Bird Day

Bird Day
May 9, 2010

Mother’s Day and nearly the whole day spent doing the spring bird count. I started in my own back yard here just over the Steuben County line. It was thirty-two degrees, with a dusting of snow on the shingles of the sunroom, and no sun to be seen. I was afraid no birds were to be seen either, but those migrants are tough! Starting out below the pond, in the wet, old meadow, overgrown with thorn apple trees, I found yellow rump, magnolia, a black and white, and a Nashville busily stoking their tiny furnaces with whatever nearly invisible bits of nourishment they were finding amidst the fearsome three inch needles. They weren’t doing much singing, just industriously eating! On the way to the spring, a robin flew out of a cavity in a red maple and I could see a cluster of brand new, bobbing, gaping beaks in the nest. Up in the horse pasture, the bluebird couple was perched on box and fence wire, mama not brooding yet, I guess. The bobolinks were back in Jerry Smith’s field, swinging on grass stems and singing their phoenix phoenix phoenix song. By the time I came in at 9:15, my fingers were hurting with cold and I needed to warm up.

At ten, Fred and I met up with Ronnie, Lauren, and the two Eds for a Potter County, PA count. Because of the chilly day, we did a lot of drive-by, listen-out-the-window birding and were counting many commoners (a flock of 70+ crows, 158 robins), but feeling a trifle disappointed. Still the back roads of northern PA were enchanting. Then we stopped at an old homestead, its cellar hole surrounded by a carpet of budding lily-of-the-valley, a sentinel white lilac bush nearby, and many of those hardy little white jonquils with the orange centers that the old farmers’ wives planted. The gully across the road was filled with willow thickets and old apple trees—and busy with birds: oriole, rose breasted grosbeak, magnolia warbler, ovenbird, redstart, and posing, peering curiously at us, and singing lustily: a northern parula! It was a first for all but one of us. I thought Fred might be hooked when he said, “It’s much better than the photo.” (in Stokes)

Came home thoroughly chilled despite the fact that I was wearing my cold weather cross country skiing garb. Standing around trying to spot birds is not the same as moving! Fred made up a fire and cooked steak and potatoes and fed me one of his fabulous salads. Unfortunately my cold had really taken hold and I couldn’t taste much of anything. Had good chats with both girls on the telephone. Fern sent me some super organic lotion which I am sure will magically transform my face back into the bloom of youth. Together, the girls and Fred gave me an azalea to plant by the drive way. I wonder if the one they gave me at the lake last Mother’s Day is blooming?

Daily Detours

Does a day ever go as planned? I did get the day lillies in front of the dining room weeded. They are doing well in that sunny, but dry spot by the stone wall. So good to pull those long roots of quack grass out. It will come back, but I beat it down for a while! Ed was true to his word and came by with his lens cleaning stuff to work on the telescope--brought from Paris by my great great grandfather, James J. Walworth in 1858. The mirror needs to be recoated and sadly there is no literature existing with it to expalin all the different lenses. We couldn't get it to focus, but after Ed left, I kept tinkering with it, found etches lines on the barrel, and by lining them up and messing around, was able to get a nice clear view of the hog farm down on Cryder Creek ["The Cyder" (no R) if you are local]. I'll give Dr. Stull a call in Alfred and see if he can help me some more.

By lunch time the weather had turned very windy, with the sky to the west clay colored. Soldiering on, I went up to the shop and filled buckets with wood sawdust for mulch, but Wiz thought it would be too acid, so we'll use it on the blueberry bushes. I moved on to weeding the day lillies beside the tree lilac by the gully, which is doing quite nicely. It felt good to be able to rip garlic mustard up by the roots. We'll use old hay to mulch there. Didn't finish because the rain was coming horizontally then--my family's official description of "sea hag weather."

I retreated to the house and did what I've been threatening to do "some rainy day" for quite a while. I cleaned our funky little walk-in bedroom closet! I filled a leaf bag with discarded clothing. Found Mum's (and my) wedding gown just fine in it's box, and Dad's old fedora hat (should I give it to Dave?), relieved myself of formal tennis attire (stained) from the days when we used to go to the Hillsboro Club in Florida with Mum and Dad, did keep the brand new and very expensive tennis sneakers, snooped a tiny bit through a box of my husband's memorabilia. He is SO sentimental. Anything, no matter how pathetically poorly constructed, that was ever given to him by one of his children is kept unused as a religious relic: such as a pair of socks embroidered with "I heart you." Well, I have to admit, I couldn't part with the shiny paper medal Fern made me for cleaning up an extra large dog poop one time whne she was about ten. I hung my Pony Club Games hat with DC and coach's pins (and my pin from 1955) in the guest room closet. It was just too sentimental. Dust and mouse turds. And an indescribable feeling of calm and control to have two closets of my life clean and tidy. (I did the linen closet, with some mouse proofing foam around the stone chimney, last week.) What a housekeeper I am!

And I did go to bed, pleasantly sore, to sleep well.

Gardening Day

May 8, 2010

Okay, morning pages can be my blog or my blog can be morning pages and it can all be a spilling of my thoughts onto the record, hopefully some worthwhile. May eighth, 2010. It sounds like science fiction to me. Sometimes I’m sure I’m still living in the last century. A splendid blustery, sun and fast moving cloud morning after a thunderous and wet night. We needed the rain. The birds are loving it. Tomorrow I do a spring count with friends. The migrants have flooded in over the past few days. Yesterday I saw or heard nine different warblers up at the old Keaton farm, where there had only been a handful two days before. I stalked what sounded like a northern parula for forty-five minutes with no success. Darn. It would have been a life bird. Has anyone noticed that the leaves came out before the birds did this year? The treat was running into a flock of yellow rumps and a good look at a yellow billed cuckoo who was busily eating caterpillars. It was a very welcome sight at it looks to be another bumper caterpillar year, tents and black clusters of writhing worms everywhere in the woods.

I am finished with my year teaching drawing at Alfred State College. I’m feeling wistful about students I may never see again, but reveling in the thought of more time. I am a one track person. I seem to need clear slates to work on. Yes, I’m spoiled. A person can do much in spare, disjointed moments. Having more time is also a bit scary. Now I have no excuse—except for all the gardening, traveling, horseback riding, birding, fishing, kayaking, etc. that I want to do! In the end, we make time for what we want most to accomplish. Argh! I've been watching too much Grey's Anatomy--I'm beginning to sound like Meridith!

This Saturday is a gardening day: weeds to pull from the damp, softened ground, fence posts to set for the new plot, mulch to spread, seeds to put into the earth. Yesterday I watched my tray of morning glory, cosmos, and sunflower seedlings sprouting, new ones popping up each hour. It was miraculous. Age old and brand-new. So good for the soul. Twelve hours from now I will lie down to sleep with aching muscles, dirt under my nails, ears full of birdsong, nostrils full of lilac and new cut grass, and my inner eye brimming with the spectacle of green and growth and flower and rich, open ground.

Moose Feathers

So it's Saturday afternoon, brilliant blue sky, and I've given myself a few more minutes at the desk before going for a ride in Katy. I love throwing a bridle on in the winter, hopping on her back, and just taking a walk through the woods. Snow is deep and melting fast. We skiied with Mike and Marcia this morning with the three young dogs beside themselves with energy and poor old Spike plodding in our wake. Yesterday, thinking about our puppy, Georgie, as I skiied:

She's got way too much tail for a Russell
And her ears don't stand up as they ought
Her legs are too long
And her teeth are all wrong
But this is the puppy we got . . .

Brilliant poetry! I think like a five year old sometimes, but that's good. Maybe more too come? I do love how ideas flow when we are doing things other than art, like how my swimming/flying idea for my new picture book text, Moose Feathers, came during shavasana (sp?) at yoga class the other night. I've been working my way through chapter one of The Artist's Way. What a great book. Doing my morning pages does seem to center me for the day, but now I'm not getting as much reading done, and the transcribing of my great great-grandfather's journals isn't getting done either. And ever since I went to Kindling Words in January, I've been frustrated with teaching, or the time it takes away from my writing. I truly love my students, even the difficult ones, who are few. It's been very exciting watching their drawing develop this year and thinking that I might have something to do with it. I feel deeply that this odd year of a different path was the right detour for now. I will use what I have learned in unexpected ways. Maybe I will be a little better at drawing myself. Maybe I will try some illustration again.

The Horse Boy and a boy named Horse.

Yesterday was my long day of the week, starting with a cup of coffee and a couple of chapters of The Horse Boy (now a film) by Ruphert Isaacson at six o'clock. I was pretty excited to find this book, as coincidentally my new young adult novel, In the Shelter of the Sky (currently unsold and just finished for submission in early November) features a little boy with autism named, Horse, who speaks for the first time when my male protagonist, Catch, brings a riding horse to the Night People, who worship Great Horse as the creator of the world and believe riding is an abomination. Catch and Spring (my female protagonist) travel to a mountian shaman to seek healing for her injured leg and his black thoughts--what we would today call post traumatic stress disorder. My story is set 6000 years ago in central Asia and is fiction. The Horse Boy is a true, contemporary account of a father and mother who bring their autisitic son to shamans and horses in Mongolia to seek healing for him.

My story thread came from lunch last March with my ancient horse guru, Sandra Olsen, of the Carnegie Musem of Natural History, when I was invited to do a presentation and book signing for the opening of The Horse exhibit. Sandi told me a story of a little boy with autism who spoke for the first time when he was intrudced to a policewoman's horse in his school parking lot. Funny that with all my delving into the ancient history of humans and horses, that artifact of modern life should be among of the treasures that I was able to bring to my story. I should add that Sandi is not ancient--only the horses that she studies!

Ever since the first version of Wind Rider appeared as a short story called A Gift from the Spirit in Horsepower Magazine, there has seemed to be some sort of channeling going on. I wrote about people who only had domesticated dogs and horses long before I discovered the Botai culture of ancient Kazakhstan. Then while researching Shelter, I reconnected with Steve Bodio, author of Eagle Dreams and A Rage for Falcons, who was my mentor at the Wildbranch Writers Conference about fifteen years ago. Darned if he's not researching the domestication of the dog in Kazakhstan while I'm researching the domestication of horses! (I think I'm being led to Asia and to writing about hunting with horses, eagles, and dogs next!) And now the mystical connection between autists and animals . . .

So anyway, to make a long blog (and day) short, I taught two three hour classes with my foundation drawing students (who mostly seemed still exhausted and thoroughly blocked about the concept of actually working despite their Thanksgiving break) with grocery shopping in between. Then off to the Wellsville Creative Arts Center for my tile making class with Ashley Gray. I have now carved one-and-one-half tiles in clay, so my new bathroom should be done in about ten years. Home in wind and rain at nine.

Big Turkey Tracks

Fred (Wiz) and I got back from Thanksgiving in New England yesterday afternoon. The Allegany plateau was the predicted ten degrees colder than the rest of the world and yes, indeed, we did awaken to a dusting of snow this morning. Charlie the rooster and Buttercup, the hen are safely in their new coop inside the garden where they can roam during the daytime. I'll call my friend Bob (www.thunderbirdatlatls.com) tonight and see if he's willing to sell me a couple more hens. I really love hearing Charlie crow through the dim world of my early morning sleep hours. I don't find it annoying, just sort of a peacefull country sound. Also it reminds me of Sally Birmingham, our dear neighbor who passed away a few years ago. She loved to hear a rooster crow.

We had a lovely, mini-Thanksgiving with our daughter, Spring, at our hundred year old, barnswallow's nest of a camp in southern new Hampshire. The overcast weather held the temperature at a pretty comfortable 46-48 degrees. It's a hard building to heat, but we were pretty snug. We feasted on an eleven pound, organically grown, heirloom variety, Burbon Red turkey purchased in Northampton, MA, but sadly grown in California and shipped cross country, which gave that little bird a much bigger footprint than it already had. Ah well. All the veggies were from our garden, butternut squash, leeks, brussells sprouts, and potatos. Yum. It was fun cooking together, and very tempting to pull up chairs for the three dogs to join us at the table.

As we washed up our three plates in the kitchen, I thought, uh oh, now it's the Christmas season!

To Blog or Not to Blog . . .

Blogspot, Facebook, MySpace, Plaxo . . . What's a person who grew up in the last of the typewriter era to do? I'm not sure if I'm really a blogger. . . and my followers are probably convinced that I certainly ain't. What I'd like to do, since I don't really journal any more, is use it as a sort of open journal. Think in words a bit and if anyone wants to snoop in case I say something amazing, or amazingly stupid, well okay, have at. That way, whether I'm actually writing great fiction or not, at least, I'm keeping the writing muscle excercised.

Writing for me is easier once I've got a story roughed out. I could whittle, paste, and polish almost indefinately. It's the early days that are the hardest when every line seems barely worth putting down, the story is worthless, and my personal troll is huge on my shoulder yelling all this unhelpful derision in a cracked voice, spittle flying all over the keyboard, breath scented with rotten mackerel, into my ear. It's fairly painful.

July sorta got away on me. August as well. I got offered a job teaching a drawing class at Alfred State College and spent much of that month studying up and freaking out. Then the class actually started and I've been trying to stay one jump ahead of my students, feeling like a twenty-one year old newbie teacher when I'm actually three and a half decades older than that. Well isn't it nice to feel young and foolish again!

The truth is that I have met and gotten to know forty-eight eighteeen-year-olds who delight, disarm, and amaze me every time we meet. They walk all over me and then come through with gestures of integrity, thought, and lord have mercy--drawings! I think some of them may have actually learned a bit about how to apply pencil or charcoal to paper. I hope I've helped some get over fears that they are not the next DaVinci, and I hope my DaVincis--and there are several of them--have found it worthwhile. There have been a few days of frustration, but many more days of exhileration, challenge, and fun. Next semester, it's figure drawing, and yes, some of them will be naked (the figures, not the students) and maybe some will be male, and maybe some will be less than perfect physical specimens of the human race.

Meanwhile, somehow in the past year, I actually (let's see, what are some good synonyms for "wrote"? Coughed out? Spewed? Vomited? Bled? Birthed? Ripped out of my Viscera?) . . . Well, where once there was nothing, blank paper, empty disc space, for three long years since Wind Rider, there is now In the Shelter of the Sky, a second generation companion novel. Maybe it is not the season's next best seller. It's not even sold. Not even read by anyone but me yet. The market has gone upside down. But it's part of me, and it's here. And actually--I love it.

On the homefront, the sweet little puppy of six months ago, Georgie, killed or drove off to the foxes her first chicken the other day and mauled Charlie, the rooster. He seems to be recovering and hopefully the chicken master is wiser. Now we know that Georgie may not look all that much like a Jack Russell, but she definately has the soul of one. And we need a new hen.