPhone 4S, and usually it does an amazing job. But fast-moving otters in reflective water are not what it's made for. Oh, how I longed for my Canon telephoto, a "real" camera. But the iPhone is what I had, so it is what I used. 

The moment when all three lined out and arrowed under the bridge in the crystal clear two-foot-deep creek with me standing right over them, staring open-mouthed, was The Moment. It was like looking down from the bow of a ship and seeing dolphins riding its wave. Only this was Aquashicola Creek, and these were river otters. 

They passed under the bridge and I ran to the other railing to see them. They popped up and chuffed at me. Pfffhhht! Fwup! Their little round heads broke the water, their ears like a stuffed teddy bear's.

They wanted me to know they had seen me.

If you stare at this sad, bad blown up photo below long enough you will see otters. The one on the left jumps out at me--eyes, nose, mouth, head just breaking the surface. The one on the far right is a little harder to discern. He's standing up, head, neck and shoulders well out of the water. There might even be a third animal in the middle--maybe. Can't say. I've made a little tracing paper overlay to show where I think the otters are in this photo. The leftmost animal is showing clearly. The shadow under his boxy head gives him away. Middle one is a stretch. Now you see him, now you don't. As is the rightmost one. But maybe. It has the same sort of shadow under its chin that the left-hand animal does.

As they swam away upstream, they kept popping up to stare at me, like seals. They'd chuff and dive. They didn't seem frightened, just as amazed to see me as I was to see them. I got the distinct feeling that they were on the move in some sort of autumnal migration; that this was perhaps an irreproducible moment, a passing through that might involve hundreds of miles. That didn't stop me from going out to the same place at the same time the next morning. Naturally I didn't find them again.  I didn't expect to.

I never expected them in the first place. 

Which, I suppose, is why they came.

The Zen of Otters.

 Three quiet otters

Glide smoothly up the bright creek

I love how they chuff

To say good morning

Aquashicola Creek, Kunkletown, Pennsylvania