Feathers in the Snow

We are having a cold, cold, cold front passing through Portland. There's snow and wind and, today, lots of sunshine. I've only ventured out once since Saturday night and it was to go over to Mass this morning. There were only three of us counting the priest - four counting God. The other woman who was there told me she had to hurry home because her hummingbird feeders were freezing and the little hummers were upset. I had planned to fill my feeders this AM, too, but I'd taken down the hummingbird feeders ages ago. So I cooked up some yummy sugar water and within the hour there was a fat little hummer sipping l-o-n-g sips of water. I just assumed they would have frozen to their perches by now. Awesome!

Slug Slime

When I lived on the farm there would occasionally be a shiny trail on the bathroom rug in the morning. I would pretend the fairies had come to visit. Of course I knew it was a trail of slug slime. It usually faded in an hour or two and I never saw the slug so it never annoyed me.

Now, for you who have known slugs from the midwest, you probably think of them as those little shell-less snail things that are garden pests. We have those here, too. But, as many other things West of the Rocky Mountains, we have slugs as big as Paul Bunyan's Babe. I first heard of big slugs from kaliedoscope girl who attended the University of California at Santa Cruz. Their school mascot is a smiling banana slug. Since living out here I have seen some biggish slugs although I've never actually seen a bright yellow smiling banana slug. The ones I've seen have been light brown and I only know they are banana slugs because they have a hole for a nose on the side of their heads. The first enormous slug I ever saw was one day walking in the woods near the farm. I came upon a Rufous Garden Slug. I can't describe my horror. It was on a clump of autumn leaves and the contrast between the yellow-orange of the leaves and the big, black, slimy creature made me think for a second of lynchings and castration. It sent the scariest shiver up my back. My nature book says they are 2 inches long, but this guy was at least 2 inches wide and maybe 6 long.

This all brings me round to the "Fairy Trail" I've noticed near Waylon's bowl since we've been here. I put Waylon's food up on a ledge in the mud room. It's a great ledge that is next to the kitchen door and you have to pass it to get to the basement stairs. It's perfect for resting the laundry basket on as you get ready to go downstairs to do the wash. Perfect also for keeping cat food out of the dogs' reach. Waylon likes to spread his food around so I have an old terry cloth towel that I put under the bowls. Shortly after Waylon arrived, I noticed a fairy trail on the towel one morning. It isn't there every morning, but often enough that I decided to investigate and see if I could find those fairies. This proved to be quite a mystery. The trail only glistens on the terry cloth. I could find a few shiny sprinkles on the basement steps and on the rug near the washing machine, but no trail. The cat bowl ledge is in location that I can't imagine a slug being able to reach. But, you know, fairies can be unpredictable and seriously secretive beings.

WELL......one night I was letting Blue out to pee and usually I don't turn on the light, but for some reason I did. The trail maker was there! Right up there nibbling on cat food crumbs. He is a Leopard Slug. Here's how the Nature book describes him:

LEOPARD SLUG Limax maximus Gastropod Class Body cylindrical, leathery, pale gray or brownish; above spotted and striped. Eyes on long stalks. A garden pest imported from Europe. Length: 4 inches Habitat: Gardens and moist woodlands. Range: Chiefly west of the Cascades.

I think he's longer than 4 inches. My first impulse is to squish all slugs. But one this big I cannot squish. My next thought is to scoop him up and take him across the street. But I figure any little critter who can slither up onto this ledge and survive on cat food crumbs (instead of my garden) has earned the right to join the family. I still can't figure out where he lives. There are lots of tiny holes and I've looked up and down the stairs to the basement, but this remains a mystery for now. Stay tuned....his photo is coming.

Monday Morning Blog

OK, I know it's been a while. I am exerting great discipline in sitting down and writing this morning. Waylon has been sitting in a ray of sunlight for 45 minutes without moving and that just seems so lucious. I'd like to do that, too. It seems I've been caught in some cyberspace trance where all I want to do when the computer is on is follow various news items or catch up with other people's blogs. My friends are returning from Israel and Zambia so that will cut down on time spent reading their blogs.

Yesterday I traveled to St. Paul, Oregon and found more roses than my yard can hold! That cuts down the internet search for roses. It's not really rose buying time in Portland. Most of the nurseries have only the left over tattered roses no one wanted. But I am ready to plant roses and wanted to find a couple that I'd cared for at St. Boniface. In my stack of old rose catalogs I found a long forgotten one from "Heirloom Roses" and discovered it is located just 40 minutes from here! Since this is the Pauline Year for Catholics, I decided a trip to St. Paul, Oregon would be an appropriate adventure. The Heirloom Rose Garden rivals any rose garden I've seen so far....and that is saying a lot for someone from The City of Roses. Even the map of their garden layout is 25 pages long! (No pictures - just mapping out where each rose is located) They have a greenhouse full of rose starts and I picked out 9 to take home. Ballerina and Sally Holmes and Play Girl were three of the starts I'd been looking for. The others are variations on old single roses that I hadn't seen before. One is Kew Rambler and another is called Summer Wine. I picked out one called Mavourneen just because of the name and can't find that rose's description anywhere. But you know it's got to be good with a name like that. They gave me a "mystery rose", too, so I'll have a couple surprises next summer.

Blue and I drove up to Ridgefield one day. I was feeling sick but too restless to stay home in bed. We were the only ones at the Refuge. Got to see the American Bittern I saw on my very first trip there. Maybe it was the same. They are such a funny looking bird. I'll try to post a picture if I can find one. Also got to watch a bald eagle fishing. He was great. Usually I see immature eagles which still have brown plumage and don't look so regal. This one had his whites and definitely ruled.

Then we saw our coyote! He was almost invisible. Crouched down in the middle of a recently mowed field, he looked just like one of the clumps of hay. We stopped the car and watched him for an hour or more. At first I thought he must be a young coyote waiting for his mom to come back from a hunting trip. Every minute or so he'd pick up his head from the ground and look around. He got up once and stretched, then turned a circle and lay down again just like any old dog. Finally I spotted another coyote moving along the fence line. Our coyote jumped up and chased that one off so far and fast it was amazing. Then he proudly sauntered back to his watch spot, so satisfied - an accomplished guadian of his territory.

My next blog will be entitled "Ghost Stories". SIE and I have been playing camping. Lately it's involved scary stories around the campfire. Stay tuned!

Chiggers Are My Nemesis

Superman had kriptonite, Darth Vader had Luke, I have chiggers! Sunday a week ago as I walked off the trail trying to find a garter snake, it crossed my mind that chiggers might be out. Some people don't even believe in them. And I try not to so I did everthing wrong. When I got home I was too tired to take a shower. I just curled up in bed and slept awhile giving the little critters time to wander around and jump on the bed. When I did put my clothes in the laundry, I used cold water instead of hot. Within hours of the walk, I was again a believer.This week has been super hot here. The kind of hot that fries my mind and makes my body feel like it's breathing its last. Of the very little bit I did get accomplished was looking up "chiggers" on line. In an attempt to feel a comraderie with all of creation I decided I better find out what I could. It turns out that chiggers are the larvae of those teensy weensy red spiders. Now, I've alsways liked those little guys and am having a hard time believing they spend part of their lives as chiggers. Once they are spiders they won't bite you. But when they are new born larvae, they climb to the top of grass blades and hang on waiting for something to sip. They don't actually bite, they spit something into you that hardens a spot and turns the center of the spot to a yummy sludge. I'm thinking something like a Slurpy. The hardened skin itches and some people itch more than others. And the itch lasts 7 days....maybe more. They say on line that painting them with fingernail polish doesn't work, but I do think that shortens the itching somewhat. My back had a bunch of bites that I couldn't reach to apply the nail polish. That gave me a chance to compare the ones I was able to paint and those I wasn't. So 7 days was yesterday. The spots I couldn't reach are still itching a little, but this itch may be from the little chiggers who decided to take a nap when I did and didn't get hungry till the next evening. I've been reduced to carrying around a large serving spoon this week so I can reach those itchy spots. I'm praising the Lord for spoons and hot showers and little chiggers who remind us we all have a place in His creation.

Miss Ingu and the Itsy Bitsy Spiders

When we were out on the farm SIE and I would walk through the empty green houses and found all kinds of interesting things, moths and bugs and different kind of webs. Before moving we found 3 different egg sacs and put them in a jar with a net on top. One is a praying mantis egg I think. The other two I'm not sure. One looked like a small Japanese lantern and the other like a yellowpuff ball.

Sunday I happened to look up at the jar on the windowsill while I was rinsing some dishes. There was what looked like a little dried thistle in the jar and when I looked closer it turned out to be a ball of bitsy little spiders - new borns! They were gathered in a tight ball and when I picked up the jar, they all scattered and it looked like a cluster of fireworks bursting forth. I had to use a magnifying glass to make sure they had eight legs. Then I realized they must have built their own webs because they were suspended in the air. I couldn't tell which egg sac they came from.

I put the jar into a larger container because I wasn't sure if they would be able to crawl through the net. Sure enough, by the morning they had moved through the net into another tight cluster. They are now residing in the garage. I went to visit them today and they are clustered in a small web nestled in the windowsill. There are lots of them. I hope they are spiders of the friendly variety. I don't want to have a garage full of the wicked biting kind.

One Camelia, Two Camelia, Three Camelia, Four

Bird Songs

One of the things about our country walks is the changes that light makes on the paths. The view changes every time we go out. Sometimes overcast and gray-blue, sometimes sunlight streaming through the woods and lighting up places you've never noticed before.

The sound of birds' songs also changes. It's the eeriest thing to go for a walk in the woods and not hear one single chirp. But it happens often. All is silent. It's one for the est files.

Other times it's quiet, but not silent. You might run into a wren trying to throw us off of the path to her nest; or another bird, invisible, up in the trees that calls out as if it was his particular job to notify nature that we are present.

Sometimes there is so much bird song that it's like a symphony of different instruments tuning up. I think the first noise is the scree of an eagle or a hawk leaving their nest and crossing the fields to a different hunting ground. Then a few little birds pipe up. Then it's as if every bird realizes the threat of being eaten by a raptor is gone for a while and they join in like the munchkins singing, "Ding, dong, the witch is dead."

There are some bird songs that I've come to recognize - like that pileated woodpecker, who is around quite often now. And the chip of chickadees is familiar. I think my favorite is still the robin's voice. There's a flock of them now down at the thicket where our driveway begins. And there's lots of geese and ducks migrating and making noise you can hear long before their vee-shape flight pattern appears.

And then there's those mystery birds that I have gotten used to hearing, but never identified. There is The Auk, a huge bird that screams out a loud "auk, auk" as it flies over the woods. And there's The Telephone Birdwho lives in the thicket and sounds so much like a telephone ringing that I've run to answer my own phone forgetting he's around. There's a bird that "meows" just like a kitten. I've never seen him. I have seen in some bird books the calls are sounded out - but that's such an individual thing that I have to hear them first, before I can read them.

On another note (pun intended)today my head song has been Woody Guthrie's "Git Along Little Doggies".

Whoopie-Ky-Yie-Yo, Git along Little Doggies, It's your misfortune and none of my own. Whoopie Ky-Yie-Yo, Git along Little Doggies, and know that Wyoming will be your new home.

Bones

A few months back on a drizzly day, a little before the sun went down, Blue and I were out walking down behind the blackberry hedge when I found some bones. It looked like pieces of a small animal skull and some ribs and vertebrae. We dug around until it got too dark, then brought our wet selves back to the shed to wash our finds. After they dried we tried to piece them together and found that we did have about 3/4 of the skull.

Occassionally we would pass this site on our walks and once or twice we'd spy another bone. It was kind of like an archeological dig. It was interesting to see the small bones work their way to the surface and to see what colors they were. And it was amazing to actually find anything.

So late yesterday afternoon I decided I better go down there and really excavate, or I'll regret not having all the bones that belong together. I took my little shovel and, while Blue patiently sniffed around the area, I turned over the soil and found a few more bones. I think any that I don't have now have disentigrated or been carried away by critters. When I get to my new home, I'll glue them together.

While I was down there I picked up a few interesting rocks, too. I think that's a family trait - saving rocks that call to us. One of the rocks was wavy like the edge of a sea shell. I washed it off and I think I've found an ancient artifact. It looks like a piece of pottery formed by a child's fingers. The ripples look sort of like fluted pie crust and the form of fingers is there. The material is red clay, like the soil in which we were digging. And it is "painted" black. The contrast of the Paint and the clay remind me of the petroglyphs in Nevada.

Another treasure to add to my collection.

Snow and Rain and Freezing Fog

Sorry I have been out of commission these past 10 days. It seems like every day is running together. The amazing thing is that no matter how quickly time passes, there are always extraordinary changes everytime we go out for a walk. The weather here has been harsh this winter. A lot of wet, heavy snow, plus cold wind, and now a new weather term: freezing fog. It's different from sleet. It's very fine crystals just wisping around like you're standing in a snow globe.

A lot of tree branches have broken off and fallen in heaps along our paths. Bruce, the farmer next door, tries to keep up with them so sometimes they are trimmed and cut for firewood not too long after falling. But up on this end the big fir trees have lost enough limbs to make a huge pile of evergreen bowers at their bases. And often the wet snow is weighing down the lower limbs so you have to duck under and go into a perfect little fort. The raspberry hedges have gotten so scrunched that I can see over them and Blue and I even made a new path over some flattened branches. Poor Blue's paws must be really tough to walk over all those little thorns ("jaggers" as SIE calls them). There are 2 woodland alcoves that are quite open now after loosing the blackberry walls.

The pine siskin have moved on. But one day a small flock of evening grosbeaks filled the big feeder. They're the first I ever saw and so pretty. They are about the size of robins and the females are gently colored gray and pale yellow(like the evening sky at sunset). The male have a more contrasting black, yellow, and white pattern. Pictures in my books do not so them justice. It was truly a delight to watch their little flock feeding - no nipping and fighting like the pine siskins and jays.

Weird Weather

I was never able to talk my kids into becoming meteorologists. It's not that I didn't try. I should have become one myself. But they're all so cute and photogenic that they would have looked fabulous on TV. They would have been the sweethearts of any town they worked in.

The weather has been so rainy the last few weeks that I'm finally getting tired of it. Portland's weather has never bothered me before. But except for the days it snowed, it's been raining like crazy. Every time I get on the highway it's a deluge! And last night I heard that another storm system is due this weekend. The rains from the new storm have already hit California and they're moving this way.

So imagine how amazing it felt this morning waking up to a few hours of no rain and actual sunshine! No tapping on the tin roof. Silence. It was 47 degrees, too. Blue and I got hot on our walk! Still one or two spots where the snow hadn't melted, but mostly green grass and wet mud. It was so beautiful that I kept finding excuses to go outside.

On the super chilly, rainy days the air was filled with the smell of fires burning in the neighbors' homes. It's a nice smell. Today smelled like spring. Very nice, too! Well, the storm is still coming this way. It's getting colder inside now and the wind is blowing the trees so hard that I thought a semi pulled up the drive! The sky looks ominously grey.

SIE is coming here after school to spend the night. Everything's ready for him...but does he bring his sled and skis, or his rain jacket and boots?

Four Eagles in One Day

Well, it could be one pair of eagles seen twice. No one I talked to seems to know how many pair of eagles live around here. I drove over to Ridgefield Refuge via my daughter's friends' property. They are the ones with the eagle nest on their land. Just as I got to their drive, a pair of eagles bubbled up from the trees playing, then cruised in formation overhead until splitting up. One went North, one flew South and then returned to the trees landing with it's huge talons spread. (I love my new binoculars!) About 20 minutes later I was driving through the Refuge and saw two eagles perched on a tree near one of the lakes. A bit later I passed a young eagle on a branch close to the road. I could see the other tree, now with only one eagle. The young eagle looked ragged as it was trying to grow in its white head feathers and soaked from the pouring rain. The other mature one was so impressive with white head and tail feathers. There was so much standing water in the Refuge, only a few wood ducks were swiming. The swans and other waterfowl were hunkered down in groups in the water with head under wings. One day I watched a young eagle swooping over the swans just to get a rise out of them. Today I think they wouldn't even have cared. There were about 1000 (for real) cackling geese huddled together in a field - all standing withtheir heads looking in the same direction, no umbrellas. And there was one huge Nutria in the grass near the road munching away on the grass totally oblivious to the rain or me.

Trip to the Refuge

where: Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge, Ridgefield, Washington
date: Friday, November 16, 2007
time of day: late afternoon, 3 to 5 pm
weather: overcast, cloudy and dark, light rain

4 blue heron
2 great egret
4 northern harrier
3 red tailed hawk
1 pair cinnamon teal
large grazing flock canada geese
flock cackling geese flying in at dusk
2 flocks flying in trumpeter swan
3 female bufflehead
flock in water pied-billed grebe
1 double crested cormorant
several large flocks sandhill cranes flying in at dusk
several Nutria *
1 coyote **

* (they look just like beavers, but with rat-like tails)8 - 10 Nutria today in and out of the water
one was a huge old looking mom resting on a log while 3 pups 1/3 her size played in the water nearby

** the coyote was young, dark gray with a white patch on his back
watched as he trotter across a long span of field, disappeared into the brush near one of the ponds, and emerged carrying a black duck - carried it back across the field putting it down and shaking off his wet fur, then several times looking back nervously - trotted along a fence at edge of refuge until out of sight

In Which Miss Ingu Talks to Spiders

Cry out with joy to the Lord, all the earth
Serve the Lord with gladness

Spiders live around me. They aren't my favorite creatures, but they lived in my shed before I did and I don't seem to be able to keep them out. Right now there is a banded garden spider living near the ceiling corner by the front door. They are orb spiders and their webs, sparkling with morning dew, are unbelievable. But they look ferocious. I took two of his relatives out to the pasture this summer, but because I'd have to get a chair to reach this one, we've agreed that he can stay as long as he stays up there.

There are also cellar spiders here - lots of them. At first I didn't like them. After several Great Spider Massacres I gave up. They multiply like crazy. Especially in my bathroom and along my windowsill you can see several generations of cellar spiders ranging in size from almost 3 inches (tiny bodies with mostly spindly legs) to smaller than an eyelash. I've gotten fond of the youngsters. I try not to disturb them when I'm reaching for my toothbrush. But I have a hard time with them in the shower. I hate to see one struggling to escape the drops which will eventually pull them down the drain. I try to give them fair warning, but sometimes I don't see them until it's too late.

My favorite thing about these cellar spiders is their startle reflex. If you bump their web (unlide the orb weavers, they weave your typical cobweb)their startle is so over the top, every limb quivering, that you have to laugh. I guess it is that startle that catches their food because when they quiver like that their web gets totally tangled up. I watched one night as one of the little guys slept in his web under the lightshade of my bedside lamp. A small moth flew into the web, waking the spider with a great amount of consternation. Once awake, this little spider professionally wrapped that moth in silk and began eating burrito style. You gotta love 'em!

In Which Miss Ingu Looks at Her Bird Books

Thinking about those hawks yesterday prompted me to go through the bird books to try to identify them. It turns out they were all Northern Harriers. The male and female look so different! The female is a large, brindle-colored hawk. The young look like the female with a little more light specks on the chest. The male looks like a sleek falcon. He is a white color with black wing tips in flight. Someone told me the critters in the water were River Otters. I looked them up, too, and as I suspected, they aren't. I'm not sure what they are. They might be some animal called Nutria out here. They look like muskrats to me - but do muskrats hang out in the water?