Hummingbirds: What we do for love

I wish I could find a way to post this video on the mating display of the spatuletail hummingbird. Click on the link. Please. Watch this – it’s truly amazing what evolution can accomplish in the name of love!

It reminds me of a Pattiann Rogers poem, “The Hummingbird: A Seduction,” from her book Firekeper. This is erotica; this is love; this is sex as it should be.

The Hummingbird: A Seduction

If I were a female hummingbird perched still
And quiet on an upper myrtle branch
In the spring afternoon and if you were a male
Alone in the whole heavens before me, having parted
Yourself, for me, from cedar top and honeysuckle stem
And earth down, your body hovering in midair
Far away from jewelweed, thistle, and bee balm;

And if I watched how you fell, plummeting before me,
And how you rose again and fell, with such mastery
That I believed for a moment you were the sky
And the red-marked bird diving inside your circumference
Was just the physical revelation of the light’s
Most perfect desire;

And if I saw your sweeping and sucking
Performance of swirling egg and semen in the air,
The weaving, twisting vision of red petal
And nectar and soaring rump, the rush of your wing
In its grand confusion of arcing and splitting
Created completely out of nothing just for me,

Then when you came down to me, I would call you
My own spinning bloom of ruby sage, my funnelling
Storm of sunlit sperm and pollen, my only breathless
Piece of scarlet sky, and I would bless the base
Of each of your feathers and touch the tine
Of string muscles binding your wings and taste
The odor of your glistening oils and hunt
The honey in your crimson flare
And I would take you and take you and take you
Deep into any kind of nest you ever wanted.

Open Lungs and Open Waters

I came down with a case of bronchitis a couple of weeks ago, and although I’ve felt better since the fever broke over a week ago, only now can I feel the last bits of congestion leaving my lungs. I feel like the world is opening back up again. My body and my focus are shifting from the tightness in my chest to what’s going on around me. Our summer has been so fun and filled with friends, camping, canoeing, and house projects that I haven’t had as much time as I might like to reflect on it all. I love the feeling of finally doing so many of the things Mr. A and I have talked about for so long. But the constant stream of activity has left us a little winded. Thankfully, the last couple of weekends have given us back that breath.

As my chest begins to open up I’m finding that my head is in a similar state. When the to-do list is long and there’s a lot of work to be done I tend to dig in. My shoulders rise as my muscles get ready for good, hard work, and I become focused only on the task at hand, to the exclusion of all else. But while the sweat and muscle strain feel good and seeing the results of my labor are nice, it means that I lose sight of what it means to open myself to the world.

The seasons are changing and it seems all my friends are saying farewell to summer (and getting sick). I am seeing the changes too.  The evenings are cooler and I can see the sunset kiss the trees before bedtime. The circle of activities is moving gradually inward. We do have one or two more fall camping trips planned before the weather begins to firmly dictate when we can get outside. I’m excited. I love fall. I love the close camaraderie and warmth that comes during the fall harvest as the leaves change. It means hot cider, crisp apples, big juicy tomatoes, crisp mornings, reds and yellows punctuating the green on hikes, and crunching leaves underfoot. These images, like here, fill my head and there is no other joy like it.  The Towhead has been my other source of joy with the spontaneous things she says and does.  She will often run outside in the morning as I am putting things in the car and throw her arms wide to the sun, exclaiming in her own improvised song, “I love the sun! I love the hot! I love the cold! I love the world and my (stuffed) kitty!” When I look around at moments like these all I can think is that this is where my center is, and I wonder what could ever be important enough to pull my focus away from this.

I’m not sure if it’s the rebellious part of my nature or the seasons that has me thinking about expanding my energy into the world when all else seems to be moving gradually inward. Or maybe it’s just the part of me that’s always in search of balance. My other theory is that it has to do with settling deeper into the life of a working mom, which I love and hate at the same time. I think the part that has begun to bother me most is the feeling of being sucked inexorably into the vortex of commercialism and expectations of the mainstream working family. Mr. A and I have agreed for a long time that we want a healthy and active lifestyle that includes:

• experiencing the outdoors and appreciating nature
• creativity and laughter
• being mindful and aware of the world and the interconnectedness of all things
• friends and family
• a wide variety of art and music
• toys that encourage mental and emotional growth, not greed and materialism

The pitfalls come when there is less time to carefully cultivate all the things that go into this mix and the temptation to just default to the “norm.” The norm is so pre-packaged, TV, and brand-name based that it drives me crazy. As grad students and then as a single-income family we avoided a lot of those things because of money. Now we avoid them by choice. But I’m realizing, especially with the Towhead in school and me working, how hard it is not to slide toward mainstream trends like cartoons in the afternoon and flashy treats for lunch. It’s strange for me when I talk to other working parents and I hear how much they talk about the newest Disney TV show, computer games, or dance classes. The first two are not really on our radar, and the last one we are just beginning to consider. I’m sailing into unknown waters. Is this what is supposed to be next on the charts? What things do I want to sail toward and what do I want to steer clear of? We’ve been in the lagoon where books, bike rides to the park, and homemade toys surround us.  New waters are coming but there seems to be a lack of variety when it comes to maps because there’s really only one corporate publisher. I know there are more paths, and that many trailblazers have come before me.  I just need to find their stories.

Maybe it’s the holidays that have me thinking about how to avoid cheap, flashy, Made-in-China, TV-character emblazoned toys. Maybe it’s the birthday party at Chuck E Cheese where the girl got 3 Barbie dolls. Or maybe it’s the normal questioning of what comes next in Towhead’s growth and development. I don’t want to fall into the trap of just defaulting to certain set of activities for no other reason than that everyone else is doing it. I seem to be filled with ever-changing thoughts and doubts lately. The sun is in my eyes and the way forward is not clear right now.

*Just when I begin to feel the most lost I seem to stumble upon what I need. This article turned out to be it: Lisa Bennett’s “Nurturing Creators, Not Collectors” in Mothering magazine. So often it seems like we compare ourselves to the images we see around us instead of the real people and voices in our own lives. I’m learning (and re-learning) to turn down the volume of pop culture and in the silence that follows, hear the beating of my own heart and the rhythm of life.

Headline: Girl’s heart devastated by tree

BY Cedar deArbol, Staff Writer

A tree was felled today, and it broke a little girl’s heart.

The girl blames her mother for making the decision and her father for wielding the chainsaw. The parents blame the poor landscaping decisions of previous owners.

“It’s mother nature,” claimed the girl in her teary argument. “You don’t cut down mother nature.”

Though ardent conservationists and environmentalists, the girl’s parents are baffled. “We’ve always made it clear when we go to get firewood that we only take dead or downed wood. But this is not something we’ve ever said to her,” says the father.

“We want her to learn respect for the natural world, but we’ve left out a lot of that other stuff. She needs to learn to love the world, not worry about its destruction just yet. She’ll learn a lot of that rhetoric later, probably from us. But it has no place in the life of small child,” adds mom.

The culprit turned out to be the girl’s preschool teacher.  Other parents have even commented, “I came in with a plucked flower one morning and a small boy came up and started yelling at me that that was mother nature and I shouldn’t do that.”

In order to prevent the entire class from picking all of the flowers off a bush that stands next to the path to the playground, the teachers have impresed upon the children that the flowers are part of mother nature and need to be left for other people to enjoy.

The tree, a northern white cedar, was chopped down while the little girl was napping. Even though it provided little to no shade for the house it stood next too, the girl was heart-broken to find it missing when she awoke.

The girl’s mother is disturbed because she could come up with no good arguments to counter her daughter’s request not to cut the tree down, except for the parents joint decision to widen the existing stairway leading from the deck to the yard.

The father is convinced that his daughter will never forgive him for dealing the death blow to her favorite tree. He says he is awaiting the bill from her therapist.

My daddy is Bat-man

Towhead is not a normal kid. How could she be with parents such as us? She is bombarded with useless details about politics and local wildlife, cooking and physical science. Yet she is so much a stereotypical three and a half year old that, if asked what her favorite animal is she’ll respond with a fervent, “Snakes! But only pink ones.”

Sometimes I try to put myself in her shoes . . . a restrictive and dangerous proposition. But I do wonder what it would be like, as a kid, to have mom respond to the question “Where’s daddy?” with “Playing with bats,” “Chasing birds,” or “Getting a deer out of someone’s basement.” And I imagine I would respond the same way she does. “Can I see?”

I think bats are fascinating. First of all there’s echolocation – how cool is naturally-developed sonar! They eat insane amounts of night-flying insects like moths, beetles, mosquitoes, termites, and flies – also very cool.

Spokane County Parks and Rec does an annual class on Bats of the Inland Northwest. It involves a 20-minute lecture on bats and bat ecology followed by a trip down into a canyon where biologists from BLM (Bureau of Land Mgmt) and WDFW (WA Dept of Fish and Wildlife) capture bats in mist nets and harp traps, and then bring them down the canyon where people from the class can watch them being processed (ie mesured, weighed, etc) and released. Mr. A helped out last year, after getting his rabies vaccine of course. (I teased him no end about getting rabies shots. How can you resist an opportunity like that?)

Mr. A was asked to help again this year, so when the opportunity came up for me and Towhead to register for the class and check it out Mr. A and I figured  Towhead is old enough to stay up that late and has shown some interest in bats, so why not?

First came the 20-minute “class” on bat ecology. What I got out of it:

• Bats are the only flying mammal.
• They make up 25% of the mammalian species on earth. With ~4260 species of mammals of earth this means that in the mammalian version of the United Nations (United Mammals?) we get 1 vote, bats get 1065.
• Some bats can live up to 30 years.
• A very small percentage of bats are infected with rabies but there are still certain safety precautions you should take, and certain behaviors to watch for to identify a bat that is infected (see this handout for details).
• Bats often capture insects when flying by scooping them into their tail or wing membranes, and then putting the insects into their mouth. This results in the erratic flight most people are familiar with when they watch bats feeding in the evening.
• Large quantities of bats on the east coast are being wiped out by White-nosed syndrome, a fungus that infects winter hibernacula (an area where bats hibernate) and kills entire colonies.

What Towhead got out of it:

• Bats do neat things and are not as scary as they look.

The next three hours involved watching a biologist from BLM handle bats right under our noses.

Backpacker’s Guide to the Galaxy

I’m thinking this would be a great title for a hiking guide (with 42 hikes of course). But alas, this post is not quite that ambitious.

In early July, when Mr. A and the Towhead were visiting my family, I had a few days to myself. Normally, this is the time I use to catch up on cleaning, organizing, watching movies, and generally relaxing. (The best is the mini-spa treatments that I know won’t be interrupted, like soaking my feet in hot water and tea tree oil and saturating myself with body butter while I watch a sappy romance or cheesy foreign film.)

But this time I couldn’t seem to find the motivation to do it. Sitting on the couch and/or cleaning just didn’t sound good to me. Which is odd. I’m normally a compulsive cleaner, and organizing the house so things are easy to find and function smoothly almost always sounds good to me. Not this time.

I wanted to get out, to do something impulsive. I had the overwhelming urge to throw some stuff in the car and find a remote alpine lake to cool my feet in. So after a bit of research I found a hike that sounded just right – fairly short, some exertion but nothing too ambitious. I had no urge to come back exhausted. Mr. A and I love to backpack, and the Bean is usually a willing cohort on day hikes – I’m sure she’ll be a great backpacking companion when she gets older. But at this stage finding time and a babysitter makes backpacking a seldom-enjoyed luxury for Mr. A and I. And while day hikes can be satisfying, there is nothing quite like the feeling of carrying everything you need on your back, walking into the wilderness and sleeping under the stars.  I’ve missed it. My family worries about me when I decide to take off even for a night to go camp, which I find silly. Studies and statistics show that you’re more likely to run into more dangerous situations in urban and suburban settings than in wilderness areas. But they’re softening, and at this point the safety precautions are second-nature – leave location info and times in and out with at least two other people, whether in bear country or not take stuff to tie up your food (or a bear canister), take enough water (and/or bring a purifier) and leave some at the car. Add poncho, safety whistle, and a Leatherman to the basics – map, food, sleeping bag, clothing layers, headlamp – and you’re good to go. I love my family, and I love taking care of them, but the ease of taking care of just me and not having to worry about logistics for three people can be really refreshing.

Revett Lake sits on the east side of a ridge that separates Idaho and Montana. Situated in the Bitterroot mountains it is one of the few alpine lakes in that area.

I will admit that I got a little turned around getting to the trailhead, but it didn’t matter much to me and the dog (affectionately termed Mutt Butt. See Cast of Characters.)  It was a beautiful drive with sun, a cool wind, and good music.

The trail was so picturesque! Complete with waterfall off to the side, ferns in the gullies, and the late season wildflowers still in bloom.  I saw corn lilies with their broad leaves, purple penstemon among the rocks, cat’s ears and their three fuzzy white petals, vetch, and bear grass. The only downside it that the hike to the lake was too short. As usual, I underestimated what the Mutt and I were capable of doing in a day. However, I overestimated what my new boots were ready for – I had blisters in spite of the moleskin I religiously place on my heels.

But really, what better than to soak your feet in a cold alpine lake? I set up camp, we hiked around one side of the lake, and then crashed out for a nap. I felt a little wimpy, crashing like that after such a short hike, but I figured it was my vacation and it felt good, so who cares, right? I justified it by promising myself I’d do an epic trip in the next year or so. I woke up to a male and female pair of pine grosbeaks sitting in the abandoned fire ring next to my tent.

The only thing that would have made the trip more perfect was if I had come 2-3 weeks later. At that point these cute little pink blooms would be sweet, ripe huckleberries. Oh well, my timing has always been a little off.

After an evening hike around the other side of the lake, the Mutt and I headed back to camp. To make things easier and my load a bit lighter I left the stove at home and opted for pbj and some carrots for dinner. But I couldn’t resit the campfire ring that had been left by previous campers. I grabbed a few dead branches and started a small blaze, then went back behind camp for a few more branches and some dried pieces of wood from a fallen tree. And I heard what I thought sounded like hooves stepping on dirt. I looked around, scanning the brush and trees. “No,” I thought, “you’re paranoid because you’re alone. It’s just the echoes of your own foot-falls.” So I kept gathering wood. Then I heard a branch crack and looked up to see a brown rump about my head/chest height go through the trees to my left and toward the stream outlet of the lake. All I could think was what Mr. A had told me about moose’s tendency to charge at barking dogs. I hurried back to camp and made sure I had Mutt Butt close. Needless to say I was very alert the rest of the evening.

We always say that the Mutt is never happier than when she’s on the trail – that hasn’t changed in 10 years and this trip was no exception. On this trip, the same was true for both of us. There are other places I am equally as happy, but backpacking is easily among the top 5. Staring at the small things that make this world so amazing, how can you help but smile? I forget about material goods, all I need is what I’m carrying on my back. Home becomes something bigger than the house I live in; working is something your muscles do to get you where you want to be, something that feels good as the blood rushes throughout your body letting you know you are alive and connected to everything you see. This backpacking trip was nothing big, but it reminded me of why I love it so much.

The PS to this is that on the way home I found myself behind two RVs that had stopped in the middle of the road for some reason. As I looked off to the left I figured out why. A moose was grazing in a gully next to the road, about 30 feet from where I’d stopped. All I could think was “Now this is how I wanted to meet a moose.”

Canoe Trippin’

I posted the picture of the new canoe, and though we’ve taken three trips so far, I’ve yet to post a picture!!

Well, here are a few from our last trip about three weeks ago.

We drove south of Spokane to Hole in the Ground, a marshy area right between two finger lakes – Bonney and Rock Lakes. From there we paddled north to Bonney Lake. It was a gorgeous day! 

Highlights and memorable moments: We saw a huge colony of cliff swallow nests, and were able to paddle close enough to see babies popping their heads out, looking for food.

 

Lunch on an island mid-lake, where we got to see a garter snake up close as we got out of the canoe. I was pulling the canoe up on some flat rocks when I looked down and saw it about three feet in front of me. I stopped and pointed it out to the Towhead before he slithered off into the brush. No startling “ahhh!”s on either of our parts. Just a quiet, slow “Hi. You can go now.” Mr. A tried to catch it, but didn’t get out of the canoe quick enough  I also my first glimpse of poison ivy (yikes!)

We paddled to the far end of the lake, a bit farther than we were in shape  prepared to paddle, though we didn’t realize that until the last hour of the trip. All of this was based on the fact that someone told us there was a waterfall at the end of the lake – the things we’ll put ourselves through for the sake of a little beauty We didn’t get to see the waterfall we were looking for, but we did get to see a waterfall. And lots  of painted turtles. I don’t have any pictures because we spent too much time trying to get close to them and maybe pull one in the boat for the Towhead to see. They were good size – imagine small dinner plate – with the characteristic red around the outer carapace. We got really close but never managed to catch one.

 

Then there was the last hour. Oh, that last hour was painful. And we almost tipped the whole family and everything that came with us into the lake when we went to retrieve a water gun the Bean (aka Towhead) had dropped into the water for the third time. Combine the long day, near dump into the lake, sore arms, and too much sun (no sunburns though) and the result was me sitting in the bottom of the canoe holding a tearful Towhead while Mr. A tried to navigate the windy path through the marsh by himself – not an easy task.

But that was the only downside of the day. After a Popsicle a wonderful stranger handed us, and a power nap in the truck, the Bean was ready to roar. One of the couples that went with us owns 300+ acres right next to Turnbull Wildlife and Elk Refuge just north of the lake. They fed us salmon, fresh corn, and coleslaw, and gave us a tour of the barns where they have sheep, goats, cows, turkeys, and chickens. Then the adults got to watch as the Bean and the other two kids ran around and tackled each other in the grass.

We head out again this weekend (or at least that’s the plan).

Who knew we’d buy a new canoe?

Here’s a brief photo essay of what we’ve been up to the last few weeks:

A few weeks ago the Shrine Circus was in town. We decided to go the day of, and I’m glad we did. It brought back so many memories of going to see the circus with my Papa, who is a Shriner. As an adult I was afraid I wouldn’t like it – that it wouldn’t be as thrilling,  that I would see was the exploitation of people and animals. To my delight that is not what I saw. It was fantastic and a ton of fun! And yes, Towhead and I got to ride the elephant.

Towhead’s school hosted a “Mother’s Day Tea” on Friday. All the moms came for lunch and the kids were waiting for us with handmade gifts. I’ve never done anything like this before. If Towhead ever made me a gift I usually was the one to decide what it was and help her put it together. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing I like more than designing a craft project for her and letting her go to work. But this was awfully nice! The screaming fit she threw as I left (in her two months at school this is the first one ever) kinda put a damper on things though.

Mother’s Day weekend couldn’t have been better. We had friends over for homemade clamchowder, and played cards until late. Sunday Mr. A and CT made me pancakes and we took a bike ride. As if these weren’t enough, there was the  unexpected surprise of finding a canoe for sale that we could afford!The plan is to test it out next weekend. I’m vibrating in anticipation. All three of us loved the canoe trip we took last summer and have been looking for a canoe to buy ever since. This is the new baby, a 15 ft Coleman:

And then there’s the tulips that have been brightening my mornings.

Tranquil Thursday

Knitted Together, or Stitch n’ Bitch by Mail

When I lived in Reno, there was a group of us that used to meet every Friday afternoon at a coffee shop to enjoy a cup of coffee or tea and each other’s company, and to knit.  Whether it was girls, or co-ed (yes, we did have a couple male knitters) we all sat around knitting (or crocheting, or embroidering, or sewing ripped clothes) and talked about life – good, bad, past & present. Some called it our knitting circle. Personally, I prefer the term the term used by the friend who taught me how to knit: stitch n’ bitch. It’s the most honest descriptor I’ve heard.  Because really that’s what we did.

Some weeks there were only two of us, sometimes 6-8; sometimes the conversation was light-hearted, sometimes it was a vent seesion where we, well, bitched about our week. I think it appealed to the multi-tasker in me. I could talk to friends, and have something to show for it at the end – a hat, a scarf, a stuffed animal for my niece. As cliche as it sounds I always left that group feeling more relaxed and nurtured than I did when I walked in the door. In essence, it was a weekly meeting of friends that left me smiling.

Eventually, our meetings faded away. And later I moved. But this last November, Chris, one of the women from this group, emailed me and told me about a neat idea she’d had: a Scarf Exchange. She had contacted knitters she knew and asked each of us to knit a hat or scarf and send it to her with details about the person who knitted it, the yarn used, etc.  Chris promised to photograph and then redistribute the goods. I thought she would just lay them out on a sheet and take pictures. I had no idea that she planned to take them outside and present them in such an artisitc way (see above). In some of her photos, scarves are hung like snakes, wrapped and dangling from branches. The look almost alive! I should have expected no less from such a creative and caring woman who specializes in examining the relationships between nature and culture. It was a neat way to reconnect with people. I get all warm and fuzzy thinking about it. And when I put the hat on too.

Fly and Dance

Have you ever seen leaves brought up by the wind, away from their tree at a 45 degree angle, up over the telephone lines in a huge whirl, so that you thought the diamond-shaped wave was a flock of birds?

This morning looking out my kitchen window I was amazed to see so many birds flying together, swirling over the tops of a tree a couple blocks away. Then I realized they weren’t birds, they were leaves. I’ve never seen leaves fly and dance, over around and up like that.

What a beautiful day.

In election news, I am crossing my fingers, praying, standing on my head, and channeling every ounce of universal energy I can get my hands on to see Obama elected. If not I will cry and move out of the country.

In homefront news, Mr. A is having surgery Thursday on his knee for a torn meniscus.

With all the rain, wind, clouds, and increasing darkness I am i feel like I’m living in a dreamworld or fairytale. I just hope today has a happy ending.