When Forgetting Pays Off

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Visual of the Elusive Critter

Visual of the Elusive Critter

 

Last weekend I drove down to New Hampshire.  When I left on Friday I grabbed two things to pop into a mailbox, one of which was a DVD from Netflix to be returned.  I figured I would pass a mailbox at some point.  I picked up a friend to ride together and, once we got conversing, I totally forgot about the mail.  We arrived at our destination and I had to leave a random object (in this case a tin of mints) in front of the steering wheel to remind me to find a mailbox on the way home.

The tin of mints did its job.  It reminded me that I had left the mail under the seat and dutifully took it out to mail on the way home.  Since my friend and I rode home together again, however, I repeated my forgetfulness on the return journey.  I got home and the mail was still in my possession.  I dropped it in the mailbox to be picked up by our carrier the next day.  It was Sunday.

We had been watching the Indiana Jones series–four in a row was the plan.  We had watched the first three and the most recent, from last year, was on our itinerary for that Sunday.  The children fell asleep and I noticed that the disc I thought was the one we wanted was sealed in its return envelope.  I figured we had sealed it up by mistake and realized that it was the third movie.  I had put the wrong one in the mailbox.  At this point I was thinking how glad I was not to have found a mailbox it after all.  I would have sent away the film we were hoping to see.

So I headed down our long driveway to the mailbox.  It wasn’t dark yet, but it was getting there.  My wife had cut the lawn earlier in the day and I noticed a dark smudge on the edge of the driveway where the grass was newly clipped.  I wondered if she had run over something–some bark or old leaves or some plastic bag type item.  As I got right up to it, however, I realized that it was nothing that the lawnmower had mangled.  It was a snipe.

I had never seen a snipe, but I had seen photographs, and I had seen woodcocks, which look similar.  It is a small bird with a long thin beak, colored to blend in to the grass and about the size of a robin.  I have heard snipes many times and, to be honest, I have seen them in flight, way up against the dim sky.  They have a funky mating display in the spring where they make eerie low whistling noises at the tail ends of the day.  They are either hiding in the grass or too difficult to see clearly, since they fly typically when the light is low.

So I was pretty ecstatic to see one of these puppies.  But it was not alone.  It had a mottled chick, fuzzy and still next to it.  I walked right up to them and they did not move.  Obviously they were working under the camouflage principal–Don’t move and no one will see us since we look just like everything around us.  Good theory, but since they were on the nipped grass, it wasn’t working so well.  I watched them for a while before continuing to the mailbox.

I assumed they would split when I returned but they were still there.  I watched them again for a while and they did not move.  I felt like I would stress them out so I split.  Then I thought I might get a photo, so I dropped the red envelope, picked up my camera and headed back down the driveway.  My spouse was on the phone so she missed out.  It was still there, so I took a couple of poor photos, getting as close as I dared and zooming in with our lame zoom lens as close as it would go.  I took four photographs, all of which, how to say this simply, suck.

By the time my wife was off the phone and tried to find our avian friends, they had decided to find some taller grass.  She was out of luck.  I would say at least I had the photos, but they were not much help.  So the lessons here:

  1. It is OK to forget things sometimes as forgetting may lead one in a direction that offers treasure
  2. Take time to look around
  3. Tell your wife to get off the phone if you see a snipe and its chick hanging out right next to the driveway without moving
  4. Get a better camera

Father’s Day is coming up.  Maybe I will drop some hints about that camera.  The movie, by the way–Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull–was pretty good.  They managed to bring our hero back as a much older man in a believable and fun way.  The story itself may not have been believable but hey, it’s just a movie.

Why Pay Attention

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I remember reading once that the best newspapers are ones that feature people.  They name names.  They contain photographs of those in the community.  The stories are about readers’ neighbors and friends and family.  People buy the paper because it has direct relevance to them.  Recently we have been receiving in the mail, unsolicited, a section of the Burlington Free Press that is about people in the community.  It contains stories about everyday people and it contains lots of photos.  Normally, I pitch those free papers, but I flip through this one every time.

I check it out because I may see someone I know in those photos.  I have seen people I know in its pages.  I was in it once, as were my children.  USA Today won’t contain pictures of anyone I know personally.  This little paper likely will.  So I open it up each time and peruse it before adding it to the pile of fire-starting material.

I thought of this little newspaper today.  This past weekend I spent some time with David Grant, who is president of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.  He just announced he is leaving his position.  He wrote about this on the foundation’s blog.  I subscribe to the blog through a reader.  The foundation hosts a huge poetry festival every couple of years.  It is of interest to me.  I had not made the connection, however, between David’s association with the foundation, and my own interest in it.

I find that I sometimes do this somewhat dramatically, at least in my own head–I connect two things together in one arena and then connect one of those things with something else in another arena;  and then one day a light bulb goes off that all those things are related.  I have a Eureka moment–“Hey that is related to that, and that is related that and whoa, everything is connected!”  The reason this seems so dramatic to me is that I spend a lot of my mental energy on looking for and finding connections.  Discovering how things intertwine brings me real joy. So when I find that I have missed something that, in hindsight, seems so obvious, I stumble a bit.

I had one of those moments this weekend.  “Oh, David directs that Dodge Foundation–Duh!” I thought to myself.  Today I went back and looked at the foundation’s blog and found the articles that David had written that I had previously just skimmed over.  I hadn’t noticed who had written them and so had not made a personal connection to them.  This time I read them more thoroughly.  They were interesting to me the first time, but they were more interesting to me with another read.  I had some context the second time around.  I could picture who was doing the writing and I had at least some idea of how he thinks, of what he has experienced in the world.  It made the articles more relevant.  I had a picture.

The point is, I paid more attention because I knew the author of the article.  I suppose, while the writing is of a very different type, I might compare it to a favorite poet or author.  If I have enjoyed a poet or author I am likely to pay attention if he or she comes out with a new book.  I have some context, some personal history, so I have a link to the new book.  That is what happened with David’s blog posts.  That is what happens with the local newspaper that comes in the mail.  Once I feel that I have a connection, or that I might have a connection, I pay more attention.

I think most of us do this.  The captain of the U.S. ship that was recently hijacked by pirates and then released, was from Vermont.  Vermonters paid attention.  My guess is they paid a lot more attention than Oregonians or Floridians.  They had a connection, even if it was not directly personal.  It was still personal.  We pay more attention when a neighbor is in trouble than when a stranger is.

This is why it is important for me to look closely.  When I look closely I notice more, and the more I notice the more I am likely to see connections.  Then I pay more attention.  Attention feeds attention in a positive feedback loop.  The more I pay attention, the more connections I see, and so the more I pay attention.  If all of us could stop to look closely, to ask questions, to challenge our assumptions, to simply wonder, we would see that many things are not so strange after all.  We would see that we are connected to our world.  And we would notice what we do.  And we would see how we affect those around us.  And we would better understand that all we do has consequences, good and bad.  And we would, perhaps, make more conscious and better choices.

Maybe not, but I’ve been doing my best to pay attention to what I see in the people I encounter everywhere I happen to be.  I believe if we could slow down and refect a little more, we might just take care of ourselves and our neighbors and our world better.  And that would certainly be something to which we all could pay attention.

Slow Storm

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All day rain has hinted that it might arrive.  The sun shone early but even then clouds loomed in the west.  I dried a load of clothes on the line and hung a second later in the day than I wanted.  Nonetheless, the second batch got mostly dry before I gave up watching the sky and took it down.  I needn’t have bothered, as the rain held off and the clothes on the line would have dried just fine before the rain started.  Even now, hours later, the rain falls sporadically.

Thunder rumbles to the west and north.  It, too, has been threatening arrival.  Our house is nestled up to a knoll just to our west so we don’t always see weather arriving until it is close.  This storm is a slow mover so we have known of its approach for hours.  So far it’s all talk.  The radar map shows some heavy rain over the hill, but it seems to be managing to avoid us.  Was it something I said?

The children, of course, have some trepidation about a storm arriving when they are in bed.  They find it hard to fall asleep, even though no storm is here and it may not arrive at all.  They lie awake, wondering how hard it will hit, wondering what we will all do if the power fails, wondering what damage will result if the wind howls.  Their imaginations exaggerate.

Rain would be good.  I did not water the garden today, thinking rain would fall at some point.  It seems to be taking a while to get around to it.  Next Tuesday I plan to scout out a second Mountain Birdwatch route on Burnt Rock Mountain.   I saw that the route was open and I enjoy my route on Ricker Peak so much that I figured I would try to fit in a second one.  Problem is I need to find the points in the light so that when I hike up in the dark I will be able to find them when I survey the route for real.  Rain tonight would be great, but on Tuesday it would be a bummer.

The light fades and rain trickles down.  The clothes are in.  The children will drift off soon enough.  The day quiets.  And the storm sidles its way across the Champlain Valley.  Sooner or later it will settle in right here.

Mountain Birdwatch Survey 2009

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I set the alarm for 2:10.  I was going to set it for 2:00 but I figured I could use an extra ten minutes of sleep.  Typically when I set the alarm I wake up before it goes off.  Not at 2:10.  I slid off the bed in the dark and headed to the bathroom.  I had planned ahead, sleeping in my contact lenses and leaving the rewetting drops next to the sink so I wouldn’t have to open the noisy drawer.  I brushed my teeth and headed downstairs.  My clothes were ready to go.  I dressed while the espresso was brewing and the water was boiling.  I mixed the two, added some cream in my travel mug, grabbed my backpack and headed out.

I don’t usually have a fear of the dark.  I know my way from the house to the car.  I did hesitate this morning, just for a moment, however.  Skunks are about.  Surprising one would have added a complication to my morning plans.  Once I was driving it was smooth sailing all the way to Bolton.  I passed two other cars on the way.

Coffee polished off, I started hiking in the dark.  I have hiked that same way many times.  The moon was full but it was mostly hidden by clouds.  Nonetheless, I did not use my headlamp most of the way.  The trail is not all that rough and I had enough light.  Once I got to the wet part of the trail that hides between tall trees, I had to use a light.  I got to my starting point at about 10 minutes to 4:00.

The idea is to listen between 4:00 and 6:00.  When I first started doing this survey the suggested hours were 6:00-8:00.  That did not prove as successful as these earlier hours.  My route was a lot harder as well so even getting done by 8:00 was pretty much not happening.  The route changed a bunch of years ago to what it is today–same mountain, easier navigation.  I had not heard any birds on my hike.  The first song was at 4:03, a white-throated sparrow.  I waited a few minutes to officially start and even then heard only three birds in ten minutes of listening.

At the second of five points I had better luck.  The main target species here is Bicknell’s thrush.  I heard three of them at this point, which is rare on this survey route.  I have heard two before, but never three at once.  Hearing one is exciting enough.  Knowing that these diminutive, shy birds have flown all the way back from Dominica is truly heartening.  By this time all the birds seemed to wake up.  This morning chorus was rich, so many birds singing and calling that I had to concentrate to distinguish them all.  The silent woods came alive.

On the way to point three I heard another two Bicknell’s thrush and they kept singing so I heard them during my official point count.  I heard a sixth one at point five.  I heard all of the other four target species, along with lots of others, so the morning was a success.  I stopped to take a couple of photos.  The ones above were taken at about 5:15.  Then my camera battery died.  Too many videos of the children apparently.

I took my time hiking back down.  Twice I got a good peek at blackpol warblers through my binoculars.  Plus, I found 35 cents.  What a deal.  I was back at the car and changed into dry clothes by 7:00.  In the parking lot of On the Rise Bakery in Richmond I called home.  The family was awake and happy.  I headed inside for a maple latte and some home fries, content that I had done a good day’s work.  And they hadn’t even started serving brunch yet.

Birds and Coffee

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We have a huge field in front of the house, but we do not seem to have any nesting bobolinks in that field.  They are in the fields all around, just not ours.  Throughout the day I can hear their warbling.  They sometimes pass over our field but they seem to avoid it.  It is a puzzle.

One theory is that the plants in the field are not what they like.  We cut it once every year, in the fall, and let it mulch itself.  This keeps things open.  If we left it to grow a forest would trying to occupy that field in a couple of years.  Maybe these birds prefer the grass in the fields that get hayed.  Frankly, we were hoping that by keeping it open we might attract bobolinks.  So much for that idea.  We do attract lots of butterflies and lots of other birds, however, so we have that.

Another theory is that our neighbor’s cat loves our field too much.  Either it has driven off the bobolinks that did manage to make a home here or the birds decided not to stay when they discovered the cat.  Nice place to visit but the neighborhood just isn’t all that safe.

Maybe it’s too wet.  Maybe all the activity around the house intimidates them.  Maybe it smells bad to them.  I don’t know.  In any case, I love to listen to them.  We do get to hear them sing and that is a joy.  Maybe one of these days they will come around to stay.  The cat can’t live forever.

Listening to the bobolinks, and then the hermit thrushes and robins late in the day, plus the red-winged blackbird scolding me for getting too close to her next, and the field sparrows and the kingbirds, I’ve got a lot to keep my ears busy.  Tomorrow I get to head out early to try to find one of the most elusive birds in Vermont, Bicknell’s thrush.  I don’t hear that bird in our field.  They only hang out up high where the trees are dense on the mountains.  I’ll have to get up early.

They typically only sing during the day’s bookends–dawn and dusk.  So I will rise at 2:00 in order to drive and then hike to get where I need to be on time.  I am a volunteer for Mountain Birdwatch, a program of the Vermont Center for Ecostudies. I will listen for Bicknell’s thrush and other birds in the wee hours.  This made me think about coffee.

A hot cup of coffee might be nice as I drive in the dark.  So I had the idea of setting up the brewer tonight.  Then I though I wouldn’t.  Then I thought why not?  I am still wavering.  And then I thought about the connection.  One reason thrushes and other migrating songbirds are threatened is because their wintering grounds are no longer what they were.  When forests get slashed for coffee plantations, birds have to find a new place to hang out in the northern winter.  Where do they go?

I try to purchase shade grown free trade coffee, partly because of this study.  I learned to hear a Bicknell’s trush because I volunteered nine years ago and I still am amazed by its song.  To know it is still there, that it has returned for another summer, fills with the unexplainable wonder of the world.  So making sure the coffee I drink doesn’t impinge on that is important.  It is an easy thing to do.  I will get some coffee on the way home either way, but do I sip in the car?

You know, I think I will.  I never have and one thing I can’t stand is things staying the same for too long.  It is easy to fall into a pattern and just keep following it.  If I don’t break things up, I feel stuck.  So I guess I have one more thing to do to get ready before the morning.

New Toy

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I am not really a fan of stuff, and one type of stuff that seems to always grow is toys.  Our children have a gajillion toys.  We buy them toys occasionally (hard to resist when you are Disney World, for example) but they also arrive as gifts from friends and family, and they also arrive as toys that are outgrown by cousins or friends.

Our children have received many toys that are really great.  They have a huge collection of Lego and Duplo blocks, for example, that were given to them.  We did not have to buy any for them to be able to create buildings and spaceships and cars and cities.  My son’s favorite toys are wooden trains.  Most of those were given to us as well.  So we have received some good stuff and I am thankful for that, even if they don’t quite see the beneficence of their relations.

We have lots of crap as well, of course.  Can you say birthday party gift bags?  How many UPO’s have they generated?  About a bazillion, I’d say.  And the Mardi Gras parade this spring?  Plastic bead necklaces up the whazoo.  Too much, if you ask me.  Even if you don’t ask me it’s too much.

Today, however, our children got the most excellent toy.  My father-in-law had mentioned this teeter totter that his second set of kids had played with and loved, and that he was hoping to pass on.  He came by today and left a shiny new plaything.  The thing is, the one he dug out of his barn was broken, rusted, not in good shape.  It wouldn’t be safe to use.  So he made a new one.  It is strong and beefy and operates smoothly.  And it is no ordinary teeter totter.

Call it a seesaw if you will, but this doesn’t just pivot up and down.  The pivot also allows the cross beam to swing in all directions.  So it goes up and down, yes, but it also swings in circles.  My children have been playing on it for about three hours, with breaks for dinner and spraying each other with the hose.  They have been laughing most of the time as well.  I love this thing.  Not only is it just plain old fun, but they have to work together for it to be fun.  They seem to have it down pretty well at this point.  They are spinning fast.

I think my father-in-law ought to patent this thing and sell them.  Seriously.  It is fun just to watch them spin around and up and down.  I am betting that this becomes the toy of the summer.  They won’t play with it quite so much as the days go on.  They will become accustomed to it and the newness will wear off.  I am sure, however, that it will continue to be way fun for them.  It is one item of stuff I feel will get plenty of mileage at this household.

Stanky Towels

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I can’t remember needing to replace kitchen towels so soon after getting them but the one we have now are on their way out.  When did we get them?  I don’t know.  Within the last year.  Some of them reek after getting wet, even when freshly laundered.  I’m done with them.

We have tried a few things but they just can’t seem to get clean.  Maybe they would be better off if we didn’t use the eco-friendly detergents.  Do we need to use some harsh nasty poisons to get our towels clean?  I thought the sun would do the trick–leave them on the clothesline and that big old ball of fire would kill any nasty microscopic bugs.  Didn’t do it.

I hate to spend money on dish towels.  I’d rather buy an iTouch or a new shirt.  Not that I would buy 300 bucks worth of towels.  On second thought, maybe the towels are a good deal.  I could spend 50 bucks and have something that brings at least a small amount of pleasure.  The towels wouldn’t play games or give me the weather forecast, but they would get the dishes dry without the stink.

The stink.  Yuck.  Not all the towels are that bad.  But man, I’d like to ditch the ones that are.  Maybe I will get on that this weekend.  Apparently, I have a budget of $50.  That should get me started.

Dentist Notes

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I had a basic cleaning at my dentist yesterday.  That is a common thing for many people, myself included.  Yesterday’s visit had several things of note, however.  I had to reschedule my original appointment from early May to a different day so I wasn’t even in the same room.  The usual pattern wasn’t happening.

I planned ahead this time.  I don’t usually have to wait all that long at my dentist’s office but occasionally it happens.  To keep myself free of things I might forget I usually plan to read whatever magazines happen to be there.  I can typically find your standard news magazines–Newsweek, Time and the like–and there is always something different to check out, but this time I brought some to share.  I am an Orion reader and it is simply one of the best magazines I have ever read.  It is interesting and engaging and just plain interesting.  I remembered to bring the last couple of issues to leave behind for others to read.  I also brought the latest issue of Mother Jones.

So I was ahead before I headed to the chair with the headrest.  I was ushered to a room that is not my usual room, the room where they usually perform the big jobs–fillings and drilling and shots to numb things up.  I was afraid they had made some kind of mistake.  But phew, it was just because of the appointment rescheduling and associated space issues.  Then the hygienist who usually gets things started was not there.  I’ll have to wait a while six months to find out how her children finished up the school year.  Too long, I tell you, too long.

My dentist did the whole dang thing for me.  He checked and cleaned and wrapped things up and off I went.  He didn’t offer a rinse and spit, although it wasn’t necessary, and he didn’t floss my teeth.  I kind of look forward to the flossing.  It is a unique experience, having someone else floss one’s teeth.  He did, at least, remember to give me a toothbrush.

It isn’t always easy, but my dentist and I usually have some curious conversations.  Here is a partial list of what we discussed:

  • The costs and benefits of solar panels
  • The depth of our home wells
  • When to get seeds started outside in the garden
  • How often people really do floss versus how often they say they floss
  • Taking evening classes at the local high school to learn something new and interesting, such as cooking
  • How much electricity we use at home, in kilowatt hours
  • How to build a rain barrel
  • Varieties of cherry tomatoes
  • The gender ratio of the members of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra
  • Voting rights
  • Our shared love of blueberries

I had to confess to my dentist that I had come there directly from my son’s end of year school celebration.  They served cupcakes.  It seemed incongruous to be getting my teeth cleaned right after eating cupcakes.  He was concerned less with my eating sugary snacks before an appointment than with my neglect to bring any of those treats to his office to share.  Lesson learned:  Next time, bring cupcakes to the dentist.

I made another appointment before I left.  I recently gave my dentist a D on Angie’s List for availability.  Unless you have an appointment set up well in advance, forget it.  I can’t even set up an appointment for six months out.  I have to schedule it eight months out.  I had done that last time, so I’ll be back in November (six months from my original appointment).  I scheduled another one for May.   What day works best for you?  That was hard to answer.  I’m not sure what day will work best for me a year from now.  So I picked a week day for mid-morning.  Hopefully I can schedule around that.

I have extra clean teeth today.  As long as I stay on top of it I should make it to November.  Then I will get to find out how the new blueberry bushes fared, and if my dentist ended up taking that cooking class.  Plus, I will finally get to find out how the hygienist’s kids are doing, one grade later.  In the meantime I need to get through summer.  I’ll have to make sure I watch it with the creemees.

Tomato Update

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A bit ago I posted about transplanting tomato plants from small to large pots.  One of them in particular was not doing well.  It sagged.  It hung low.  It looked poorly.  I thought it would kick it.  But check this out:

 

Limp No Longer

Limp No Longer

The plant on the left is the same one that was all droopy before.  A little water, a little sun and bam!  Healthy(ish) plant.

I still am not ready quite yet to pop them in the ground.  Rain showers are forecast for the next four days.  And it is cool.  These puppies like it hot.  Some time this week, hopefully, I will start exposing them to the outside air.  They need to get some experience before they get to the work of growing tomatoes.

I am hopeful that we will get some fruit off these bad boys.  If only it didn’t take so long.  I suppose, however, that that is part of the joy of it–watching fruit burst from a tiny seed.  So I can be patient, even though I can almost taste what will come.  A juicy red slice on a hot summer day?  Now we’re talking.

Rain Situation

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It isn’t raining at the moment.  Well, maybe it is raining a little, but barely.  The sun is setting and we have that rare light when the bright sun shines under the clouds, coloring them steel gray and blasting the green hills with brightness.  It won’t last long.  The distant mountain tops are bright and I can see that rain falls there, and the shadows are creeping.

It has rained for a couple of days straight.  I planted flower seeds with the children on Tuesday afternoon, before dinner.  Then it rained.  And rained.  It is Friday now, about the same hour we planted the seeds.  Three days of wet.  I think they have gotten enough water to germinate.

I have not needed to uncoil the hose to water the garden.  In fact, I have been afraid that the garden has been getting too much water.  Last summer we had a wet spell that ruined some of our crops, including carrots.  They rotted in the ground.  Nothing I planted is so advanced that it will rot but this rain might keep some seeds from starting as I would like.  We’ll have to see what happens.

A hermit thrush tosses out its flutey voice over the wet trees behind the house.   It is an unassuming bird, what you might call an LBJ, a Little Brown Jobber, so similar to so many other bland birds.  Its voice, however, stops me at times.  Milton and Shakespeare and all those other dead English bards wrote about the nightingale, another thrush, whose voice trilled through the woods with sweetness.  I am sure they would have written their odes to the hermit thrush had they lived in Vermont.

We will likely get more rain showers over the next couple of days, but I am hoping the sun will come out to feed the new leaves on our squash plants and to warm the soil so the flowers will grow.  But that won’t happen until tomorrow.  Right now the land quiets.  The air is still, filled with moisture, heavy.  A robin adds to the thrush’s song.  Spring peepers and wood frogs sing out from the pond over the hill.  The light grows grayer.

It is not raining, but the rain has set the scene for a perfect early evening in spring.  Time to slide on some boots and head out there to smell it and feel it.