The Luckiest Lab

My friend Alan Poole had a couple of visiting bird people on his hands, and an apparent desire to dazzle us with winter beach beauty. Erin and I were up for that! 

Alan  and his daughter, Phoebe, a flower farmer with Weatherlow Florals, right handy by Dad's spiffy new digs in South Dartmouth, Mass. They both know how lucky they are to be near each other. Alan called Phoebe to come join us for a little birding.  I love this photo. Phoebe has made a little bouquet of sea lavender and grasses. Right out of a catalogue, those two.

Alan's first call when I threatened to land on him was to his friend Geoff Dennis, who, because he's out every day and misses nothing, knows where the birds are, even the ones who shouldn't be there.  

Like blue-gray gnatcatchers in the dead of winter.

Christmas Day, 2016, somewhere in Rhode Island. Geoff's got the goods.

We met Geoff on his home turf, at Goosewing Beach in Little Compton, RI. 

The sun was playing peekaboo with the beach and the clouds. 

Geoff had a dog with him, a big black Lab mix.

Koda had kind eyes and a good smile. He registered me, and I registered him right back. We made an impression on each other.

 I felt that instant connection that you get with some people, and some dogs. Geoff and Koda were two of those types. We had common ground. I snuck a couple of muzzle smooches on this lovely boy.

I could see by the look in his eyes that this dog, now 12, had a story to tell. He was telling it with every glance. I overheard snippets of conversation between Geoff and Alan about how Koda had come into his life. It sounded pretty unusual.

I figured I'd get the whole story later. For now, I wanted to watch the birds, this dog and his best guy. Geoff is a clam fisherman; he goes out in a boat and rakes them up in every weather condition imaginable. He is cheery, rugged; built for the outdoors, and he pays attention to every nuance of sea and sky. His persona and voice are straight out of Central Casting for a New England waterman. It's little wonder he finds the birds nobody else knows about. He doesn't chase many rarities. He finds them. On this day, he had a flock of more than 30 snow buntings, with a Lapland longspur included. And me without my camera. Geoff says this photo he sent is a "terrible" picture, but it shows the snow buntings we saw that December 7. Oh, they were magic! What could be better than living snowflakes, swirling around in the late golden light of a December evening?

And he sent me a photo of the Lapland longspur! (rightmost bird, with the dark cheek pattern--the rest are snow buntings.)

It was a cold day, not as cold as it could be by far, but I wouldn't have wanted to wade in a salt pond. Koda was all for it. Besides, Geoff was throwing things in the water.

Koda hasn't always been Geoff's dog. For the first ten years of his life, he lived with a family with children. And then there came a divorce, and the wife, J., who loved Koda dearly, took an upstairs apartment on a busy street with the kids, which wasn't a good situation for him. Koda stayed back at the house where they'd been living, and most of the time he was chained in the yard. Things changed there, too, and one day J. got a call from her ex-husband that he was going to have to move, too, and he'd have to take Koda to the pound.

J. talked with her landlord, and he agreed to let her take Koda into the apartment. He is a good dog, and wouldn't be a problem. At this point, Geoff and J. were working together managing endangered species along Rhode Island beaches, and she asked if she might keep Koda in his barn during the day. Geoff said, "He's not going in the barn, he can come right in the house!"

Geoff and his wife Emily had always had dogs, but by 2006, they'd lost two beloved dogs in a row to cancer, at the ages of only 10 and 9. It was very hard for them, and Geoff said, "That's it. No more dogs." He felt he just couldn't go through that again. And along came Koda, ten years old, needing a part-time home. Well, maybe just for awhile...

"We just fell in love with him. He’d stay with us during the day and J. would pick him up and bring him home. Something came up and she asked if he could stay with us and we said sure, no problem.  He stayed with us for a week. He was sleeping on the floor next to the bed. We bought a dog bed for him. I started really fallin' for him.  It was all new to him, running in the woods, running on the beach.  J. might have him  for two weeks straight and I’d go pick him up and bring him down here, keep him for a few days and bring him back to her.

"I walked into her house one day and Koda went nuts on me, crying and barking and licking me. She said, 'Oh my God, I’ve never seen him do this with anybody.' I don’t know how it segued from her house to (staying with us). Finally she realized it was too much for her to make him happy. And she saw the connection with me. He ended up moving in with us. When J. got Koda from her ex, when he was about to go to the pound, he weighed 101 pounds. He was chained up all the time. He got fed a lot. He was a barrel on four pegs. He’s now 78-80 pounds."

Ack. I tried to imagine Koda with 30 more pounds on him, and forced that vision away. Yet it's one we all see far too often, when dogs are fed ad libitum and given no opportunity for real exercise.

I hunkered down and watched this gorgeous gentleman self-actualizing, doing exactly what a Lab mix is supposed to do. I found him so beautiful, his eyes so clear and bright, his step so springy.

He emerged from the marsh with a long stick and commenced chewing it up while we birded. Keeping busy, doing dog things, while the people did people things, looking through tubes at distant specks (which turned out to be wigeon, pintails, teal, scaup, black ducks, ruddies, black and white-winged scoter...)

 

He had this whole beautiful place to himself, yet he orbited happily around Geoff, the center of his solar system, his new Sun. He'd range out and find something to investigate, but he was always within earshot and sight of his best friend.

Twelve years old, and now, in the autumn of his life, finally able to become who he was meant to be. This is the gift Geoff has given Koda.

"If it’s two beaches (the distance we walk each day) could be up to two miles. He’s probably doing twice the distance I am. He has never shown reluctance to go out when it’s super cold. He’s panting at 10 degrees. He goes through the water, he has ice pellets on him—salt water freezes instantly. I love going there when it’s like that. It makes you feel alive when the wind’s howling and it stings your face.  I don’t wear a face mask. I’ll walk with my hands on my face to bring the temperature back up. You get the screaming northwest winds after the storm will pass. And all the snow is blowing off the pond onto the beach. He comes out of the snow looking like the Abominable Snowman.  He loves it."

Geoff sent me this photo, taken by Koda's beloved J., just yesterday. He's getting in touch with his inner Arctic wolf.

The light got lower and the shadows got longer. Erin watched scoters just off the breakers, photographed the cloudbank rolling in.

The sun dipped toward the horizon and we realized the show would soon be over.

I thought, and have been thinking, about the generous soul of this New England fisherman, opening back up to another soul in need. Even knowing what he knows about aging dogs and broken hearts. Going against his better judgement and going for it yet again, adopting a senior dog. 

"That’s the only thing about Koda that bothers me. I’ll lay on the floor with him in the living room at night and I'll start crying, because it’s just such a tease, to have only a few years together."

If I have learned anything, it's that our time with good dogs is never long enough. If ever there were a reminder to savor the now, it was this golden December evening at Goosewing Beach, in the presence of those who know how sweet and short life can be. 

We said our good-byes, nabbed each others' contact information, shook hands. And then Geoff said, "You all go on. I'm gonna put a few more miles on the dog."

I chuckled, having said those exact words myself. My heart gave a fish-flop

watching them get smaller and smaller, headed back toward the snow buntings and the last sunlight slamming that beautiful dune.

It would be hard to decide who was the bigger gift to whom: Geoff to Koda (immense), or Koda to Geoff (just as great).

As we drove slowly away, the potholes lit up, punching sky into sand, and I reflected too, about love and loss and how the human heart will dive in, over and over, toward the unknown, sure-to-be-rocky bottom. Love and loss, it seems, are always in cahoots.

Bright-eyed, beautiful, wise, lucky Koda, long may you splash and run.

A Musical Thanksgiving

We picked the girl up and headed south, met up with Corey in Cambridge, and kept going. 

There was  a slight hitch in our plans, and it wasn't the traffic. I'd spent a couple of fruitless weeks worrying about how we were going to negotiate the traffic from Boston to Maine, back to Boston to Harvard MA to Rhode Island during Thanksgiving week. As it turned out, traveling on Monday night, Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning was no problem at all. We managed to miss the crowds. I'm pretty proud of our logisticizing. We prevailed. Never sat in a jam at all. 

We sat in on a jam, though....video at 11, below!

But one absolutely terrible thing happened. Phoebe forgot her mascara. Harrible! And her mother doesn't wear it so she could borrow some! Even harribler! What to do? What to do? Put a bag over her head? No, that would be bad. 

WE HAD TO FIND PRINCESS SOME MASCARA!!

We began a quest for a store that was open on Thanksgiving morning. Nothing doing. 

Massachusetts was a mascara desert. Durn blue laws. Cain't buy booze, makeup,  nuffin' there on a holiday!

Rhode Island was devoid of black eyegoop, too. We checked every Wal-Mart and Target, every Rite-Aid and CVS. All locked up tighter than Jack Benny's wallet. It became a vision quest. Phoebe had long rolled her white-lashed eyes and given up, but we were still on it. ON IT. We would find mascara on Thanksgiving day!! Mascara jokes flew. Finally, only four minutes from our final destination in Barrington, RI, we found a CVS that was open! Liam and Corey skipped down the aisle after poor Phoebs, who took all the ribbing in good humor. She was getting her mascara after all. And a headband, too.

Everyone knows CVS has the best mascara. Bill tries a little blonde fall on Corey.

Phoebe finds the right headband at last.

Mascara obtained, we jumped back in the car. Not ten minutes after we got to my niece's house along the Rhode Island coast, Bill whipped out his guitar and Corey got out his fiddle and the music began. 

My nephew Evan, a brilliant engineer who also juggles fire, played along. 

Max was enchanted by the fiddle tunes. He wasn't alone. 

There was a lot of musical power in that room. David on guitar, Tera enjoying it all.

There was magic in the air. Everyone stepped lighter, worked faster, laughed more spontaneously.

Then there was a break, with outdoor dodgeball and everybody getting booped with plastic kickballs.

Finally it was time to serve the dinner, a team effort by most of the 21 Zickefoose/Dorsky/Salter/Kemp/Thompson people in attendance.

Some of the food was warmed up at the neighbor's house, and came over in a procession of hotmitts up the sidewalk. I loved that.

My niece, Karen and her husband Jason and their terrific boys Max and Will; their wonderful spacious house, the gracious hosts of the gathering. 

The food was amazing and abundant. Max and Will made the nametags and chose where everyone would sit.

And because the main course wasn't enough, pies and real whipped cream, homemade cookies and biscotti.

Sweet little girls, better than real whipped cream. Maddie arranges magnetic letters.

Her sister, raven-haired Clara, rides a mighty tall horse. 

After dinner, the obligatory walk. But this one had wigeon, black ducks, an Atlantic brant and a common loon, and enough optics to pass around for all to appreciate them! It doesn't get any better than that!

Phoebe and Liam walk along the inlet to the brackish marsh.

Liam pauses to to consider the sky in the water. 

 I'm so grateful to have had this time with my family, after so many years away on this holiday. It made sense to come East, pick up our girl and her guy, and head to the coast. Phoebe's choosing Maine for college has had some very beautiful, if rawther expensive, repercussions. Each time we visit I feel like I've been on a mini-vacation. Talk about a change of channel from southeast Ohio!
Seeing them together fills my heart.

I made an iPhone video of Corey and Bill and assorted others playing "Cotton-eyed Joe" to share with you. I can't describe how profoundly their music transformed the gathering. Better for you to see it yourself. People float in and out of the circle, bouncing to the beat, dancing, playing, smiling.  Liam picks up a Baby Dear doll and goofs around. Yes, it IS a doll! Sweet little kids drift in, pick up an instrument, join in and play along as best they can. That's the whole idea.

           

My sisters Barbara, Nancy and Micky. All salt of the earth, all formidable cooks and, if I may say so, exemplary mothers. So, so good to see them again. Barb and I, in a dead heat for who looks more like our mom, Ida.

As we were taking these last photos, a pair of red-tailed hawks flapped up and landed in the tippy-top of a nearby fir, watching the whole procedure and the good-byes. We all knew who sent them. Come on. A wooded suburb right on the coast? Is that typical redtail habitat? They were dispatched to watch over us. This iPhone photo looks like nothing, of course, but the pair sat in the smaller fir, looking right at us, for as long as we were gathered and taking photos in the front yard.

Music has always been a part of our family gatherings, on both the Zickefoose and Thompson sides. This Thanksgiving was one to remember.  I am so grateful to have these wonderful people in my life. This truly was a thanks-giving.

All Hail the Herring Gull

What she worry about bird dogs and people? There's pizza to be had here.

When they aren't eating eider chicks, piping plover or tern chicks, or snatching baby murres off ledges, herring gulls inspire quite a bit of awe and respect in me. You have to admire a bird that is able to both ignore and exploit people to its advantage; a bird that will eat everything from lobster bait and hard-shelled clams to pizza--and figure out how to get each of those in the most expedient way.

It's just a bird, right? How smart can it be? Very smart. And maybe older than you. Herring gulls can live into their 30's and 40's.This herring gull spent a bit of time sizing up a couple who had brought pizza to eat at Beavertail Park in Rhode Island--one of the places Clay Taylor took the bird bloggers when we traveled to the Swarovski facility in Cranston, RI. Webbed feet don't stop herring gulls from perching on almost anything. It's hard to do that without a functional hind toe, but they manage.
She moved in closer, eyeing the food to be had.
A close pass revealed that sky-silver that gulls and terns wear to perfection.
Hello. You seem to have reached your satiety. Spare a bit of pizza for a hungry mother gull?
Yes, yes, all that. Just give me the pizza.
For your amusement, I shall catch your bits of crust in mid-air. Gulls have binocular vision straight down--useful when we are cruising the ocean blue for prey or flotsam.
Thank you, Pizza Sources. You have performed exactly to specifications. I'll be off now.