The Best Part of the Day

They often say it's the best part of the day. Whoever "they" are, I agree.

Dawn is the best. I feel like I'm stealing away when I wake up at 4:45, put on my shoes and go out into the fields. I go out to disappear into the light and the air, fragrant with the last of the honeysuckle and the first of the milkweed.

Indigo buntings sing very early. This male perched on a bluebird box along the driveway, singing his heart out in the darkness. Inside the box, a bluebird may be laying her third pale blue egg. So much blue. I stood and listened as long as he sang. 

Ground fog pours over the hayfield and into the road. I'm shivering a little this morning, a nice change from sweating.

The mackerel sky speaks of rain before this time tomorrow. There's been a lot of rain. I love seeing the wildflowers burgeon and grow huge. I almost don't recognize them, so lush they're growing.

It isn't hard to spot a striped skunk doodling along, digging pits in the haymeadow near the county road. Chet sees it too. He hangs near me, not giving chase. I think this dog's training is close to done. Only two days ago, he spotted three wild turkeys strolling on one of our favorite lanes, and didn't chase them, either. 

It is a beautiful thing to have a dog with judgement, who doesn't need a leash or even a word any more.

For a Boston terrier, such restraint is rare. They are half terrier, after all. My favorite part is that in both cases, I didn't have to say a word to him. He just knows that good dogs don't chase turkeys or skunks, no matter how alluring they may be. 

We move up on the skunk to try to get a photo with my iPhone. Chet sticks right by my side. He's been sprayed twicet. He knows. 

The skunk gets wind of us and does a meerkat act. It is very cute. Then it ambles over to a telephone pole and digs and digs. From the way it's digging and then pouncing, I suspect it has found  a nest of baby rabbits. But I'm not about to go investigate.  That's his bidness, and I'm not interested in bathing in baking soda and white vinegar today. We just watch. 

Here's the skunk, the dark spot at the base of the telephone pole, and Chet, watching without having to be held back. What a good boy. 

We leave him there, digging. And when we come back three hours later I go investigate and sure enough, there's a bunch of soft grass pulled out of a hole. He had found a nest of baby rabbits. They must've been small for him to gobble them up so cleanly. There are so many rabbits this year, and some of them are born to die. That's part of being a rabbit. 

 Mist hangs in the holler over Carl's house. 

We run down the dip and up onto the ridgetop, and it's so beautiful I can hardly believe that everyone else is asleep. The milkweed is about to burst into bloom. It's untouched. I haven't seen a monarch yet. I will wait, and so will the milkweed.

The scene is so perfect in the diffuse morning light it reminds me of a diorama painted by Frances Lee Jacques. But it's real, and I'm in it, and I'm grateful to be there. I couldn't do everything I have to do; I couldn't be who I need to be and take care of the people I care for without starting my mornings like this. Everyone has things that get them through their days. I wonder what the world would be like if we all got up in the dark and took three hours to dwell in, to move through such grace. I find it transformative. 

A Facebook friend whose updates often make me snort wrote this:

"I run. I run until I don't want to stab people. Sometimes I run a long time."

I'd never say that. But I'm glad I have a friend who would.

I'm also glad to have this friend, this solid dark polished ebony chunk of love. There's something to be said for being able to get a kiss whenever you need one, even if it's only from a dog. He's quite a dog.

The landscape looks to me like a little farm set, and I feel like a child again, creating perfect scene after perfect scene, lining up the white plastic fencing, the barns and the tiny brown and white cattle. This world is in order. I have only to move around to frame and appreciate its exquisite symmetry. 

Today I record birds, as I do every time I go out, on a little folded bit of paper. Today I hear or see 63 species in three hours, which feels darn good to me for late June. I say that because everything I'm logging now is likely to be staying around to breed. This is the second run in a row where I record rose-breasted grosbeak, two different males  a couple of miles apart. I'm very excited about that. I've never had June records of RBGR. Only one July record in 22 years. I also log five singing yellow-throated warblers and two worm-eating warblers, in addition to ovenbirds, Kentucky warbler, American redstart, yellow, blue-winged, and black and white warblers. Life is good.

Recording the birds I hear every morning has become a comfort thing for me, like doing a crossword puzzle or reading the newspaper. I am reading the newspaper, the news that means something to me.
For those who can read bander's code (or my bad approximation of it), here's June 22's list.

COYE
NOCA
EATO
EABL
FISP
INBU
WEVI
MODO
CHSP
WOTH
AMCR
BLUW
HOWA
REVI
BGGN
YBCH
BASW
YTVI
NOMO
SOSP
YSFL
PIWO
RBWO
WBNU
RWBB
BHCO
TUTI
AMRO
OROR
EAKI
DOWO
EUST
TRSW
GRCA
YEWA
CEDW
CACH
OVEN
EWPE
BAOR
BAWW
TUVU
AMGO
SCTA
HOFI
EAME
RTHA
BRTH
RBGR
HOSP
RTHU
HAWO
EAPH
YTWA
WBNU
AMRE
KEWA
WEWA
BHCO
ACFL
RSHA
YBCU
GCFL

Runnaversary!

 July 30, 2011, was my one-year runnaversery. Having run almost seven days a week for a year, having been out in every kind of weather from weeks of icepack to sweltering 90's, I am more than a little pleased with myself for sticking with it. I've probably run almost 800 miles in the past year. Not a lot for a serious runner, but it feels good to write that. Good? It feels unbelievable, in the purest sense of the word.

I thought I'd lose weight. You'd think, reading this, that by now I'd be one of those sinewy stick women. Nah. Not an ounce lost. I gained several pounds of muscle. Oh well. But what I noticed once the soreness wore off was how much better I felt in my body. It was a revelation.

How could I not stick with it? I'm hooked, as much on this landscape and these colors, as I am addicted to the exercise.

 

Nothing is the same from day to day. Everything is different and new every time I go out. One fine morning the thistles will have bloomed.

 The colors change. Some mornings they're dull, some mornings they're glorious. I feel blessed to have this road stretching out before me, to have it almost all to myself.

I stay off the paved road. Gravel has proven much kinder to my feet and knees than pavement would be. But every morning I stop and look down at Carl's house, at the place where his beautiful leaning barn used to be. I listen for the catbird.

 Just before the birdsong died out (naturally, I'd add, for they're done breeding now), I started carrying a folded piece of notebook paper and a little pen in my pocket, and scribbling down the birds I heard singing every morning. It was a wonderful way to take my mind off the heat and the hills and the sweat and the toil. I write lots of other things on the paper, too--usually a few haikus every morning, or song lyrics, or ideas that come to me when my blood is pumping.

My personal best for the 2.8 mile daily run was 48 bird species on July 9, 2011. Because I am a nerd, I will list them here in bander's code, because anyone who knows enough to care what birds are singing on my road will probably be nerd enough to figure out what they are (Yes, KatDoc, I'm talking to you) and anyone who cares but can't figure it out can ask me. I love this list so much. It is pure, distilled essence of what makes Zick happy--getting out every morning, rain or shine, recording what I hear and see, and paying full attention to the wonders all around. Note that all these birds are breeding right around my house. That's not all that breed; the worm-eating and black-and-white warblers and many others aren't singing any more, but gee whiz! How's that for a chest full of treasure?

 EATO

AMCR

BLJA

ACFL

CHSP

FISP

NOCA

AMRE

TUTI

KYWA

RTHU

REVI

HOWA

BGGN

EAKI

INBU

EABL

HOSP

CACH

DOWO

AMGO

RBWO

EWPE

AMRO

SCTA

YBCU

YTVI

BASW

EUST

MODO

GRCA

WBNU

BWHA

BRTH

PIWO

CHSW

COYE

NOMO

BHCO

EAME

WOTH

YBCH

RSHA

WEVI

NOFL

SOSP

CAWR

EAPH  48 spp. 7/9/11  (PERSONAL BEST FOR RUN SO FAR)

It is a great regret of mine that I can't carry a camera every morning, but even the slight weight of my Canon G-11 is too much to want to haul. So on one particularly lovely misty morning I carried it along in my hand as I ran, and recorded some of the beautiful things I see every day, just to share it with you. It took hours. In the tree above is one of those beautiful things. Can you find him? If I had a soundtrack you could. Astute readers will notice that YBCH eluded me on July 9, though there were three pairs along my route. Ever-changing, never predictable. I bet I coulda broken 50 species with the chat and a raptor flyover. Oh well, next year. It keeps you thinking. Listening to birdsong, sifting one from the other, is my thing. 

A yellow-breasted chat, quacking and clicking and grunting and hooting his heart out.

I'm writing this post while waiting for Phoebe's nightly cross country training--45 minutes to the school, two hours for her training, then 45 minutes home. She loves it. And she's built for it, like a gazelle, unlike her little brick outhouse of a mama.

Whoda thunk just a year ago that running would become such a huge part of our lives? Needless to say, I highly recommend it. Yeah, I thought I hated running too--until I committed to it.