Category Archives: Nature

On the Wind

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Many years ago, I was going through the pain of a breakup. I was at my girlfriends parent’s place on Long Island. They had easy access to the beach, although it was the wrong time of year for dipping in the salt water. I knew we were over, and I wish I hadn’t come.

I slipped away from the group, to sit and think with the sand as a cushion and the ocean wind on my face. As I sat, I began to realize something. The knots in my stomach, the tightness in my chest, the misery that was our relationship seemed to be fading. Fading, like a sandcastle before the wind. Blowing away, loosening its hold. If one had eyes of the soul, perhaps I would appear like the aurora borealis, the solar wind blowing above the night sky, leaving tendrils for all to see.

Eventually, they came looking for me. I knew then that the elevation of spirit I had experienced was only temporary, like ionized nitrogen atoms losing an electron. Passing as it was, it was one of the most welcome feelings I’ve ever had.

Years later, on the other side of our grand, expansive country I had an opportunity to go fishing on the ocean. It started out great, but soon the large swells made me nauseous like I hadn’t been in a long, long time. I cursed the fact that we had signed up for a full day. This was my first (and last) experience to be out of sight of land. The swells were huge; the ocean is a big, big place. She didn’t like me riding her, and I certainly did not like her constant motion and her unstable moods.

Perhaps there is a lesson in this two disparate experiences, but it escapes me at the moment.

Camouflage

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The back door popped open while I was making our Sunday waffles. “Daddy, daddy, come quick!”

“I’m a little busy here sweetheart…”

“Daddy, just come outside!”

She showed me a stick.  Except it wasn’t a stick. It was a bird-poop covered moving something that looked like a stick.


Talk about natural selection! Wow, this thing blends very thoroughly with its environment.
No really, doesn’t it look like your windshield after you parked under that oh-so-shady tree?  And no self respecting predator is going to want to pounce on Mr. Robin’s day-after.

She ain’t heavy

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It must have been my youngest brother’s wedding that summer.  I don’t often make it back home for the family reunion – a week-long event held that first week in July.  My baby was just over a year old; I can remember her babble in my ear but don’t recall any words.

My brother is an outdoor, active type, and met his match with my sister-in-law. Since that summer they have had four children together, all of whom have been exposed to the great outdoors.  They had made many plans for that very active week, not the least of which was a wedding in a meadow overlooking the valley of my youth. In deference to our Scottish heritage, my brothers all wore a skirt Scottish kilt.  Since I wasn’t looking for that kind of breeze, I chose to sit in the folding chair with my knees covered with cloth of the trouser variety.

The view from that hillside was beautiful, they chose the spot well.  This beauty was made all the more poignant because I had seldom appreciated it as I wandered the hillsides and found life-long scars among the blackberry thorns and other brambles that covered most of the interesting places. As we baked in the sun and listened to the drone of the insects (and the good reverend) I think it occurred to all of us that this was a wedding never to be forgotten.

But this wasn’t the point of this post at all, I suppose it’s easy to get caught up as memories rise to the surface to be examined this way and that, then slide back under ’till just the turbulence from its passing remains.

One of the activities planned was a hike to Kaaterskill Falls, near Hunter, NY.  I was immediately concerned because I had a small child, and didn’t think we would be able to keep up.  I was assured that this was covered; they had borrowed a carrier designed just for this purpose.  Several in fact, I wasn’t the only one with a small child. I think it looked a little like this, but I seemed to recall it was yellow or maybe a yellow-brown.

When I strapped the carrier on and my baby was lowered into it, I was immediately transported to a different me.  It was a feeling I will never forget; my baby strapped to my back, so close, as I navigated the trail through those scenic woods.  I felt her weight on my back and shoulders, but it was a good weight, a right weight. I was asked by others if I needed a breather, but I declined.  I wouldn’t have traded that weight for the world. I could feel her breath in my ear, hear her as she made those happy noises as only small children can.  I’ve never felt so close or at peace with her.

One of my biggest regrets in this life is that that was the only time I ever experienced that particular joy with either of my children.  My children are almost-9 and just-turned-12. Although I still pick up the almost-9 whenever I can, strapping on that carrier is forever beyond us.

Wobbility-Ass Table

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I headed determinedly to the garage, meaning to make myself a no-frills table. One small enough for a monitor and a keyboard; to be used for the file server I’m trying to Ubuntu. Trying. Ubuntu. Samba. WTF.

This table was to be built from scrap, whatever I had in the garage. I knew the legs didn’t need to be all that strong, modern monitors are light and keyboards weigh next to nothing. I found some dowels, and cut one to the height of my would-be table.  Then my eye fell on a walking-stick, propped in the corner.  Natural!  Wood!  On-hand!  Sweet!

The previous day, my neighbor had lugged his borrowed thingy up and down the street, volunteering to cut back pesky branches.  This of course left me with a ready supply of my environmentally friendly table legs.   About the time I was trimming these erstwhile branches, my daughter came out and wanted to know if I was building a table for her plants.  She’s been on a big green-thumb kick lately, to my delight!

Erstshile

Well bazinga, now my table would serve outdoors, where it could be as wobbilty as it wanted.  Because these legs curve, they need to be cut at the correct angle, both at the bottom and top.  There’s got to be some technique to cutting these things, but it’s trial and error with me.

You can see in the pic above I cut a number of slices off the branches to use a shims.  I’m going to need them.  I thought about using the PVC as cross bracing as well, but couldn’t figure out how to attach them with what I have on hand.

I had originally planned on throwing some cement fiber board on top and calling it done, but that would never work.  The stuff I have is to thin, and breaks easily unless fully supported.  So now I needed a frame.  I uncovered a 12 foot length of pressure-treated lumber, slightly curved.  Well, that sort of fits with the theme, so I cut it into two 4 foot lengths, and two 2 foot lengths and screwed ‘em together.  I had to ride it like a pony to get ‘em more-or-less flush.

Here it is, screwed and braced.  If you look at the front left corner, and rear right corner you might notice neither is touching the floor.  Bummer.

I’ll screw the legs to the corner pieces.  I hope the corner braces are big enough for the twisting legs.  I’ll add the plywood in the next stage; I set it on top of the frame here to see if it’s big enough.  Of course, it’s not.

Since it was well over 100 degrees, I decided this was a good place to stop. I set the plywood on top and weighed it down with the miter saw.  Maybe it will straighten itself out.

9 a.m. to Dark

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It was a beautiful day for walking.  We nosed our car up to the rusted gate and off of the main highway.  The doors to the old Toyota popped open and everyone bounced out of the car, ready to begin the hike.  We had to duck under the rusted metal poles and walk past the sign with the posted park hours. (9 a.m. to dark, after that get out!)  Of course it didn’t say “get out” and I doubt the person who left the bullet hole in the sign believed it either.  But the attendant who rented our nearby cabin assured us this park was open, as long as you were willing to take the long walk in.

Once we followed the path around its bend, the only sounds we could hear was the wind sighing in the trees and the occasional bird call.  The kids called out to each other as they explored along the edges and chased after our dog.  Zoey was very excited to be back on this land and to be off leash, the way nature intended.  So quiet in the park, and so alone. Not lonely with the whole family present; the solitude was very peaceful.

This year, instead of going to the kids fishing pond we continued on to what in summertime would be considered a beach/play/picnic area.  It was obvious that much maintenance would be needed before those rusty gates could screech open and allow the beach-goers to drive carelessly up the road and swarm the beach.  But for now, it was all ours except for the small boats across the sound; the occupants quiet as their minds drifted along with their boats.

Parts of the sand on the beach were littered with small rocks and nature’s detritus.  My wife began to wander off as she scanned the stones and driftwood for particular triangular shaped items.  Since we started this part of our journey so late in the day, we didn’t have much time to explore; it wouldn’t be long until darkness crept across the water.  We did not want to find our way back to the safety of the car in utter darkness. Our oldest daughter strolled away across the sand, marking her trail with a hiking stick dragged behind her.  She too was caught up in the quiet as she wandered away.

The youngest daughter stayed with me as she didn’t want to traverse the piles of nature’s detritus that her mother was passing through.  As I crunched over the pebbles doing my own walk-about, I was suddenly taken with a need to turn around and examine more closely the stones I had just passed.  A few minutes of squatting and searching and I found it; a nicely shaped arrowhead, made of black obsidian and showing all the imperfections you would expect from a stone-age artifact.  When I looked up, my daughter was staring at me; I’m pretty sure she’s never seen that look on my face before and she wasn’t sure what to make of it.  We splashed through the water and crashed through the brush as we hurried over to show my wife, who was conducting her own search. In vain as it turned out.

She was very excited to see it, and although she wanted to find one on her own that didn’t diminish her excitement.  While I was lagging behind with our dog, the rest of the family met a man walking his two dogs off leash.  He talked of finding an tomahawk axe as well as arrowheads.  I didn’t get a chance to talk as he had not brought leashes as I had, and didn’t want to separate any dog fights!  He walked back ahead of us and was gone by the time we got to the car.

The walk back to the car seemed to take much less time, what a nice end to the day!

Yard Hawk

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The front door opened and I heard my wife yelling excitedly “Get the camera, bring me the camera.”  When I arrived outside to see what the yelling was about she was peering happily up into the tree in the front yard.  In our tree, in our front yard of our house in suburbia was something larger then has probably been in that tree before.  Except for me of course. And it was snacking on something that looked suspiciously like a mockingbird.

Hard to get a good shot.

Here you can see the outstretched leg of its poor victim.

Look closely, you can see the eyes around the branch. Although it looks more like an owl from this angle.

Can’t see much of anything, but trust me, he sees us.

Here’s proof. What a messy eater. I hope he took the remnants with him, I don’t think he stayed long enough to finish. He was watching us like a, well…

Blurry videos:

Osage Orange

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I’ve had the tree behind my in-laws looked at by a tree service. My first question was the most obvious: what the hell kind of tree is that?

Well it turns out to be an Osage Orange, here is what Wikipedia has to say:

The Osage orange (sometimes hyphenated) or Osage apple or simply Osage (Maclura pomifera) is an ornamental plant in the mulberry family Moraceae. It is also locally known as mock orange, “wild orange”, hedge-apple, horse-apple, hedge ball, bois d’arc, bodark (mainly in Oklahoma and Texas), bodart (in northwest Louisiana), bodock (mainly in Tennessee and Alabama), and bow wood. “Osage” derives from the Native American people inhabiting the valley of the river of the same name in Missouri. Slang terms for its inedible fruit include monkey brain, monkey ball, monkey orange, and brain fruit, due to its brain-like appearance.

This tree is 100 – 120 years old, which changes its status from “how do we get rid of this damn mess” to “cool, let’s clean it up a bit and be proud of it”.  I’m surprised that it was not removed by either the people who built the sub-development or the people who ran the gas pipeline.  Sure makes me think about the history of this place, what that tree might have seen over the years.

Note the photinas on the side of the house.  I hacked those down to what you see, they were about to tip the house over.  Those shall be removed… someday.