WATER

When water is locked up as ice, I worry about the wildlife. 

Yes, I realize that they have made it just fine without me, but it still concerns me.  We have a rain barrel, a harnessed spring, and, of course the Pool of Tranquility I showed you in a previous blog in back in December.  All have been frozen during most of February.  We have regularly seen tracks of all kinds of animals going by these water sources to no avail during this frozen winter.  Luckily, though there are other sources of water.  On our property we have a  spring named Deer Lick that flows all winter.  It consistently runs except during the very driest summers. Generations ago, someone carved a nice bowl into the rock so that water could pool before running out a small chiseled channel above the creek. It was nice to get out last week and see running water brought forth by the short thaw.

Today there was water everywhere.  A small stream had even formed in the middle of the timber trail, a regular walking path and one of the paths I try to bike.  While I am sure it is not so great for the integrity of the path, the sound was nice as it trickled and flowed down the gentle grade. Water has power.  It will cut through rock or move a grain of sand from West Virginia to New Orleans. When flooding it can destroy a community or provide transportation that allows a community to grow. Our bodies are mostly water as is our world. Water gives us food and drink.  Water is cleansing, When it forms into crystals and falls from the sky it reflects most light and covers our land, turning the dirtiest, ugliest spot into a place of white beauty if only for a short time.   Water makes our lives possible but we often don't think about it until it is missing.  

Some of my favorite memories center around water; swimming in the elk river with my brothers and sister as we repeadedly road inflatable rafts over the shoals or when I fished from the john boat with my dad and Jim Arthur.  I particularly remember Mr. Arthur allowing me to fish with him once when I was about ten years old.  Mr. Arthur was an avid fisherman and I appreciated his kindness in letting me tag along.  He probably did not appreciate me catching five fish while he caught none.

Lately, in our neighborhood there has been a drive to lease mineral rights so that the gas drilling companies can have enough water to drill to the super-giant natural gas reserve found about a mile below the surface in the marcellus shale. The methane is reached by using water preassure to fracture the shale then drilling in a slant along the shale seam.   The problem is that it takes alot of water to fracture the shale.  Selling these rights may mean lots of money to a land owner but the need for money has to be balanced with the mess the drilling companies make. It would be nice if the companies would learn from their past mistakes and have better stewardship of their drilling sites in order to have better public relations. 

For us, drilling means mud, mess, and trash left at drill sights, including plastic bottles, beverage cans and paper.   The drilling frenzy of about 100 years ago stilll has not been cleaned up.  When I go out walking I continually step (or trip) over old pipes, gears or other drilling equipment.  There are sink holes and oil slicks from abandoned tanks and well projects.  This water hole pictured at left is one such place. It would actually be pretty if not for the rusty metal off to the side.

Much nicer is the spring around the other side of the hill.  The government helped Jeff's grandfather build a concrete basin to catch water from a nearby spring so that he could water his cattle without having them destroy and contaminate the natural spring. This particular day - that day between snows - the water was clear and reflected the sky above it.  I couldn't resist taking off my glove and dipping my hand down into the water to feel its coolness.  I had been walking a couple hours so the water felt good . . .cold, but good. There was no rememberance of last summer's drought here at this spring overflowing through a pipe that ran to a trough then continued on toward the pond where catfish and snapping turtles waited, burried the mud at the bottom, letting the water flow overhead as they waited for Spring.

Brighten the Day!

Monochromatic is not my style. Fit in with my surroundings? I don't think so.  Many of us want to stand out from the crowd; that's normal but the world, our community, our friends want us to fit in. So I try.

Color, though. Color is where I draw the line. I don't want my colors to "fit in." I want my colors to announce their presence.  Beige begs for a barrage of red. Or blue. Green. Or yellow. Eggshell and ecru elicit a call for verdant green or aquamarine.

I want my colors to surprise me. They will probably surprise you as they sometimes do my friends such as when I wear my pink glasses.

The oversized pink spectacless  perplexed Peter, who promptly proclaimed,  "Harry Caray." Or was that, perhaps, a proposal of "hari kari"? (Please pardon my p's. I couldn't prevent their pull.)

While I rejoice in the many hues of brown defining the trees of the woods and am calmed by the gray fluff of the clouds on a sunless day, how wonderful to come upon a splash of brightness against dull leaves and grass in early spring when my heart hungers for color.

This quest for unexpected color is what makes me keep hanging the garden's dogwood tree with strands of bright glass, marbles and mirrors. They aren't natural. Some might say that they don't belong in the garden, distracting the eye from the familiar leaves and flowers. It is that unexpectedness that that I love; the surprise as the sunlight bounces off a tiny mirror or shines through a red marble.

You might ask what has made me babble on about color.  It's the snow.  I love snow, but the white has become a bit too much.  Nature hides from me under this blanket of white. This morning I want to see something else.  I want to give you, the reader, something besides the glitter of snow. The clear lines of gray, brown and white that drew me last week have become mundane. They are expected.  I stare out the window at the birds, thanking God for choosing to dress the blue jay and the cardinal in their gaudy plumage.

As I write these words, light begins to come through the window so the sun must be coming up. I'll go take a peek to see what the day brings. . . .The next moment finds me outside in slippered feet, witnessing a sky that is more than gray.  It is cool blue fading to lavender and mauve then torn, exposing a flash of coral tinged with gold.  Even the snow is no longer white.

Pale powder blue, it lies beneath the sky daring me to call it boring, mundane, monochromatic.

As I turn to run inside before my toes become ice, one last bit of color greets me welcoming me into the warmth that is home.

Snowfall

Bleeps from all over the house awoke us this morning as the electricity went off. All the gadgets of our electronic age wanted to be sure we knew that we were now in a primitave state without cell phone chargers or digital clocks. We looked out the window and saw what many were seeing, the east coast was blanketed in snow. Here on the western foothills of the Appalachians we have about five  inches.  Much more fell, but the ground was warm and the air fluxuated between 33-32 degrees so much of the snow melted as it landed. We have just enough to drive the birds to the feeders in droves, each awaiting its turn while sitting impatiently within the branches of the sugar maple outside my window.

This is the first day for the cardinals to appear at the feeders, though I've spotted them on the edges of the yard picking up pieces of dropped sunflower seeds or whatever else they are finding.  The jays, too waited for enough snow before they bothered to "hit up" the feeders.  Once they are back in the habit, we can expect them to act as alarms letting us know when the feeder has been emptied.  Covering the ground are the quiet, dark, round juncos.  I've read that they travel only a few hours in winter, leaving their homes higher in the mountains for the relatively more temperate lowlands.  Our juncos stay on the ground, content to eat whatever has been dropped by other birds. 

Just after dawn I took some corn, bread crumbs and cocktail weenies down by the barn to set out for the crows or whatever else ventured out of the snow.  It wasn't long before a lone black bird showed up for breakfast.  It hopped around the snow, dipping its head under in its quest for food.  The crow's actions frustrated me because it was several feet away from where I had just put a handfuls of shelled corn.  Hopping through snow that often covered her legs and part of her belly could not have been easy.  Every few hops the crow jumped into the air shaking its wings to clear the snow.

She was working so hard to find bits left over from the previous day's offerings. I wanted to yell out the window in crow talk, "Look behind you. Go a bit to your right!" But, of course, I didn't.  I kept quiet and still at the window. Keeping watch as the crow flew into a tree close to the house, I was sure that it was eyeing the mob at the feeder but I was wrong, She was checking out the field across the road where I had previously layed food for the deer. Among the corn-filled cobs I had disbursed earlier, were three cobs sticking straight up in the snow, vertical, yellow sentinals pinpointing the location of food.

She made a few dives for the corn, carrying each kernal back up to the tree to survey the area before heading back into the snow for more.  It wasn't long, though, despite my stealth, that she noticed me in the window and flew away after several loud caws.

Snow continued to fall throughout the day, covering the trees branches like thick, white buttercream icing, causing laden limbs to bend toward the white ground.  It was a good day to stay home.  This storm came with plenty of warning.  The day before we had stocked up on groceries and firewood so we were ready and had no reason to leave our  hill.  There was plenty to do at home and with Christmas only a week away, there were still presents to wrap and a tree that needed decorating.

I shoveled some sidewalks leaving dark strips dissecting the plane of white both in front and behind the house. The world had become so bright and beautiful that it was hard not to keep taking pictures. Whether it was the splash of red on the thickly covered evergreens as cardinals landed, or the hay field without a blade of grass in sight, temptations were almost irresistible. Even the Christmas wreath I made last week demanded to be digitally remembered.

 Snow continued to fall throughout the day in a fine mist of white, sometimes melting as fast as it fell. A friend plowed the blacktop hill part of our driveway so we knew there would be no problem getting down the next morning.  For now, though, we were both content to remain hill bound surrounded by white, entertained by birds.  We put lights and decorations on the tree, put a few more decorations around the house and swept up more of the never dwindling supply of lady beetles lining the window sills.  It was a good day.

As evening fell, the birds took to the trees to huddle through another night.  Fading light brought out the deer who were hungry and seeking spots where food magically appeared each evening: Seven ears for seven deer. At first only three deer came; two concentrating on eating while the third seemed to be distracted, eating a bit, then coming around the doe only to be quickly chased away.  Several times he crossed the road entering the yard right outside our window, perhaps ready for sunflower seeds, or perhaps searching for anything else besides corn.  Each time he dipped his head, his nose would dissappear beneath the snow only to reappear covered in frosty white crystals.

The next morning we awoke to only a bit more snow as we dressed for church-the fourth Sunday of advent-and a trip to Columbus, Ohio to retrieve our son and daughter-in-law.  We knew they would not be impressed by our meager blizzard as they were arriving from Lake Tahoe, Nevada where a foot of snow was the norm for an overnight fall.  Still, we all were happy as we drove entered the woods, a winter wonderland of white welcoming us to our home where smoke still trailed from the chimneys letting us know that warmth awaited us inside.

The Road

When I first moved up on this hill, the farm was different; life was also different.  I was very young and from my present view point, knew very little. Not knowing was fine with me as I dove into the days spent at my new home, discovering a geography of hills, gullys, creeks and deer paths.  Our home at that time was much more secluded, being at the end of an almost impassable right-of-way road.

Years ago the road was used by horse and wagon or walkers, but in more recent history a tractor was the main mode of access.  When my husband bought the property where our home stands, he pretty much built the road from scratch, hiring a dozer to lay it out and grade it in an effort to stop the erosion process. The next step included paying to have many loads of gravel brought in for a base. If you live on a gravel/dirt road, then you, too, know that rock will continue to sink into dirt for infinite lifetimes. By the time I moved in, most of the road no longer resembled a bog and in dry weather, was pretty good. 

Can You Find the Road?  By-The-Way, that is the same spruce from the bottom of yesterday's blog with the fake presents


Rain changed everything as the steep hill became a muddy track accessible only with four-wheel drive.  Snow brought even more excitement. That's when our hill became an adventure!  After locking the tire's hubs into four-wheel drive, we would start in the lower part of the lane where it was flat, building as much speed as possible to hit the hill flying in our red, big-wheeled pickup truck.  If we had enough speed we could make it up over the ice and snow, bouncing over a rock ledge then, hopefully have enough momentum to slip and slide over the final hump, grinding the tires into the snow as we barely made it up over the lip of the hill to where we were once again level. At that point the road ahead was was only a vague memory as we drove across a field of snow, then through the woods until we arrived safely to our cabin, parking right at the front door.  A grassy yard and parking circle were still only vague ideas.

Many times it took three or four tries before we made it up the hill, spinning around part way or sliding backwards to the bottom only to try again. Guests would usually have to park at the bottom of the hill while we made trips in the truck to ferry them up to our home. A turning point came the day when a relative drove his jaguar all the way up to the house, parking it with the other guest's vehicles.

That was only the beginning.  The hill part is now blacktop and thousands of dollars of gravel have been sunk into the mud. We are no longer the only house on this hill.  There had always been a small farm down by the highway.  We let them use part of our road for access to their barn when they needed it. Two new homes have been built beside our road, using our driveway for access to their road. After years of road maintenance and thousands of dollars, we spend more time waving to neighbors than we do trying to keep the truck out of the ditch. 

The lane now has a pond on each side allowing a choice to the neighbors ducks and other fowel.  Rather than mud holes and ditches, we now watch out for guineas.  A guinea is one of those animals that appear to be a genetic mix-up.  the verdict is still out as to if they are oddly cute or merely hideous.  The guineas, themselves don't seem to care.  In their ignorant confidence they strut where they will, seeming oblivious to oncoming traffic unless it is to confront it.  A group of the misshapen birds will be politely picking bugs from the grass near the road seemingly content until one of them notices an approaching car and leads the pack into a panicked run into the middle of the road darting about in all directions.  Driving my car slowly, yet steadily forward  allows them to get out of the road in time to avoid the crushing tires. Usually one of the colorful birds makes a last second dart to the other side of the road as it struggles with indecision.