Rosepink Birthday

Longtime readers of this blog know that my favorite wildflower is Sabatia angularis, Rosepink or Rose Gentian. Not only is it spectacular, but it smells like honeysuckle in heaven, with a distant forest fire smoking away somewhere down beneath the sweetness. Sabatia is a biennial, meaning it perks along as a small plant for a year before bursting into bloom, going to seed, dying, and starting the whole glorious cycle over with dust-fine seeds again. 

 

July 18, 2018. Just coming out.

 

The same plant on July 27, 2018. You see why I revisit things...

I check my nearest Sabatia spot, one I can walk to, obsessively as my late July birthday approaches, the goal being to find a plant in bloom on my birthday, to drop to my knees and inhale that fragrance, to give thanks for another year on the planet, and for this marvelous plant that somehow survives all our insults and smiles back at us from dry roadside meadows and banks. This year, I found one, count it, ONE plant that had escaped both the township's roadside mowing in early July and the landowner's vigorous and unaccustomed mowing of the area, just off the road banks, that formerly harbored this fabulous plant. I plunged into despair. ONE PLANT??  The Lord giveth, and the mower taketh away.

And what doesn't get mowed gets smothered around here. My two other nearby Sabatia patches--my little July chapels-- have been taken over by the enormous, razor-edged "ornamental" Asian Miscanthus grass that I despise, that has robbed so much great habitat in Washington County and many other places in southern Ohio.

Ooh, isn't that pretty? Well, the towhee is. Each puffy seedhead is poised to scatter several thousand fluff-topped seeds to the winds. And each of those thousands of seeds, ready to spawn ecological havoc on native plants and wildlife wherever it lands. This photo taken on Dean's Fork, my church, my sanctuary, also rapidly being taken over.

People and their mowers, people and their ornamental plants. People. They're still planting that horrid grass, coming to my road to dig it up and take it to their yards so it can continue spread like wildfire everywhere else. They think it's pretty. They don't notice, as they dig up plants for their yards, that everywhere it occurs, it forms solid, razor-sharp, 6' tall monocultures that not even a deer can walk through. Nothing eats it. Nothing can live in it. There are people right on my road that are still planting it in their yards and along their driveways. They cannot perceive what's happening right under their noses. Or maybe they think monocultures of impenetrable grass are pretty, to be preferred over trillium and rosepink.

 I hate this grass, and the ignorance that keeps people planting it, with the fire of a thousand suns. Trace such ecological devastation down to the root, and you'll always find people. Scratch a naturalist, especially an older one like me, and you'll find despair at the heedless damage people do to the natural world.

I work, in this blog and in my Facebook and Twitter posts, to emphasize that which is beautiful, and what is still here. I try not to bemoan stuff like invasive exotics too much, and I stay completely out of politics, though Lord knows there's plenty to bemoan in this world gone barking mad. If you want to sum up my blog and social media philosophy, it might be: Nobody needs more angst and negativity.

Celebrating what's here; rooting out the beautiful and good in this agrarian landscape; spreading beauty: I see that as my job. It's not entirely altruistic. It helps me appreciate the abundant gifts that shower down on me, every day. Focusing on what's good and true and beautiful keeps me moving forward and deepens my quality of life. If it brings you happiness, that makes me happy. When you tell me you like it, it just makes me want to give more.

I'm always looking for things to celebrate, and it isn't hard. I love this place so fiercely that I find myself photographing it as I photograph my children (and as I depicted my beloved Bacon)--in every mood, light and setting. So, but for a short rant about Miscanthus, this is a celebratory post. Because I kept visiting the one Sabatia plant I'd found in my favorite spot. And each time I did, I'd range a little farther to try to find more. There had to be more. Maybe it just wasn't in bloom yet.

On July 27, I forged down an overgrown powerline cut near the lone plant. Stepping over fallen logs and snaky tangles, I came upon a scene that heretofore had occupied only my dreams. I found Sabatia Valhalla. 65 blooming plants! My subsequent count on July 31: 79!! There, tucked away where nobody could get to them to ruin them, in a powerline cut that had only been cleared about three years ago, was the finest population I'd ever found. People again at the root, this time for the good; it wouldn't be here if the cut hadn't been cleared. All along, those plants had been setting their super-fine seed and broadcasting it around--how I'm not sure, since it's fine as dust. Maybe the wind carries it. Maybe ants carry it. I don't know. I'm just grateful and so, so thrilled that it's found a place where it can grow, away from humans, and under the adoring eyes of those who appreciate it enough to seek it out. Phoebe and I wandered around in the stand, oohing and aahing and stooping to smell and admire, until it was almost dark.

This is just one section. So fine, so fine. There's even a nearly white one there.

What could be better than my woodland sprite, thigh-deep in rosepink?

 

It smells as good as it looks. 

 That little lime-yellow star in the middle kills me. 

  

Phoebe baked me a cake for my birthday.

 

 I insisted on making the icing beforehand, because I wanted a buttercream-cream cheese-almond flavored icing and it was my birthday so I could be as fussy as I wanted. I also had a specific color in mind that I wanted to mix, one we'd never made.  She took the icing and the cake away to frost it and decorate it. She brought it back and Oh!! OH!! I had no idea she was going to use Sabatia to decorate my cake!

 

When I saw how perfectly the Sabatia stars coordinated with my lime-yellow icing, my jaw dropped. Meant to be!

My kids and my friends made this birthday extra special. It kinda needed to be. And it exceeded all expectations by miles. I'm still glowing from the love they poured over me.

 Sabatia? That was the icing on the cake. 

 

Look for it now. Gobs of it in Athens and Hocking Counties, OH, right along Rt. 33!

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