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 Taste of Massachusetts

Self-promotion is a fact of life for authors. Unless you're Stephen King, nobody's going to plan and underwrite a book tour for you. If you want a book tour, you plan it, you book the speaking engagements, negotiate the terms; you purchase and haul the books, pay for the hotels. I happen to enjoy traveling to speak, but it's not just a merry jaunt. A lot more goes into it than just showing up signing books, and accruing fame.

Because I believe that life should, if at all possible, include beauty and fun at every turn, I've learned to budget in time to visit friends and family, see some beautiful places, and that has been richly rewarding. It makes me want to do these speaking tours. It's the carrot I reach for. 

My longtime friend Alan Poole, for whom I did over 200 drawings when he was Editor of The Birds of North America: Life Histories for the 21st Century, has been inviting me to come see him in So. Dartmouth, Massachusetts for years. I finally took him up on it when I was in Massachusetts in December. I wanted to see where he lives, what it was about that place that clearly has a hold on him for good. It didn't take long to figure it out.

Here's his new house. It's small but mighty beautiful, lit clear through with windows, furnished simply and tastefully--a house to die for. Walking into it, I felt as I sometimes do when looking at a Pottery Barn or Restoration Hardware catalogue. I know I, with my endless crap and clutter and art gear, could never live this tastefully or simply, but oh I'd love to. 

 And he's got these amazing garden beds. This is early December in Massachusetts, and Alan's still harvesting all kinds of delicious salad greens and the most exquisitely sweet, brittle carrots I have ever tasted. Who knew that South Dartmouth has a microclimate like North Carolina? The Gulf Stream comes up and warms this magical corner of Massachusetts' coast. And there are truck gardens all over the place, taking advantage of this secret boon. Amazing.

The giant pinnate leaf is cardoon, eaten like fennel. There was spinach and mache and mesclun, sprinkled with fresh herbs...garden salads in December!

Heaven can wait if I can have these carrots, right out of the Massachusetts soil. 

Alan, cooking local bay scallops for us in his kitchen. 

His neighbor and culinary muse, Eva Sommaripa, well known among Boston area restrauteurs for her business, Eva's Garden, supplying them with incredible microgreens and herbs. Eva's a dear friend of Alan's and purveyor of such amazing and intensely delicious local food. I was humbled and star-struck to meet her. And I loved her outfit, perfectly suited to the New England climate. Layers!

Alan took my friend Erin and me to the beach just down the road from his home. 

He said, "This is my loon lookout." We climbed the dune and as we popped over the top, a common loon yodeled mournfully. If you click, you'll see him!

I couldn't even believe the sky.

Crab tracks.

Alan bent to pick up a handful of slipper shells. 

"Crepidula fornicata! "

I thought fast. Hmm. Crepidula would imply a crackling sound, crepitation, and -ula means small. Fornicata, well, hmm. I chuckled and gave up. Tell me!

"So a bunch of these guys pile on each other, and the one on the bottom changes its sex in response!" 

Well alrighty then! I was sasified.

That beach kept revealing its treasures, like the micro-leopard prints on a lady crab's shell. The closer we looked, the more wonderful it got.

And then standing up, the expanse and the junipers, the water on either side of the spit we were on...it was all too beautiful, even under a heavy December sky.

I love those winter days when you can't even tell what time it is. It could be morning, late afternoon...it's as if the sun itself forgets where it is.

This glimpse of a person living fully and well, in perfect harmony with the local climate, foodstuffs, people and landscape, was deeply moving and inspiring to me. In the end, it's love of place that speaks to me most of all. People who truly love where they live are the people I want to hang  with. That passion runs deep, and it's passion, after all, that I respond to. Well, that and beauty. For what else is there?

Late-Day Logee's Orgy

I haven't stopped at Logee's Greenhouses in Danielson, Connecticut, for many years. Some things had changed, like the size of the place--the number of greenhouses has been reduced. 

Some things hadn't changed, though--the incredible beauty and quality of the plants. I have to say the display greenhouses are even more beautiful than I remember their being. With less to care for, the staff can doubtless spend more time grooming the plants. I was bowled over by their health and beauty. 

For a phytophile like me, it doesn't get any better than this...descending from the civilized entryway into the humid green heaven of Logee's first display greenhouse.  The chalked sign over the vine-draped entry reads, 

"Flowers always make people better, happier and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul."   Luther Burbank

No kidding. Some people medicate with booze and pills. I prefer sunshine and flowers. Humidity and the smell of wet soil helps, too. And then there are miles...checking my Fitbit, it shows 7 plus today. No wonder I feel better.

It was afternoon by the time I left White Memorial Conservation Center, though I'd meant to leave in the morning. I just couldn't tear myself away from Gerri and the snow buntings. By the time I made Danielson, the sun was sinking fast. I knew I'd have to race through the greenhouses.

I was stunned by the walls of greenery and flowers.  I couldn't even see how they got in there to water everything. It was a seamless mass of beauty. Their Dichorisandra (Weeping Blue Ginger) looks a whole lot happier than mine. 

Begonia "Looking Glass." I used to grow that one. Loved it.

Saw their new trademarked begonia "Autumn Ember" and plan to get it. Woweee!!

I recognized some things I'd seen in Costa Rica (orange) and South Africa (blue) but I couldn't stop to read tags, if there were any. I was passing through at high speed, racing the dying light.

Turns out this is Blue Skyflower Thunbergia grandiflora. Why, I grow a Thunbergia called Black-eyed Susan Vine every summer! 

I do want to grow this Abutilon "Red Tiger" someday. What a gorgeous little blossom, on a big lanky plant.

Pycnostachys urticifolia Woweee!!! What a blue! It's called "Blue Witches Hat."

Looks like a mint to me. Fabooo!!

Lookit all them baby cacti! I wondered--these must be grown from seed. Amazing.

I was just in time for the big bloom of their Christmas cacti, in early December. I swooned. Look at those colors, those glorious plants. I think I need to start mine over; they used to be nice and shiny green like this but now they're sort of limp and reddish.
They bloom, but they don't look happy at all. I think I'll root some pieces and start over. I want mine to look like these beauties!

As you might imagine, by now the plant collector in me was twitching. I saw so many beautiful plants I wanted. But I was a gypsy, just at the beginning of a ten-day swing through New England, with temperatures predicted in the teens at night. There was absolutely no way I could travel with plants, even if I had had an inch of room in my car. I was going to pick up all my Baby Birds paintings in Canton, MA, and the car would be crammed past capacity. 

So I looked, but didn't touch.

I took equal joy in the things that had been planted 

and the adventitious seedlings that were making their way up the frosted plastic windows of the greenhouses. How cool! This little tropical waif was making a beautiful pattern as its leaves hugged the  bright wall.

I'd seen Showy Medinilla Medinilla magnifica from the Philippines in the Logee's catalogue and wondered if it were as elegant in person as it was in photos. Answer: Oh yes. Show-stopper. Someday...gack. Someday.

Someday, too, on this cheery cherry-red trumpet of a Streptocarpus. I think it's "Full Moon," though it looks a lot bluer in the catalogue. How cuuuute!!! I'd grown the blue ones but oh! and that solid red, I'll take that too, someday. It was truly wonderful to have a chance to ground-truth the catalogues I drool over. To find the plants even more beautiful in real life (IRL for you slang-slingers out there).

Some kind of ginger? Maybe. Weird, cool, think I've seen it in Costa Rica...

Monkey cups! I'd seen a photo of an orang sipping from one in National Geographic when I was a kid. Now I know it was probably a set-up with a zoo animal, but at the time I thought it marvelous. 

It's a carnivorous plant, from the looks of it a wetland species. And look at those lovely anthuriums pointing fingers at the sky behind it. Arrgh. This was almost painful, not to be able to take anything home. But that's OK. I have no business increasing the amount of stuff I need to care for right now.

Nepenthes hybrid "Lady Luck," a Tropical Pitcher Plant, a cross between N. ventricosa and N. ampullaria.

I had two pilgrimages to make. First, I wanted to see the famous Meyer lemon tree I'd admired when I last visited maybe 25 years ago. I figured it'd be even more amazing. The tree grows right up out of Connecticut soil in the floor of the greenhouse. From Logee's website: 

"Logee’s Greenhouses was started by William D. Logee in 1892 in Danielson, Connecticut. He started as a cut flower business and soon became interested in tropical and unusual plants. In 1900, he bought a small Ponderosa Lemon tree from a grower in Philadelphia. It was known as the “American Wonder Lemon” due to the size of the fruit, which could get as large as 5 pounds. The tree was a must for the Logee collection. It was shipped via train, then picked up by horse and buggy and directly planted into the ground in the original greenhouse. The same tree in the same greenhouse (appropriately called the Lemon Tree House) still stands today, and is reliably producing 5-pound lemons every year. Hundreds of thousands of propagations have been harvested from this original tree.”

And there it was. Bigger by far than I remembered it being. It's impossible to get a good photo of this tree because in the cramped confines of the greenhouse, you can't get far enough away from it even to appreciate it properly. But oh. So wonderful. It grows down to the ground, up to the ceiling, and down to the ground umpteen times, and it makes a carefully-pruned Wall o' Lemons along both walkways on either side. They are still propagating from it. So you can buy a clone of this tree. See why I love plant propagation so much? You can grow a piece of history!

Logee's is still owned by the same family who started it. That in itself is a small miracle. Maybe the same highly intelligent magic that has kept Logee's thriving keeps its plants immaculate and pest-free. I believe in magic, especially when driven by the indomitable human spirit.  

My hand and a huge Meyer lemon from this amazing tree. Signs ask that visitors not pick them; they are selling the fruit in the front of the store. So cool.

As one who has tried to grow citrus over the years, and who has harvested exactly two delicious Ruby Red grapefruit from a 1' tall "tree" in my Ohio "greenhouse" before it succumbed to scale and chlorosis and God knows what else, I am most hopelessly, grovellingly impressed that this tree was apparently scale free. I. Do. Not. Understand. How. You. Do. This. For. 116. Years. (much less two or three.)

I had one more pilgrimage to make, and that was to find the hibiscus section, so I could see where my darling hib "The Path" came from.

Healthy cuttings for sale, around a sign touting the many virtues of this great hibiscus. Mine, two days ago:

This is the Understudy I mentioned in my post, "That Which No Longer Serves." I spray her and Creole Lady every day. Every. Day. Now given, I'm using a pretty innocuous homemade soap spray, but still. HOW DO YOU DO IT, LOGEE'S???

I stopped a young woman who works there and asked her just that. I just cannot understand it, and her answer put me no closer. "We find that when the plants are healthy, they're resistant to pests."

Oh. Does my plant look unhealthy?

I mean, there HAS to be a secret here. Seeing the look on my face, she added, "We release beneficial insects..."

Hmmm. But how do you keep scale off a Meyer lemon that's 116 years old and the size of a master bedroom? HOW? HOW.  How. How???

  

I guess that will have to be a mystery. A nice, happy mystery. Logee's has beautiful, no, exquisite plants, and that is something to celebrate. I can't remember walking through a greenhouse with more beautiful plants. Huzzah!!

I just ran down to the greenhouse and sure enough, the bud Creole Lady was unfurling at dusk had burst open. Is there any better way to answer a 26 degree snowy day? Well, going for a walk in it works, too. Planning that.

Creole Lady is never more beautiful than when she first opens. Like a cinnamon roll, best when hot out of the oven. Another Logee's specialty. What beauty you bring to my world, Logee's!!

As the last light of a winter day faded, I raced through the camellia house, found a pale pink one that was fragrant (swoon!) and photographed a fruiting kumquat in Connecticut. 

This one's for Floridacracker.

And it was over. It was dark. It was time for me to go. I found my way back out the door and stopped for a last look at this little piece of Paradise, plopped in a sweet little otherwise sort of ordinary town in wintry Connecticut. I hadn't bought a thing. And that was OK. 

I'd made a pilgrimage to Logee's, and that was enough.