Remembering Hannah--Dean's Fork Walk 2

I looked back down where I'd been and reveled at the stripe of sunlight still illuminating Hannah's old pasture. That big cut log to the left is where I saw her last, on my birthday in July, 2016. That image is burned into my mind. That was a day the animals came to me, too. Three skunks and Hannah.  They know.

There was nothing like this moment, and it was one of those rare times when the camera captured exactly how it felt to be met, accompanied, as darkness was falling. That was the last time I saw Hannah. I understand she's gone to live with five other horses. So maybe that's good, better for her. But Dean's Fork just isn't the same without the spirit of this perfectly made, cool little Appaloosa. I loved it so much when she'd come walking out to meet me, and accompany me a few hundred yards down the road before turning back to her preferred pasture.

 

A redtail screamed and circled overhead. They always make me smile, because I'm wondering if DOD sent them. At this point I'd have been perfectly content with all I'd seen and been able to shoot. But I heard footsteps in the leaf litter, and the fattest of all possums came walking down, crossed the road, climbed down into the streambank and up the other side, and kept going.

 

He was a good-looking boar possum, had most of his tender ears (frost tends to bite them ragged); had his whole tail and all his fur.

  

He crossed Hannah's pasture and kept walking. I bet he knows where all the persimmon trees are.

 

And up the next slope he went, a possum with a purpose.

 

 

I wasn't dead sure who left these. Maybe a bobcat, maybe a fox. Hybrid poop, with the short squarish segments of a cat, and the long hairy taper of a canid.

 

In November, you begin to treasure the last colored leaves. You look for the contrast between them and the brown background, and revel in the blue sky while it's here.

  

I got down to the black barn, and the magic portal that let me inside last time I was there had been tied delicately shut with blue twine. Oh. 

As much as I'd enjoyed snooping around in there, I was glad to think that someone was trying to keep the barn uninvaded. 

 

I stuck my iPhone's eye up to a crack and got in that way.

 I never tire of the slashes of light that come through open barn siding. I know I'll paint this phenomenon someday, maybe when I have to sit still for awhile. Like, getting over something, or letting something heal.  I feel compelled to move as much as I can while I still can. 

 

Everything was still in place, including the giant black mound of bat guano that makes me smile every time I see it. That's a LOTTA BATS. Or a few, pooping for a very long time. Either way, it's a beautiful thing, at least to me.

Back out in the sunlight, I found more tracks from the good-sized coy-wolf that had made the exact same walk I was making, just a few hours earlier. He'd have to do for my canine companion. Unseen, like most of my companions these days.

Animal Magic on Dean's Fork

By July 13, 2016, the Canada lilies I'd never known were there burst into bloom on the banks of the  pond. Blue campanula set them off nicely. I left a note on the door of the sometime inhabitants of the little solar-powered cabin nearby, to go look for these ephemeral floral treats. I like doing stuff like that, shining a little light into the woods for others to see. 

Wild bergamot in two colors, July 13, 2016

And who could forget July 24, 2016, my birthday, when I was showered with gifts by my favorite dirt road? I swear, it seemed all the animals came out to wish me well!  I'll admit that it does help to walk there at dusk, when they're coming out anyway.

Twin bucks, July 24, 2016. Gosh, ya think they're brothers?

One of the twins has better judgement. Can you guess which one?

The most beautiful skunk came out to show me his pink toes and nose.  He rumbled right up the road toward us. We had to climb a bank to get out of his way!

I recognized him from early morning skunk watchings I'd been conducting. There were three skunks living down there last summer, and I met them all several times. Skunks are a behavior-watcher's ideal animal, because each one is as distinct in markings as a smelly lil' snowflake.

But the best birthday present of all was waiting down in the gloaming, just as it was getting dark. My Hannah, the Loose Appaloosa, an apparition in the dusk.

And this evening, the last time I saw Hannah, she was more beautiful and kind to me than ever. I didn't know it was the last time. I simply treasured it, like all the other times I met up with her, and loved on her. 

She's gone on, I'm told, to live elsewhere,  about two hours away, with other horse friends. I miss her more than I can say.

July 24, 2016.

From that same day, a wood thrush concerto that now, in early April, seems otherworldly, unbelievably rich. It's hard to believe they'll be back soon and tuning their flutes in a matter of a week or two. This video was taken just below the dam, along a low wet meadow that's full of Joe-Pye weed and ironweed in August. Here it is in late July, with the thrushes spinning their silvery songs across the road.

By September  28, 2016, after a lush wonderful start and a hideously dry late summer, the pond had all but dried up. It was sad, but inevitable, because the half-dam the beaver had built didn't set back enough water to last through the drought. 

At least this drying out was gradual, not the cataclysm of September 1, 2014. I resigned myself to watching this little ecosystem briefly flourish, be destroyed, creep back to a shadow of its former glory, dry up...whatever fate and that lawless jackass brought, I'd be there to witness. Dean's Fork and I are too intertwined for me to turn away from it; its riches are so varied and precious I literally starve without them. Since I first started walking this road in perhaps 2007, it has become essential to my well-being. It is my habitat, in some ways even more than my home and gardens are. When I am there, I have complete thoughts; I write songs; I leave my corporeal body and commune with the animals; I connect to who I really am. 

Back to the Beaver Pond

I didn't go back to what had been the beaver pond for a year. I couldn't bear it. One more happy place had been ripped out from under me.

My first trip back to Dean's Fork was March 15, 2015, but I stayed away from the pond. I took to walking the lower half, not wanting to know about the languishing, the drying up going on upstream.

The summer of 2015 wore on, and I stayed on the lower part of the road. I was drawn to Dean's. One destroyer couldn't keep me away for good.

I talked to Hannah and hugged her warm neck. It helped. But I missed that pond something terrible.

 I decided, if I could no longer visit the pond, to widen my horizons and find some new places that could help heal the million tiny cuts that life inflicts. I ventured down another road whose vistas set me free. It was a different kind of beauty from the roiling activity in the beaver pond. There were plants and birds and rocks and things...yellow-breasted chats and red-shouldered hawks, lots of deer and turkey, and an oak that was a book all by itself. A well-timed visit at sunrise when the mist was rising, and it was Middle Earth. I felt the music swelling in my soul. I found some healing there.

I'd take a look at the weather conditions (rising mist at dawn) or the bluesalmon clouds and say, "These would be best viewed from up on the ridge." And off I'd go to take it all in. 

And then in September, 2015, a year after the devastation, I went back to see what was happening at the beaver site.  And I was agog to find a beaver there, working to rebuild the dam. A place this good couldn't go unoccupied for long.

The breach in the dam had been built up about halfway to its former height (where all the jewelweed is growing tall.)

There was water, there were frogs, and there was a beaver there. Oh joy!

I made a little video of the beaver bringing mud to its creation. I could hardly breathe for the wonder of seeing it there. 

All that fall and winter of 2015, the dam remained at half height, and there was water just behind it, in the lower end. It was a good start, and it was beginning to be beautiful again. I wasn't sure what was going on--perhaps it wasn't raining enough for the beaver to want to raise the dam to its former height. But I was so glad it was there. The place just needs beavers. I never saw the beaver again after that one time. I feared the worst. But the dam didn't get ripped out again, so...

I was glad Hannah was there, too, giving life to the middle stretch of this beloved road. I'd go check on the pond, and then I'd go visit my dappled girl.

For her part, Hannah was fascinated with Chet, and she'd follow him, nose down and tail up, and frisk when she caught his scent.  

The pond was small, yes, but it was more present than before. 

October 15, 2015

October 22, 2015

November 18, 2015

November 18, 2015



The little half-dam would hold the pond through the winter of 2015-16, and I was glad. But the story of the pond was not yet over.  (It never will be). 

And the Animals Came Out

The only thing I really wanted to do on my birthday in late July was to work. It was stinkin’ hot and humid out, 98 degrees. I wound up shooting photos out the studio windows all day, getting a lot done at the desk and having a ball too. You'll remember the birthday post, the way the gifts kept coming!

Nasty as the day had been, I knew that the evening would be magical, as the creatures came out from their shaded haunts to feed. That's how it works. The nastier and hotter the day, the more delicious is the evening time. So I made an early dinner and asked Bill to join me and Chet on an evening hike down Dean’s Fork. I didn’t want to talk. I just wanted to see what was out there. It really was all I wanted, to go down Dean's Fork, for once, with a witness. The last time I'd had a witness with me was mid-June, when Phoebe and I had our incredible journey. I knew there would be powerful magic there this evening. It was my birthday! How could it not be magical?

In a low voice, I said, “I’m thinking we’ll meet up with those skunks…” and no sooner had I said it than Bill said, “There’s an animal on the road ahead!” It was the little black skunk from my photo salon a week earlier. Its fur now dry, it was sleek and beautiful, showing a small white dash on its right flank and a long white tag ending its tail.

I hadn’t been able to see its pink toes when it was in the meadow! What a beautiful little thing! 

Thing was, it was trundling along at a good clip, and it was headed right for us. “We’ve got to get up on the bank. We have to get out of its way!” I hissed. So we clipped the leash on Chet and struggled up a vertical bank to wait for it to pass. The anticipation was delicious as it drew closer and closer. Would we get sprayed when it noticed us? It stopped abruptly, tested the air, then lunged up the bank to nab something. Errand over, it resumed its bumpity lope up the road.  

I was intrigued by the white tag end of its tail, seemingly an afterthought, the white hair being of a different texture and direction than the black. How cool!

Still on it came. We hunkered low. It drew up on the road right below us, catching our scent, sniffing the air wildly, seeing us. Chet was tense and trembling, but not about to plunge down the bank. He’s acquired some wisdom in his good years on the earth. The skunk plunged into dense vegetation, headed down to what remains of the beaver pond. It would spend the early evening hunting frogs, and we would go on our way.

Oh! It's YOU! Exit, stage right!

What a gift, what a thrill, what a rush!

 Nothing like a good lil' skunk at close range.

We hadn’t gone 200 more yards when we spotted a pair of whitetails fighting horseflies and grazing in the skunk meadow. That’s a nice piece of real estate, always has something to see. They were in constant motion, trying to keep giant horseflies from landing on them. The last thing they expected to encounter was people on this deserted road, so we had a leisurely look at them as they came on.

One has six points forming; the near one’s antlers look like a simple lyre. I’d guess these bucks were born last spring; that they’re in their second year. They’re thin and slab-sided; they have yet to develop the musculature of a mature buck.

I’d also guess, from their striking similiarity, that they’re brothers, twins, and that they haven’t been apart for long since birth. Testosterone ought to fix that...The wide pale rings around their eyes; the black face; the unmarked red brisket (lots of whitetails in our area have black briskets) all point to similar, if not identical, genetics. I found myself wondering if deer give birth to identical twins, and from there wondering if identical twin bucks necessarily develop identical antlers; clearly there were differences in their racks.  I dunno...think they look alike in the face? Hee hee hee.

It's fun to look for similarities in related deer. They're there, plain as day, if you look for them. I play the same game when people-watching at airports and shopping centers. 

The lyre buck, on the left, figured out what we were long before the six-pointer did.

He's already turned to flee while the six-point is still saying, "Duh?"

I like this shot, one brother a blur of motion and nascent wisdom; one frozen in ignorance.

Still he stood, testing the air, wondering. We stood still, too, to drink in his beauty a bit longer.

He has a huge horsefly on his lower neck and a tumor on his right shoulder.

It's a cutaneous fibroma, a common tumor of deer, most often seen in younger bucks. Such tumors are probably caused by a papilloma virus, and they're contagious, but rarely adversely affect the animal, and tend to regress over time as the individual builds up resistance to the disease.  Still, I don't like to see them, and I hoped he'd get over this without being disfigured; he's so lovely. 

It didn't slow him down any.

Bear in mind that this series of wildlife encounters happened on the evening of my birthday--the same day I chronicled in previous posts. You know, beautiful birds and animals in the yard, garden gifts galore...having a birthday in late July in Appalachian Ohio is just the bomb. Especially if you're cheap like me, and enjoy free gifts.

Dean's Fork always gives me things money could never buy. Here's what was waiting for me on another July lope. It had not been there when I set out two hours earlier.

Yep, that's a pileated woodpecker primary, pointing right at my car.

Thank you, Gods that Be, or whomever dropped this feather just where I would find it. I'm lookin' at you, Ida. 

But the sweetest birthday gift of them all was waiting for me about a mile down the road, just as it got dark.

I'd been looking for Hannah for weeks, and never found her. I'd found her hoofprints in the dirt, so I knew she was around. And there she was. She walked up to us and let me love on her for a long time.  And she gave me this image, of her in the gloaming, self-contained and shining with health and contentment, one hind hoof cocked, as if she'd been standing there just waiting to wish me a happy birthday. And I believe she was. My favorite horse photo yet. My Hannah. 

                                                         photo by Bill Thompson III