Robins in February

We're drowning in Ohio. The Ohio River is predicted to crest at 38.3' (down from 39.5' (ohhhh noooo) on Sunday afternoon. Watching the predictions, which mean the world to those affected, has been nervewracking. They keep revising them upward, and the latest jump (9 pm Saturday) was a durn foot!! Up here on the ridgetop, it's a minor inconvenience not to be able to get into town by our usual routes, but in Marietta, it's disastrous. Days of deluge have turned my yard into a pond and flooded our route into Marietta. I tried to talk Liam through a route to town on Friday so he could help evacuate the boathouse where he rows crew.  I sent him down some iffy muddy roads and inadvertently got him hemmed in by quickly rising water on either side of him, albeit a couple of miles apart. Couldn't go forward, couldn't go back. He, with one bar of 4G on which to communicate. Me, in intermittent text contact with him, back home, frrrreeeeakkking out.  Bill had to jump in his car in town and find a route so he could come down by a back road over a ridge and lead Liam out. That was my quick, lovely nooner panic attack--thinking of my kid surrounded by milk-chocolate creek water with nowhere to go. On the phone afterward, Bill said, "When things like this happen, you can't panic."

Oh. Except that I did, and I do. I guess I have to stop doing that when my kid when last heard from was in his car with floodwater on either side of him and 40 minutes have gone by in total silence. Anyway, rescue effected; Find my Friends on my iPhone pinpointed his location; cellphones and mama and daddy love saved the day. It's probably good for a kid to get in a sticky wicket now and then. It's just not much fun when it's your kid.

Poor Marietta is caught once again with its pants down by the rains and the swollen Ohio and the fast-running Muskingum, by Duck Creek dumping all that runoff into both of them. The last flood, just a month ago, carried off $30,000 worth of docks from the boathouse where Liam rows. So, big fundraisers to replace those, on top of all the fundraisers it takes just to keep these kids in rowing shells. Thank goodness the replacement docks have yet to be built, because those would be gone, gone, gone now. The boathouse itself is about 1/3 underwater; the rowers got all the shells out and carried them to safety, but oh, what a terrible mess. Front Street in Marietta is under, which means bad, bad things for the wonderful businesses there. It's a resilient town, but spring flooding gets old, and it results in empty storefronts in a town that struggles to remain as vibrant as it is.

 If only we could funnel this rain to places out West that need it so badly. This climate change, and the odd jet stream that has formed since the ocean water is so warm, is tough, bringing Arctic cold way farther south and east than usual, while it visits arid drought on the West. And it's not fake, and it's nobody's imagination. Nobody makes up a flood like this. It's here, the unfriendly neighbor, creeping up the front steps.

If I'm only going to see the sun first thing in the morning, by gum I'm going to get out and greet it.

 

And the unexpected gift this day: a peach glow to the northeast

 

and a big flock of American robins, bringing indescribable beauty and peace in their songs and their brick-red breasts. Robins, studding the haymeadow like cloves in a pale ham.

 

I watch them leaning over to pluck Smilax fruits and remember that I've left a mystery unresolved. 

 

I posted this photo of an epic pileated woodpecker poop on Facebook, saying that it was full of carpenter ants and sumac seeds, and a knowledgeable friend, the kind that's good to have, asked if that wasn't a Smilax seed instead. So I'd made a mental note to go flesh a Smilax fruit and determine if he was right.

I knew it was pileated woodpecker poop because there was this kind of working all around where I'd found it.

 

Also because I am in the habit of looking for, and finding, pileated woodpecker poop. You should try it. You can often find awesome turds where they've been working for awhile, close to the ground.  An undisturbed pileated woodpecker has tremendous sticktoitiveness. (I use that word in irony, as it's one of my least favorite words in the universe). I mean, that bird will work for hours on a stump or fallen log. So of course it's going to have to go, and if it's on or very near the ground, the poop is deposited gently. That way it doesn't disintegrate when it hits the ground, and you get these fabulous J-shaped cylinders. 

So when the robins were done eating and had flown, I got a Smilax fruit and chewed the flesh off it, finding it pleasingly sweet but very stainy, like hackberry fruit. And sure enough, there was the big round puffy warm-brown seed that my friend James Ferrari had spotted. Smilax. Perfectly good diet item for a winter pileated woodpecker. Sumac, too. Poison ivy, though that's all gone by now. They take a lot of fruit.

 

Right near the Smilax patch is a woods road that's had a lot of erosion of its bank. I am always finding little bulbs exposed here. I used to think they were spring beauties but now I'm not so sure. Perhaps they're snowdrops or crocuses, escaped from an old homestead. A bulb is an incredible thing. It may persist for many decades, and it should be buried pretty deeply. 

 

This little bulb was exposed through the terrible cold, the single digits that we had for weeks after Christmas. And it is sending out shoots. What kind of antifreeze does it keep in its cells?? I cannot imagine. The least I could do is replant it. After:

 

And its suffering companions, too.  Before:

 

and after.  

 

Another little Science Chimp errand--keep checking to see what these shoots become. Hoping for flowers.

I try to leave the world a better place, even if it's only in small ways, whenever I go anywhere. It won't be long before I can go check on the ones I saved and maybe see this.

April 3, 2017--not far from where I replanted the bulbs.

Small good deeds...

Even as replanting bulbs gives me a warm glow, picking up trash on my road invariably sends me into the foulest of moods. There's something about dumping out tobakky chaws and getting brown spitgoo on my hands that sends my mood corkscrewing into the ground. I had my arms absolutely loaded with trash after only about 200 feet, and I came upon this. Awww!!

 

Thoughtful of them to bag up their car trash for pickup. Beats having to pick up each item individually. Thanks so much!  I've learned that trying to carry everything I've found only makes me crankier, so when my arms are full I make trash stations along the road, then come back to get it all in my car. The sole plus of picking up my neighbors' trash is not having to look at it any more. Well, I have to admit there's also the anthropologist's thrill of discovering what constitutes "food" for litterbugs. Mountain Dew, Busch Lite, Little Debbie, McDonald's, RedMan. None of those things are getting in my cakehole, ever.

Back to more wholesome things...I have a constant aesthetic tug-o-war with the dratted plastic-wrapped haybales. While I like the way they catch skylight and define the landscape, I loathe the wrapping. I can't walk by without wondering where all that miles of plastic goes when they're unwrapped for cattle to feast on. As a photographer, I ask myself:  Do I frame them out of each shot, or shrug and include them? They lend a surreal, giant blancmange air to this shot. I saw a titmouse drop down and disappear entirely into the rotted top of a fencepost. When it emerged, it had a nut in its bill. Perhaps it or another bird had cached it earlier. Off it flew with its prize. I love seeing what birds eat when they aren't cadging peanuts and sunflower seeds.

 More robins on Smilax. You might call it greenbriar, or catbriar.

 Robins, with the dratted haybales again.

I jockey around, and finally decide that placing the robins above the distant bales works best.

 

 If I stand in just the right spot, I can see the porch light from the farmhouse through a barn window. It's a Stonehenge moment, but you'll have to click on the photo to see it.

 I'm not done walking. I need more miles. So I head on out our road and walk the perimeter of a large hayfield that narrowly escaped becoming a drill pad for an oil well. Had that happened, I probably would have had to leave my home. There's a vulnerability to living atop the Marcellus Shale. You're at your neighbors' utter mercy, if they have any. And living at their mercy is a far bigger deal than having to pick up their litter.

 

I love how the road looks, like a smooth gray bushmaster, snaking off through the hills.  I never tire of this vista. That's a heavy sky, after a faintly promising sunrise. There will be more rain today.  I walk the edges of the hayfield, and find all that's left of a small deer I saw poached and lying in the field a couple weeks ago. No vultures in yet to clean it up, but the coy-wolves took care of it.

Everywhere are the reminders that this beauty I imbibe so deeply is fragile. That none of it can be counted on to always be here. These giant firs were planted many years ago as a windbreak for a classic Ohio farmhouse that I loved. It's been long since razed and burned. A bunch of jonquils and a few naked ladies (pink amaryllis) still come up in the field where the house once stood. I may be one of only two people on our road now who even remembers that house, or the man who once lived in it.

 

People and buildings die; landscapes change.  Logging lays bare a view I'd never seen before. We are always chewing up the land here. Nothing stays the same.

 

I listen to the robin's song

Saying not to worry

           

Dogbombed again! Plus, Pileated Poop: How to Find It

I tried to take some pictures of coltsfoot. 

When I get down on my knees, Chet always trots over to see what I'm looking at.

Which makes for some interesting compositions.

Clearly, Chet considers my photos vastly enhanced by his presence.

I like this one. My car's in it. Plus, bonus dog winky.

It was a perfect spring day, with stripey shadows across my favorite dirt road. It got up to 70 degrees in the afternoon. I started writing at 7 AM, and I was done with a bullet by 3 pm.  We headed to Dean's Fork!

So, so beautiful.

A winter rosette. Not sure the species, but sure love the color, and the way the new warm-weather growth is green.

I was diggin' it so much. It started out a run, then devolved into a ramble.

I saw a tree that had been thoroughly woodpeckered. Only a pileated can make a hole like that. Well, up here in Ohio, anyway.

Anytime I see fresh woodpecker workings, I look for pileated poop in the pile of chips beneath the holes. It is always right at the base of the tree. Pileateds apparently drop their poo straight down as they cling to the bark.

I was not disappointed.

Lotsa poop.

A bunch of holes. 

This bird had been working here for a long time.

It was time for some pileated poop analysis. 

I crumbled it up in my palm. The most surprising thing in it was a very large horsefly head (outer left center). Its leg was there, too. I figure the woodpecker found the horsefly roosting under some bark. Not a typical prey item, though.

There were also sumac seeds  in the above photo (bottom center and top center, two species).

I crumbled the big curly poop and it was almost solid carpenter ant parts. Lots of nice black skulls. 

So now you know how to look for pileated poop. I led a bird walk a couple of winters ago for the Ohio Ornithological Society and we saw almost no birds. But thank God I saw a tree with fresh workings and was able to crumble up pileated poo in my hand. That made everyone so happy. Me most of all.

Mether, we share a predilection for sitting down on dirt roads and looking closely at poop. That is why you are the perfect dog person.

I resumed trying to get a good evocative photo of coltsfoot. This, growing in a streambed.

His dog radar kicked in.

and he bombed the shot again.

This is an infinitely more interesting shot with me in it.

Everything's better with Bacon.

Trixie Comes to Stay!

Bill, Phoebe, Liam, Chet Baker, Charlie and I were extremely pleased to play host to Tricia of Trixie's View, her mom Mary, and impossibly adorable five-year-old daughter Vivi this weekend. The allure of a Swinging Orangutangs gig proved too much for Tricia, and she, Mary and Vivi drove from Cincinnati, where she was visiting relatives, to attend. We're pretty sure that's the first and last time anyone's come from Alaska to hear the Orangutangs. Sure would have been nice to have the other Cinci area bloggrrls--but life intervenes. Bawww.

I'd had my head in a blender all week, having gotten back from Guatemala/Nebraska late Sunday, put in three super-intense rehearsals for the gig, unpacked, tackled correspondence, done laundry, bla bla bla bla. By the time the gig started at about 9 Saturday night I was pretty much fried crispy. But with the help of some MSG from Chinese takeout and a thermos of hot rooibos tea, we made our way through about 4 hours worth of material, about half of it brand new, with me marveling afresh at the skill and musicianship of the other Orangs.

Tricia (or Trixie, as we wound up calling her) was there for the whole gig, stayed until the last dog was hanged, yakked with our friends, danced up a storm, and just generally fit in beautifully. My sweet impulsive friend Martha made my night when I stopped to admire a grocery-store cymbidium orchid she'd bought to dress the party space up a bit...then sent her husband Tony out to buy me one just like it. Ohhhh, yeah. I need a big cymbidium like I need another parrot, but it is ridiculously beautiful and lights up my living room! Thank you, Martha and Tony. You rock the hardest.

Let's see who kills hers first. My neighbor Beth rushed over and got one, too, and I alerted a couple of other master gardener/horticulturist friends to their presence, so I'm pretty sure they all found good homes. How anyone grows a 3' tall cymbidum with 50 flowers on it to sell at Kroger for $21.00 is a mystery to me. When I got mine home I ripped off the cheesy foil, plunked it into a tall, Asian-inspired green cachepot, and had something worthy of Smith and Hawken.

Sunday afternoon and evening, after loading and hauling our music equipment back from town, we all sat around the kitchen table watching Kid TV. Namely, a fashion show starring Vivi, Phoebe and Liam. Liam was dressed as Captain Underpants complete with flowing red cape and Cars undies, but he wouldn't let me post any of those photos. They are hilarious, but I must bow to his desire for privacy. Here he is as Venom, with Phoebe in pink and Vivi in Renaissance green. Nope, she couldn't be any cuter, or she might implode. Looks just like her mama.
Not long after this photo was taken, a very small Spiderbaby appeared, striking muscular poses. We laughed ourselves silly. Vivi ripped off the mask, Scooby-Doo style, to reveal her true identity. YAAAHHHH!
Stew was consumed, cornbread and fruit salad was consumed. Pie was consumed. Chet Baker begged shamelessly. He kept springing up into Tricia's lap, like a sudden kitty.
I hope you have put out eight plates. Portmeirion will be fine for me.

Today, we walked The Loop, still all bundled up against unaccustomed late March cold. It just will not warm up here. But we found the first tiny "Tete-a-tete" daffodil abloom in my south-facing garden, with some crocuses.
This, pathetically, is the only photo I got of Trixie, who is just as cute as Vivi, just grown up. I apologized profusely for the drab weather and colorless woods, but we had fun anyway. I know Alaska has us all beat for scenery, and was wishing we could at least have offered up some warmth to thaw these snowbound Ohio expatriates. But I did manage to find some pileated woodpecker poo under a tree with fresh workings, and dissect it to show Vivi and Trix the carpenter ant bones and skulls in it. They liked that. Who wouldn't?
I'll leave you with the first mourning cloak of spring, a hibernator out for a brief bask in the sun March 14. You can see from the slight wear on his forewings and tattered borders that he was born last year, and has spent the winter in a bark crevice. Another miracle. Happy St. Patrick's Day!