Fragments From Floyd

In a galaxy far, far away, back when I was teaching, on the first day of Biology 101, I would give a pop test. Take out a sheet of paper (can you feel the prickly sensation in your arm pits?) and write the answer to this one question: WHAT IS LIFE?

Sample Answers: Life is living. Things that are alive. (Well, yes, use the question as the answer. Nice try.) Living things breathe and move; Something that is alive eats and reproduces; Life is something that when its not there, its dead. And so on.

The answers I read on that sweaty sheet of paper told me what living things do: extract energy from their environment, grow, reproduce, respond to stimuli and so on-all true statements. But this is not a satisfying or complete answer. The truth is, we don't really have a definition or an equation for what life IS. We can detect it in matter by the processes we observe; we can take it away from creatures that possess it, but we cannot define it. Humility and respect for this mystery seemed a good and healthy way to begin our exploration of biology, the study of life.

If I were taking my own pop quiz, I might answer with this response, also a partial answer: Life is what keeps things from being reduced to mold and ash prematurely. From rotting; decomposing; returning to dust. From premature fatal infection, infestation and microbial ingestion. This also is true, without being a full explanation, and is another thing "life" does for matter that has it.

The nature of living things is such that there are attempts to take us apart bit by bit from inside and out as soon as we-worm or mouse or leaf-are conceived. The checks and balances of the nature of life somehow equip us life-bearers to thwart most of these attempts. The ones that succeed, we call disease, infection, mycosis and such. It's a wonder we seldom consider: that life is a property of matter, a self-sustaining order against the onslaught of disorder, that keeps us more or less unconsumed from birth to death.

The instant of death is like the opening doors at the back-to-school sale at WallyWorld. Our lifeless corpse and former corpus is swarmed, permeated, and encorporated by other corpuscles-fungi and bacteria, mostly. They pick us up by the armload and carry our material frames away. Our deconstruction begins, the recycling of all that matter that "lived" and was us. The same fate waits for the million million leaves that swirl over the top of my roof this moment, passing from tree to air to soil to mold.

An autumn-inspired passage from Slow Road Home: a Blue Ridge Book of Days

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I warned you more creepy critters were coming. (Larger image)

This is a white crab spider on the flower of a Great Lobelia near Nameless Creek. His two pair of front legs are not poised to wish you a fond hello. No hug or elbow bump intended here. He's armed for dinner.

And the poisons in those powerful "fangs" must be fast acting and strong, because you often see these tiny spiders feasting off wasps or butterflies many times larger than they are. You never see wasps flying around with little crab spiders helplessly clinging to their abdomens.

Several days after this picture was taken, this same spider was on the same flower of the same plant. Business must have been good.Crab spiders don't build webs and don't waste a lot of energy moving around, relying instead on stealth and patience.

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Norman Rockwell of Appalachia

Wil Gayheart's pencil art is truly amazing, and worth more than the purchase price by now, some of his earlier pieces. Wonder what ever happened to the one we were given by friends upon our leaving Virginia to return to Alabama for PT school in 1987. Somewhere in the move, it got tossed out with the trash, I suppose, because we never saw it again after the night it was given to us. And the sad thing is, the person who gave it to us was IN the scene Gayheart had drawn--a music event somewhere, and our friend Dale was playing the bass. Ah well...

Not Acceptable to Think

Keith Olberman, MSNBC, on YouTube (8 minutes) is not happy with the way Bush is dissing Colin Powell's wondering if we might have lost the moral high ground in Iraq.

Radio Reading

Yesterday was my fourth trip to record Slow Road for the Radio Reader program at WVTF, and the staff was kind enough to give me the first two sessions onto CD so I could play with the audio files and begin thinking of what, if anything, I will do with this stuff. But I can't access it. It's in "cda" file format on the CD. I was able to rip that to the hard drive in "wma" format, and the file appears to be playing (in WinAmp or Windows Media Player) but there is no sound. It won't copy to Audacity to tweak. Any ideas how to make this work? I'd expected the disk to be in "wav" format, and maybe that's do-able next visit.

Friday Dinner

Nice invitation received last night, and good timing as I'll be a Pharmacy Bachelor for Friday evening; Ann works late, and I was planning to head to town and see what I could get into. As it turns out, a neighbor-friend invited me to dinner with some visiting family from "off" who have deep connections with the old homeplace here, have kept up with goings-on in Floyd by way of my rambles (in the paper, I suppose) and are treating me to dinner at Pine Tavern after work today.

The Elbow Bump

Man, this would hit hard in Floyd County, the Land of Hugs. In a future world, handshakes could be bad for your health. Rubbing noses is definitely OUT. So is the high-five. But elbow bumps the greeting of choice?

NoteCards: The Expense!

It seemed like a good idea until I finally did the math. I've been thinking (and even talking here from time to time) about creating Fragments or Floyd or Slow Road Home notecards that I could market along with the book. I went so far as to call a friend down the road who owns a printing business and get a tentative quote for full color 5 x 7 cards, envelopes and shrink-wrap in sets of 4 or 6 cards. Any volume less than 500 is not feasible, and then MY cost would be about $1 a card. Considering any place I sold them (other than direct sales online) I'd pay 25% consignment and discount sales the usual 40%, I wouldn't make enough, really, even at a market retail of $2 per card. That's getting right pricey, and I sure don't want to get stuck with 400 cards. I don't know what I'll decide. I may go ahead and send along a half dozen images and get a mockup package, maybe show it around and see if folks think it would be worth the price.

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Walking from the library, I spotted this Bartlett Pear leaf blowing along the sidewalk.

I picked it up, and then stopped outside Chic's and photographed the leaf on a brightly-colored bench. Then I used "magic eraser" in Photoshop to select out the bench and leave the leaf against a uniform background.

This was one of those little testimonies that at least some things are right with the world--that there can be such beauty of color and form among nature's trash to catch the eye, slow one down enough to pay attention, and share. (Larger Image)

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We'll zip past the fact that Ben Affleck is starring in this movie, and that his name, because we did have TV reception at one time and commercials planted worms in our brains, always makes me think of a talking duck.

That said, I was captured by Terri Gross's interview with Mr. A this week related to his role in an upcoming or already-released movie that goes by either the name "Truth, Justice and the American Way" (which to a child of the 50s tells me what the movie is about) OR the insipid and off-putting "Hollywoodland".

In either case, the movie is one I will eventually have to see (maybe while I'm killing time in Mobile over Thanksgiving) as a long-time and undying fan of the "real" superman, George Reeves, whom I have never forgiven for killing himself when I was 11--a death not everyone takes as a suicide, apparently, and the plot around which the movie, by whichever name, is formed.

The Fresh Air interview made much of Reeves' discomfort with the role, both as an actor, and as a tortured human body under the very bright lights of the times (movie film was very slow and stage lights very hot). The upper torso of the Super-costume was mostly moulded foam rubber (which even so didn't give old George much impressive mass, muscle-wise). The rest of the outfit was a wool sweater in effect. Apparently, the man suffered terribly from heat rashes, and as the series progressed, Superman in costume appeared less and less, Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter from the Daily Planet, more and more.

Even as a kid, I was a little embarrassed for the Man of Steel, and wondered if he didn't worry that his Super-Manhood was so prominent in those little tighty-whities he wore. From the Affleck interview, yes, this was both a concern and the source of much off-camera ribaldry with Lois. You can imagine the puns and jibes. (Did Lois ever appear without the silly hat and white gloves? Did she ever once let her hair down? She seemed very formal and cold to me and I could never imagine any real romance between mortal and super-hero.)

Note of interest: Reeves first full-length feature was in 1951: Superman and the Mole Men. Anybody see this one? Wanna guess who the Mole Men were? I might have to find this for a weekend evening when Ann is working.

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I gave up the possibility of macro shots too easily a few years back when the Nikon Coolpix died. I thought that was a part of my photographic toolkit I could do without, that I would make up for by the improved speed and control I gained with the D70 in April, 2004.

But since regaining the ability to look with a bug's eye view at nature's form, pattern, structure and intricacy again with the Powershot (thanks for the occasional loan, wifey!) I'm realizing what an important form of photographic expression it still is, has been these past two years.

Thinking back, my first year's worth of digital images was largely closeups. More than 1000 of those images disappeared forever when my hard drive melted down as I was installing a CD burner so I wouldn't lose any of my precious pix. Sigh.

So it is gratifying to have my eyes back, to see, to share and appreciate details that would otherwise be beyond the power of my tools to bring back. But of course, in this case, it might have been just as well had I left my macro-vision out in the pasture. Still, these are beautiful-hideous beasts seen at close range, wouldn't you agree? (My apologies to this hapless couple caught coupled during a pasture picnic on a remote milkweed where they expected to have a few moments of uninterrupted togetherness. Who'd have thought some weirdo with a camera would come along during a compromising moment of arthropodic intimacy! Note the smaller male above--a condition not that unusual in the animal world.)

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The morning sun streaming through the early fog along Goose Creek is striking enough that we slow down--or even at times pull over, stop, and stand beside the car in awe. It is always lovely, a blessing, otherworldly but familiar. And yet, this Gap of the Morning Light is the sacred ordinary of this place, anticipated as we round the bend in the road, known and claimed as an amenity of living in this valley of broad-leaved forest in the hollows of blue ridges.

But we never take for granted that this is a landscape uniquely Appalachian. Nowhere else on earth but in these ancient, worn mountain valleys and coves so magnolia and sarvice, rhododendron and alder, white pine and eastern hemlock coexist. Together they nurture a sanctuary of bird and insect life, of wildflowers and ferns. Those creatures live there because it serves them just exactly that recipe of light and dark they require for their existence. Only here does sunlight perform in glory and grace just so.

To someone who lives on the coast or to another who comes from Midwestern plains, and certainly to any city-dweller, such a scene as this is an alien beauty unfamiliar in their daily drives between home and work, school, the nearest store. It has no role in their sense of belonging, but it does to us. This is what home looks like, and somehow as we take it in by osmosis or intent season after season, it changes us. We become part of the landscape, form a personal ecology of belonging. I feel it even as I am poorly able to speak it.

The places where we stand become the points from which we judge where we are, said Eudora Welty. They give us sense of direction. Or should.

How much we would miss that for us has become both ordinary and essential if we had not found home on a slow road that cuts into the very heart of a place. As the leaves change this autumn, we will change. It is a rhythm not for everyone, with costs and privations that we will feel more acutely as winter approaches. But winter too makes this life here what it is, and gives this land its character and dance. The short days of winter bring their own light, and smell, and feel on our skin and in our souls.

Link to larger image

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Early in the summer, Tom told me Jerry would probably be happy to sell Slow Road Home in the Blacksburg store. He was.

And a few weeks later, Susan at the store invited me to participate in a book signing there, thinking I might be able to sell some books. I didn't.

But that night at the store I met Linda who was also signing and selling her book, who the next day was appearing on the WDBJ TV morning news. She took a copy of my book with her and suggested to Bob at the station that he call me. He did.

A week later, I got a few fleeting moments of TV air time (that was indeed widely watched because there was a killer on the loose on the Virginia Tech campus that day!)

This morning, I was guest interviewee on the Blacksburg Campus radio station because, it turns out, Pete from WUVT had seen my spot on the TV morning news and thought the book and blog would make an interesting topic for his Saturday morning program. Hope it was!

I will be anxious to see what the sixth link in the chain will turn out to be. In my wildest imaginings I think maybe this path of connection could grow and build and in the end turn out to be like selling One Red Paper Clip that ultimately won a meeting with Alice Cooper. (Oh I hope not!) Or maybe it will bring a spot on Oprah! (Oh my!)

But most likely, should another connection twig off of these first five, it will only reinforce the notion that there are no small engagements. It will encourage me to remember that there are no unimportant readers in this grass roots effort to nurture the public awareness the book. Each reader is the end of this project, the purpose for having written, the point of it all, even while they also help the book along by planting seeds among other potential readers.

Something can come from what seems like very little. Yet another node in this chain of kindnesses will remind that ripples from each small pebble of effort keep moving out into the larger pool, and even when I think I've hit a dead calm and there are no winds in my sails, things still move.

So thanks to those who have smoothed the way and made (and will make) the path easier in these small steps by creating opportunities so all I have to do is show up--no shameless self-promotion necessary--and just keep moving in the direction the winds are blowing.

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Maggie Anderson, Jeff Daniel Marion, Robert Morgan and Ron Rash form the panel to discuss "Nature, Place, and the Appalachian Writer" at the 25th Literary Festival, Emory and Henry College.

The day's events consisted of three panel discussions and four readings by poets and authors. It was held in the sanctuary of the campus chapel which didn't lend itself to an easy flow of folks to chat in between sessions, and the acoustics of the vaulted ceiling didn't suit my ears, and I'm afraid I missed some of what was said. I didn't always sit as close as I did for the first session from which this image was collected; if I had, I would have picked up more of the speakers' words.

If you didn't already know folks, this was not the kind of gathering where it would have been easy to meet new people. I did recognize a lot of faces, but without name tags or a common social area, it was hard--at least for me--to strike up conversations with strangers.

One nice thing: sitting alone after the first session, I happened to look across to the other side of the aisle and there was Joyce Dyer, whose brief contact at Hindman made me know I knew nothing about memoir. I've used her definition of the genre in some of my book talks. I slipped over to sit and chat, and was able to hand her a copy of Slow Road Home which she received most graciously; I half-think she'll actually read it someday.

I'd intended to go back to Hindman Settlement School's summer Writers Conference this year if Joyce had been on the staff and would have taken her course (I only audited it last time) so she could help me polish the book before printing. She wasn't on the staff this year, so I wrapped up the book as-is, and was able to give her a copy, with an inscription and thanks, yesterday. That was sorta neat.

I was invited to join the speakers that evening at a certain "party room" at the Comfort Inn, which would have been great--to sit and party with the Olympus of App Lit, but I wasn't staying past mid-afternoon. It would almost have been worth it to hang out til midnight, get home at two. But I'm heading toward Blacksburg here in a few, and need to be at least minimally together.

I'm farther along in my App-assimilation than I was four years ago, to be sure. But I still stand small along the margins of the domain of regional writing and writers. True, I have a book now to my credit, which is a kind of credentialing; but it isn't a "real" book in the minds of many, being self-published, author-subsidized, and invisible. It is light weight and superficial by most standards (I fully accept this as the case, in terms relative to the works of those presenting at Emory.)

Not being in academia, I'm outside the somewhat incestuous brotherhood in which everybody inside the circle reads and reviews and discusses the work of others on the inside. But I'm an armchair writer, and have no aspirations to be a full-time scholar. So I guess I'm coming to some kind of balance point as a son of the southern mountains, with some distance yet to go, trying to find my place while being fully rooted and at home.

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I'm hitting the road momentarily, bound down-valley for the Abingdon vicinity and an all-day sit at the feet of Appalachia's top authors. I'm of a mixed mind about it, with four hours on the road, round-trip, and the expectation of a lot of anonymous shuffling my feet and detached, unfocused sipping of cold coffee somewhere along the periphery of a crowd. Or I could be wrong. I wouldn't be going if I didn't expect to bring something back. We'll just have to see what that something is.

Also in the hopper of postable snippets:

A First FIRST: I'll be adding noise to the airwaves, on the radio two days in a row. Today, on WVTF, a recorded essay (mp3) you read here a few months ago--the piece about the redtail hawks in their mating dance, complete with some recorded calls I asked Beverly Amsler to add, for effect.(Broadcasts on 89.1 FM at 6:55 and 8:55 this morning.)

And then, tomorrow morning (live and local only) I'll be interviewed about the book, writing and Floyd on the Virginia Tech campus radio station, WUVT, 90.7 FM, at 8:00 and off and on during that next hour, I think. (There are directions for online listening on their website.)

Word Sleuthing: I just read an interesting piece on future "water wars" that brings to mind the etymological fact that the term "rival" comes from the Latin "rivalis" meaning "someone sharing a river." Hmmm.

Finally, a local historical event: The Earl Palmer Museum opens in Cambria (near Christiansburg) this weekend. I'm aware of the man as a photographer of local culture, and his photographs are on display in the museum--which is the general store he ran (and which contains many of the products on the shelves in the forties and fifties.) I'm sure I'll stop by sometime in my travels through the area--maybe toting my camera.

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So what's there for a fella to get into in Mobile, Alabama over Thanksgiving weekend? Anybody have suggestions or experiences, down there as far south as a person can go in Dixie?

I haven't found much in the way of bloggers in Mobile to connect with, and it won't be a good weekend for book-related events (writers groups meeting that I could visit, that sort of thing.) There are some wildlife refuges within an hour's drive that could have a pretty good migration of birds passing through or over-wintering, and there's got to be some natural dunes and seashore where I could go with camera and meditate in the sand and take in the very different taste of ocean versus our mountain air and energy. Surely that would inspire some worthwhile snippets to write about (the motel DOES have wireless in "select rooms" and in the hotel atrium, so I can at least post a blog item or two while I'm there.)

Friday night, I can settle for the most interesting of the unappealing movies in the area and spend too much money to sit through one or two of them, just to kill time. And there have to be some really great seafood restaurants where I can eat a week's allotment of southern-fried grease in one meal. And on Saturday, I've never been to the Battleship Alabama--a more touristy thing to do than is my usual.

But if anybody knows one or more "you simply must" kinds of things especially for Saturday, November 25th in Mobile, I will need to entertain myself all day, as I will be a High School Reunion Widower.

The wife for almost five months has been in over her hip waders as part of the planning committee for this large-round-number event where she'll be reunited with folks she hasn't seen for the most part in XX years.

She has quite taken over control of the desktop computer (I'm glad for the laptop!) and I don't even bother checking our home email any more--they're all for her, and all about the reunion. This event is becoming a major blip on the seismograph and has come to dominate her life and our conversations of late. She's already laying out her wardrobe, so I have to get my ducks in a row, too, as an autonomous travel companion along for the ride.

I'll drive her down and back (a 1400 mile round trip) and will hover in the shadows around the periphery while she and her friends do what it is they will do, but for the most part, I'll need to entertain myself as she and I will be ships passing in the night.

The decision that I WILL GO has been fraught with all sorts of approach-avoidance issues as some of you who have been through this mid-life inter-spousal conflict of interest might understand. I intend to be as present for her there as I need to be and as invisible and remote as I can manage to be, so she'll have the independence to come and go and the autonomy she requires for this short period of life immersed back in the people and places, times and spirits of the sixties, a-Go-Go, doo-whop doo-whop. I only wish my graduating class had put together such an event.

So help me get outta th' house that weekend, folks. Save me from hours in the Motel pool and bar or some seedy Barnes and Noble drinking cappuchinos. Surely there's something going on down on the coast that a geriatric blogger-photographer could get into that will yield good memories (or photographs or stories) to bring north with us. Your brilliant ideas by comment or email will be most welcomed! You have 9 weeks to complete your assignment. Get busy, y'all!

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As a physical therapist who sometimes provides home care, being neighborly can be a pleasant obligation of my work.

Recently, I've said goodbye to one elderly gentleman-neighbor after having a therapeutic reason to visit his remote mountain home twice a week for almost two months. We ended up doing more therapeutic conversation than rehabilitation at times, and I always enjoyed the adventure of getting to his "can't get here from there" frame house on Diamond Knob--not more than a mile as the crow flies from our place here. It always put me to mind of those L'il Abner frames that showed Snuffy Smith in the middle of a plank that connected one ridge top with the next'un--it's that steep; and the narrow, winding road that snakes its way up the mountain from Shawsville Pike makes ours look like a tame super-hiway.

Having lived here all his life, John knows way more about our valley than we do, and if his hearing had been a little better and the conversation easier to direct, I'd have loved to have steered the talk toward the history of our place here. He did tell me that the old foundation just round the bend of our pasture was once a house, not a barn as we had supposed. Ann--in her archeologist's hat again--had excavated the remains of an old ornate woodstove there, which made us wonder if somebody lived in the structure at one time. John named the family. Son kilt the father, son went to jail, somebody up and kilt him in prison--so John tells me.

Not ten feet behind John's house stands the small square two story log cabin that I think he was born in; it was built shortly after the civil war, just like our place here. I'd always imagined getting a picture of him standing beside it, but the weather and my patient's unsteadiness didn't allow it the couple of times I had my camera with me. Oh the stories he could tell. (He said it'd be okay to put his picture on the web, though I rather imagine he hasn't much notion what the internet is all about, and certainly no interest in it.)

Maybe someday before winter, Ann and I will stop in on ol' John with a loaf of bread or some cookies. They aren't making 'em like him anymore, a man who plowed the sides of Diamond Knob with a horse, and "done more walking on this mountain that any man alive."

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"Gee whiz, Mr. Wizard. That's amazing!"

Yes, I know it dates me to confess that I used to Watch Mr. Wizard in the mid-fifties. And it might have been here on this ad-lib, low-budget, black and white TV show that I first had the sensation of amazement that matter (often involving baking soda, batteries or balloons) could be so complex and yet so marvelously interesting if you just knew how to look at it. Sometimes, that different view of the ordinary came through microscope or telescope or other lenses that revealed what was there all along, right under our noses or swirling along through our very veins. This was my first encounter with science. I sometimes imagined myself as one of the Wizard's young toadies who watched in wonder, and I've been a gee-whiz kind of a guy ever since.

One of my earliest science memories is from late-elementary school biology where we drew "the cell" as a round blob consisting of three labeled parts: cell membrane (a mere edge, nothing more); the nucleus (another featureless round blob inside the larger one) and the insipid goo of the empty space called cytoplasm. That was it--not a terribly interesting unit of architecture--and yet we were told that we and all living things were made up of such circles, and owed our very lives to the collective of these things. Because cells were in some way alive, so were we. Believing that took much faith and instilled very little awe--to be made up of countless trillions of simple circles drawn with the graphite of a yellow pencil on ruled paper.

Imagine, then, my school-boy wonder last week when viewing the latest and most thorough-going graphic depiction of the complex, moving, three-dimensional world inside a single white blood cell. Here is a two minute clip from the original eight minute animation that shows a wealth of "basic biology" from the workings of cell membrane (a vastly complex and important bi-layer outside of which nothing is alive), of structural and informational proteins in their complex shapes that relate so precisely with their functions. Here you'll see cellular machines synthesizing proteins, moving secretions along internal railroad tracks of the microtubular skeleton of the cell. And in the end, the white blood cell, whose inner workings we've been watching as it becomes equipped to seek out and destroy invaders and debris, morphs from its globular passive state into an amoeboid, actively moving state, and slips out between the endothelial cells of a capillary to patrol the tissue spaces.

That you read and comprehend these words this very instant is because of the same kinds of high-speed, precisely-engineered communication within and between your living cells as you see in this recent graphic video. And if you can't be amazed at that, boys and girls, you haven't listened carefully enough to Mr. Wizard.

We are all far more marvelous than we give ourselves credit for. We still draw each other as stick men and women, outlines with simple skins inside which we're merely goo going about our business. Understanding the true complexity of a single cell is a good object lesson toward a new beginning--to a look just ahead to a period when we must take better care of our bodies, our soil and water and air, and this Water Planet teeming with life. Let's start over with Gee Whiz, and go from there.

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"If you're going to write about life, you have to have one."

This is pretty good advice for those like me who are cloistered comfortably on front porches in their slippers wondering what in the Sam Hill they have worth sharing in so many words. Sometimes it just helps to get off your haunches and strike out into the world and see what's there.

Twice last week I left the house for obligatory morning meetings, on a schedule, couldn't stop. And wouldn't you know it: the roadsides in the early light of morning were bejeweled with dewy spider webs and fall wildflowers glistening in the slanting sun, light against shadow--the most beautiful, natural compositions you could want to find--and I drove relentlessly past them all, on my way to appointed tasks. I vowed soon to make an intentional revisiting to those roads at those times of day. I made notes, I set alarms on the computer so I wouldn't forget. Yesterday, I left the house bound to retrace my travels with camera in hand and time to go slowly. But as I often observe, it's better to travel hopefully than to arrive.

Even at the same places at the same times of day, photographically, they were not the same. No morning dew, no spiders on webs (there were hundreds in the span of a half dozen fence posts just a few days ago!) and nothing to stop and go back for along Stonewall or Locust Grove. My pretense for making the drive of practical rather than just aesthetic purpose was to drop off something at the Check Post Office, which I did, crestfallen, and came straight home.

Even so, I had one shot in mind before I reached home. There is a derelict house between us and the hardtop. Every year we expect it to implode toward its rotten center where the roof let in water many years ago, and yet the walls still stand. It's impossible not to notice as it sits ON not near the road. This image here was taken with a standard lens, if that tells you anything. The sad, long-abandoned old place is not empty. No, it has become home to at least a half-dozen feral cats, and one huge raccoon who often swaggers on the front porch, a beast I take to be the pimp of the Goose Creek Cathouse.

As I left on my pointless mission and passed the house going out of the valley, there were three large cats arranged symmetrically in the two overstuffed chairs. Perfect! I thought, and knew at once that, while I couldn't stop now, I must stop on my way home AFTER I'd captured those perfect moments of light in the glistening spider webs up on the hardtop. And of course, when I returned, having traveled hopefully, there was one sad little ghetto-child kitten for my picture.

Moral: always take your camera with you. Always stop NOW. Never expect a repeat performance. And keep traveling hopefully--some day, you just might arrive.

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Even though the spiders are in their feeding frenzy of fall and lie in wait in webs draped across every forest clearing; even though it was warm enough that we knew we'd want to fall in the "swirly pool" with Tsuga when we got back down to the creek; and even though we were already tired and stressed from the day already passed, we climbed "heart attack hill" yesterday afternoon.

This path doesn't bother with the sissy switchbacks a "real" trail would employ to make the 200 foot climb in elevation less of a cardio-experience. This trail cuts directly across the contours, rising up above the bluff at the junction of Nameless and Goose Creeks, passing through the jumble of chestnut rails finally giving up the ghost under the hemlocks that are doing the same.

Once the panting hiker reaches the summit, the going is easy along our eastern ridge--at least with regard to elevation change--for a half mile, where most of that purchase of height is given back in a rocky tree-to-tree repel down the far side of the valley, skirting rocky outcrops covered in moss, and yesterday so leafy that there was not yet any view of the pasture and our tiny-seeming house in the distance.

All of this is the long-winded way of mentioning that, with the more or less regular rains, the fall mushrooms are doing quite well. Expect to see portraits of several of them in the coming weeks. But don't expect names for all of them, including the one pictured above. It is distinctive enough that a simple trip upstairs to the bookshelves later on this morning should suffice to get it at least to genus.

This one was found growing on a fallen log, and what you're seeing is the underneath surface. The tops were very non-descript as they formed earth-toned shelves, horizontal to the ground. This is a woody shelf fungus, and not your usual gilled variety, but a middle ground between the pore-bearing and the gilled kinds, with both gills and pores serving to increase the surface area for the production and release of spores that will keep the lineage going into future forests.

If you squint your eyes just right and suspend the notion that you know what this thing is, it isn't hard--at least for me--to imagine this as an underwater creature, a sea coral or colonial invertebrate community of some sort. It would be even more easy to imagine if it were a nice pink or orange, and believe me, I was tempted to make it so in Photoshop and see if you wouldn't guess it an ocean rather than a forest dweller!

Another view of a larger and more varied specimen is here!

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Well, from all accounts, the events in Floyd yesterday were well-attended and enjoyed. I only saw the part from my borrowed tent just across from the livestock tent, from whence I learned the finer points (and wine-tasting nuance of language) to judge calves and sheep groomed and shown mostly by excited, hopeful little farm girls.

We couldn't have asked for a nicer day than yesterday, though at 10:00 when I hadn't had my table set up five minutes my 11 x 17 poster blew over. I finally gave up and propped it in the second folding lawn chair I'd brought along, and borrowed a bit of tape from the vendors next door to hold some other table items in the north breeze that died back as the sun rose. I sat back and prepared for a day of uninterrupted crowd watching, but was pleasantly surprised by the visits, the conversations and the book sales (sold: 17!)

It was great to meet new folks yesterday with whom there had been a connection through the blog or the newspaper columns. "So how DO you pronounce your dog's name, I've wanted to know" asked a couple of folks. "So where IS Goose Creek" asked a few more. Several stopped by to tell me they had bought the book in town over the summer and had enjoyed or were enjoying it. I met long-time blog reader Mark from Greensboro, up to Floyd yesterday for the first time, and one couple told me that buying the book (and having it inscribed) was the reason they had come to yesterday's event.

And no, I didn't make it to the crowning event of the day. I can't imagine it was just sun, as I was under the tent most of the day, but by closing time at 4, my face was flushed and I felt feverish and when I got home, I stayed. I'm sure I'll hear all about the Kingsolver throng at the high school. I think too, I was just burned out on flesh-pressing and conversation and needed an evening at home. I'd had a good day, and enough of one to do these old bones.

Coming events--let's see. Wednesday, back for Radio Readers at WVTF--the third installment and only to page 56. Friday, I'll drive down the Appalachian Literature event at Emory and Henry for the day. Saturday morning, I'll make an early appearance at WUVT, the campus radio station for Virginia Tech, for an interview. Saturday afternoon, there's a pig roast at a neighbor's down the road, and Saturday evening, the Jacksonville Membership dinner. Whew!

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We do indeed have a fine fall day ahead for the 175th Year Anniversary and Floyd County Harvest and Homecoming event today.

I'll be stationed under a white tent between two small maple trees, strategically triangulated between the Livestock Pens, the PortaPotties, and the Compost Demonstration. I'll be the one with the books--an unlikely commodity for those looking for snowcones and the winner of the Big Vegetable Awards. But hey--it's visibility to a Floyd County contingent that isn't likely to buy a book at Cafe del Sol. Could be interesting!

The excitement described above is held at the ball field on Route 8 a mile or so north (on the Christiansburg side) of Floyd. Access will be by way of shuttle buses from parking at Citizens Telephone, Bank of Floyd, the high school and perhaps a few other places around town. Gates open at 10 and remain open til 4.

There will be historical tours in town, and Slow Food displays and vendors set up at Harvest Moon.

Now. What will I do about this evening? I'll be whupped, and will have to take down the tent and pack my dog and pony show in car around 5:00. Doors open to the evening speaker at 6 and it will be packed; Kingsolver draws a crowd. Do I want to be part of it? Yes. And no. I have the feeling that by that hour, I'll have had about all the sitting and social interaction I can handle. But on the other hand, there will be a huge crowd of READERS in that one place tonight, it would make good politics to be there amongst them. We'll see.

I've heard from a few Fragments friends and readers and interested book consumers and am looking forward to meeting you, so don't be shy, do stop by and say hello. I'll be glad for the company.

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It's looking like the pasture won't get a second cutting this year, and so all winter, we'll be drenched unless we stay on the mown path through the field--or unless all the water the grasses hold is frozen. It's amazing how much moisture is held by the tangle of thick grasses that make up a hay field, and we'll be happy for our Muckboots on the cold morning walks ahead.

There is one tiny grass in particular that is remarkable for how it holds dew and rain, and especially rain. It is as if it holds a snapshot of an overnight rain for us to see the next morning, each droplet captured in space just where it fell. It is a low-growing grass with hundreds of small, mauve flowers rather than a tall spikey grass like most, and this gives it a diffused softness, a pinkish wispy aspect that even when dry is lovely. It is a plant for which I have no name, so I call it Raindrop Grass. (Larger image is here.)

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I guess I haven't been too guilty of book-chat of late, so maybe a few words in that direction this morning.

I've now presented at one breakfast, one lunch and one dinner for the Rotary clubs--in Roanoke, Floyd and Radford, respectively. They have been receptive audiences, and I'll probably try to contact a few more for slots in October and November. The fall calendar is far too open, if I'm hoping to tap into the Christmas season surge in book buying.

Today, I go back to WVTF for my second dose of reading for the Radio Readers. The first time was a bit sobering, realizing that I probably won't end up with Slow Road sound files that are worthy of turning directly into an audiobook. What I may have is a "rough draft" that gives me an idea of which pieces are better than others from a listener's point of view. It may be that in the end, I'll be content with a relatively unpolished, abridged, one-CD "book" that I distribute only via the webpage and not bother with marketing and distribution to a wider market. We'll see.

While I was at the studio last week, Sandra Kelly, editor of Prime Living magazine, came over for an interview--a very pleasant first meeting and nice chat. That piece will be available on October 1. I think I'm correct in saying that this magazine is free and available at grocery stores and similar places around Roanoke. I think the piece will feature an image or two from the Fragments archive along with the interview.

I'm in writer's limbo on several fronts. While I imagine I'll have ample boxes of books to get me through Christmas sales, I'll most likely be approaching my last cartons shortly thereafter, and will need to decide what to do about ordering a second printing. I don't think, unless things change for the better and more visible soon, that I'll want to do the one-to-one direct sales I've chosen to follow with the first printing.

Handing it over to a distributor will put more distance between me and the book, and of course, also reduce my returns per sale. But it would also free up my time and energy to think about what--if anything--comes next in the writing and photographic realm. Perhaps I'll shop the book around to potential publishers, so that my "illegitimate" self-published book might catch the eye of reviewers and book festival committees that won't give an "author subsidized" book a second look. Not sure yet.

The second "undecided" matter is what comes next in terms of a subject and format. One thing that keeps revisiting my thoughts is something that combines the images (of insects and such, naturally) with text that is both interesting, informative and a mandate toward care of and responsibility for the health of the natural world. I'm imagining something not so lofty, more colloquial and accessible. Maybe even a book that could be picked up by junior high or high schools. I see a landscape-oriented book with 5 x 7 images on one page, and 600 thought-provoking words of text on the facing page, total of maybe 30 to 40 such paired pages. Like I say, I'm just at the thinking stage, but hope to put feet on something very soon. I need to sink my teeth into a new project for winter.

Thanks to friends David and Gretchen, I now have a tent to sit under on Saturday at the "Harvest Festival" at the ball field off Route 8. I think I have set my expectations of this event for my purposes at an adequately low level so that I won't expect too much. I'd predict that I will sell 3 or 4 books for manning the table for 6 hours (and not counting the time to set up and take down the display, the tent, and such) so the return for investment (that also includes a $25 fee) might be "break even." But every time Slow Road Home is seen, it lowers the threshold among the readership. "Oh, I've seen that book before" the passersby will say. The next time they see it they'll say "I'm going to take a look at that" and the third time, they pick it up, and a few buy it. Something like that.

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Here's a beetle, the Locust Borer, that looks at first like a wasp or yellow jacket. That's what it hopes a would-be predator will think just long enough for him to avoid becoming a meal. For me, this insect--that I see always and only on goldenrod in the fall--is a sign of the season.

Note the distinctive "W" on the back. If you squint your eyes, the W looks a bit like the short membranous wings of a yellow jacket, but there may be another reason, or none at all, for this marking.

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Hive Mind

A friend and I were wondering a week or so ago what happens to yellow jacket nests in the winter (as he tried to decide what to do about one in the wall of his home.) We both went home and did a little research and discovered that only the queen overwinters while the remainder of the hive dies off. This is not always true, it turns out. In Alabama this season come reports of nests that survived last winter, and apparently have multiple queens, and these paper nests (usually no bigger than a basketball) are large enough to fill the interior of abandoned cars! This is puzzling, because it means that the carnivorous workers were able to find food (other insects mostly) all winter long, where usually they either starve or freeze in winter. Climate change or a random fluctuation? We'll see.

Dead Ringer

I feel terrible. I killed a harmless, yea a beneficial snake the other day, and I should be ashamed. But it took me by surprise and I over-reacted. I was moving wood from the stack down beyond the garden into the truck to bring up to the house for the winter, and when I lifted a flat piece of oak, underneath was coiled a patterned snake that immediately attempted to escape to a hiding place deeper in the pile. I slammed the piece of oak down on him, thinking it must be a copperhead--like the ones I'd just heard about from a patient who lives in our county.

I should have held back such a knee-jerk and senseless reaction, but I guess the fear of finding what might be a little poisonous snake in the woodstacks a half-truckload later just took precedence over my biological curiosity. Turns out, it was a corn snake (a beautiful form of rat snake seen in the lower image) and one of the most docile snakes in North America. To my defense, this smallish snake was shedding and its pattern obscured. But my unthinking over-reaction ruined my day, I tell ya.

Web World

Sorry no pix: the gray smears of webs you see in the outer branches of trees these past weeks are NOT the same as the ones you might have observed in the spring and early summer. There are indeed at least two kinds of caterpillars who live in protective webs while they defoliate their host trees. The earlier ones are Tent Caterpillars, and they tend to build in the crotches of small trees--the latter, Fall Web Worms that build on the outermost ends of branches. These two larval moths are different in appearance, too, if you take the time to dig down into their ikky webs and tease out a few for inspection. But I rather imagine you won't be doing that. So use your favorite search engine to find pix, if you're interested.

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Well I suppose this is an omen. Up since 3:30, I had decided that, since I didn't have anything nice or wise to say for all my ruminative wee-hours wakefulness, I'd post an image instead. I've actually been behind the camera again, as you might have noticed, and it feels mighty good. Failing to find the thousand words, I would post a picture this morning.

And when I attempt to upload an image in MSIE from the MT page, I get a little notice that a popup window was blocked, and no image is uploaded. I've disabled popup blocking through Tools/ Internet Options and it's still blocked. I've rebooted, no improvement.

No wait! It's Yahoo Toolbar's fault. Turning off that popup blocker unblocks the upload screen, obviously, because you see the image of Deptford Pink from the pasture.

Dianthus armeria is a tiny pink flower, a close relative of Dianthus caryophyllus, the common and much larger and more showy Carnation. It grows as a naturalized wildflower in the east (a native of Eurasia), adding mere dots of color to the monotony of a pasture or field. To see it this close requires one to slow down, get close to the earth, and take a good focus on the near at hand--a good grounding when one loses the bigger picture context of where they are and where they are headed.

My file upload is unblocked. My writer's will and focus is not. So...

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I try to resist overly-quoting myself, so I'll just steer you few Slow Road Home readers to the piece in the book called "Gossamer Days". It's that time of year again, you know. Wait for a cold front to pass through and bring a perfectly clear day without clouds or haze, and begin looking for the floating spiders in mid-afternoon. Do let me know if you see them, and I'll feel like I've directed your attention toward something truly memorable.

I was contacted a few weeks ago by an expat writer and blogger from Prague, asking permission to use one of my images for one of his posts. In that post, he sheds light on the word "gossamer" and makes a connection I had not realized between the floating webs and an old name for this very special event in this wonderful time of year.

...this month is what Americans call Indian Summer; but, in these parts, it's called Babi Leto (Granny Summer). As an American, I always pictured Indians (on paint and pinto horses) hunting buffalo on a warm September afternoon. That's a nice image for the end of summer, but Czechs have a good image, too, and theirs has not lost its historilinguistic continuity as has the English image. Even the British now use the term "Indian Summer" (I asked a British acquaintance).

The former English tradition, which goes back to the same time as the Czech tradition, has broken with its past and forever lost to modern English. In old English, there were no Indians, so what was Indian Summer called centuries ago? The only remains of the Old English tradition is in the word gossamer, which are the very fine strands of spider webbing that baby spiders use, kind of like fine silk parachutes, to fly far from their birthplace.

On a warm September day, this gossamer fills the forest air and looks quite beautiful as it catches the light. Old English folks thought it looked like goose down floating through the air, so they called late summer Goose Summer, which is nowadays only evidenced in the etymology of the word gossamer. Our Goose Summer transformed into a word for baby spider parachutes, and our original Goose Summer changed into an Indian Summer--causing the original Old English folklore to become disconnected and hidden within the etymology of a rarely-used word.

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TO READ Whither Wind / Orion Magazine / Charles Komanoff Check out the blog comments for this piece, link at the end of the article.

TO DESKTOP IMAGE The Blue Lagoon Nebula from Hubble, or this fantastic composite or our own moon.

TO EDUCATE A medical explanation of avian flu past, present and future. (Video 40 minutes--send the link to your physician friends.)

TO PONDER From a single paper clip to a house. What strange times we live in. But then, how could you or I leverage our "one red paper clip" of talent and drive to make larger things happen? Hmmm.

TO BELIEVE What you need to believe to be a Republican.

TO LOOK We don't want to see the slaughterhouses where our dinner steaks come from. We don't want to look at what's happening to Appalachian mountains, villages, creeks and families so that the lights come on when we flip the switch. WE. MUST. LOOK.

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It stands to reason that this weekend could be the biggest event to hit Floyd in, oh, a hundred and seventy five years. The weather looks to be autumn-perfect for The Floyd County Homecoming & Harvest Festival and I imagine we'll have folks coming up from all directions for the big event.

I hope to see you at my book table under the Big Top (thanks D and G for the loan of the tent!) The Recreational Park is north of town on Route 8. I think there will be a shuttle from the Citizens Telephone parking lot and probably also from town.

From the Virginia is for Lovers Page

Floyd Recreation Park, Harvest Moon and downtown Floyd

Come to Floyd and bring the whole family. Enjoy the foods, animals, children’s games, live traditional music, heritage demonstrations, history exhibits, and old-fashioned County fair contests. The County Fair will be at the Floyd Recreational Park and the Taste of Floyd will be on the lawn at the Harvest Moon (both on Route 8 in Floyd). The Taste of Floyd features locally-produced foods and is an official Slow-Food event. Tickets to the County Fair will be $2, with children 12 and under free. Tickets to the Taste of Floyd event will be $5. Other special events in Floyd that day will include walking tours of Historic Floyd sponsored by the Floyd County Historical Society, and readings and discussions with author Barbara Kingsolver at 7:30 p.m. at the Floyd County High School, sponsored by the Friends of the Library. (I think the time for the Kingsolver event is actually at 7:00 and from what I hear, the doors open at 6 and you'd better get there early. Can't say I'm familiar with that level of reader crush. If you're coming to one of my events, there will be plenty of seats if you show up late. We'll just be happy to see you whenever. ;>)

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Hmmm. I knew I had one problem with this plant from across the road: I don't know its name. I'm almost certain it is a tomato relative, in the family Solanaceae, along with potato, eggplant, and the ubiquitous "horse nettle" that is too common as an understory plant in our pasture this year.

But I have just realized I have another question about this plant: is it self-pollinating?

Given that the sepals fuse in a "chinese lantern" around the sexual parts of the flower that will make the fruit (somewhat visible as a shadow inside) I suppose that rules out an insect pollinator. The only explanation is that the flower provides both sperm (in the pollen grain) and egg inside the closed lantern.

Does anybody know this plant? A name would help me answer my question about its reproductive biology, which I know will now be a burning question on every Fragments reader's mind. My own personal day will be wrecked until I know the answer.

Anyone? Anyone?

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Well, not such a good title, perhaps, but life seems to be sending us a lot of insects lately, so the blog is squeezing them for morning posts.

That, and the fact that I'm enjoying learning the macro capabilities of Ann's little Canon Powershot. So indulge me a few more arthropods, perhaps a final fall wild flower or two, and anything else that a bug's eye might see. They'll all be gone from the scene soon enough, and images of frost, snow and dead and dying leaves will take their place.

This sinister-looking insect's appearance in this photo is a hint toward one of its common names: the Assassin Bug. On the remaining milkweeds in our pasture yesterday morning over by the barn there were several like this one --more than an inch long--waiting for an easy meal. My guess is that its next piece of meat would taste like grasshopper. And the victim would not see the slow-moving predator until it was too late. Then, it would be speared by the retractable hypodermic mouthpart (which stays tucked underneath the Assassin Bug's fuselage until the instant of need.) Once the body of the host is penetrated, its body juices will feed the insect until its meal runs dry and it moves on the next course.

This insect is also called the "Wheel Bug" because of the sprocket it wears on its back, there for no functional reason perhaps except recognition of its own kind. And one of it's close southern relatives--also a "true bug" or hemipteran, is called the "Kissing Bug" because it tends to bite its human victims at night near the lips. It can be the kiss of death, as this Central American insect often carries a protozoan parasite called Trypanosoma that passes on an illness called Chagas Disease. Never heard of it? It kills 50,000 people a year in Latin America. And with the planet getting warmer, the Kissing Bug (and also other insect vectors of human and animal disease) packs its bags and moves north a few miles every year.

Research entomologists are working to make a Kissing Bug that is genetically incompatible with the infectious protozoan, just as they are working on mosquitoes that can't harbor malaria and tsetse flies that cannot carry African Sleeping sickness. (The old methods of carpet bombing with DDT and Malathion broke as many things as they fixed--remember "solutions as problems"?)

Mind the Wheel Bug. He bites. He will pierce and suck you dry and leave your empty carcass at the edge of the garden as a yard ornament. Leave the Assassin Bug where you find him. It's said that its bite feels like 10 hornets stinging in the same place. But unless you aggravate him, he's perfectly content to hide on the back side of a milkweed leaf and wait until the dinner bell rings.

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You can see the milky sap on the main stem and dots of white at a few tiny nibbles here and there where grasshoppers and other insects are making a meal of what's left of the milkweed in our pasture.

Yes, we have milkweed in our pasture--loathesome and not tolerated by cattlefolk in some parts, since it doesn't agree with their livestock's digestion. (This, of course, is exactly what the plant had in mind with the toxic Elmer's-gluey sap. It thus protects itself from grazing, but not, alas, from every threat.) So on large portions of America's fields, pastures and range lands, Asclepias syriaca, common milkweed, is being eliminated by the spraying of pesticides to make the world safe for beef.

And with the demise of the milkweed goes the Monarch Butterfly. One solution creates another problem. Sound familiar?

Cattle can be sold and a value placed on their existence; taxes are gained from local selling and reselling all the way down to the hamburger eater grilling in the back yard. Monarch butterflies and Hickory Horned Devils--these and countless other impending extinctions in your lifetime--have no such value that can be registered on a county tax schedule.

Something is wrong with this picture.

"The monarch and the milkweed will vanish. Everyone knows that economics come before beauty, commerce before conservation. Everyone knows that everything legal is safe.

Or maybe we all don't know this. Maybe we think nature, with its messy ebbs and flows, has value. Maybe we're not sure that a few big companies should eradicate whole species. Maybe we're not certain that GM crops should predominate, playing an unknown role in our children's health.

We can write letters, quit using herbicides, reject GM crops. We can plant milkweed. For a while, monarchs will appear, airborne jewels, landing dreamily on our plants as though this were the only place on earth they want to be.

Which it is."

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This, from the Rocky Mountain Institute, that sees the need for "vision across bounaries" so sadly lacking in most political platforms or cultural visions of the future. We have a shot--and it must be on the mark--at making large decisions that will impact the future of earth and man in enormous and far-reaching ways. It would serve our descendents to provide solutions that don't turn into problems.

In the early 1950s, the Dayak people of Borneo suffered from malaria. The World Health Organization had a solution: it sprayed large amounts of DDT to kill the mosquitoes that carried the malaria. The mosquitoes died; the malaria declined; so far, so good. But there were side effects. Among the first was that the roofs of people's houses began to fall down on their heads. It seemed that the DDT was also killing a parasitic wasp that had previously controlled thatch-eating caterpillars. Worse, the DDT-poisoned insects were eaten by geckos, which were eaten by cats. The cats started to die, the rats flourished, and the people were threatened by potential outbreaks of typhus and plague. To cope with these problems, which it had itself created, the World Health Organization was obliged to parachute 14,000 live cats into Borneo. (See "How Not to Parachute More Cats.")

The true story of Operation Cat Drop--now nearly forgotten at WHO--illustrates that if you don't know how things are interconnected, then often the cause of problems is solutions. On the other hand, if you understand the hidden connections between energy, climate, water, agriculture, transportation, security, commerce, and economic and social development, then you can often devise a solution to one problem (such as energy) that will also create solutions to many other problems at no extra cost. Crafting solutions so that they multiply is RMI's credo and the basis of its success."

I think about this now especially as "we" commit to an electical future dependent on the construction of even more Appalachian mountaintop-fed, coal-fired power plants and spend enormous amounts of energy to suck an unknown amount of trapped oil from far out and far down in the Gulf of Mexico. Are these solutions that will become problems that might be avoided or reduced with other "solutions"? We truly need vision for the long haul and must find and elect leaders unbeholding to carbon-based empire to make it happen now.

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Yesterday, there was a knock on our door, and the visitor pictured here was paying a call. I am pleased to be the odd kind of fellow to whom neighbors bring amazing creatures in plastic pails, although it seems to me that everyone along our country road would benefit from a peek inside.

This unlikely beast is the Hickory Horned Devil--a hideously beautiful creature that might just as well have come direct from the lot of a B-grade science fiction movie as from a modern-day real-life forest floor. It is the unlikely preparatory stage required to build the elegant Regal Moth, a Beast and Beauty story if ever there was one.

The Horned Devil is remarkable for size alone. It can be held in the hand of an adult only along the axis of the fingers, because otherwise, it's five-in-long, inch-thick body would drape over both sides of the open palm. (See this image to appreciate the size of it!) It has the heft of a roll of quarters, gargantuan by land-invertebrate standards, and indeed, it is the largest caterpillar in North America by most reckonings.

But will you reach into the bucket to lift such a thing up into the light of day? If you make the creature agitated, it begins to thrash its front half back and forth and roll in alligator feeding-frenzy fashion in a most off-putting way, even if it is all just bluster: those spiny horns are harmless; there are no teeth in the terror for those who would merely hold and admire. However, to an actual predator hoping to make a meal of him, it's my guess that the Devil's thorny, bright orange warning antlers are there for a reason--and bad taste, bad smell or bad digestion probably lurk within, nature's fair warning to look but not touch if it's a meal you're after.

I photographed this mammoth caterpillar and, perplexed, returned him to the bucket. That gaudy appearance, the horns in particular, had brought almost to mind some other thing, some larger context that I couldn't quite lift to the surface.

Several hours later, it dawned on me that what I was reminded of by the Horned Devil's spiny, curved spikes was the feeding appendages Anomalocaris canadensis--the anomalous sea-dwelling creature of 550 million years ago whose parts each were at one time given the status of separate species.

Science proceeded from error to error to put together the animal from its parts over more than a century; every explanation that had come before was wrong, but was the best that could be done with what we had. We cobbled together the truth as the parts became known for what they are--or might be--until more light shines in the dark places of our ignorance.

It's stretching the metaphor perhaps, but to my mind, the bizarre caterpillar I held in my hand today in some sense is a similar fragment of knowledge. And it, like so many other of our fellow creatures, seems to be disappearing from the eastern forest--a partial truth, a single specimen of a single seldom-seen species that in the end, is integral to the astounding, ancient whole of nature's economy. We cannot even imagine. Every creature, from the simple and plain to the gawdy and bizarre, is a small piece of an immense puzzle we have not seen clearly or whole, even as its members disappear before our eyes.

Image captured by Canon Powershopt A620 in Macro setting.

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Ann has referred to these so often in her malapropist almost-right way for so many years that I've given up. These immature red-spotted newts that we see commonly on our walks are now officially known on Goose Creek as Red Elfs. (Rigid stickler herpetologists may continue to refer to them as "red efts" but they don't know the enchantment worked on these forest sprites to turn them into ELFS in our valley!)

I've been carrying Ann's Powershot on walks of late, especially trying out its closeup capabilities. So expect a few more bugs-eye views this week, and some views of bug's eyes too, matter of fact. I'll be watching now for the goldenrod insects, a whole 'nother crop of critters to replace the millkweed arthropods, that plant now gone by.

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A week ago, the dog didn't have a quiet moment all day. Now, Abby's gone and the old folks aren't very much fun.

They walk. They don't run. They take the footbridge OVER the creek, they don't splash down in it, even sit down in it on a dog's eye level like Abby did. They really aren't that much stimulation after you've had a little girl to entertain you for a week.

And what's more, by the time she left last Sunday, Abby could toss a piece of dog biscuit just right every time so Tsuga could catch it before it hit the ground. And she was much more generous with the puppy treats than the usual boring, stingy playmates. And she didn't care if he was wet or if his feet and face were dirty from digging--she'd hug his neck and hold on tight, just the same.

Man, every Floyd County farm dog needs a five year old, Tsuga says.

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Dog vs Hog

Dog won. Tsuga caught, subdued, devoured and upchucked ole Chuck, the rotund barn-dwelling groundhog who got so fat that it couldn't waddle faster than T-dog could run. Unfortunately yet again, when viscera and wildlife death were involved, I was gone and Ann was left here holding the bag (and shovel.) I did, however, perform the duty of ultimate undertaker of the gathered remains, and drove the black plastic body bag on the top of my Subaru to the green box on the way to work yesterday.

Blog to Book

There's a prize for the best blog-to-book conversion being offered by Lulu, and I've sent a copy off just this week for next year's competition. I think the time will come when the entrants come to a popular vote, so of course I'll hope I still have some readers then to ask a favor. I think first prize is $10k. That would fund a lot of book-related travel and maybe even a couple of small extras--like that wide-angle lens I've been thinking about.

Climate Repair Manual

Scientific American devotes an entire issue to global warming, and has posted the "no more business as usual" introduction online.

Wish I Was Teaching

This is the first fall since 2004 that I am not teaching since that long-abandoned, chalk-dusted post was resumed part-time at RU. Do I miss it? Yes, in some ways, I do. I drive the county roads lined with wingstem and touch-me-not and think about those couple of field trips along the New River Trail with a gaggle of 20 students (five times for five different labs last fall.) I think about how the teaching fully immersed me in the current events of planetary health and current events in a way I had not been for decades--since leaving teaching in 1987. But part-time teaching is full-time work with nothing paid for the tens of hours spent outside class and lab. The PT work is more concise and more productive, even if it isn't as intellectually stimulating as watching 120 students yawn and instant-message during my lectures. I got to a few of them. And they got to me.

New Kid on the Block: CA-MRSA

Healthcare workers know and dread the hospital-nursing home variety of Staph Aureus (SA), for some time now resistant to Methacyllin (MR). Clusters of community-acquired (CA) staph have started appearing in day cares, locker rooms, prisons and in other community places, and this is not a good thing. All the more reason to practice good hygiene per the CDC recommendations.

Flotsam

Hubble Image of Lagoon Nebula makes a great desktop image. Awesome. And from the Land of Plenty: Taco Town. Wait! There's More! (YouTube) And finally, to the tune of Summertime Blues: Avian Flu (this one's for Doug)

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The "environmental crisis," in fact, can be solved only if people, individually and in their communities, recover responsibility for their thoughtlessly given proxies. If people begin the effort to take back into their own power a significant portion of their economic responsibility, then their inevitable first discovery is that the "environmental crisis" is no such thing; it is not a crisis of our environs or surroundings; it is a crisis of our lives as individuals, as family members, as community members, and as citizens. We have an "environmental crisis" because we have consented to an economy in which by eating, drinking, working, resting, traveling, and enjoying ourselves we are destroying the natural, the god-given world. ~ Wendell Berry, Orion Magazine 2001

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I'm open to suggestions for rigging up a swinging grill pictured above. Some of you might consider it as well--low-tech, highly functional, inexpensive to build (I think--we'll see.)

We've not been real happy since we made the move from the propane grill (whose most expensive parts continued to fail on an annual basis) to a simple Weber charcoal grill. With this very basic kettle-grill the distance from coals to the burgers is too great for an average bed of charcoal to cook sufficiently for those who like their meat thoroughly done and there's no distance adjustment. Plus, the bagged charcoal ain't cheap and takes up a good bit of room in the shed.

I've seen this grill in use (thanks, neighbor, for the illustration) and we could use wood--abundant and free--the few times we cook out. Being able to set the grill itself spinning over the hotspots in the fire works well to avoid overcooking. The cooking height is easily adjustable. I just need to find the legs and especially the piece at the top that holds the three legs together. Everything else should be easy to find. Ideas?

And by the way (thanks for the tips!)--white plastic-coated adjustable wire book easels are on their way, and too cheap to be true! A dozen for less than $12. Plus $17 shipping. Gotcha.

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