River Of Life: Taos Nature Notes

Farewell to Squeeks

2010-02-08T21:55:00.000-08:00

And so, farewell to Squeeks, a deer mouse that I raised from a three-week-old baby. About six years ago I found her and four of her siblings wandering in the hall, squeaking and bumping into the walls. They had been born in a closet in Jim’s shaving kit. The enterprising mother had torn all the cotton off the Q-tips to make her nest, and then abandoned her offspring before their eyes were open. (Or had she been eaten by one of my two cats?)

I fed all five mice on rice milk from an eyedropper, but though I wrapped them in tissue, they were soon marinated in rice milk. Their fur wouldn't fluff up again. They shivered and died one by one. The backyard was littered with small graves. But one seemed determined to live. I put her in a sock and slept with her over my heart and she lived through the night. Jim suggested that I switch to cream cheese, which I fed her on a hairpin. It was a lot easier once she opened her eyes and could see what I was trying to do. (I was always careful to wash my hands both before and after handling the mice. Your germs can make them sick and a certain percent of the deer mouse population carries haunta virus which can be fatal to humans.)

She had to be fed every four hours, so when I was going to be gone a long time, I took her with me inside a small, round basket with a lid that I toted around in the bottom of my flowered bag. And her cream cheese. Sometimes I even carried her in a small pocket in the front of my denim jumper. I took her with me to a concert, to an all-day writing conference, and up in the mountains. I let her wander in the grass, but always collected her again. Someone told me that once mice are used to humans, they lose their instincts and can’t fend for themselves anymore.

A year later, when I was house sitting, I forgot to secure the lid of the top of her cage. It was open for three days. When I discovered what I had done, I was dismayed, sure she was long gone. But no. Now there were two mice! A handsome male had moved in with her. Squeeks was in love. She’d sit beside him in the “tree,” look at him, then look at me, all moony eyed. I laughed and said, “Okay. He seems nice. You can keep him.” I called him Benjamin. They had two litters before he split. After he’d done his duty, he spent a lot of time on top of the water bottle wondering when the lid would open again. I had to let him go. Squeeks didn’t seem to miss him. She had a full nest. When they were old enough, I released the young ones down by the river, but kept her daughter Heidi so Squeeks wouldn’t be alone. For five years Squeeks and Heidi lived in an aquarium on top of my bookcase.

Heidi is shy and rarely comes out in the daytime--I think she prefers to stay close to the nest--but Squeeks was a little escape artist right from the beginning. At first I kept her in a hamster cage with bars a quarter of an inch apart. When I wasn’t looking, she slipped through, but I kept the cage in a dresser drawer, so no harm done. I covered the whole thing with fine-mesh wire, and then watched in amazement as she worked her way through the folds of screen at the corner and got out. Mice have very few bones; they can flatten themselves and squeeze through a crack like Houdini.

Squeeks escaped to the floor twice, but each time I found her. (With the help of the cat.) The first time she was hiding in one of my bags in the closet. The second time I discovered her under the dresser. She had retreated to a corner where there was a hole in the adobe. I stretched out my hand, called her, and she came back to me. Would her life have been better if she had slipped through the crack? Sometimes I felt bad that she had never known the world of plants; when I introduced a plant into the aquarium, she and Heidi ate it.

My goof this time was to open the wire lid at night when I thought Squeeks was in the nest. Mice are nocturnal. She must have been close to the top on the “tree” but I didn't see her. I took out her wheel and oiled the hinges because it was beginning to clatter. Then I opened the lid and dropped the wheel back. Even though she’s a senior senior, Squeeks has always been fierce in the defense of her territory. When she was full grown, she started nipping my finger to let me know she didn’t want to be picked up anymore. Then she would rush at my hand and nip me if I reached into the aquarium. I had to respect that—or wear gloves. Last night I wasn't wearing gloves. Just a moment of carelessness was all it took.

A few minutes later I saw Squeeks disappear behind my desk where I keep art supplies, poster board and watercolor paper. It's impossible to get a mouse out of there. I would have to wait. A couple of hours later--3 a.m.--the cat spotted Squeeks under my bed. Squeeks was running toward me on her toes, her back hunched like an old lady, trotting as fast as she could. Did she slip behind my guitar case and hide, or find a hole between the wall and the floor? I’ll never know. That was the last I saw of her. I hope I don't find her body on the bathroom rug, partly eaten by the cat. It's a dangerous world out there, but she had an adventurous spirit. Long after Heidi had eaten her dinner, run on the wheel and returned to her nest in the corner of the aquarium, Squeeks would still be running, running, running on the wheel. She had so much energy I could have powered the house lights and given some back to the grid. Was she in training for the Great Escape?

When Squeeks disappeared, I moved Heidi into another container and left the aquarium open on the floor at the foot of my bed, hoping my runaway would come back to the nest of her own accord. But in the morning, the nest was still empty.

Maybe Squeeks has been waiting for her chance, saying, "If I ever see a hole in the wall again, I'll go down it.”
I told myself I was protecting her, but really, I was holding her prisoner. For six years! (The normal life span for a deer mouse is a year. She’s probably the oldest mouse on the planet.)

Well, now she's off on her great adventure. In a way, I'm glad for her. The truth is, a wild mouse is always wild. The rest of her life will be short but exciting. I hope she gets outdoors to experience . . . Shucks! It's snowing again. I wish she had escaped in the summer. She'd have a better chance.

However it comes down, at last she’s free. I'm grateful to have known her, and all the mice that have followed in her wake. I’ve learned so much from her—mainly how mice have feelings a lot like ours. Squeeks was afraid of thunder, but that was the only thing. When I forgot to refill her water bottle, she scolded me with a long, searching look. And one evening she listened, transfixed for ten minutes, to the best of Bach. I will miss her, but I'm sure that many of the mice I catch in my live traps are her relations. So in a way, all the mice in the house are mine. God bless that little mouse who was born and lived out her long life here with me. Gratitude and love.

The Evil Owl

2010-02-07T20:57:00.000-08:00

I saw the Great Horned Owl again at dusk as I was standing near the river. It swooped in a half circle and landed on a branch at the top of a cottonwood tree. All I saw was the edge of one huge, dark wing in silhouette, but what else could it be? Then it said, “Hoo hoooo ooooo oooo . . .” as if to remind me that I was planning to write about it.
According to "A Field Guide To Western Birds," it’s called the cat owl and is the only owl with ear tufts. It has a resonant series of three to eight hoots. Males hoot four or five times, so maybe it was a male. Females hoot six to eight times in a lower pitch.
These birds of prey like streamsides, deserts, cliffs and canyons, which we have in abundance, and use abandoned nests or make their homes in cliffs, trees, or even on the ground. I found an excellent drawing of the Great Horned Owl in Mother’s old edition of "Birds of America," a large, illustrated volume that Dad gave her for her 26th birthday in June of 1942. I wish I could use this drawing on my blog, but where would I get permission? The artist has taken great care to portray the owl with dignity and grace. Its cat-like yellow eyes are framed on both sides by half circles of russet plumage, and its breast is a cascade of horizontal brown and white bars. (The owl pictured is from Owl TV, with permission of the producer.)

In "Birds of America," George Gladden says this owl was called “Tiger of the Air” because this “big bird is courageous, powerful and bloodthirsty.”
Bloodthirsty? They have to eat, too, don’t they?

“That he is highly destructive must also be conceded, for it has been demonstrated beyond question of a doubt not only that he is bold, persistent and generally successful in his raids upon domestic poultry of all kinds, but that he is highly skillful and deadly in his pursuit of game birds, song birds, rabbits and squirrels,” says George.
He goes on, “The tiger comparison applies well to the Owl’s manner of hunting, for the sweep of his great wings in the silent air is as noiseless as the tread of the big cat’s padded feet upon the soft earth. Through the woods and over the meadows he glides silently as a shadow . . . To the poultry-farmer this Owl is a veritable terror . . . one instance is recorded of the loss by a farmer of fifty-nine young Guinea-fowl, taken in a single autumn by the same Owl.”
George also mentions the “oot-too-hoo, hoo-hoo” and compares the rhythm of it to a locomotive whistle at a crossing. “Usually the cry, like that of most Owls and of the night-birds generally, has an uncanny and weird significance, in which are blended distinct suggestions of threat, defiance, and scorn, as befits the fearless and savage nature of this veritable ‘tiger of the air.’”
Oh come on, George. Significance? Like a Rorschach test? I doubt that the owl has much feeling for human beings beyond a healthy fear of being shot. Though it doesn’t sound as if the farmer was able to pull that one off. Dare I suggest a pen topped with wire? As for the owl’s “savage nature,” I suspect that the Guinea-fowls the owl didn’t nail were beheaded, plucked and roasted and ended up on the plate of some bloodthirsty savage. I’ll bet they were tasty, too.

Nowadays, when so few of us keep chickens, the owl’s distinctive cry is a novelty. Or it can be chilling. When I was losing ground with a strange illness a few years ago, I shuddered when I heard the owl outside my window. But my daughter said, “Nonsense! Tell it to go hoot hoo somewhere else.”
I have probable cause to bear the owl a grudge. Molly, my tortoise shell cat, used to slip outside at dusk to hunt. I let her go because she’s smart and watchful and usually stays close to the house. We have coyotes around, so I keep a ladder leaning up against the wall and sometimes find Molly up on the roof. The flapping wings of the Great Horned Owl make no sound; it might have swooped down and caught her unaware. The deep, infected puncture wound in the side of her neck cost me $123 in vet bills. I don’t resent the owl, but now I keep Molly in at night.

In “Birds . . .” Doctor A.K. Fisher reports: “The large handsome Great Horned Owl is found throughout the United States everywhere suitable timber exists for its habitation. It is a voracious bird, and its capacity for good or evil is very great.”
Time out! We need a second opinion here. Evil is a human concept, not one that exists in nature. All of nature is innocent. But wait a minute! Aren’t we part of nature, too?
“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!” said a once popular radio show. A relative once remarked that volcanoes are evil. And some of my friends consider jet trails evil. And many might justifiably argue that Hitler was evil.

Webster’s dictionary defines evil as “immorally wrong or bad.” But nature knows no morals. Nature is all and only about balance. Another Webster definition of evil is: “The force in nature that governs and gives rise to wickedness and sin.” On many a volcanic island, the God’s were invoked for protection every time the volcano began to shoot fire. The naives thought it was because they had been bad. Prayers were an understandable attempt to gain control over wild nature.
Back to “Birds . . .” Doctor Fisher concedes that, “If the more thickly settled districts where poultry is extensively raised could be passed by and the bird considered only as it appears in the great West, it would earn a secure place among the beneficial species, for it is an important ally of the ranchman infighting the hordes of ground squirrels and other rodents which infest his fields and ranges . . . Undoubtedly rabbits are its favorite food.” (Note: the “ground squirrels” – i.e. prairie dogs—and rodents don’t just inhabit the field—they “infest” it.)
He examines the stomach content of a Great Horned Owls and finds “three species of rabbits, cotton rat, two species of pouched gophers, two species of wood rats, chipmunk, two species of grasshopper mice, Harris ground squirrel, musk rats, fox squirrels, five species of meadow mice, one short-tailed shrew, the house mouse, common rat, black bat, red-backed mouse, flying squirrel, shrew and kangaroo rat.” (Not all one meal, I assume.) It also eats scorpions, crawfish, grasshoppers, beetles and fish. He rightly concludes that, “The Great Horned Owl does a vast amount of good, and, if farmers would shut up their chickens at night instead of allowing them to roost in trees and other exposed places, the principal damage done by the bird would be prevented.”

In other words, if the Great Horned Owl ceased his evil ways and became “beneficial”, i.e. man’s ally, it would be considered a force for good. But if it competes with us for resources or gets in our way, it’s evil.
Although the Great Horned Owl’s evening “Hoooo hooooo” sometimes gives me chills, I’m glad I live in the “great West” where many diverse forms of life strive to keep each other in balance. By watching how they do it, maybe one day I can borrow a page from the book of nature and learn how to keep my own life in balance.

After Copenhagen

2010-01-04T19:57:00.000-08:00

"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly , now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."

The Talmud

The Perfect Tree

2009-12-27T00:02:00.000-08:00

The Perfect Tree

In our family, for over thirty years, we have upheld a proud tradition of heading out into the national forest to cut our own Christmas tree. I was always the fussy one. No, this one isn’t full enough; this one isn’t symmetrical. The family learned over the years to be patient. After about half an hour of trudging through the snow, rejecting this one and that one, I would finally say, “This is it. What do you think?” The others would gather around and we’d talk about it. If everyone agreed this was the perfect tree, I’d ask the tree’s permission to take it. (They never said, “No! Go away, you savage.”) We’d lay a blessing on it, the men would cut it and we’d drag our prize back to the car. At home it would fill the corner of the living room with its dark pine fragrance. I decorated it with the same kind of lights and ornaments my parents had used and did my best to recreate some of the wonder and excitement I had felt when I was a child in Canada.

But this year, as Christmas came barreling down the road, the lyrics of an old Joni Mitchell song haunted me: “It’s coming on Christmas/they’re cutting down the trees . . . I wish I had a river/I could skate away on . . .” I thought about global warming and wondered how many trees were being chopped down all over the world. (I didn’t feel the same about turkeys—I’m not sure why.) I discovered that I wasn’t the only member of the family who was beginning to feel squeamish about cutting down a live tree. On one of our many dog walks in the forest we had talked about buying a potted tree. But it would probably be too expensive. How about digging up one and potting it? But by December the ground would be frozen. What about cutting a sage bush? Plenty of them around.

On the way back to the car we came across a piñon that had been run over by a truck. It was smashed into the ground, the bark scraped off the trunk, the bottom branches dead. “Let’s take this one—it’s going to die anyway.” “What? Are you crazy?” “It’s about the right height. I wouldn’t feel so bad about cutting this one.”
Three days before Christmas, we were out there with the saw and there was that tree that had been run over by a truck, still dying a slow, painful death. “Shall we take it?” One of us thought this was a joke and was taken aback when the other two marched right up to it and began sawing. To my surprise, when we stood the tree up, it was actually a good height and fullness. But it looked muddy, droopy and abused. And the branches were not symmetrical. I would never have chosen it last year when I was looking for the perfect tree.

We cut some extra branches, tied the tree on top of the car and took it home. We stood it up outside in the stand, gave it a cold drink of water, sprayed the branches and lopped off all the dead ones. Then we weighted down the ones that had been on the bottom so they would gently open again. It took a couple of days, a song and blessing, but as soon as we brought the tree in the house, it began to perk up. By the time we had tied the extra branches on it, twirled the lights around it and hung the ornaments, it looked just as beautiful as any Christmas tree we had ever had. A much better fate for the poor tree than dying smashed into the ground on the side of a muddy road.

Looking at the tree, I thought, I’m not normally a fussy person. What has driven me all these years to insist that the tree and the Christmas meal must be perfect? Like the bride who insists that every detail of her wedding is perfect. As if a perfect wedding would guarantee a happy ending. I know it’s not just me—I know that all over the world striving humans are frozen on the staircase in a struggle for perfection that can only be achieved by grace.
Though we had to chop it down to do it, we brought this “rescue tree” back to life. We honored it and gave it back its dignity. Which made us feel good. So for us, this is the perfect tree.

When I told my sister this story, she told me one. She lives in California and misses the snow but not the cold. She said it rained and rained there and she and her husband were both sick with the flu and got behind on their Christmas doings. The day before Christmas, they went to the hardware store to buy a tree, but found only one left. It was a big tree in a pot and the price tag was $124. My brother-in-law said they couldn’t afford it, but my sister said to the clerk, “How about letting us have it for half price because it’s the day before Christmas?” The clerk called her boss and he said okay, so they bought the tree for $60. It was so big it took three people to maneuver it into the car, and when they got home, she and her husband could hardly get it out.
Turns out it is a redwood tree. Their back yard is small and they’re not sure where to plant it after Christmas. My sister said, “We have to be careful. They grow really big.”
I laughed, but envied her the privilege of planting a redwood tree in her back yard. “It’s probably not going to grow that much in your lifetime.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “The next door neighbor planted one five years ago and now it’s higher than his house!”

So here’s to the millions of trees that are being cut down all over the planet, not only at Christmas, but all year round. The green forests that absorb carbon dioxide and give off the oxygen that we breathe. Thanks for the apple wood of my old dresser; the pine planks of the walls and ceiling; for the sturdy oak of my desk and the kitchen floor; for the cottonwood and piñon I burn in my woodstove every night. Gratitude and love to the mighty cottonwoods that shaded the parking lot behind the courthouse in Taos for over fifty years. A shower of blessings on the old growth forests everywhere and the community of plants and animals and insects and crawly things that make their homes in and around them. An OM for every sacred redwood and sequoia in California, and hosannas for the red maples of the north country with their spiky leaves, and the quaking aspens of the high country, and the live oaks of the South. For the spreading chestnut trees that are all gone forever, and the graceful, arching elms that survived Dutch elm disease. In Elmhurst, where I was born, the muscular branches of the elms above my mother’s curly head are my first memories.

No matter what shape or size or species, I know every tree is perfect beyond anything I can measure. In the web of life, they all have a purpose, though it's not always obvious to me. I may try to describe and pay tribute to them, but as Joyce Kilmer said, “Only God can make a tree.”

Christmas Eve at Taos Pueblo

2009-12-24T23:57:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve at Taos Pueblo has been part of our family tradition for many years. This ancient drama of fire and ice, the procession of the Madonna, is a heady combination of Hispanic Catholic and pagan ritual. It might be the only place you’ll ever see a rifle in church. I’ve heard that the presence of four riflemen at the head of the procession symbolizes how the Conquistadors forced the Indians to build a church and attend services at the point of a rifle. But gradually, the Indians incorporated the strange new religion into their own world. They are true to their original beliefs that revolve around secret teachings in the underground kivas, but many of them are also Catholic.
We follow a winding back road into the Pueblo and park in a snowy field beside dozens of other cars, hoping we’ll be able to get out again. This year the roads to the Pueblo are clear, but last year, stepping out of the car, we were up to our calves in snow. The sun drops out of sight as we head for the Pueblo. Above the trees we see a plume of dark smoke and then the dancing tips of orange flames. One of the bonfires is already burning. Ahead of us strides a man in a black top hat and black frock coat. I’m wearing my L.L. Bean blanket coat with the silver buttons and bear motif, my neck warmed by a lavender scarf. We cross the Rio Pueblo, which is almost frozen over, and emerge from the trees into a wide dirt plaza already crowded with people. Here we greet old friends with hugs and grins and, “How are the children?” They are also dressed in various costumes, some in fur hats and Pendleton coats, others in plaid capes or more practical down jackets. Beside the bonfire, a man in a black cowboy hat with a dark poncho tossed across his shoulder strikes a pose.
The tallest bonfire is about twenty-five feet. One of the Indians has climbed to the top to light it. The bonfires are made of split piñon wood stacked like Lincoln logs. We stroll to the end of the plaza and look back at the scene, the ground streaked with snow, three bonfires in orange bloom, curling with beige plumes smoke that unfurl all over the Pueblo. At the west end is the white, adobe church, Saint Jerome chapel with stepped walls and three crosses. The steps are illuminated by farolitos—candles set in sand inside paper bags. The north side of the Pueblo on our right rises five stories high, framed by massive Pueblo Peak. On the flat rooftops or leaning against wooden ladders, the Indians are watching the proceedings.
Two young men appear in regular dress bearing fiery torches over eight feet long, strips of piñon lashed together. The four riflemen assemble. The one with the white blanket draped around his shoulders is grinning at the others. The Pueblo police wave us back. A rifle goes off with a sharp report. We startle, clutch each other and laugh low in our throats. It begins.
The church bells Clang! Clang! The big drum goes Boom-Boom Boom-Boom, Boom-boom Boom-boom! Our feet can’t resist the rhythm. Behind the riflemen come the elders in striped blankets, chanting in deep voices, then the young women and little girls who trot back and forth in a line and hurry to keep up. And here’s the Madonna or Corn Mother under her billowing canopy, dressed in her gleaming winter whites. Behind the Madonna come the Priest and the congregation singing a Christian hymn. Then all the members of St. Jerome’s parade past, their heads high. Many visitors join in at the end of the procession. Rifles pop in the distance. A plane winks overhead. Across the frozen river, fireworks flare. I wonder what this looks like to foreign visitors who have never seen it before?
We are all engulfed by smoke that carries the smart scent of pine pitch. I cough and cover my face with my fuzzy scarf, which fogs up my glasses. But in the center of the left lens is a single, round hole the size of my eye. Through it I watch the black silhouettes of visitors gathered around a distant bonfire. They are circled by a rainbow of light, the rest of the setting obscured by smoke. I’m enjoying the novelty of this when the procession returns on a loop back to the church. We join in and follow. Too soon the ceremony is over. People gather around the bonfires, grinning like children, eyes bright with pleasure, mouths open, whooping and shouting when the tower of wood collapses in a shower of sparks. They duck, but no one moves back.
We thread our way down a narrow alley between the dark adobe walls of the Pueblo to visit friends. We step into a small, spare room lit only by lanterns and candles on the mantle. The walls are whitewashed and luminous. It’s like being inside an egg. We are welcomed with hugs and invitations to join them for chilie. Are we coming to the Deer Dance tomorrow?
We sink into an old leather couch in front of the tall, narrow fireplace. The opening is shaped like the door of a church. Three logs are stacked on end. My Indian friend points to an oak log that has been burning for hours. “I used to think, Wood is wood, just burn it! But it all burns differently,” she says. “We used to call oak ‘honeymoon wood’ because it burns all night and leaves hot coals in the morning. Some people started to notice that everything on earth is alive. Maybe the earth itself. We said, ‘Of course the earth is alive. That’s why we dance to it, sing to it.’”
Inside these strong, thick walls that have protected the people for a thousand years, as I sit and watch the oak burn a deep stillness rises from below, up through me. In spite of all the turmoil in the world, I feel safe here, one with the Earth and stars, with fire and ice. Part of something mysterious, ever changing, and always the same.
Blessings on you native people in your struggle to preserve your truth, your way of life. Gratitude and love. And a prosperous New Year.

SOLSTICE

2009-12-21T21:23:00.000-08:00

SOLSTICE

NOW WE PLUNGE DOWN INTO DARKNESS
TO KISS THE HEM OF LIGHT
DOWN INTO HOLY STILLNESS
THIS BLUE WINTER NIGHT

TO TOUCH THE FLAME THAT SOARS AND SINGS
TO SOUND THE CHORD THAT SILENCE RINGS
BLESSED BY THE BREATH OF ANGEL WINGS
IN SWIFT, ECSTATIC FLIGHT.

A JOYOUS RETURN TO THE LIGHT!

Solstice

2009-12-21T20:13:00.000-08:00

NOW WE PLUNGE DOWN INTO DARKNESS
TO KISS THE HEM OF LIGHT
DOWN INTO HOLY STILLNESS
THIS BLUE WINTER NIGHT

TO TOUCH THE FLAME THAT SOARS AND SINGS
TO SOUND THE CHORD THAT SILENCE RINGS
BLESSED BY THE BREATH OF ANGEL WINGS
IN SWIFT, ECSTATIC FLIGHT.

A JOYOUS RETURN TO THE LIGHT!

Dear President Obama

2009-12-17T20:59:00.000-08:00

Dear President Obama,

Tonight you are in Copenhagen where over 100 national leaders and influential members of 193 countries have come together to forge an agreement on what has to be done about accelerating global warming. And what’s fair to whom. I know you didn’t want to go, but there you are, as you were meant to be, in this historic moment in time. And I’m so glad. No matter what happens on Friday, you showed up, and that’s important to the whole world. Not just six billion people, but all the creatures of the ocean, and those that live in the wetlands, the rivers and streams. And all the creatures on land, not just the polar bears. What’s at stake here? Absolutely everything. Our children and grandchildren, their future. The holy aspen trees. The ancient redwoods. The right whale. The wild salmon. The coral reefs. The wolves. The lions and tigers. The panda. The great ape. The food we eat, the air we breathe. Because, as you know, every living form on planet Earth depends on water. And everything is intricately bonded to everything else. Forever.

What’s decided tomorrow, or not decided, which document is signed or not signed does not matter as much as the gathering itself of so many nations, such an outpouring of public concern, so much awareness of a global problem and a hunger to do something about it. As soon as possible! The intentions, the goodwill, even the marches and riots in the streets, the willingness to go to jail or just sit down and talk, to air gripes, to freely differ is what democracy is all about.

My dear President, I know you are tired and there’s so much to be done. But I believe you are up to the task. That’s why I voted for you. I believe in your strength and in the deep wisdom of your heart. Please follow your intuitive wisdom and nothing can lead you astray.

Whatever the outcome, my blessings on your efforts. You give me hope that we can turn this around, that by working together we can change our hearts and minds and honor our connection to all other living things.

Yes we can!

Phaedra in New Mexico

A Field Trip to the Past

2009-11-29T20:05:00.000-08:00

A Field Trip to the Past

Our fearless leader, Sylvia, took us on a field trip to Pilar, then across the Rio Grande to US 285 and Ojo Caliente and on to Ghost Ranch at Abiquiu. Quite the adventure. We stopped at the Visitor’s Center in Pilar to look at the topo map of the Rio Grande as it runs down through New Mexico from our northern border in Costilla to where it flows into El Paso and becomes the Texas-Mexico boundary in Big Bend country. The most interesting thing about the Rio Grande is that it flows through a continental rift, the second largest in the world. (The largest is in Africa.) One of my fellow students, Peggy, who is up on her geology, explained that the Rio Grande Rift is not the river itself, but the valley it runs through which, in Arroyo Hondo, spans thirty miles from the foothills of the Sangre de Cristos in the northeast to Tres Piedras in the southwest.

A rift is a tear in the crust of the earth where the continent is slowly being pulled apart by opposing forces. We have some small tremors around here from time to time, but Taos Pueblo--about a thousand years old--is still standing firm. (A major earthquake would tumble an adobe structure like the Pueblo.) Peggy pointed out that on the northeast side of the highway we were looking at tall, sandy cliffs that were once the beachfront of an inland sea. Behind us on the southwest side of the highway rose a steep hillside littered with volcanic basalt, dotted with piñon and juniper.

We drove along the Rio Grande upstream toward Taos Junction Bridge. This section the riverbank is crowded with salt cedar (tamarisk), an invasive non-native tree that sucks up salt and deep groundwater. When it rains, the salt is washed off the leaves and eventually into the river. The salt inhibits competition from the natural flora and can even alter the chemical composition of river. Entomologists are considering releasing swarms of hungry Asian beetles to eat the leaves, but scientists are not so sure this is a good idea.

Over a decade ago I helped an earnest group of environmentalists plant young cottonwoods along these banks where beavers had cut down many of the native trees. Our class examined the current cottonwood transplants that were protected by fencing. Sylvia noted that because the beavers couldn’t get to the fenced trees, they had cut down a natural cottonwood instead.

We stopped near the bridge to study the opposite hillside where—strangely enough—mature cottonwoods were growing out of the otherwise barren hillside. Sylvia said they grew along fault lines tapping seepage from the water table. I never would have noticed if she hadn’t pointed it out.

We ate lunch not far from Abiquiu on a cliff overlooking the ruins of an ancient pueblo, Poshuouinge. The Santa Fe National Forest guide says it was still inhabited around AD 1420. Perhaps several thousand people lived here and many others visited. They don’t know why the site was abandoned in the late 1400s. At my feet I noticed a small circle of dark, baseball-sized stones. “A marker,” Sylvia said. I thought it was a fine place for a lookout with a broad view over a dry riverbed that snaked through the cliffs, a place to make a signal fire.

Sylvia said, “How many stones are there?”

We counted twelve.

“What’s the significance of the number twelve in the Pueblo culture?”

Darned if I knew. In classic religious architecture, twelve symbolizes the twelve disciples.

The rich light of sunset washed over the layered cliffs of Abiquiu as we turned at the entrance to Ghost Ranch. It was here that Georgia O’Keeffe painted many landscapes of the dramatic red, white and yellow 1300-foot escarpment. She made Ghost Ranch her permanent home from 1949 until her death in 1986. She was ninety-nine years old. Her ashes are scattered here.

Ghost Ranch was the site of the University of California-Berkeley digs from 1928 to 1934--the Hayden Quarry excavation. In 1947 George Whitaker found one of the earliest dinosaurs in North America preserved among at least three hundreds of skeletons in what must have been a flash flood or sudden flow of mud-like silt. This was the Coelophysis bauri (SEE-Low-FY-sis bar), a six to eight-foot dinosaur that lived 220 million years ago that was assembled from three different skeletons. The mount is on display at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. A large block of these fossils was carried to where the Ghost Ranch Museum now stands and other blocks have been distributed to museums all over the world.

We were treated to an animated lecture by a paleontologist who had been busy extracting dinosaur bones from a mass of rock and assembling the pieces. It was exciting to catch him in the act as he wielded a small paintbrush, plaster still on his hands. We examined and passed around huge curved incisors while he explained that some of the dinosaurs had feathers; the only surviving dinosaur relatives today are birds.

After dinner we climbed a steep hill above the ranch to look at the night sky through a digital telescope. Once you have the coordinates, you can punch in the number of the planet, star or galaxy you want to view, fine tune the focus and then let the telescope track it electronically while people take turns looking. Without electronics, you’d have to refocus the telescope every three or four minutes.

We peered at the new moon just as it was about to set. The reflecting edge glowed orange while on the border between light and shadow, we saw many pocked craters. Next we looked at a double star in the constellation of Lyra, named for the harp of the mythical musician Orpheus. A yellow star and a blue one circled each other in measured dance. We also viewed my favorite, the blue star Vega. I fell in love with that star the first time I saw it ten years ago. I thought it was a private love affair. I was surprised to discover that Vega is a popular star. Our guide, Willy, said it was the fifth brightest star in the sky and the farthest west in the summer triangle. Vega is twenty-five light years from Earth. In the cold night air it shone with the purity of a blue diamond.

We also took a peek at Jupiter, the fifth planet from the sun and eleven Earth diameters wide. This huge planet is actually a ball of dense gases, hydrogen, helium, water, nitrogen etc. that surround a small rocky core. Jupiter was perfectly round and crisp, shining bright so I couldn’t see the ring of dust around it, but four of its moons were in staggered orbits, all on the right. Willy explained that’s just where they happen to be right now. According to the NASA website, Jupiter has sixty-two known moons and they are still counting. One of them, Ganymede, is bigger than the planet Mercury.

The last and best thing we viewed was a vast rainbow-colored nebula at the bottom of Orion’s sword, a veil of gas that looked like angel wings which spread thirty light years across the constellation. It probably contains thousands of stars. In the lower corner glittered three “baby stars” that were born from those gases. Mysterious and beautiful.

I stepped back and saw a “falling star” from the famous Leonids meteor shower. The night wind was cold on my face. I felt humble and exhilarated.

What's 350?

2009-11-15T14:23:00.000-08:00

What’s 350?

I’ve been asking my friends, “Does the number 350 mean anything to you?” Even though there have been a couple of articles in The Taos News and a local conference on climate change, some of my friends knew nothing about it. So I took it upon myself to inform them.

I didn’t know about 350 myself until a couple of weeks ago when I wrote a story on it for Enchantment Magazine, the household organ for Kit Carson Electric Co-op of which I am one of 29,000 members. The number 350 means 350 parts per million (ppm) that scientists agree is the safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Right now we are pushing 387. (For the full report, see the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): www1.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/index.htm. The main activity of the IPCC is to provide at regular intervals Assessment Reports of the state of knowledge on climate change.)

On October 24^th, 2009, a day of “climate awareness,” was observed in over 181 countries around the world. I went to www.350.org to see the slideshow of events and learn more about it. Here were photos of people displaying the number 350 in ingenious ways: an aerial photo of people lying head-to-heel across a football field, their bodies forming the number; a surfer coming in on his board holding up a card with 350; a bungee jumper plunging off a building toward a target of 350; children in classrooms with hopeful grins holding up 350; a courageous lone woman in Iran standing in front of a bare wall holding up 350; a parade of people in India, crowds in China, Australia, Britain and France, smaller groups in other countries such as Malaysia and Africa. Not to mention big cities in America: San Francisco, New York and Washington, D.C. The enthusiasm and hope in their faces brought a lump to my throat.

Some of the thrust for worldwide education is thanks to our former vice president, Al Gore, winner of an Emmy for “An Inconvenient Truth” and winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He personally trained 3,000 volunteers to go around the world and spread the word about the potential dangers of climate change and possible solutions. (See www.climateproject. org.)

Here in Taos we observed 350: International Climate Awareness Day with a panel discussion in the morning and, in the park in the afternoon, a giveaway of 350 pumpkins and 350 compact fluorescent light bulbs. An aerial shot of the bight orange pumpkins that were arranged in 350 would look great in the www.35.org slideshow.

The morning panel included some well-informed and righteous people like Tod Thompson from the New Mexico Energy and Minerals Department, Carol Miller, Chairwoman of the Solar Finance Committee, Bill Brown of The Climate Project, Erik Schenkler-Goodrich of Western Environmental Law Center and Luis Reyes, the CEO of Kit Carson Electric Cooperative.

Most of the discussion revolved around how to conserve energy, get off oil and coal and make the transition to clean, green power. Of course there are obvious things we can do such as weatherizing our houses and changing light bulbs, building greenhouses and going with wind and solar energy wherever possible, but it’s going to take more than that. I was not surprised to hear that the generation of fossil fuels is subsidized by hidden taxes to the tune of $75 billion a year while renewable energy only gets $12 billion. Why is that? Perhaps because even in our area where the UNM-Taos campus is powered by a solar array and many people are environmentally aware, less than five percent of our co-op members have signed up to buy blocks of green power. Our energy generation station, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, will generate more green energy if we convince them that there’s a demand.

Reyes said right now 70 percent of our electricity comes from coal. He was concerned about the rising cost of gas, oil, and electricity, and cap and trade agreements that are being argued in congress. “Green energy is not expensive. Forty cents per 100-kilowatt hours equals two dollars per month.” If 29,000 co-op members each bought one block, what a powerful message that would send to our legislators and to Tri-State.

With one million member-consumers across Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming, Tri-State also generates renewable energy in several ways: hog methane biomass production in Nebraska; Colorado hydro plants at Crooke Falls, William’s Fork, Lemon Dam, Vallecito, Ouray, Coal Creek and Jackson Gulch, and wind turbines in Wyoming. Looking ahead, in northeastern New Mexico Tri-State and First Solar are planning to build a 30-megawatt power plant that will utilize a solar field of 500,000 two-by-four foot photovoltaic modules. The Cimarron I Solar Project will be one of the largest solar photovoltaic facilities in the world.

During the question and answer period, participants wanted to know how we could get Obama to attend the Copenhagen conference on climate awareness in December. Carol Miller said that the U.S. is responsible for a huge amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and we should shoulder a large part of the responsibility. “So if the U.S. president doesn’t go, what kind of a message are we sending to the world?”

Indeed! The United States was the only developed country that refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol treaty that was adopted by consensus in 1997 and ratified in May 2002. According to www.environment.about.com “The Kyoto Protocol is an amendment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international environmental treaty intended to bring countries together to reduce our collective greenhouse gases and to cope with the effects of temperature increases that are unavoidable after 150 years of industrialization.”

After the election, Obama said, “If you want something done, make me!” If you want to tell our president, “Get on the jet to Copenhagen. You go, guy!” you can sign a petition on www.care2.com.

P.S. I know there is an ongoing argument about whether or not the earth is warming and is it our fault? I also know that Northern New Mexico has been in drought for the past ten years, that thousands of piñons have died, that we have been plagued by forest fires, that the aspens are threatened by winters too warm to kill insect invasions and disease. I can’t do all the research on climate change myself, so I go to sources I trust--the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, Arizona and Sierra Club. One of their sources is the IPPC.

P.P.S. This just in from www.algore.com: “President Obama and other world leaders have decided to put off reaching a climate change agreement at a global climate conference scheduled next month.”

What’s at stake here? The whole planet. Many agree that right now we have all the technology we need to make the transition. The only thing lacking is our collective will.

Synchronicity

2009-11-03T21:45:00.000-08:00

Synchronicity

The almost full moon is peering through my window. The weather has turned warm again. Thank you! I need more time to get the storm windows up, the firewood cut. Prepare for what may be another winter of deep cold with heavy snow.

I’m surprised that the black bear hasn’t gone into hibernation yet. When I step out in the moonlight, I look around. The other day my young neighbor to the west pointed out a big pile of bear scat under her fruit tree. The scat was bright with apple peels and plum pits. I took a picture of it.

A couple of weeks ago, coming back from a long trip, I sighed with relief as I pulled into the driveway. But sat bolt upright at the sight of a huge black bear standing eight feet tall by the back door, looking straight at me. His head was about two feet across. All he needed was a ranger hat and he would have looked like Smokey.

“Oh my God!” I rolled down the window and raised my camera. But the bear turned and ambled back toward the orchard. I scrambled up the ladder to the roof and caught five seconds of him before he disappeared. Just to prove he was here.

My young neighbor to the west also mentioned that she had seen a large herd of deer right outside her window, “About twenty-five of them.” I borrowed a video camera. On Saturday evening I went looking for the deer. Couldn’t find them. But I ran into a couple that had been hiking in the hills behind my house. The woman smiled when she saw my big camera. “Are you looking for the deer? They’re up there,” she said with a jerk of her thumb. “A huge herd.”

Panting, I climbed “up there” but saw nothing. Disappointed, I asked permission to keep the camera one more day.

On Sunday I woke from my afternoon nap to a russet light that blazed across the field. I had forgotten about the time change! The deer were coming down as they do every evening to browse in the fields and drink from the river. I had planned to jump in my car, drive around and find them before dusk.

I rushed through my chores, fed the horses and climbed the hill in front of my house. In a few minutes the sunlight would be gone. I snatched my car keys and camera from the kitchen counter. But when I rounded the corner of the house I saw two does and a yearling grazing in the back yard. Their heads came up and they stared, but I froze on the path, opened my mouth and sang. They are curious creatures. They did a double take and went on grazing as if to say, “Oh, it’s that crazy woman who sang to us last year. She’s harmless. But keep an eye on her.”

I turned on the camera and followed their movements. The yearling stayed close to her mother. As I sang, more does appeared out of the tall grass or emerged from behind boulders and trees. They took hesitant steps on slender legs and filled my screen with graceful, juxtaposed forms. They nibbled on the quince bush and picked their way across the lawn in a stately minuet, pausing now and then to lift their heads and stare at me, radar ears wafting toward my song. My voice wobbled and cracked and I couldn’t remember the tune. I made up the words. They didn’t rhyme. The deer didn’t seem to mind.

Sometimes it happens like this. The longed-for moment of synchronicity. The camera is loaded, the light is right and the subject manifests right under your nose. I couldn’t find the deer, so they came to me. I filmed them for about ten minutes in the dying autumn light. A blessing. A gift. I’m so grateful.

Adaptation

2009-10-29T20:30:00.000-07:00

The big event in our neck of the San Luis Valley is the sudden cold. It’s snowing and the leaves aren’t all down. It went down to twenty-two degrees last night. But I shouldn’t complain—up in Denver they have a foot of snow. This storm is going to dump about four feet in the Rocky Mountains, the biggest “snowmaker” to hit Colorado’s Front Range in October since 1997, says Byron Louis, a National Weather service Meteorologist in Boulder.

Here in Northern New Mexico we had two or three inches of slush on the mountain roads. The snow let up for the day, but this evening it’s coming down again. When I went down to feed the horses this morning, the stock tanks were frozen over; I had to break the ice with a rake and do it again this evening. (So what ever happened to global warming?) The horses are growing out their coats as fast as they can. The humans are scrambling for gloves, boots and snow tires. It’s called “adaptation.” It’s easier if you have time to ease into it.

The weatherization people came last week—God bless ‘em—and caulked all the cracks around the windows and under the vigas (rafters). They also weatherized our front and back doors so that they’re tight. Then they wrapped the gas water heater with insulation and told us that would bring down the cost of hot water by 27%. They even changed all our old light bulbs for thirteen-watt, spiral compact fluorescents that are supposed to save 80% on energy we normally use for lights. The bulbs last up to nine years. Though they are 900 lumens, they seem a bit dimmer than regular bulbs. In fact, my first thought was that as civilization runs out of gas and oil, we’re going back in time. It took me back to my childhood during World War II in London, Ontario in the yellow clapboard house on Byron Avenue where every room was lit by one dangling, overhead bulb.

But—anything to save a polar bear.

On the way to town this morning I saw a coyote trotting across the road, all bushy and swa-vay. (Suave.) Not skinny and sly like the ones in the cartoons. On the way home in five o’clock traffic, close to the same spot, I saw a coyote—the same one?—dashing lickety split across the road between speeding cars, streaking through the fence on the other side, leaping over sagebrush. I always pay attention when I see Coyote. Two coyotes in one day—running in the same direction in the same place. Maybe it’s a sign. Of what?? The Trickster. Duality.

When I turned onto the dirt road that leads to our driveway, I was delighted to see nine does grazing in my neighbor’s field where alfalfa grew in the summer. No bucks in sight. I stopped, killed the engine and rolled down the window. Some heads came up and ears turned to me, but they went back to grazing. One of the does squatted and peed. Hmm. Never saw that before. Then she lifted her back hoof and scratched behind her ear.

When I went out an hour later to feed the horses, there were only two does in the field. I wondered where the rest had gone. All summer the rio was a mere trickle, but tonight when I crossed the bridge I heard the liquid rush of water. The mayordomos in charge of the acequias on both sides of the valley will shut down the ditches before they freeze over and turn the water back into the river.

Coming home half an hour later, I saw two does and a yearling up by the ditch behind my house. I stopped, rolled down the window and sang to them. Not words, just notes: “Oh oh ohhhh ohhh . . .” They stood perfectly still, their ears tuned forward. And me without a camera. (It’s in the shop.)

Once when I was driving in the mountains around Chama near the Colorado state line, I noticed a small herd on a wooded hillside. I happened to be playing a Rolling Stone tune, “Gimme Shelter.” I thought they might like the wordless intro in a minor key that croons like the autumn wind. I stopped, rewound and played it over and over. They kept munching and drifting down the hill toward the car until one of them was about five feet away. Some animals won’t be charmed no matter what you do, but the deer fall for it every time.

Intertwined

2009-10-27T20:50:00.000-07:00

This evening I lit the first fire of the season in my small, airtight wood stove. There's something so comforting about lively orange flames, the crackle and scent of piñon wood, the warmth of a wood fire.

I learned a lot about the P/J Woodland today in my class on Taos Ecology. (P/J stands for piñon/juniper.) We went on a field trip in Taos Canyon, up a trail called Divisadero to 7,400 feet. Our teacher, Sylvia, said that piñon is very vulnerable to climate shifts and retreats in times of drought to re-colonize later. If the temperature goes up even one degree, the heat shuts down the life processes and kills the tree.

Piñon is our most important source of firewood around here, though we also burn aspen, cedar and "red pine." Aspen burns hot and fast and cleans out your stovepipe. But a log of piñon will burn all night and the stove still be warm in the morning. The piñons around here and as far south as Santa Fe have been taking a beating for the past decade. Plagued by drought and infested with ips beetles, they have died by the thousands. Cutting the dead ones for firewood isn't an option because of the danger of spreading the beetle. The past couple of winters we've had several days of below zero temperatures, which is what it takes to kill the beetles. And deep snows to replenish the watershed and fill the irrigation acequias in spring, but no one is saying that the drought is over yet.

The aspens are affected too. Aspens reproduce by sending up suckers. A whole stand of aspens may be connected at the root. Ancient aspen clones, some of them thousands of years old, are threatened by a lethal combination of disease and insect infestation that destroys even the roots. The good news is, in Flagstaff, Arizona where stands of aspens are struggling to regenerate, the forest service has succeeded in protecting new suckers from browsing elk by fencing off the parent trees.

Today we students are trying to understand how everything in the environment affects everything else. We stop to look at a juniper tree infested with mistletoe, great olive-green clumps of it thriving on bare branches, sucking nourishment from the wood and leaving black fungal spores. Sylvia notes that it is not advantageous for a parasite to kill the host. Which also applies to our own species. She points out a mountain mahogany bush that has been grazed by mule deer. "Deer ice cream," she calls it. They have devoured most of the leaves, but the stems seem fine. The deer leave piles of "deer duds" that help fertilize the ground. Periodically, we are startled by the blast of a high powered rifle from the opposite hillside. Hunting season.

We identify five different kinds of grasses and talk about the partnership between specific fungus and specific algae that paint the sides of the rocks pale green. Fungus absorbs water and keeps the algae moist; algae is photosynthetic, creates food from sunlight, and provides nourishment for the fungus. They are intertwined and can't survive without each other. Together they help weather the rock and break it down into soil.

Near the ridge we do a fifty foot, radial vegetation sampling, identify and count the number of different kinds of trees and note what condition they are in. Where dead juniper and piñon have fallen, dozens of saplings are springing up, some in the protective shelter of clumps of grass and sage. They look bright and healthy and give us hope the way all young things do.

Driving home at dusk, I slow down in the driveway but don't see the deer until I come to the bridge. Two of them have already crossed--one of them a buck. The does are browsing on the other side of the bridge, in the field and above the stone wall. I stop in the middle of the road and wait. A car rolls up behind me. Slows down, dims the lights. Someone else enjoys watching them, too. I proceed with caution, turn on my brights and count eight deer--and yes, there he is--the other buck. One buck hasn't driven the other away and no one has shot them.

Yet.

It gives me hope.

Autumn in Taos

2009-10-27T20:42:00.000-07:00

It’s autumn in Taos, New Mexico, my favorite time of the year in the high mountain desert. We live in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in an old adobe house on four stony acres of land. A rio runs through it. (The land, not the house.) We are right on the edge of the national forest at the mouth of a rocky canyon, so wild animals wander through here every day.

In the past month I’ve seen a raccoon sleeping in the crotch of a cottonwood tree down by the river, a bobcat watching me from the top of a cliff, a big blue heron fishing in the rio, a large black bear standing in the driveway, a great horned owl, hawks, ravens, flickers, magpies, wrens, stellar jays, vultures and many other kinds of birds. Not to mention mule deer and mice that are called deer mice because of their protruding brown eyes and big deer-like ears. I catch the mice in live traps and release them several miles downstream, almost to the confluence of the Rio Hondo and the Rio Grande.

Life here is never dull. Yesterday a storm swept in. It rained, hailed and snowed. I didn’t want to drive ten miles to Taos to have dinner with a friend. I just wanted to hunker down in bed with a good book. But okay . . .

Driving out I was startled to see, on a hill overlooking the dirt driveway, not one but two mule deer with dark, stately racks of horns. It’s rare to see two bucks together. I wondered if they were in battle. I glanced down into my neighbor’s field and there was the whole herd--or had two herds combined? About eight or nine does and yearlings looked up at me with dark eyes and big ears forward, all curious. Maybe the storm drove them down before dusk. I hope those two bucks don’t end up in someone’s freezer.

I always feel blessed when I see a deer. I hear them outside my back door at night blowing out their breath, “Uhh! Uhh!” like Santa stuck in the chimney. The other night, driving out in the dark, my headlights picked up a doe wandering in the road between barbed wire fences. “Hi, Bambi!” I said, and braked to watch. The deer was in no hurry. “I know you can jump right over that fence,” I said, “because you have such springy legs.” Sure enough, the doe backed up a step and in one fluid motion floated over the wire like Michael Jordan making an effortless shot.

I drove on. Half way to town, it happened. (It used to happen more often when the air was really clear.) The sun broke through a cloudbank close to the horizon and glorified the landscape with a rich translucent light like some melodramatic painting. In the center of a field three dead cottonwood trees glowed amber, surrounded by a herd of black cows, framed by whale-blue clouds, and above that, veils of snow sweeping across white peaks. Along the highway, gold-leafed poplars shimmered with rain; the road was bright with scattered leaves.

As the Earth rolled away from the sun, the sky colors deepened to tangerine, royal purple, turquoise, magenta and an embarrassed blush. I pulled over, leapt out of the car and tried to film the drama with a slow video pan, but my sleeve caught in the barbed wire fence and the light faded.

I sighed and climbed back in the car. Oh well, I’ll go home and write about it.