March – Finally it’s Spring!
Month: March 2018
Misplaced Priorities
It’s twenty years since we built the pond and this was the first winter we’ve had a net over it. The net was great for keeping fallen leaves out, but we were mostly trying to protect our ten-for-a-dollar feeder fish from the Great Blue Heron.
This makes no sense. We built the pond for the heron, not for the fish. The fish are food. We throw the tiny things in the pond every spring and they spend a relaxing summer eating and growing. The heron always gets most of them before the next spring.
And when he does, I feel bad.
The problem is that the fish become pets. By the end of summer they have come to expect to be fed when they see us near the pond. We take pride in their beauty, their health, and their growth. Some of them have interesting and distinctive markings. This is where our priorities get confused. We start with the intention of nurturing wildlife but end up nurturing the food.
Dave wanted to protect the fish this spring and summer, but I thought we should stick to our original intent – welcome the heron and his appetite. Then we took the net off last week and I saw the fish! Tiny babies from last spring have grown. Some of the babies actually hatched in our pond. I recognized the gold one with the large black oval on his back and I saw the white fish that has been around for three years.
I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let them be eaten. The last several years I’ve been lashing four long pieces of bamboo together forming a tic-tac-toe grid. I toss several of the bamboo structures in the pond and hope they discourage the heron. It hasn’t worked so far.
I’m trying something new this year. I attached the bamboo to stakes in the ground near the edge of the pond. That way the heron can’t use his trick of pushing all the bamboo to one end of the pond while he dines.
This morning we were delighted to admire a flock of robins bathing while standing on the floating bamboo.
When the heron comes, it’s a wonderful thing to see. He makes a deep croaking sound as he stalks around the pond. It’s a prehistoric noise straight out of the Jurassic Park sound track. Once in a while one of our clever ideas slows him down for a while, but eventually he will outsmart us. He always does.
Until then, the fish are happy and the robins are loving the bamboo!
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Celebrate the First Day of Spring!
It was nearly freezing this morning, but it was the first day of spring! So I spent a few hours on “safari” at the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge.
I missed getting a picture of a couple of deer and the Blue Heron were huddled together in the sunshine – too far away to capture with my phone.
Wishing you a beautiful spring!
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Under the Influence
Last Saturday morning I drove to my daughter and son-in-law’s home in Newberg. The sun was shining, the sky was a brilliant blue, and the thermometer was edging toward 65, warmer than it had been in months. I flipped the car radio from NPR to KMHD, my favorite jazz station and rolled my window down. I turned up the volume, and sailed down the highway under the spell of a beautiful early spring day.
When I got to Josh and Laura’s house, I was a little bit high on the idea that spring had arrived, and I couldn’t wait to get out in the sunshine. I took Laura and Josh’s little dog, Oz, and my own small dog, Teddy, for a long walk.
Everyone seemed to be outside; walkers, joggers, and some folks standing in their yards visiting with neighbors. One woman knelt in her front yard planting pansies. The air was filled with friendly good will. People smiled broadly and said, “Good morning! Isn’t it a Beautiful day!”
We were all just a little bit giddy.
As I passed a man and woman smiling and chatting in their front yard, the man looked up and said, “Good morning! Nice job you did ordering the weather today!”
“Thank you!” I said.
Sunday was as beautiful as Saturday had been. Laura and I decided to visit Al’s Garden Center in Sherwood. We wandered the aisles for quite a while, enjoying the plants and flowers, inhaling the sweet, earthy smells, and sitting on nearly every patio chair Al’s was selling.
As we left Al’s and headed to the car we were startled by the loud honking of thousands of low-flying geese. They weren’t Canadian Geese, but neither of us could identify them. In dizzying waves, they passed overhead and spread out half of a mile in every direction.
We could have sought protection in the car but we just stood there in awe, directly under the large birds, taking our chances at what they might drop on our heads. I doubt I will ever again see so many geese flying at once.
When the birds had passed, Laura said, “If we had left three minutes earlier or three minutes later, we would have missed the entire thing!”
Later that afternoon I drove home from Newberg with the window down and the music playing.
With the sun, a fresh breeze through the open car window, the music, smiles from strangers, the urge to visit Al’s, and wild geese flying overhead, this must be spring fever.
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An Invitation
In this post I explain why I choose experiencing a great moment over taking a great photo. Please see my invitation at the end of this post and seriously consider sharing your story. I look forward to hearing from you!
Last year my family and I had the incredible good fortune to be on a whale-watching tour in Kuai. It was a dream-come-true. Eight of us perched on a yellow rubber boat that seemed too flimsy for hanging around humpback whales, but it worked fine.
Our guide gave us a great piece of advice, “Don’t bother with your cameras. Don’t try to take pictures. You’ll ruin it for yourselves. Just enjoy!”
We watched mama humpbacks with their babies. Because they are in the ocean, we were seeing a lot of exciting flukes and backs.
After two hours, our guide began to turn us back toward shore when a sudden explosion of water erupted directly in front of us. One whale had burst out of the water and seemed to stand on his tail before dropping back into the churning sea. It was breathtaking, a stunning end to our tour, and it lasted less than ten seconds.
I have the picture in my mind, and it will live there as long as I live.
Still, I sometimes regret the photos I never got, the pictures I’ll never be able to share. After years of wandering the neighborhood and wildlife refuges, I have plenty of mental snapshots:
*A morning at Oaks Bottom when I watched a coyote chase down a fat nutria, catch it, and carry it off into the bushes.
*The summer night I saw the great horned owl looking down at me from the top of the redwood next door.
*Dozens of ducklings trailing after their mothers every spring at Oaks Bottom and the Rhododendron Garden.
*The July morning I watched a mama raccoon lead her three little ones into the creek and teach them to turn over rocks and hunt for food.
*The very young coyote pup who jumped out of the bushes, cocked his silly little head, and watched the dog and I walk down the street.
*Every spring when the does finally bring the fawns out and show them off.
*Another July when I accidently confronted a mama raccoon and her babies on the trail at the refuge.
My head is full of delightful fleeting encounters. Maybe yours is too. Photographs are wonderful, but if you have to choose between a great shot and relishing the moment, choose the moment.
Then you can tell everyone about it! That’s what I do.
AN INVITATION: If you have a memory (with our without a photo) please consider sharing it here. Your stories are a gift only you can give and they are more interesting than you may realize. Send me an email or leave a comment here. We can talk on the phone or, if you’re willing, we can meet. I can’t wait to hear your story.
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Lily
I call her Lily now, which doesn’t make any sense because I didn’t name her until she disappeared. Besides, I don’t name wild animals. I first saw her three years ago when she was just a spindly-legged new fawn. She was a pied fawn, more white than brown. There were no other deer so conspicuous in the herd. Tiny fawns are left alone when their mothers are feeding and I worried she would be easy prey for coyote.
Near the end of her first summer, I spotted her from a quarter mile away one morning. She seemed to be alone in a grassy field. When I got closer, I realized the entire herd was there. The pied had been easy to spot while the others blended in and were only visible when I was very close to them.
She stayed with her mother that first winter. They grazed quietly together, sometimes only a few hundred yards away from the herd, often completely alone, as though they weren’t part of the herd.
I saw Lily the next spring with her mother and a new fawn.. They made a pretty trio, the lovely doe, the pied, and her little brown baby sister.
That summer I saw her every week or so, but not with her mother; she was always by herself.
I came to believe that the rest of the herd didn’t want her near. It seemed like common sense. Her pretty white coat reflected brightly in sun or shade. Surely her presence endangered the whole herd.
Winter came again and I didn’t see her at all, though I often saw the other deer. Eventually, I decided something might have happened to the little doe. Then, a year ago, on a foggy early spring morning, I turned a corner near the fields. There she stood, fully grown, filled out, and healthy-looking.
She was pulling on the new buds of a rose bush. Many people hate the deer for their rose-loving ways. I glanced at the window of the house, half-expecting to see an angry homeowner, but a woman stood in the window wearing a blue bathrobe, watching the first of her rosebuds disappear, and smiling broadly.
There is nothing like starting the day with good news. The pied doe was alive and well!
I thought her story would stop there, with a known and happy ending. She was separated from the herd, probably because of her conspicuous color, yet she was near, and well. Then I saw her once more.
Last fall, in the middle of a warm afternoon, she was in the street in front of my house. The neighbors across the street have an old apple tree and I often get to watch the deer enjoy fallen fruit. But Lily wasn’t eating apples. She was moving back and forth restlessly. Turning to start back toward Kellogg Creek where the rest of the herd would likely be, then turning anxiously in the other direction. She didn’t seem to know where to go.
I have seen very young bucks doing the same thing in late summer, just before breeding season. I was told the bucks have been turned away from the herd and must move on. They act confused and upset. Its the only comparison I can make to the way the doe was behaving that afternoon.
I saw her make a decision that day. She marched forward, into the unknown, down Snowberry toward Briggs. If she stayed on that path she could only end up on Oatfield Road and, perhaps, McLoughlin. A doe was killed on Oatfield a few years ago. McLoughlin Boulevard would surely kill her. There was nothing I could do but watch. Maybe she went around the block and back to Kellogg Creek, but my gut tells me she was leaving.
I like to think the cars stopped on McLoughlin and watched her make her way across the busy highway and on to a new home. That happened once for my old blind dog, Jasper. I heard about it later, how all the cars stopped because the drivers seemed to understand he was trying to find his way home. He made it too, with a little help from a stranger.
Why did I name her after she was gone? I’m not sure. I was able to pick her out of the herd. I was able to follow her story. I came to know her, so now I call her by name.
