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.

Bright Leaves, and a Possum in a Pickle

A morning run with Baker. I try to take my usual pictures of him trotting ahead of me, and as soon as I stop to do that, he turns on his heel and heads back to me. You'll see that big pink tongue in almost all the photos, because that's what he does as he rushes back to me.  Licking the chops is actually a submissive gesture in dogs. I think Bacon knows I'd rather he just kept trotting, so he apologizes when he runs back to me. It's sweet.  This is new since he went deaf.

Of course he always gets kisses when he comes back, and I get my picture anyway, and it's better with Bacon's smile.

You really can't waste a day in October. It's all going so fast. A ferocious gale, complete with pounding rain and hail, hit not long after I took this series of photos. Of course it stripped many leaves from the trees.

It's not the most brilliant fall in memory, that's for sure. Who knows what conditions make for a perfect fall? Severe drought doesn't seem to be one of them.

Several weeks ago, we found a sock that looked like it belonged either to Waldo or Ronald McDonald. It was at the big curve by Fergus' pond. 

And last week, we found t'other one!!

So if I wanted to, I could have a pair of Waldo socks. I kind of like seeing them on the roadside, and trying to imagine why they're a half-mile separated. I envision a tussle between two teens in a car, and a lot of laughing, and two tossings out. So I leave them, because that makes me smile.

So does Mr. I Walk The Line, my wee little Man in Black.

Another thing that makes me smile is chicory against weathered barn siding.

Woo boy, that is good stuff. The cooler the temperature, the deeper the color (these are two different days here).

Of course Chet is always willing to improve my flower photos.

The odd red maple is lighting up, and the sugar maples are getting going, too. Ohio's fall color is way ahead of Virginia's and West Virginia's. I know that because I put 1,030 miles on my Subaru this past weekend driving to Richmond and back.
I don't want to do that again any time soon.

Caught this little line of staghorn sumac chorus girls frolicking in a doleful row of monklike junipers.

Back home, I found some ironweed blooming with chicory, backed by fall foliage. That's a hard thing to find. They're blooming now only because this meadow was mowed twice this summer. Somehow the butterfly weed and dogbane persist. It's one of the best for wildflowers and butterflies.

The last sweet peas, and a pillowed, weathering sky.

While nobody was looking, the Three Graces slipped on their party dresses.

More on them later.

I promised you a possum in a pickle. I went out toward evening to dump some compost and saw a possum, motionless by the fence that surrounds the pit. 

He had tried to get through a gap in the stock fencing that was only about 2" x 4". Oops.

When I spoke softly to him, his ear twitched. I could see by the dirt around him that he'd been there for some time, perhaps since the night before.  Oh poor dear little possum.

I ran and got some nippers and my bat gloves, and carefully cut the wire and bent the ends back so he couldn't hurt himself in struggling free.

Being a possum, he didn't even try to struggle free. He just lay there. So I gently fed his body through the big gap I'd made and laid him on his side, free.

I stroked his sides, checked him out (he seemed fine) and went inside to get him some water, apples, plums, and cooked chicken. He did not resist. He just exposed his many pointy teeth and said hnnhhhh shhhhh

I dribbled water into his mouth with a dropper. He lay there, catatonic, for about an hour. I knew that this was his possumic response to the stress of being confined for so long.  It's called thanatosis from the Greek thanatos = death and osis = sight or view of.  Also called tonic immobility, it's an involuntary physiological response to extreme stress, or sometimes simply to being upside down. It's a very odd behavior, but it must work for opossums; they've been around and successful for a very long time. Thanatosis occurs in many fish and reptiles, and you can induce it in iguanas, anoles, rabbits and chickens, among many others, by holding them on their backs. I used to be able to get a mild version of thanatosis out of my macaw, Charlie, by laying her on her back in my hand. She'd go completely still, blinking very slowly, until righted, and then she'd snap right out of it. It never seemed to upset or compromise her; she'd just go quiet. It certainly helped when nail-clipping time came around! Because a macaw who doesn't want her nails clipped is a hideous thing, with a vise-grip defense.

In researching this condition, I came upon this Wikipedia photo of a Burmeister's leaf frog in thanatosis. Which I had to lift and share, because AGGK, snort, waah!

Me, on the night of November 8, should the election go badly south.  I mean, even souther than it has.

After an hour and a half, as dusk fell, Brer Possum was sitting up, looking around very slowly. The food was still untouched. At the two hour mark, he was gone. And so was all the fruit and chicken. Sweet possum. Had a bad day, with a good good end. And now he's got a nice little door he can use to help himself to fresh kitchen stuff.

Here ends Bright Leaves, and a Possum in a Pickle.

Clammy Groundcherries, Everted Opossums, and Art

I go on to the second barn, but find it full of honest machinery. It's a better barn with a better roof. I guess I like the skeevy one better. It tells more stories. 

I go a bit farther beyond the second barn and see a huuuge whitetail buck in the hidden meadow.

It's interesting how I have come to be able to tell a buck from a doe, naked eye, at such a distance. To judge the relative size of an animal that, through my iPhone, is but a dot, and know that it's really large, or at least larger than a doe would be. And darker. Bucks tend to be darker and bluer than does in fall.

 I long for my telephoto lens. I can count ten points on his antlers through my pocket Swarovski binoculars. 

Busted, he takes off. Wish I could do better than this, but I can't run with a 70-300 telephoto weighing about 8 lb. You can just make out the bone-white tips of the tree of antlers on his head.

Hope he made it through gun, bow, youth and muzzleloader seasons. Oh, and the three-day December shootin' spree. 

Chet and I move on down the road, noting a very nice patch of wild ginger still showing yellow- green! I hadn't known the leaves persisted so long into November. 

At the point on this beautiful road where I can see the little church, I always start to sing "Little Brown Church in the Vale," one of the songs my dad would sing as he took my mom, my sister Micky and me on long drives into the Virginia countryside when we were kids. 

Oh how I loved when he would sing. He could carry a tune, but his rhythm was a little off. It drove my mom crazy. Dale! You skipped two measures!

Of course we all sang along. Micky was really good at harmony.

I strove to be as good as she was.

She also drew better than I did.

Consider these things, how having a talented older sibling can burn a hole in the younger, less gifted one, make her long to excel.

My father knew about that.

It occurred to me as I uploaded these photos that I have never crossed the creek to snoop about in this church. For one thing, it looks like it's locked up tight. 

But maybe it's not. 

Shiver of delight if not.

Big disappointment if so.

I think that's why I haven't tried.

In such a public place my guess is it will be locked and barred. 

I'll get back to you on that.

It sits, a little jewel in the landscape. This spring I will go and see what's blooming around it, 

even if I can't get inside to sing and dream.

In November,  the damp bank of the stream was full of clammy groundcherries, Physalis heterophylla. 

I became enchanted by these members of the nightshade family. 

They were so similar to the tomatillos I'd grown all summer (which I adore; like a crisp, citrusy tomato!) that I wondered if they were edible.

Sites differ on that point. This one (Ohio Perennial and Biennial Weed Guide) states that the plant and unripe fruit are toxic. Yikes. Let me quote them directly: 

 Leaves and unripe fruits of groundcherries are poisonous and even fatal if ingested by humans. However, ripe fruits are not as toxic and can be made into jellies, jams, and sauces. 

Now, would you eat something that was described as "not as toxic?"

Pfft.

Me neither.

I'll settle for admiring their beauty. Don't miss the church, behind...

Ooh, ahh.

I'm going to try one next time I find them. Ain't skeert.

Speaking of not being skeert, I found an unfortunate animal. Do you recognize this foot?

Yes, that is an (almost) opposable thumb. But this animal has not developed an alphabet, 

nor learnt to grow grain.

Still, it is a marvelous foot.

We have not many truly scaly animal tails. By now, you have guessed whose foot that is, no?

If you are easily grossed out, you may want to put your hand over this next photo. I will tell you that this is what a turkey vulture does when it processes a Virginia opossum. Or a raccoon, or a cat or a groundhog. It turns it completely inside out, leaving only a head and the skin, the spine everted, and all the tasty bits gone.

 Which, if you're a Science chimp, you love, even as you gag a little.

Ready?

here it comes

 So now you  (gag) know. I took the color saturation down a bit.

 It helped.

Sometimes I wonder, if I were some big-deal photographer with a New York gallery show, if I put a huge print of a photo like that up on a well-lit white wall, with a label that said

Requiem: Didelphis

and there were long tables of wine and cheese and some helter-skelter jazz trio playing, would skinny young people in heavy horn-rimmed glasses and long black coats assume they were missing some Greek literary reference they really ought to know, gather around and speak in low tones of the immense loft of my artistry?

Then I trot on

behind my little black dog

who remembers where we parked.

Just below the tiny community hall where he inspected the privacy booths, and we'd voted, first thing that November morning.

Dead Deer, Live Deer, Vulture, 'Possum, Coy-wolf

In less than a week, the scavengers had reduced a deer carcass in our field to a torso and attached bones. They started at the haunch and kept going. A gray fox opened the haunch, eating most of one, and the vultures, who'd been waiting for an opening, gladly went ahead and finished the job.

Snow fell on the carcass, and this buck came by to investigate.

Everything in his mien said revulsion and apprehension--the pinned-back ears, the hunched back, the tentative steps. 

I figure he knew this young button buck.

He circled the carcass, kept coming back.

Finally he walked off, shaking his foot as if to rid himself of the feeling of coming upon one of his own, dead.

Others were much happier to discover the carcass.

I was elated to have a chance to finally get some decent vulture shots. I needed them for my new talk.

When the coy-wolves found the carcass, it went from food to bones overnight. 

At dawn, I found a fat opossum gnawing on it. And opossums being who they are, I was able to walk slowly out in the meadow, shooting as I approached. When he looked up at me I stopped, took a last photo, and walked back the way I came. He never left, just went back to his stanky breakfast.

What a gift this carcass was to so many animals. 

The next morning it was gone! But it wasn't hard to find...see the white dot in the woods border? And the trail of white belly hair leading all the way to it? Coy-wolves, dragging it into cover, not wanting to be spotted feeding. They're strong animals. I'm teaching myself not to call them coyotes any more. 

They're part eastern wolf. Just wrote an article for The Marietta Times called Coy-Wolves: Evolution in Action. 

This photo taken in our meadow a few winters back. Visually inseparable from an eastern (red) wolf. That's because he's got a big dose of those Canis rufus genes, from the interbreeding that went on between western coyotes and eastern wolves in northern Ontario. What we've got in the East is a genetically stable hybrid. Not a coy-dog. A coy-wolf. A new canid, longer of leg, bigger of foot, shorter and deeper of muzzle, smaller of ear and heavier of body and fur than the scrawny pale western coyote.

 And they live and feast and yammer and howl on our land every night. They den on the north-facing slope. So far, they have chosen not to kill Chet Baker, though I know they could in a heartbeat. And I'm grateful they have kept it to deer and rabbits, turkeys and woodchucks, voles and feral cats. I think about it every time I let him out to do his nightly business. And I think he does, too. He hurries back, flaps his ears, shivers. I spank him as he runs by, hug him, thankful each time that he comes back to crawl under the covers with me. Life in the country.

When I hear them howl I tuck what tail I have and run for the house!

The stash.

Every morning, a surprise. The turkey vulture's namesake, partying in the dawn light.

I'll miss my vultures. Must see if we can rustle up some more grub for them. 

You've heard the word catharsis. It refers to the relief, the cleansing collapse you feel after a big emotional event. 

Cathartes aura. The Golden Cleanser.