Fragments From Floyd

A Path With Heart

Thanks to all who have spoken briefly in the comments from a few days ago, about why they maintain their weblogs. It seems like more than a silly diversion to not a few of us. My web journal has been both a pleasant journey and worthwhile destination over the past two years. As I revisit those times, I find an August, 2002 journal entry (and part of the someday-book?) that expresses it in this way.

"...About once a week, I have a crisis of purpose. I wake up in a cold sweat wondering why I begin every morning sitting at the keyboard talking to myself and to people I'll never meet face to face. And each time I have this monologue, I reach the same conclusion: I write for selfish reasons. It is for my kids, so they can know, if someday they care to know, how we thought and lived in the Goose Creek years. Maybe a grandfatherly private memoir like Fragments may fill in the empty spaces of identify and heritage that are so often missing in our mobile and thinly-rooted lives; they were largely empty in mine, and I regret this. Should I reach the years of pleasantly forgetful senescence, the journal can carry us back to remember the flavor of life when we were 'young' and in our fifties.

But even if none of these reasons for journaling in this public medium hold water, with this haphazard memoir, I will at least able to say that, for one period in my life, I wrote regularly and with purpose--if not a great deal of finesse or direction. This is a thing I'd always promised myself someday I would do. But the best part, the here-and-now reward is the satisfaction of visits by my internet neighbors from far away who come every day to read over my shoulder about the common details from our place and time. They seem like friends. This seems like community, even though I hope someday the writing will introduce us to flesh-and-blood neighbors near home. And when the red lights dance and the final hoarse trill of the modem falls silent as it logs on, I'll have to say, I feel connected."

Thank you all for challenging and assisting, encouraging and amusing me these past two years; for coming around often enough to keep me honest, or mostly so, and eager to tell you about the microscopic joys that loom so large in this small world.

I'll be away for a few days. Talk among yourselves. Read the archives. Type something in the "search" window. Visit the gallery. Buy a Fragments coffee mug or puzzle. Go play in traffic. Do not run with scissors. See you all in a few. (I'll check mail and comments from Missouri so don't be shy!)

Rest of the Story

Sorry for the mystery the other day...the Journal entry on the 27th. And also sorry I can't spend more time explaining, but am jammed up against some other events 'bout now. So in a nutshell, here's the scoop:

I got a call Monday from the chair of the bio department at Radford University. He wanted to know if I was interested in teaching a class. In the shock of the sudden call, I wasn't sure I'd gotten all the facts right, so met with him today. Sure enough, I'd misunderstood a couple of things--for instance, I thot he said it was a class that needed 8 to go and had 5. But in fact, it is a class of 60-something whose regular prof will go to Abingdon to teach a grad class if it gets 8, leaving the big undergrad one for me. So, I've agreed in principle to teach a biology-for-non-majors class (called environmental biology) but won't know for a week or more if I'll be needed.

Of course, I have to plan as if it will be a "go." New class, first time taught with this text and syllabus; wide open, ranging around some core parts that should be included. It has been 17 years since I held a piece of chalk (they DO still use that stuff in modern classrooms, don't they?) Terrifying and exhilarating. You'll hear more. But frankly, it will mean some significant changes to the energy and time put toward the weblog, photography and other joys and duties. First class is in three weeks. I'm up to my elbows in alligators!

It seems to have come along at about as good a time as possible, really. I can see this branching out in all sorts of directions, and we even talked about "environmental writing" and such today. Can't say where it will go, but I have the feeling I'll look back and see that it was good. Not lucrative, not easy. But the most gratifying victories rarely are. Thanks for hanging with me, all. It's been a wild ride.

The Spring at Otey

"V" is for Veronicastrum

You know that you know her. Why can't you think of her name! Vanessa. Vicky. Something like that. Okay. Ask her "so how's work" or something that might give you a clue in their answer where you know her from, and from that, you'll probably retrieve her name. Until you do, it drives you batty.

I get the same way about plant names that I should know, but they won't give clues and there's nobody to ask, and so I thumb through Newscomb's Wildflower Guide; I pick the closest plant family or genus and start surfing in Google Images. I go back to Newcombs and without the plant in hand, it's just a wild guess.

I ran across this one last week near Floyd. I knew at one time I had identified it--probably the first year I was here, in 1997. There was a trace of a name; all I could come up with was "something with a V". I find I do that with people names to. I can think back to classes of students from years ago, see a face in my mind, and tell you "her last name started with a G." So somewhere in that pink pudding called the cerebral cortex there is a filing system that links alphabetized names to images of all sorts. And for me, this is an important thread of memory to follow in the direction of name retrieval.

The V-ness of this plant, I felt certain about. I mulled it around for two days, and finally found it by accident-- the image in Newcombes doesn't do justice to the plant, called Culver's Root. Veronicastrum virginianum. No wonder it had such a strong flavor of "V" every time I looked at this picture.

Also, in that same sandy field were several other uncommon plants, two I identified for the first time: Wild Senna and Meadow Sweet, both I guessed to genus and had to key to species; and * Fly Poison, a tall lily that I'd seen a few places before, but not many. And there is one more that I CANNOT identify and no alphabet clues at all. Maybe I'll post the image and see if any of you can help, but it will crush my little ego to have somebody tell me.

* Fly Poison has one of those botanical names that's fun to say, and sounds to me like an incantation, so be careful how you use it: Amianthium muscaetoxicum! Poof! You're a gerbil!

Journal ~ July 27, 2004

An uneasy night. The kind I had almost forgotten about, dream-infested. Not the sequential story kind of dream where something happens to somebody, maybe to me or a me-like person. No, dreams more enigmatic, symbolic like the theme music from Jaws where by the tone of it, I know that there is danger, but it is under the surface, somewhere, circling. I should run, hide in a cage of steel bars, protect myself from some unnamable threat. IN half-dreams of dread, I am helplessness, treading murky water knowing there is Something below.

There IS something out there. And as I thrashed around in my semi-conscious ambivalence, it was sometimes the shark and sometimes a rescue boat that might carry me to or in the direction of solid ground. I've only had a few hours to reach a conclusion which of these phantoms is the more accurate. But I have to decide. Soon.

If I say yes, it will mean saying no to the weblog, the book, many other things, for four months. It will mean that all my thinking and reading and focus will be determined by this yes. It will mean living with an overshadowing, pervasive excitement and dread, and I don't have an idea in what kind of proportion. Some income will flow in if I grasp this line tossed near me; but considering the preparation, the travel, the cost-benefit fraction, I wouldn't do it for money. It would be a foot inside a door I had thought closed for good, and probably rightly so.

I am so long away from the waters in which I was once happily immersed, and so bouyant. I was a strong swimmer then. And today, I struggle with the feeling I am flotsam on that vast sea that has moved on without me now for--can it be?-- seventeen years. Should I stay afloat dog-paddling about this tiny pond enjoying the scenery, or grab the ring and hope the boat is going ashore and not into the Bermuda triangle?

Fish or cut bait? Dog paddle or power stroke? Sink or swim? They're waiting for an answer.

JabberWocky

I guess by now you've seen this from JibJab. What a hoot. We watched it again during a lull in the Dems Convention last night, just to keep our perspective. What a circus. Except for Mr. Carter.

First time ever: wife, son and I (without a TV now almost two years) sat clustered at the computer monitor for an hour watching full screen flickery-fuzzy images of the Democrat goings-on. Ann actually watched something on the computer monitor! But then to appreciate the enormity of this fact, you'd have to understand that my wife is a card-carrying NeoLuddite, president of the Floyd County chapter.

And speaking of Jibbing and Jabbing, our own local political jabber, Doug Thompson, had his debut performance at the microphone Sunday night. Go read about it (07.26.04), and follow the link to his "Thomas Wolfe" story explaining why he could never call Floyd County home. And yet, here he is! And the newest member of the Floyd Writer's Circle, I might add.

Making Hay

The neighbor who cuts hay from our pasture stopped by over the weekend, hat-in-hand apologetic that the field is so rank and past due for cutting by more than a month. He's never gone til August without getting it done before.

"'course, we just haven't had any dry weather there, and sure as I'd get everything ready and all, it'd come a rain when we wasn't suppose to get a drop there." He's lean as a garden rake and works harder and longer than what's good for him. "I believe it was 82 hours o'work week before last there, and over 90, last."

I expected no apologies, knowing he was up to his hipwaders cutting his bosses hay first, what few chances there were to cut and bale. But I sure will be glad when we can walk the pasture again. And maybe more than that, it's been hard to get those few more clean, uncluttered spiderweb pictures I wanted with the field so overgrown.

The web image above is an "inverted" version I was tinkering with. See the original and one more new web image--the last two at the end of the Webs Gallery.

Hail, No

We sat on the deck while the storm approached, darkness, not wind, giving us the warning. Then we heard it in the trees, but their leafy branches did not lift and sway as they do when stirred by the advancing rush of a storm. Suddenly, on the metal porch roof, the unmistakeable sound of hail pounding the sheet tin like marbles. But on the stone walkway below us, no bouncing balls of ice. What we did see was the splatting dark blotches of enormous raindrops--wet circles more than two inches across--raindrops so heavy that in the noise of their falling they mimicked a hailstorm.

"Funny thing" Ann said. "I heard on the news just yesterday that the biggest raindrops ever recorded were seen this week. Maybe these are some of them."

May sod rest his goal

Tonight, in downtown Floyd, at Oddfellas Cantina, 5:00-7:00 is Woken Sperd Night. No, make that Spoken Word. I hope I can get through my little piece without any tips of the slung.

Oh Reverend Spooner, I feel your pain.

His goofs at chapel were legendary. "Our Lord is a shoving leopard," he once intoned. He quoted 1 Corinthians 13:12 as, "For now we see through a dark, glassly..." Officiating at a wedding, he prompted a hesitant bridegroom, "Son, it is now kisstomary to cuss the bride." And to a stranger seated in the wrong place: "I believe you're occupewing my pie. May I sew you to another sheet?"

Why Blog?

Editor's Note: Show Me Your Context, Baby: My Love Affair with Blogs won the Editor's Choice Award in trAce and Writers for the Future's New Media Article Writing Competition. (Excerpt follows...)

"Through blogs I have found another conduit into the awesome responsibility of being human. This electronic nervous system of interconnected thoughts highlights the individuals in the masses while strengthening the ties that bind us. In the tales of your cancer treatments, in your accounts of trips home, in your assertions that your fathers are all assholes, I have found solace and fresh understanding.

You are, like me, mostly a powerless human with only your unique perspective to save you from feelings of helplessness in the face of despair. These are times when you can declare that the universe is not unfolding as it should. These are times when you know exactly who to blame and you should demand that other voices join your plea for sanity. This is when you blog and I read you."

I guess the author nailed me on that last paragraph. I started blogging two years ago when my tiny universe became contorted and confusing, the way forward clouded in cosmic dust. I wasn't looking for anyone to blame, necessarily. It was largely an implosion of my own making, being home every day in this remote eddy of civilization and not a part of the great stream of corporate life. I wrote to show myself that each day is a universe of its own, with its particular beauties and mysteries. Mine was not a plea for sanity, but for awareness; not a call for justice but for gratitude.

Why do you blog? What gives you the passion and discipline to continue? What has it brought to you, to your readers? Where to you see yourself going with your weblog in two years?

Chicken Hawk

It's not common that you get this close to a red-tailed hawk. We watch them soaring and calling, riding the thermals over the valley, along with ravens, buzzards, night hawks and chimney swifts. They are elusive, distant specks through the binoculars, occasionally circling just over the house, but we never see them land closer than a perch on a bare branch high up on the ridge.

This one would not have been standing on the edge of the creek yesterday, had it not been injured. Shot, most likely. Both feet were wounded, and the right wing. Was it by a neighbor, "protecting" his chickens or defending the local airspace on general principle, from a competitor for food? If so, I apologize to this beautiful bird, to his kind, maligned as all other predators are when their paths cross too close to humans living in "the country". A pity some are not willing to share the planet with those who, like us, survive by living off the death of other creatures.

Silence, My Old Friend

High on my list of our many blessings is the quiet here. This is, by far, the most peaceful place we've ever lived. Funny, how often quiet is linked with peace. So conversely, what does that tell us about the impact of noise on our souls, our lives?

I first became aware of the extremes of this acoustic continuum when I moved to the cabin on the edge of the Blue Ridge. I traveled the Parkway to my job in a town with a single traffic light. There were no traffic jams, no glaring neon and day-glo facades, no fast-food ugliness in the tiny town. Back at home, none of my neighbors were close enough so that, if they used string trimmers or leaf blowers, I didn't hear it.

I had just moved from a growing town of 20,000 in Carolina. I drove a busy interstate to work in a hospital where there were overhead pages, floor waxing machines, faxes, phones, pagers, sirens. I clearly remember, after several weeks in the cabin, away from all that ambient acoustic assault, I became aware that the way I let myself listen had changed.

I had been protecting myself from jangling, disturbing ugly noise (and visual assaults as well) by raising the threshold of what I allowed myself to attend to, be aware of. I still heard, enough to avoid a speeding teenager or testeronic motorcycle, but I did not listen. The shields were up. But back in the country, after I realiized I was safe from the psychic trauma of unwanted and agitating noise, the protective walls disappeared. Once again I became an active listener, open and eager to hear the last detail in my soundscape. I heard with so much more depth and appreciation, and the world became a richer, more beautiful place.

But I am also a producer of noise, and the countryside is not immune to noise pollution. I have two lawn mowers, a string trimmer, a chain saw, a tiller and a cycle-bar mower. I think about the noise I produce every time I crank one of these. But fortunately, there is only a single occupied home (and that, only a few months a year) within a mile of us. I would not like to be responsible for intruding my noise on a neighbor's placid moments if I could help it.

But what can be done if you do live close enough so that you share your noise with your neighborhood? Here are some resources that can help us think about the value of quiet:

AcousticEcology.org

NoNoise.org / Quiet Lawns

Noise Free America

Noise: Issues and Policies

Listening

It seemed straightforward enough: find sound samples online, make positive ID's of the night noises we hear in mid-summer. That's a Katydid, for sure...but aren't there several species? Field crickets chirp chirp chirping, but then, I've seen bush and tree crickets here and there; I'm not sure which ratchety stridulation belongs to which, and that would be important information on the Goose Creek scale of relative importance.

So I set off to find my simple sounds, download the WAV files, memorize them, and recognize them forever more. "Oh that high-pitched nasal buzzing there is snowy tree cricket" I'll explain to myself. "The snowy tree cricket chirps at a regular rate that is dependent on the temperature. By adding 40 to the number of chirps heard in 15 seconds, one can get a good approximation of the outside air temperature" I will self-elucidate, and be amazed, as if I'm hearing it for the first time. We keep the amazement threshold purposefully very low here, that a matter for yet another post!

Well, you guessed it. I got totally diverted from my critical mission by a fascinating page filled with HOURS of nature sounds of the most amazing mix and quality. Junglewalk -- Animal Videos, Sounds and Images sucked me in and wouldn't let go. Soon, I found myself immersed in EarthEar, and there went the morning.

Do you listen? Do you take "sound snapshots" where you live, work, travel; keep them like Kodachromes for the ears and memory? I guess I have, all my adult life. I remember, for instance, sitting up to my neck in the tepid water of an Alabama bog on a warm July night (with other weirdo grad students) surrounded by a chorus of eight different frogs, peeping, piping, splashing, and trilling--exactly the soundscape I heard in my diverted browsing yesterday. And the sounds brought back the snapshots I made with my ears thirty years ago. I was back there reliving the moment, the sound-memory was so indelibly fixed, held, and now rehearsed. (Some amphibian sounds, here.)

From here, there is a long riff that talks about how we chose what we hear, about the filters we put up when our soundscapes are not pleasant, as I did when we lived in the city. But that will have to wait for another time.

War Wounds

I remember now, ten years ago, I jammed my left hand (middle and ring finger) while rafting with coworkers on one of those team-building excursions on the Nolichucky River in Tennessee. Took a year for the pain to go away and the hand to work right. It took less than a second for it to come back last night.

My son's friend from BC flew into Roanoke, and by the time they returned to Goose Creek, Ann and I, early risers both, were fast asleep. Well the dog doesn't see many strangers, so when they arrived, he went his usual bonkers and I got up to referree. In his wild romping celebration of a new admirer come to town, he pronked up all 85 pounds of him into my left hand (middle and ring finger) and the old hyperextension war wounds are right back to square one.

Typing is doable, but only in small portions. So instead of this tall tale covering six long paragraphs with details of the smell of the water, the odd experience of seeing professional associates in their relaxed fit clothes and personalities, or comments about the geology of the river-- mercifully, it ends abruptly after three short ones. Lucky you.

A Friend for the Journey

The year was 1976. The place: somewhere between Shining Rock Wilderness and the Toe River in North Carolina. I backpacked alone, one day and one night in both of these places on my way home from the hike with Steve back in Alabama. I'm afraid some of the details have left me now. Some I remember because of the snake.

In Shining Rock, far back in, at the top of a long, steep grade in that boreal landscape, I remember two silhouettes appeared against the fog near the crest. They were leaving the rugged, remote mountain much later in the afternoon than I'd have thought wise. Must be strong hikers, I thought as I approached near enough to call out a hello.

Both men were in their early sixties. Robust. Tan. And very good friends. We exchanged some trail small talk and they moved on, racing the dark to cover four miles back to their car. Both men were carrying hiking sticks--ornately carved by their hands, regularly used, burnished with a patina of sweat, the soot of a hundred campfires, and traces of trails across the Blue Ridge. I wondered: will I, will Steve and I, still be enjoying the heft and rhythm of our packs, the pleasant pain of up and down, of hard ground at night when we are their age?

My Buck Folding Hunter is not a delicate instrument. But it was all I had for the task. (I still have it, matter of fact.) The next morning after breakfast of instant oatmeal and a heaping handful of nearby blueberries, I found a fallen Rhododendron that contained my hiking stick. Rather than looking for the straightest length I could find, I intended to make a cane--something with a crook for a handle, a cane I could keep with me when I was young that would remind me of the youth I saw in those two hikers, who were at that time, unimaginably old. I finished the cane that day before I left for home.

I've never used the cane whose carved handle you see here crawling out of the cedar by our front porch. I've held it often, tested its strength, and followed the lines of the snake with my fingers until the bright wood has darkened with time. In every house we've lived in, there has been a special place in an odd corner for the watching eyes of this totem. He is very patient, knowing his day approaches. Some day, and not so very far off as it once was, I will need his push and balance to reach the top of our ridge.

My snake cane was carved by a younger man, cut to length for a taller one. I may need to make some adjustments when the time comes.

SPAM GRANNIES and MT

The following comment contained questionable content and was banned from Fragments by the ever-vigilant SPAM GRANNIES at MT-Blacklist. Susan Gibbs message, which she sent to me in a plain brown wrapper email instead, was destined for the open-forum, get-it-off-your-chest spot below. It deserves to be heard, and so I will try again to put it before you, dear readers: And I quote, with potentially offensive words replaced in parentheses.:

I am a lime-(enthusiast) in the world of flavors. I am disturbed after fifty years of seeing mixed-flavor (sweet confections) containing approximately on average: 25 orange, 15 (red-flavored), 8 grape, 17 lemon, and 3 lime. It doesn't matter whether it's a bag of sour(orbs) or gummy bears. (Em and Ems)? I think they should have simply offered more green ones instead of (replacing them) with blue. I am no longer going to remain quiet on this, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to get this out.

Note: Even with the words LOVER, CHERRY, BALLS, _ & M, and COMING replaced, it still would not post to comments. Maybe it's the word orange. Gummy? Any ideas? Sorry, Susan, others who have been banned from comments. Is there a dictionary of acceptable words being put together somewhere to avoid this?

Wait! This just in. ANother blocked comment. Can you figure out why? I can't..

"I share your pain, Fred. I have a truck in the shop too. Transmission problems. It's get up and go got up and went."

"On the plus side, I got to rent a brand new 2005 Toyota Corolla, seein' as how the venerable Ranger had to stay in the auto hospital overnight. Power everything and bells and whistles galore. It's driving me crazy."

"Call me unsophisticated, but so far I've gotten a window down and couldn't get it back up, and alarms of every sort going off, bells and beeps. I'm living in fear of locking myself out or setting off the "intrusion" alarm. And there was the turn the key and nothing happens interlude (It needs to be in Park or Neutral to start, as I finally figured out)"

"I aint ready for 2005."

Jim

This Blog Post Has No Title

This blog post has no content, either.

That's right! How often have you thought when reading this page with entries about butterflies, house pets and the blogger's tedious reflections on dirt road life "I wish I could leave a comment, but I have nothing to contribute about blackberries or software, garden weeds or newts."

Be honest. It happens more times than you probably realize.

So, this post is for you. Comments need not bear on anything ever said on this Meander Through the Mundane that is Fragments. Speak out! (Honestly: I will need something to read from the computers at the Jesse Peterman Library in Floyd this morning as I browse the stacks, snooze and people-watch while Leo figures out why my truck keeps stalling and the A/C blows hot air.)

Wide open. Go for broke. Knock yourselves out. Entertain me. Feed me grapes. I gotta go.

Wings

The butterfly bush we planted outside my "office" window three years ago is so tall now that all I see, when I pause empty-minded and gaze across the yard toward the barn, is bush. From the time the sun first dries their wings in the morning 'til the dew begins to fall and make them heavy, searching for shelter in the late afternoon, they chase each other back and forth in my visible space between window and bush, back and forth like the Keystone Cops--pipevine, spicebush and tiger swallowtails, and a few very worn-looking frittilaries, ancient by now in butterfly years.

Most of the blossoms on this bush are high overhead, so this year, I will mostly catch pictures of butterfly undercarriage or silhouettes in flight against the sky.

How many butterfly pictures are enough, anyway? Does anybody know?

Under the POETree

I think Jimmy Buffet would approve of my friend Colleen's beach poem, the one she's wishing for her writing group pals. Sounds like Margueritaville to me! And I think I'd look rather fetching with a hibiscus in my hair, too. Read more of Colleen's work on her webpage.

Book Signing: For Jayn and Katherine

One day we'll all write books
then retire to a tropical island
to live without shoes on our royalties
pick fruit off the trees for breakfast

We'll buy fresh fish wrapped in newsprint
but won't read the news on Iraq
We won't have TV, won't have to listen
to songs of the 60's being used to sell products

One day we'll live without clocks
have rocking chairs on an oceanfront porch
We'll write our memoirs on the backs of postcards
and forget how to drive cars

After swimming like seals all morning
we'll sip tea at sidewalk cafés
sign autographs for tourists under sky-blue umbrellas
We'll eat pastry but won't get fat

We might pose for the paparazzi
with hibiscus flowers in our hair
and while reporters from the mainland ask for our opinions
we'll be writing short stories on our café napkins

At sunset we'll dance on the beach
loose like kites without strings
until we land like sailboats docked at the harbor
to dream free verse under stars

Panoramas, Anybody?

Anybody know of a FREE (or inexpensive) digital PANORAMA program for stitching images together? I don' t need this often, but when I do, it'd be nice to have a reliable piece of software to do it. Thot I'd ask. I trialed Photoshop CS which has a "stitching" ability. Got good results on one image from the parkway, but crummy outcome on several others. Maybe it's my images....don't overlap enough; exposure varies from one image to the next so can't register for color and shade. Any experience with D70's and panoramas?

And let me just piggyback this trivial question: What ta heck is Blogshares and why should I care? Here's the stats for Fragments. Does this have any significance to anybody in the world? What's the point, pray tell?

Killing Me Softly

It's been almost eight months now, and those who will ever respond have done so by now. I have no idea if my "contributions" even reached the half dozen I never heard from. Two accepted and published. The rest said "no thanks, Charlie". But Jason Sanford, editor at StorySouth, went the second mile. I appreciate that. He wrote to say he was put off by the title. He loved the writing of the piece and would like to read more of my work. But the ending, for such a long piece, didn't have the punch he wanted. That's information I can use. That helps make me a better writer.

StorySouth is quite a nice online literary magazine from my home state of Alabama. Go by and give it a look.

Tsuga On Speed

Tsuga says "hi" and wants everyone to know he has started his own business. We hope he is very successful and will make lots of money and be able to put us in a nice nursing home in our old age. Heck, in dog years, we're almost 400 years old!

From the Berry Patch II

or "Old Dog -- New Stick"

Poor fellow. I have to admire his enthusiasm. City dweller, no doubt, and not to be faulted for his ignorance in the finer points of country living. Can't blame him for wanting to make himself a hiking stick. He may need it tomorrow, depending on which hike he's chosen from the offerings at the Naturalist Rally here at Mt. Rogers. But I had to stifle a laugh. Look there. He's gone to the trouble to cut the thing to length and strip the bark off, but he left branch stubs top and bottom. Maybe he's just in a hurry to get done with it. It looks a sight, I must say, but to each his own.

The next day, as we gathered round our respective event leaders, there was this young bearded fellow with the deformed hiking stick. He was one of the leaders for the "Invasive Plants" trip. Turns out, he's no city dude at all. Matter of fact, he knows his plants better than I do, and makes his living protecting natural areas. So after we'd made our acquaintances and spent a couple of hours together finding and recording Multiflora Rose and such near Konnarock, I just had to say something about the stick.

"So. What kind of wood did ya use for your stick?" I asked, so as to ease into my REAL question.

"It's a piece of ash" he said, but no more.

"You been working on it long?" In other words, are you going to leave those obnoxious nubs sticking off it or finish it properly like a real hiking stick ought to be?

Then he explained. And this old dog hushed.

"I met an oldtimer way back in Bland County last summer had a stick like this. I just had to ask about it, seeming it was so for a purpose. He said he'd never have any other kinda stick that'd do him any good. That two-stobbed kind was good for all sorts of things a straight stick wasn't. Look here."

"This bottom branch is really useful. Watch this" and my friend walked over to a blackberry cane arching across the path. He put the cane in the notch formed by the three-inch sidebranch, twisted the stick, and the briar-covered vine snapped in two. "Or you can use it to hold up branches so you can get under them. Great for backpacking through Rhododendrons. Can't do that with a straight stick." And, if you turn the stick upsidedown, so the other sidebranch is coming back toward you, you can pull down those big, fat blackberries just out of reach otherwise. If it's a good stout stick, you can even use it to hook around a tree and pull yourself up a steep or slippery slope! Makes a great way to hang your stick up on a tree branch rather than resting it against something. Won't fall down and get lost."

Ahem. I am humbled by country wisdom overlooked these many years of toting my relatively useless one-trick-pony stick. So yesterday, I set off with a pruning saw to find my own "berry stick." It is harder than you might think to find one with just the configuration pictured here. In the process, I looked at trees and branches through a different lens. Witch Hazel, cherry, and spicebush tend toward branchy-ness I was looking for, but I couldn't attest to strength except for the cherry. But what I ended up finding, not really a surprise, was a fallen, dead but not rotten length of Rhododendron.

I field-tested it late yesterday afternoon up along the logging road where the bristling berry vines hang menacingly across the path, and the ripe berries hang just out of reach overhead or out where the hillside falls off sharply. I confess, I got a little obnoxious. One or two too many "Hey! Watch what I can do" and "Betcha can't do THIS with your stick." I may not get invited on the next berry-picking excursion.

But eventually, I'll calm down. I don't know if I'll bother carrying my old favorite wimpy pole of a stick any more, even though it's been with me for almost twenty years. My new one looks like an unfinished work in progress, but it works like a Swiss Army knife. And this old hound has fetched himself a new stick.

Blogger Pride: One of our Own

Tom Montag was a poet and vagabond long before he became a blogger, but blogging his travels has brought us along for the ride across the "middlewest." Over the weekend, Tom appeared before the... well, you can read the article clipped below. Go by and give him congratulations, win, lose or draw. This is a big deal and worthy of a virtual handshake. How 'bout a virtual celebratory glass of wine? I think I'll get mine now!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wisconsin Poet Laureate Finalists!

Who will be the next Wisconsin writer to carry the torch for poetry? We should have that answer soon, because three finalists for the Governor-appointed Poet Laureate position were recently chosen – they are John Lehman (Cambridge), Tom Montag (Fairwater), and Denise Sweet (Green Bay). One of these poets will succeed popular outgoing Wisconsin Poet Laureate Ellen Kort, Appleton.

The responsibilities of the second Poet Laureate will be lofty ones – "to serve as a herald for Wisconsin’s poets and their work, to promote poetry statewide, and to enrich the lives of our citizens by sharing and encouraging the gift of poetry."

The seven-member Poet Laureate Commission will make a final recommendation to Governor Doyle, who will officially appoint our next Poet Laureate. Chair of this Commission is Cathryn Cofell-Mutschler (Appleton) representing the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. Other members are David Brostrom (Waukesha), Vice-Chair of the Wisconsin Humanities Council, Barbara Coan Houghton (McFarland), representing the Wisconsin Regional Writers Association, Jane Hamblen of the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Poet Laureate Ellen Kort, Marilyn Taylor (Milwaukee), of the Council for Wisconsin Writers, and Linda Ware (Wausau), Vice-Chair of the Wisconsin Arts Board.

By August 31st, this important literary torch will pass from poet to poet.

From the Berry Patch I

This is our fifth summer here. The first one was a blur, a time of heavy reconstruction on the house, and we still lived across the county on Walnut Knob until November, when we finally moved in here. The second summer we put in our first garden, worked to get the pines out of what is now our pasture, and finished off the inside of the house and got the walkway pavers put in, from the back to the front door. It wasn't until the third summer that we really got to "play" during the summer and appreciated the berries. It was obscene how many berries there were up behind the house on the logged-over hillside--red and black as far as the eye could see. We invited friends over; they left with gallons.

Now, the white pines on the steep, south-facing hillside are at least ten feet taller and twice as wide as they were the first year; we can barely find the path. And the glory days of the berry vines have passed. They are fat and heavy now only at the sunny margins of the logging roads and down the very bottom of the ravine, where there's no overstory even now (since the forest folks sprayed herbicide to keep the hardwoods back to the benefit of the pines.) Plenty of berries there, but it's too jumbled with logging carcases to walk in, so we see them, but can't get to them.

We've been here long enough now to see patterns within years and between them. It has suprised me how much things have evolved in this short time. Four years ago I realized, time would come we wouldn't have any vistas at all from up back of the house. I had no idea it would fill in and change so fast. But then, when you're our age, everything seems to happen faster.

The garden, so wonderfully productive two summers ago, is anemic this year because the walnuts, large back then, have grown large enough to cast shade in garden corners that were sunny before. Those trees will have to come down this winter. The logging road we call the middle loop is bristling in young tulip poplars and spicebush and is more like a narrow trail than a road. Hemlocks are dying slowly, our ashes suddenly, and there are few tanagers or wood thrushes this summer.

It's true: You can never step into the same river twice.

Keeper Software for Free

I don't know how many "Photo Manager" shareware programs I have tried and abandoned. I expected Picasa to be yet another of the same. But WHOA! this one is a keeper! I love it, and oh how I need it. I never knew exactly how many images were contained in "MY PICTURES" on my hard drive. Exactly 5466 to be exact. Try finding one picture out of all that to illustrate a blog post! But this program has an amazingly fast search function and makes it brain-dead simple to add "keywords" to a picture or a group of pictures. If you have a lot of digital images, trust me: you won't be sorry you checked this one out.

Did I mention that Picasa has recently been bought by Google? And that it is FREE?

Also, for the same price, and again, timely for me: Free antivirus software just when my subscription to Norton is expiring.

"eTrust EZ Armor Security Suite from Computer Associates, the world's #1 supplier of Internet security software combines award-winning Antivirus with industrial-strength Firewall protection. Built specifically for today's Internet-intensive computer user, eTrust EZ Armor leverages the core technology CA has developed for the world's most demanding users including over 99% of the Fortune 500."

Floyd County Skyline

Buffalo Mountain looms beyond the nearest ridge. From Blue Ridge Parkway overlook, approx. Mile Marker 168.

FloydFest Fifteen Minutes

Well I guess this is our fifteen minutes of fame. It's official now. The Floyd Writers Circle has been asked to participate in the Third Annual FloydFest with readings and workshops. This literary event will take place, in shortish time slots dispersed over the three days, at a site called (ahem...) the PoeTree.

The readings will be timed to fill the spaces between Main stage events--roughly fifteen minutes per speaking "performer". I remain a bit sceptical re the acoustics, attendance for this activity, and such. But it's a first-time attempt to bring the "spoken word" to the stage at this large and growing gathering. My timeslot is 11:15 to 11:30 on Saturday, August 14. Come by. Please check your over-ripe fruits and vegetables at the door.

The High Road

I hate to think how many times my family has been assaulted by crushed plant material thrust suddenly under their noses with the dreaded words "NATURE SNORT!" Yesterday was only the latest such excursion around a high, seldom-travelled briar-infested trail on the eastern ridge of our valley. Ostensibly, we were looking for the ElDorado of berry patches (which we didn't find) but mostly, Ann had chosen a steep path that would generate aerobic heart rate with the maximum count of ticks, spiderwebs or scratches. She gives me heck for my nasal mandates, and I, her, for her compulsive bushwacking forced-marches in the heat of the day. So it goes.

There is not much blooming in the woods these days, even in the logged-over former forest we walked through yesterday. Spring is the time for woodland flowers, when there is enough light through the thin new canopy and energy stored in roots dormant over winter. By mid-summer's shade, only the odd opportunistic "weed" will come up in a patch of light left by a fallen tree. Or, along the old logging roads sometime, we will find a patch of something, like this Mountain Mint, left from the sunlit days ten years ago when this was scarred earth under torn remnants of whatever species the loggers didn't want.

There isn't much blooming. But we did find several things to SCRATCH AND SNIFF, this Hoary Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum incanum) among them. I couldn't admit it to Ann while I was doing my obligatory grumbling about her obstacle course she took us on, but I was excited to see this once-familiar wildflower for the first time on our property. It's easy to spot, even from a car moving down the interstate, because of the "hoary incanescence" (powdery looking pale surface) of its leaves. Crushed, it has the musty mint smell I associate with midsummer. Others we "saw" with our noses were spicebush (covered now with green berries that in two months will dot the creek borders with red); and yellow birch, also called sweet birch, has the same "teaberry" smell as the plant by that name--a toothpasty smell to me, since this extract has been used as a flavoring for such things. We found pennyroyal growing inconspicuously along the roadbank--not a thing to see but what a wonderful, dank fresh-minty smell, even as it pokes up through the snow in January! Even tulip poplar stems are fragrant, very like sassafras, which I could not find at the time for a smell-comparison.

You can see a larger picture of this Mountain Mint by clicking on the thumbnail here, then "enlarge" to the "large" size. (Thanks, Anne, for the link to FlickR.) FlickR has a free account, btw. Put a few pix there. Tell us about it!

Bush Goes Stumping

If you thought George Jr. was the worst thing to happen to the American environment since the word entered our vocabulary, look what he's doing for what remains of our roadless forests.

Chain saws trump sound forest policy

Grab the chain saws, rev up the bulldozers, open the federal Treasury to subsidize construction of more logging roads.

The Bush administration has made its decision on continuing former President Clinton's protection of millions of acres of roadless areas in national forests. It prefers not to.

Going Out with a Bang (for the Bucks)

And the rockets red glare,
The bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night
That Aunt Ruth was still there

As Dave Barry would say, "I swear I'm not making this up."

Yes, that's right, dear friends. Your loved one can get a little closer to heaven and go with a BIG BANG, bright lights, and all the oooohs and aaaaahhhs her plain features never got in this life. Have her cremains dispersed in grand style in a Roman Candle extravaganza! (Sorry, California only)

Beach service packages start a $3500. Additional services include a professional still or video photographer who will record your loved one's grand fireworks send off. A limosine is available, as well as a professional sound system, catering, ministers or captains service.

Or, if this kind of ostentatious, noisy display would make your poor aunt Ruth uncomfortable, there is the more dignified end for her material remains. That's right. You can wear her around your neck next to your heart, or dangle her from both ears as LifeGems (your choice of colors.) Think diamonds are a girl's best friend? Might be. Or her grandma, or her departed pet, or Uncle George, or ...

Betcha Won't Eat One

Now when you see an insect or other critter (like a coral snake, for instance) with bright red markings, oft times this is advertizing (or false advertizing in the case of a mimic) that if you mess with me, you're gonna be sorry.

And you might know that newts and certain frogs and toads are avoided by most predators because of the toxins in their skins. We find the little red-spotted "eft" immature redspotted newts walking around quite unafraid, relying on their distastefulness to keep them safe.

Little did I know HOW TOXIC newts can be. Tetrodotoxin found in newt skins of some species is "the most poisonous nonprotein substance known to scientists and similar to that found in pufferfish that occasionally poison Japanese gastronomists." How powerful, you ask (yes I see you raising your little hands asking Dr. Science, out there in front of your computer monitors, boys and girls.)

Check this out: ...One rough spotted newt skin contains enough toxins to kill 25,000 mice (or one drunken college student.) "Scientists have tested 30 potential predators of newts, from belted kingfishers to great blue herons to bullfrogs and fish, finding in every case that the newt killed them." Of related gastronomic note: folklore held that pigs in England could eat newts with impunity, while their French porcine cousins would die a horrible death from the same ingestion. On a social-historical note, it is said that some Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest used Taricha newts to poison their enemies...

So, if you pick up one of the cute little guys, keep them out of your eyes, away from breaks in the skin, and whatever you do, don't invite one to a frat party. (source, and thanks, Jack!)

What Goes Around

To live long enough in a place that you have memorized its face through the seasons; the same forest in summer shade and shadowless winter days; the same sky, blue as cornflower and snow-gray with cold. You know it so well that you anticipate its next costume change before it happens. You know to expect the coming sonata of sound or silence it is about to perform. You know your place so well that in its speaking out the daily script you can finish its sentences like two long-married people do for one another. And yet in all this, there is still surprise and discovery--a perfect balance of expectation and certainty.

This thing I've said for decades was my most longed-for state of being--this rootedness, this deep understanding of a place, a belonging somewhere--has been happening here, over the past two years. It has been a slow creeping knowledge. Sometimes the smallest thing will bring it right before my eyes. Sometimes something as nothing as a spider silk across my cheek.

Did you know it is time again to carry a spider stick when you walk in the woods? I could have told you. It is time again for the spiders to spread their invisible webs across the trail as they did last year, and the one before, in mid July. This marks the mid-point of summer for me, sort of an intermission before a major set change that will begin in six weeks. Mark your calendars.

Two years ago we walked our loop, smelling the "mystery perfume" that wafts in my window even now. We discovered the fall plants coming up even in July, still overshadowed by the rank growth of summer's greens, but right on time for their hayday in August and September. Two years ago July, Buster, the robust black lab always went first so he could sniff out a rabbit or ground hog, or partly, just because he liked to be the "line leader"-- a position of some prestige that our two kids always fought over when we walked together in the woods. A year later, Buster was no longer with us. Now, it is Tsuga who goes first and could help us sweep for spiders if he were only taller.

The writing about such ordinary things isn't necessary to remember them. But someday, it may help someone else who lives here to take the time to notice them. Maybe, even to expect them.

ShutOut at the CookOut

First time it happened, the logical conclusion was "out of propane". Tank still felt a little heavier than empty, but when I put the pork chops on the grill and got ready to sit back and birdwatch while they cooked, nothing happened when I opened up the valve and clicked the starter button. More puzzling, there was no sign of gas coming into the burner to ignite...no smell, no hiss, no nothing. Sorry, dear wife, but we will have to heat up the kitchen after all. I got a refill on the tank the next day.

Sunday night: some tiny steaks--two for the three of us--marinated, tenderized and ready to go, this time with a tankful of propane. Nada. Ever tried to cook steaks in the broiler of a stove on a hot night in July? We were hungry. We were hot. And I considered pushing a large Sunbeam GrillMaster down the hill into the creek.

But later I set about redeeming my failure as BarbecueMan and would conquer as HandyMan! So in good problem-solving form, applying Occam's often fallible razor, I leapt to the assumption that my problem was probably nothing more than a mud dauber nest or spider's web clogging the jets into the venturi that carries the flaming gas under the grill. So, with no small degree of effort, sweat, muttering and black icky grease under the nails, in the heat of the day and plagued by biting gnats, I took the thing apart .

I removed the Venturi, reconnected the gas, and opened the valve. Without the blocked Venturi to oppose it, I felt sure I'd hear the reassuring hiss of gas. I heard nothing. And so it sits, in greasy parts.

The part I'm deducing that I need will be about $80 delivered. Mr. Occam can be wrong--it might not be the part that is broken after all. The basic chassis has a few more years of life in it but the cost-benefit is starting to tip in the direction of too much cost for too little (reliable) benefit. Those anticipated casual cookouts of summer are getting more and more pricey and complicated. Briquettes in a $15 hibachi are looking better all the time.

We can turn the grill into a planter in the front yard--or better, maybe put it on the front porch with a defunct major appliance. Which is what all major appliances, electronic devices, computers and barbecue grills eventually become. Things fall apart. Generally, around here, when that happens, you make sure your name's not on it and push it over the edge of a roadside somewhere.

Did I mention I'll be spending the better part of the day at the Subaru dealership (again) today to fix our six month old Forester? Hmmm? Be warned your ol' Uncle Fred is a wee bit testy these days, and, should his computer miraculously continue to operate normally, he may be a bit snarly in his blog persona for the next couple of weeks until cool weather returns. Nothing personal. Just low biorhythms and a personal grudge with universal chaos is all. I'll get over it.

Finding Waldo

We've learned that Waldo the Water Snake will pretty reliably be sunning himself on the rocks of the foundation of the barn any time the sun is out. Even so, it is not always easy to spot Waldo. Yesterday, walking past the barn on our morning walk, Ann was staring so intently at the rock foundation she almost stepped on poor Waldo, curled up in a clump of tall grass just beside the path, about a foot from her booted feet. When she saw him, she did one of those unique jump-shudder-scream things that only our herptilian friends can induce. Quite entertaining, really.

However, her commotion totally disturbed the peace of this docile denizen of Goose Creek and he disappeared into the clump of grass around the stump of a tree where he had been sunning in preparation for his breakfast feeding foray. To add insult to injury, but for a good photographic purpose, I began nudging the tall grass with my boot, so as to encourage Waldo to reappear and give me a photographic pose. Failing that, I picked up a stick and poked around in the dark recesses of the grass to see if I could incite a strike posture and get a photo worthy of his species (Northern Water Snake).

But no. As uncooperative as the darn dragonflies, he made a break for it, covering the six feet between his sunning spot and the rock foundation with amazing speed. The only thing that saved the day for the photographer was the Waldo, in his haste, took a wrong turn into a dead end and had to pull out and try again. Here he has just found the portal to sanctuary and within a half-second, disappeared.

I have to tell you: I think Waldo was coiled up in the grass there waiting for ME. I killed his kid brother behind the house last week. And snakes never forgive a grudge. GULP!

Forbidden Fruits

The quality and abundance of the blackberries this year will more than offset the disappointing crop of black raspberries. Blackberries are just starting to ripen now and we've had our eye on one particular patch that seemed ahead of the rest and the unripe berries were big as quarters! We checked them out yesterday as we drove past and could see at least a few ripe berries, so we changed into our berry-picking grubbies and went back with our buckets.

First, of course, when you encounter a new patch like this you have to take a sample, just for quality control purposes you understand. Contrary to some that make your face pucker with their tartness, these were soft, sweet and full of that distinctive musky taste of blackberries! I half-filled a 16-ounce cup with maybe two dozen huge berries.

The dog, too, has learned to enjoy fruit-picking. For some unknown reason, seems the fattest berries hang low in the shadows, near the ground, and this fact is not lost on the pooch who grazes below as we pick above.

But I could see, a bit out of reach just below knee level, a photo-perfect cluster I was determined the dog was NOT going to gobble up before I got to them. And just as I reached for them barely ahead of the dog, I pulled my purple-stained fingers back from a hornets nest hanging a foot off the ground.

Take home lesson: The sweetest berries are the ones you could not quite reach. Or the ones the dog ate. Or the ones growing six inches from a grapefruit-sized buzzing hornets nest.

Flitty Fliers of Floyd

Oh dear. Another self-imposed frustration: photographing dragonflies!
They almost always don't cooperate. And they almost always ALMOST cooperate.

Okay. There it's landed on the spire of an orchard grass plant! This perfect specimen is nicely composed against a fairly uniform background in wonderful backlight in the morning sun but it's ten feet away. You crash your way clumsily through the chest-high wet pasture for the approach; you double-check your camera to be sure you've taken off the lens cap this time. You can't shuffle your feet any closer in the tangled grass so you lean a little farther, a little farther yet, closer and closer to fill the frame, breaking into a sweat with the exertion of both the concentration and the tai-chi-like balance with energy. There it is. Just a slight adjustment in the viewfinder so the right wing is in the frame. You've almost got it now, and…

I wish you could see the ones that got away.

Here's everything you never wanted to know about dragonflies and damselflies. Don't fail to take a look at the photography section!

Last Name?

"First" I answer, hoping I don't have to go into my song and dance of explanation.

"No, your last name" retorts the clerk.

"My last name is FIRST" I insist while the nice lady behind the desk rolls her eyes and heaves a sigh of exasperation.

And so it goes. I explain: "It's FIRST, like FIRST, SECOND, THIRD..." Or sometimes I say "It's FIRST, like "Who's on First?" Sometimes they get it, sometimes they don't.

You get it. Right? Even if you are of more recent vintage, you've heard snatches of the Abbott and Costello skit. Here's a site where you can read it all, listen to it all, or watch the video.

The time this skit got beat to death making fun of last names was when I was at the community college. Unfortunately, on the faculty was also a Physics prof whose last name was Hwu, pronounced "WHO." You can imagine everybody had to be the clever person to make the connection. Ha. Ha.

Father Knows Best

"Trying to eliminate Saddam...would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq...There was no viable 'exit strategy' we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land." (This passage sans ellipsis here.)

from A World Tranformed by Poppa George Bush (and Brent Scowcroft)

Run Lassie! Get Help!

Well, not quite. But Tsuga scored points on Wednesday when he warned Ann of imminent danger! No, she hadn't fallen down a mine shaft. She was not in a ramshackle cabin tied up by criminals, in a chair with a gag in her mouth, frantically looking to the dog to run fetch her boyfriend, Lance, the sheriff (that would be me.)

But the dog did see the snake first, even though Ann had been just inches from it, pulling weeds outside the kitchen window, over on the bank. The fat-bodied Northern Water Snake was coiled right at eye-level, its mottled pattern making it invisible until Tsuga began to pounce at it. At which point, it began striking and I began hearing screams from behind the house.

And I did something I've never done before: I shot a snake. As I kid, I've stoned 'em and poked 'em and mashed 'em with sticks, but I never shot one before. Wouldn't have this time, except this was not the first time this particular reptile had spooked the wife. It's home territory (so far from water) appeared to be just out the kitchen window and she was most insistent that I was not going to put this specimen in the Snake Relocation Program, since he'd probably just slither right back up into her flower bed again.

There's another big water snake that lives in the barn. He suns himself in the stone foundation every morning here the past few days. I'm going to see if I can slip up on him and get a picture. I'll print it and put it up by Tsuga's bed. The pup can point to it and brag about his heroic rescue, although Lassie would have leapt through the air, pushing the hapless would-be victim out of harm's way just in the knick of time. But then, Tsuga tells me, Lassie got $20K an episode.

From the Ridge

Wednesday night, we were among a dozen guests at a surprise birthday party for a friend who lives across the county in the Willis area. Their nearest neighbor, our host for the evening, has a magnificent horse farm with a 180-degree view of the county where this shot was taken--as much for the background scenery and the late afternoon golden light as for the horses. Great party--champagne, steaks--the works. Funny how things work out.

The birthday girl, Jenny, was a student in my Anatomy and Physiology class in the community college at least 25 years ago. She and her husband play "mountain music" and we knew them in the mid-eighties as friends of other musical friends in Wythe County before we moved away to Alabama.

When I came back to Virginia as a therapist in 1997 to start the clinic, there were only strangers in Floyd and I was living alone that year until Ann moved up. One day that first week in the little clinic in "downtown" Floyd, someone from the adjacent Home Health office announced "Fred, I'd like you to meet one of the best nurses in Floyd County. Jenny, this is Fred." We hadn't seen each other for a dozen years and I'll never forget how comforting it was to see a familiar face.

Now, we still don't see her family as often as we'd like, but when we do, I think how far back we go and how glad our paths crossed again. Good party. Good friends. Beautiful scenery. How blessed we are.

Short Takes

We're hitting the road for a day trip, so not much coming off the keyboard (or camera) this morning. But just to stay on seasonal themes here at Fragments, let's take another look (no! no! avert your eyes, Ethel!) at a hot-weather man-at-home theme we started yesterday. Here's what was happening in this wardrobe area last year...a few of my favorite things about summer. And thanks, Jeremiah, for the link to Captain Underpants! However, the Tighty Whities are just not my style.