Foxes and Fireworks

The dogs were down, and all was warm and toasty. It was a few hours after dusk and all was well. We were tucked in, reading in bed after a nice dinner and a long day. I was enjoying the luxurious, relaxed feeling of being in a good book, slowly sliding down the pleasant glide path into dreamland. Then we heard something.

The sound was faint at first, then came closer, filling the room faintly like evil smoke coming in the corners of the windows. It was a complex, wild howling that sent shivers through us and made us flip down the books and stare at the wall to concentrate.

The yawling wails sounds rose and fell, like death screams for disembodied spirits, or a special effects sound machine being dismantled with a vicious pair of pliers. Yet these were no electronic sound effects. These eerie, scary, wrawling yips and screams were being made by live creatures, unseen, prowling, surrounding us in the darkness.

Even though we were inside our stone fortress, the primeval fear lit up like a mortar shell – it felt like these things could come flying through the doors and windows into our cozy bed. Daisy went on full alert, black fur raised along her spine, watching the entrance. She was dead quiet, eyes and head darting towards any change in the sound. When she doesn’t even growl it’s serious.

It sounded like this:


Being The Man, I got up bravely leapt out of bed and marched out the bedroom door to the hall and over to the door that goes outside. Yanked it open decisively. Wanted to hear better. Find out what this was all about. Instantly the space was filled with loud howling and screaming, wild yips like demonic spirits on holiday. Holy Crap. I’d never heard anything like it before.

Except that I had. Several days before, I’d been out in the field and heard a similar wild sound erupt from the forest just up the hill. Right in broad daylight and chillingly close. It was an exceedingly strange experience, and it stilled me.

Later that day I’d spied Dale, our neighbor farmer who looks like a wizened pirate straight from Central Casting, driving his tractor through a nearby field. I went over to ask if he knew what the hell that was all about. His dull green, 14 foot tall 1,200 horsepower tractor shuddered to a dieselly halt (well I exaggerate –it’s actually only 56 HP – but the wheels are as tall as I am and it’s a damn big machine). Dale shook out a smoke and lit it, looking up the hillside through a squinting eye weathered by thousands of hours in the sun, and drawled, “Coyotes feeding their pups. They get real excited, when Mom and Pop come home with fresh meat. There’s a den of them over t’other side of George’s farm.”

“But it sounded so damn LOUD, Dale!” I was still a little shaken. Just a tad. “Like they were right up there beyond those trees!”

“Prob’ly an echo,” he opined in his typically imperturbable manner. Nothing much gets Dale going unless it’s someone interfering with his farming, and then watch out. We jawed about it for a bit then he said he’d be getting on with his farming. He flashed his brilliant boyish grin, which is always kind of pleasantly jarring on a face that looks like one of those three-toothed gnome dolls made of dried apples topped with wild white hair, and rumbled off.

I recalled this conversation as a fresh crop of fluttering yips penetrated my eardrums. I muttered to myself, “that’s no echo.” These night-prowling hairy scary beings were right there in the yard, invading our space, and scaring the hell out of us.

I pulled on a robe, shoved my feet into my Frogman all-weather neoprene slip-on boots ($44.50 from Duluth Trading Co.), grabbed my Remington 22, fumbled in a clip, and marched out to the wide front porch, every inch the stalwart defender of life, wife and property.

I stood there shaking a little (from the cold), and peered around. They were still out there, yelling and howling and trading insults. To the left about 40 yards away, over by the telephone pole in George’s field, one of the grey ghosts started a devilish doxology. He’d let out a rippling phrase and the others would yip and howl back from all their positions. Night spirits worshipping who knows what goblins.

The ringleader stayed put and the others seemed to be moving around, sounding for all I knew as if they were in the yard and around the barn. Angling for a good layout for an attack, maybe. Couldn’t tell how close they were but they sounded as if they were just yards away.

I could imagine them bounding up the stairs, wild black wraiths, intent on biting into my throat, taking me down. There was nothing between me and those over-sized canine teeth but my gun. I imagined them swirling around in the invisible inky dark like predatory wolves, setting up the kill. And the kill was going to be me.

I lifted the rifle, pointed it at the phone pole. I could almost see that coyote, could almost aim right at him. My finger wrapped stealthily around the trigger, ready for action.

Now this was profoundly stupid. First of all I couldn’t actually see the telephone pole, much less the animal. You never, ever shoot into the darkness, especially where you can’t even see a target. Second, even a really skilled hunter has trouble getting close enough to a coyote to shoot. Third, pointing that gun was plain pointless. It was just a primeval defensive motion, a gesture.

They weren’t about to attack me. In fact they could have cared less.

I was later told that those coyotes were just out having a good time. Tom Elliot, now a state wildlife biologist, spent seven years as a full-time coyote hunter in a neighboring county. “Fact is, I lived closer to them than my own family” he told me, then chuckled softly, “which is why I don’t hunt them any more.” I detected a bit of wistfulness in the comment. It’s a funny thing about real hunters and their attitude towards game. There is a deep respect, almost a kind of love, between the hunter and the prey.

He went on, “Let me tell you one thing about those sounds you heard. If you could hear them, they were letting you hear them. They live all around you, but you’ll never know it unless they are just out socializing. They don’t howl when they’re hunting.”

Oh. We’d eavesdroppped on a coyote social event.

This information left me feeling pretty silly, flat and unsatisfied. I also felt ticked off that they partied through our pleasant sleep and across our property, got our dogs riled and no doubt had the chickens terrified. I decided to look further into coyotes.

Coyotes don’t attack humans. According to Eastern Coyote Research, there has only been one coyote-caused fatality in all the recorded history of North America. In contrast, there are 4.7 million dog bites each year in the US, with over 1,000 people a day going to emergency rooms, leading to 15-20 deaths a year. You can tell this info came from a coyote advocate site.

Coyotes do eat cats and dogs. Pets aren’t their normal food, but they’ll have a beagle for lunch if one comes into range and they’re hungry. Normally nocturnal hunters, coyotes rarely come out in the daytime (except in suburban areas but that’s another place and story).

But at the time, I didn’t know all this. Out there on the porch, gripping that gun, I stood guard until the marauders had moved on down the way, across Raymond’s fields and away into the dark blue night and silence. Then I went back to bed.

Three weeks later it happened again. Nancy was petrified. Once again I went out, this time freshly informed, more out of curiosity than fear. That night I just listened. Them there wily coyotes seemed to be moving down the hill, as if on patrol through part of their range.

Considering the fact that Nancy threatens to leave the house each time she hears those scary howls, and the 10 chickens, 3 cats and 2 dogs we have living here on the edge of the forest, it was time to Do Something. I called Darrin.

Darrin and I conferred, and conceived a Plan. In the first stage, he’d come up very early one morning with a special calling device and a buddy who like him is an experienced hunter and a crack shot. They’d set up the calling device and take up positions, “up there on the hill, upwind,” explained our intrepid hunt director, “Coyotes always circle around downwind so they can come up on their prey undetected.”

The FoxPro caller is pretty high tech. It’s got a powerful speaker and hundreds of pre-recorded animal cries, howls, yips, barks, chirps, gobbles, cheeps, rustlings, moans, and other animal intonations. Pick the animal, pick the attractive tones of the female in heat or the probing sounds of the intruding male, press the button, and “they come a-runnin’, or they’re s’posed to, anyways,” as Darrin put it. It’s controlled by radio so the hunters can be well away, out of olfactory range. “It even has a furry tail that flips around and looks like a coyote tail,” said Darrin.

They were to arrive pre-dawn, set up and see if they could call in a male in the barely visible morning light. The idea was to kill the male, the purpose of which to remove a key player and warn off the others.

Did I say kill? As in kill the poor coyote? Yes, I did. I emphatically do not want to have my chickens, cats or especially my dogs killed for a coyote luncheon. It is clearly not possible to sit down and talk reason with these hunters. I figure that if they won’t leave we will evict them by any means necessary, the sooner the better. It’s us agin’ them.

Darrin, not one to cause unnecessary cruelty to the wild animals he works with daily, concurs. He won’t use foot traps, but he will shoot coyotes and he’ll use snares. He’s had success with both.

Dawn came early and went. No sign of Darrin, no yips or yells, no shots. No hits, no runs, no score. He and buddy were out there alright but nothing worked. No coyotes came. Contacted later, he ruefully reported only one result, “We did call in a fox, though.” Typical result when coyote hunting in field and woods. Just too many hiding places and the opponent is too wily. “Those damn foxes really get in the way,” he said disgustedly.

A few weeks later, we heard the coyote chorus again, and again Darrin responded. Phase Two. This time, he’d come up alone, at night. He’d go away’s up in George’s cornfield, up near the treeline, set up the caller, move upwind and try again. I quickly spotted the obvious flaw. It was in the waning moon phase and there would be no moonlight. Feeling pretty savvy, like a real country boy, I rather cockily asked, “OK, but how are you going to see? It’s pitch black out there this time of the month!”

“Red light beam,” grinned the ever savvy Darrin. “Coyotes can’t see in the red spectrum. I point my red light, spot the animal, then flip on my high power hunting light and shoot before they can react.”

He showed me his rifle. Looking vaguely like a lightweight field version of something the Terminator would carry, this was a business-like gun with camouflage patterns covering the stock and barrel, a long sighting scope, another tube for the red beam emitter, and a squat, compact halogen light for lighting up the target. With optics, reticles, batteries, sighting adjustments, light sources, and various tubes and stealth graphics, this was a far cry from Daniel Boone’s musket.

On the evening of the appointed day, we shut the chickens in their coop, blockaded the cats in the barn and got the dogs in. Had some dinners, I guess. I forget. Long about 9 PM we went out onto the porch. Just to get some air. Of course I was curious to know if we could hear the caller, or hear any shots, etc. Nothing much happened.

Then we sensed more than saw a little flash of red light, a long ways away, high up on the hill over in George’s cornfield. Then silence.

Then a faint yip. And again. Then silence. Hunting involves a lot of silence, I guess. There was a fair amount of it that evening.

We sat there, breath not exactly bated but feeling like vicarious partners on the hunt.

A Yip! “I bet that’s one of them, come to investigate!” I whispered excitedly. “Hope so,” muttered Nancy, shivering a bit. More flashes of red. Darrin moving his red light around. I could just imagine him getting one of the critters in sight. We didn’t move a muscle.

All of a sudden the sky exploded into brilliant flashes of light. It was like the Fourth of July on the Capitol Mall in Washington, D.C. Skyrockets, flares, exploding shells. Cascades of straw-colored streamers in the sky. Crimson explosions and magenta dots of light floating down. Kaboom!

We looked at each other, dumbfound. “What the hell is that!” we said, almost simultaneously. It wasn’t Darrin, that’s for sure.

About 20 degrees off to the right, over the far ridge and down the valley, someone was lighting off tons of fireworks. Right in the middle of the night, for no apparent reason. We could see flares of colored light edging the outline of the ridge then from behind would stream up a rocket and then we’d see another massive explosion. These were serious fireworks! Not like you buy in a box for the 4th. Professional grade. Huge.

It went on for a long time. Boom! Boom! Flashes and flares. Had to admit it was a pretty nice display but our enjoyment was marred both by the inexplicability of it, and concern for Darrin, up there in the dark.

I could just imagine poor Darrin high on the hill, cold and hunkered down, stealthily having set up his caller and hidden in the bushes, now gnashing his teeth as the coyotes ran miles away. I felt for him, just imagining his frustration and fury at having the hunt spoiled by this extremely odd, bizarrely untimely aerial display.

About 15 minutes after it was over, we heard a knock on the door. Darrin, come to report.

I asked him, with a hint of mano-a-mano compassion in my voice if he wasn’t ticked off about the fireworks, and wasn’t it really WEIRD?

He just looked at me.

I looked back. “The fireworks,” I said, “wasn’t that strange? I bet it drove all the coyotes into the next county.”

He gazed back at me, with an odd tilt to his head, as if thinking, what are you talking about, and said, “What fireworks?”

Dumbfounded for the second time that night, I bugged my eyes out, and then realized he was serious. I explained what we’d seen. Told him about the way the sky was lit up for miles around. The sounds of exploding fireworks and the far-away whistle of rockets going up. The cascades of brilliant showering colors filling the night sky.

He shook his head slowly with that down-gazing attitude that out here indicates deep commiseration about the many unsolvable mysteries of life. Then he glanced up and said, “Never saw ëem. Never heard a thing!”

It was my turn to stare. A mystery indeed. My mind rocketed around trying to resolve it – but he was closer, he couldn’t possibly have missed – but the noise – how could he not... Then I realized I’d never solve this one.

I let it go, gathered up and asked the obvious question, “How’d you do?”

He gazed out, gathering his memories of the night and said, “No coyotes. But I did call in a couple of foxes, a little red fox and bigger grey. Those damn foxes. Always getting in the way.”

And with that he grinned, picked up his rifle, and drove away home.

We never did find out what those fireworks were all about. Nobody else we asked knew anything, either.

Back After a Busy Summer

It’s the chickens again.

Actually, it’s the winter coming again. After an extremely busy summer and fall, it's time to record the many thoughts and feelings which have passed, and which are present now. First among them: cold weather approaches.

Everything changes when the weather gets cold. Elementals like water, equipment, clothing, materials, and yes, chicken care all shift when the weather gets cold. When I lived in the city, the only significant change that winter imposed on me was having to wear a jacket and sometimes footgear that could get wet.

In the city and suburb we go from weatherproof, heated spaces to other similarly shielded spaces in mobile weather-protected capsules that are equally well heated. We are so well insulated from the elements that we come to ignore forces of nature. For most of us devastating fire or flood is something we experience as images on television.

In our overly insulated lives we have lost touch with basics of life that have driven culture and inventions for centuries. We forget (or worse, never learn) that cold can be dangerous, uncomfortable and terribly inconvenient. Not here.

It’s time to cut or buy firewood. The old-timers know what’s coming so they cut firewood in the summer and stack it so it’s dry and easy to burn when it’s needed. New-timers like us, until we learned, figure that like going to the supermarket where you can get anything at any time, firewood is equally easy to come by, so we never prepared. This error can be costly in several ways, not just monetary.

Observing the way people here dance with the seasons is a lesson in fables. Or perhaps schoolhouse fables come to life when you live close to nature, as we do here in an old stone house that’s been through more than 200 winters. There’s ancient wisdom here to be understood.

Fables were developed to convey wisdom and life knowhow from one generation to another. The format was one in which no one was preaching down to another but the point got across, at least to those who were listening.

As our unusually warm fall suddenly reverts to normal frigidity, a fable that comes to mind would be that of the grasshopper who didn’t prepare for the winter, and had to be saved by the wiser ants who set aside food.

Same thing here. If you didn’t think ahead, and now need firewood as the cold winds blow, you’ll pay a price for it. High BTU wood like oak or elm goes for a premium as cold weather approaches. And well-dried wood is even more expensive, if you can find it. The newbies compete for a scarce supply. One person I know counts on the careless grasshoppers for much of his annual income. He does this merely by cutting green wood in Spring, and selling it as dry premium firewood in the middle of winter.

Sure, you can get wood at any time. Most of it is fresh cut. Until you’ve tried it, you can’t imagine what a hassle it is to use green wood in a fireplace. It is difficult to ignite and then when it burns it uses much of the released heat just driving off the remaining water in the rest of the log. As a result you get much less heat from the wood. Which means that you use a lot more wood for the same amount of heat gained. This is not merely a financial impact – it’s a lot more wood to handle.

Our home uses about 3 cords of dry wood in an average winter. That’s a full dumptruck full of wood, weighing 10,000 pounds or five tons. It takes a long day of repetitious bending, lifting and handling just to stack it. Then as the wood is used, it is unstacked and brought inside. which converts into many trips outside and back. It means extra deliveries when the outside grass is mushy, and the large truck leaves deep ruts in the lawn. This converts into further work in the Spring to correct. And that’s if you get dry seasoned wood. If you get green wood you’ll handle an additional 2 1/2 tons. Twice – once when stacking and again when you move it inside. Once you’ve gone through this, it makes you think ahead the second year,

If you have a few old trees and a chain saw, you can get fuel for free. If you cut it early and let it dry, you have much less wood to stack , much more efficient heat, and fewer trips outside to reload the fireplace.

Before living here, I doubt if I would have believed that firewood would involved so much forethought and planning.

Coping with winter heating is a complex subject out here. When your house is surrounded with frigid cold, you want a reliable, cheap solution. Emphasis on reliable. Emphasis in many cases, on cheap.

A big fad here at the moment is the corn furnace, which burns dried corn kernels. Feed corn is in abundance here, which makes for a cheap solution. Other people have outdoor wood-burning furnaces, clean gas fired heating, oil furnaces, LPG heaters, a whole range of technologies.

In all cases, it’s about coping with cold.

People here are in most cases of modest means, in some cases quite wealthy, and in surprisingly many cases, prosperous and comfortable. There isn’t much poverty here, but there is very little exposed wealth, either.

The culture is modest, interconnective, and almost always genial. There are many vectors that form the cultural matrix here, but at least one strong component comes from a shared experience of past hardships and a resulting attitude of tolerance:

Everyone got cold in the old days, and a lot of people still get cold.

Cold is, when you face it for real, frightening on a profoundly primeval level. This fear goes basic very fast. Just walking outside in a still, very cold night when you know there is no help for miles around, and coyotes are on the prowl, is enough to force shivers and fears into your deepest being.

To go from that feeling of exposure and fear, into a warm house, smelling rich aromas of good food, seeing the welcoming flames of a well-stoked fire, and being welcomed by strong dogs who express every feeling from unreserved love to total fearlessness is to know an equally primeval and deep sense of protection from cold.

Such experience is available to very few people these days, which is a shame. To know such feelings is to be in touch with earth, nature, life and reality in ways that are richly intense and connected to elemental sources of our instincts.

Cold affects ordinary things, which imposes pre-emptive activity. Like water-based paint. It’s no good if it freezes, so if you want to preserve your touch-up paint, you bring it in. Elmer’s glue goes bad if frozen, and if you don’t have that magical stuff for a minor repair, it’s a 22 mile round trip to get some new. Expensive power packs for power tools go dead. Letting a drill battery freeze is an expensive mistake – my Panasonic drill battery pack retails for $96. Ruined if frozen, fine if kept inside.

Or more important, water lines. One of the rituals of on-coming cold weather here is the draining and purging of water lines. You have not lived until you have walked into a basement full of waist-high freezing water in the middle of the night to shut off the water going into a busted pipe, as I once had to do. Such experiences teach the wisdom of not being a grasshopper.

We’re not yet at the point of purging the water lines that reach out to the barn and garden, but the decision will have to be made soon. It’s a royal disaster if one of the lines going through the barn and out to the chicken coop (them again!) or to the garden bursts. However, after the water is shut off, it becomes a royal pain in the ass to have to hand-carry water from the house to the chicken coop in cold weather. So we delay and hope to not be caught by a pipe-breaker freeze. In the depths of really cold weather, we often think about getting rid of “them damn chickens. “

The bright and wise observer, perhaps not used to caring for chickens in winter will ask, why not simply use a heater for the chicken’s water? This is an astute observation, and the flaw could only be known if you realize that chickens must have water at all times. Even with a heater, you still have to replenish the supply and without the convenient outlet next to the coop, life becomes charmingly ancient and zen-like, as in, chop wood, carry water. Only in our case, it’s stack wood, carry water.

A cynic might ask, why not just get rid of the pesky poultry and buy eggs at the grocery store? Indeed.

Ah. Well, this goes to the heart question of whether a rural life is worthwhile. Such an investigation it touches many important values about life. We really enjoy feeding and caring for these pea-brained idiots. It’s also a prime part of the fabric of our life, to wake up and hear the roosters crowing, or to see the chicken antics as they dig for worms or fluff wings, or in the case of the cocks, posture and crow.

If we got rid of the chickens, they would be eaten. Not that I’m really against eating chickens but when it comes to our chickens it’s a different thing. In the end, if I have to get rid of one of our chickens, I want to be the ender. Which means, ulp, learning how to kill, bleed, eviscerate, de-feather, dress, and butcher a chicken.

I can avoid this difficulty by saying (truthfully) more importantly, it’s about the eggs.

Once, at a Denny’s restaurant in Emeryville, CA., I had a egg and bacon breakfast which made me swear off eggs for two years. The eggs had so many hormones I could taste them. It was an off-putting, slightly frightening chemical oral assault. I felt betrayed and conceivably endangered by the assembly-line hidden egg production source that produced eggs with such an overlay of synthetic chemistry.

Here, our chickens give us wholesome, clean and richly flavored eggs, free of any off tastes. They taste great and make wonderful ingredients in all kinds of delicious foods, from simple fried eggs to complex desserts. You can see the difference if you fry one our eggs next to a store-bought egg. One is pale, pallid, soft and without much substance, the other is richly yellow, firm and full of life and color.


As I said, it’s the chickens again.

With the change in season, we have to prepare them for the coming cold. That means setting up the water heater, adding much more straw to the bedding, shutting off vents that could bring in cold air to their tiny bodies, and …

Adding light.

Despite the unusual warmth of this season, one thing didn’t change: the progression of dawn and dusk times. Unless we think mankind’s arrogance in ignoring global warming extends to denial of the orbit of the planet itself, it’s necessary to see that the sun rises and sets at different times as winter approaches.

And now we come to the wisdom of chickens. If you were a chicken, wouldn’t you want to make it so that your eggs hatched in warm times, so they could grow up with the best possible chance of becoming handsome roosters or winsome hens by the time winter arrived?

You win the chicken survival quiz. I won’t try to stretch your imagination further into how a chicken thinks, if in fact they do. Suffice it to say that as the season gets closer to winter, the amount of daylight shortens, and egg production drops off correspondingly to a dead halt.

In the combined and incredibly massive lore of chicken husbandry, someone cottoned to the link between light and egg production, and a great truth was learned: a hen’s egg-production system is governed by the amount of light in a day. She will lay more or fewer eggs depending on the way light levels seem to indicate the season.

From which we gain an important egg production maxim: if you want more eggs in winter, increase the hours of daylight! How? Put a light in the coop and time it so that the chickens get at least 15 hours of light a day.

It’s rather amazing how effective this is. By programming the light in the coop to go on from 3AM to 8 AM, egg production goes from a chancy 2-3 a week to 8 a day!

It’s the chickens again.



And a whole lot more…

The Chicken Haircuts

(This story was part of an email to my sister, in mid-Spring of 2006)

Now seems like a good time for a little poultry update:

The chickens got haircuts a few days ago. This will be explained in a moment but first I have to get something off my chest. It's nearly incomprehensible how dumb chickens are. On the intelligence scale, they seem to lie somewhere between a less-evolved plant and a worm, except that worms can learn to avoid dangerous areas.

Over the last few weeks, Daisy has exercised her svelte and youthful body by responding to eons-deep instincts to great advantage by chasing down chickens. These would be the ones who flew out of their carefully fenced in paddock area, which is to say five of them. The other two, now husband and wife, have been cooped up in a private hotel recently built by me. This sequestration was the solution to incessant chicken fights, engendered understandably and predictably enough by there being six roosters and one hen on the premises.

(Above: the six suitors and the hen of their dreams in happier days)

Or so we thought. Chickens had been squawking and flying out of the paddock at all hours and we thought it was due to male competition. After picking a suitor for the lady and putting them in the coop, we thought the loser boys would just settle down and peck in peace.

Not so. They continued to explore the joys of flight, and spent most of their time outside the safety of the paddock. Daisy's first success resulted in a chicken who sat frozen as she started to eat into it's back. I had to kill that one immediately out of mercy using a handy rock to the head method. Not elegant. Next she got a gay blade who again ventured out of safety and got cornered trying to walk through chicken wire. He was dispatched by yours truly who "seized" the opportunity to practice the "twirl-em by the neck" method of killing a chicken, as related to me by Mom, recalling her grandmother's technique.

We became better at knowing when a chicken was caught, by the sounds they make (a kind of contented-sounding chuckle), and were so able to get to the next bird as he lay between the paws of the slavering beast.

The next time that happened, I was able to pick up the distraught fowl, by this time with wet feathers all awry, and toss it over the fence into safety. I mentioned to Nancy that surely this ought to imprint positively on the chicken - having been literally saved from the jaws of death by a benefactor who thrust it to safety one would think that the chicken would never, ever go outside the safety zone again. But within hours three of them were strutting about on the grass outside, chortling and clucking happily as Daisy slunk again forth upon them.

After enduring sudden, alarming feminine hysteria ("Eric, come quick - she's got another one!") several times one morning as I attempted to clean the barn, I thought hard. Ransacked the mental library for ideas and finally had the brainstorm. Clip their wing feathers! That way, they can't fly out of the paddock! I proposed this to Nancy, who promptly and complacently said, "Oh, I know about that one. It's in my chicken book!"

The answer to my question, "WHY didn't you mention it before?" brought forth no satisfactory reply, and I began to think that the chickens were not the only ones having difficulty applying knowledge to life circumstances.

Nonetheless, Nancy and I went out early in the next morning and started catching chickens. This episode will make an entertaining tale by itself, so I''ll leave it to your imagination. Despite much effort and ingenuity, we had little success. My chicken catcher, a bit of wire attached to a long pole was fashioned after an antique model I'd seen in Raymond's garage, failed to function in any sense of the word. Suddenly in a brainstorm no doubt stimulated by the genius of my ancestors, I lit upon the obvious answer: use the dog. Who else is better at chasing down chickens than her?

Working as a 3 person team, we soon rounded up most of the miscreants (except for the ones looking on, eleven feet up in the branches of a young walnut tree). I grasped each one by the legs and held it upside down as Nancy gingerly stretched out each wing. Following the line of tiny inside feathers, I cut off their large wing feathers, making a pile of white detritus on the ground that any casual observer would interpret as the site of a major killing frenzy.

How we got the high-flying burrito brothers is the subject of yet another story. Suffice it to say that after 3 breathless hours of chase and drama we got them all clipped and contained. You have no IDEA how hysterical a chicken can get if it thinks you are trying to save it's neck, whereas it will lie down and let itself get eaten alive by a dog.

I keep thinking there is a life lesson in this but cannot quite grasp what it might be. However, the chickens have been safe inside the paddock and enjoying their daily struts, and Daisy has gone on to advanced hunting adventures, such as trying to catch rabbits.

All I Wanted Was Toast...

I am making bread at the moment. Trying to, anyway. This started because I belatedly noticed this AM that the normal butter-tinged and browned crusty component, i.e. toast, was sadly missing from my otherwise fine breakfast of still warm eggs from the coop and nicely browned potatoes with bits of fresh tarragon. The balance was off.

Fortunately Nancy was out of town to attend a conference, so the suffering was confined to only one person. Unfortunately, that person was me. I thought of delaying the proceedings until Some Bread could be made, but thought better of it. Base hunger and a thrifty desire not to waste the succulent taters and eggs forced me to eat immediately. But as they say, there is always tomorrow. And on that inevitably upcoming morn, some dern tasty toast would be lovely.

Motivated after downing my otherwise delicious but breadless breakfast, I mixed up a nice dough, added the granular yeast and a bit of salt, and some savory marjoram to make a nice herbal loaf. I attentively worked the KitchenAid to make the dough satiny and full of gluten. I even warmed a small crock for the little yeast cells to grow in cozily with warmth and moisture. I came back several hours later to check progress, expecting to find a satisfyingly expanded mass of yeasty, glossy dough ready for firing.

Nuthin! The dough was supple and satiny as it should be but had not grown a bit. It was like flaccid pizza dough with flecks of herbs. It felt good to the touch but also seemed to lack that live quality that characterizes good bread dough.

Clearly the yeast had not activated. Could the yeast be dead? One of the intricacies of bread-making is to calculate the amount of salt to put in the dough. Too much and the yeast dies. Too little and the resulting bread tastes flat. Dreading the result, I tasted the dough, expecting to find a salty mess. Nope. It seemed nicely doughy but not too salty. Hrrrm...

In the old days, bakers would "proof" the yeast to make sure it was working before committing it to their hard-worked dough. But nowadays, with industrial quality controls, impervious packaging, safe storage methods etc., we don't bother with that step. We count on our yeast to be lively and ready to kick ass right out of the gate. But perhaps this yeast in some way had seen the end of it's productive days. Heat and light can kill yeast cells. Maybe mine had a case of sunburn.

To test this theory, I put a little warm water in a glass, sprinkled some of the brownish grains into a glass of warm water, and added honey as a culinary incentive to the little cells. Normally, the organic sugars and nutrients in honey are like the feast of Valhalla to the tiny but voracious and vigorous vikings of yeast. Modern quick yeast is quick to imbibe sugars, resulting in rapid multiplication of the colony and plenty of carbon dioxide bubbles as the useful waste product. But this stuff merely sat in the bottom of the glass in a glum mass. Well, I thought, maybe this is tired yeast and just needs a bit of a kick start. It certainly had all the incentives for a vigorous comeback. I checked back 10 minutes later, expecting to see a fine crop of bubbles. Nuthin'.

Puzzled, I concluded that the yeast was dead, and got out the vacuum pak of Red Star Yeast I've been saving in the refrigerator against just such an emergency. Bypassing the lackluster yeast, I thought I’d just mix in some fresh troops and save the loaf. But something wasn’t right.

Still flummoxed, I pondered the jar containing those granular particles that had so totally failed to rise or make bubbles even when encouraged. It seemed a shame to waste all that dead yeast, so I began to sprinkle it onto the scraps of potato peelings and vegetable scraps being saved for the chickens. A little waft of smell came into the nostrils. A mellow, sweetish smell. I tentatively tipped a wet finger into the stuff and tasted. Sweet!

Oh for crying out loud. This was not yeast. It was that granular and weird form of brown sugar designed not to clump up. Ye gods. No wonder it didn't rise. It couldn't. It was fuel for yeast, not the magic substance itself. But it looks EXACTLY like dry yeast.

I'd like to say that I laughed at myself indulgently for this error but that isn't true. I was in fact chagrined, ticked off and feeling quite stupid. These sentiments gave rise to some philosophizing about how all true learning is accompanied by failure and pain. At the moment, the failure and pain part was apparent, but not the learning part. Feeling a bit mystified and blue, I made myself a little compensatory beverage which involved ice cubes. One cube made it off the countertop and into the wild blue yonder.

Having just cleaned up the entire kitchen, I got out the flour and mixer and set out to incorporate the trusty Red Star yeast into the perfectly satiny but flat dough. Bakers revere that satin look and I knew that adding water would make the dough sticky and yucky. And I was fairly certain that a faint coating of flour would appear on all the newly cleaned surfaces as a result. But there was no recourse. I added warm water, flour to absorb it, and new yeast.

Nicely, after some KitchenAid whirrings and a bit of hand-kneading, the new dough was ready for re-rising. It was even satiny! I lifted my glass and savored a bit of conquest, hoping that a sturdy well-risen loaf would soon be ready for baking.

Around the corner came the Rocket Dog, yelping and pirouetting. In her mouth was the errant ice cube. She dropped it provocatively in front of me, then as I turned to meet the challenge, she picked it up and raced away. Obligingly I gave chase. We went around the living room and over the sofa in a series of circles and dodges. It was no contest, as usual. She has four legs to my two.

It's great fun to give chase to my diminutive canine companion, but it’s always a bit sobering. She weighs 11 pounds and is in top form, from having chased rabbits and squirrels all winter. I weigh over 230, and can only lumber about. The contrast is embarrassing. Needless to say, I never indulge her when anyone else is about, save my ever-tolerant wife and a few very good friends. The Rocket Dog got under the table, where I cannot go without suffering bruised knees, and demurely dared me to go after her. I was tempted to attempt a trump of her feminine wiles, but I am wise to her tactics and walked away. Brains over brawn, I thought fuzzily, in a bit of a metaphorical mashup. Put simply, this didn’t work.

Eventually, she found a place of attack. The ice cube ended up in a corner and with much growling and precise stalking technique, she re-captured the ice cube. It was by this time much diminished, and Dog conquered all with a lick and a chomp.

She went to sleep, I did things on my computer. As you have surely intuited, time passed. I checked: the dough had risen! (rose?)

Optimistically, I set the oven to 500 degrees. Now for the final forming of the dough.

In the forests of France many years ago, peasants found a nice way to contain rising dough. They took reeds and formed them into round baskets, into which to place dough to rise. When the dough was ready, they would invert the baskets, plopping the dough onto flat wooden shovels (called, oddly enough, peels) and slide them into the community oven to bake. This method makes intriguingly spiraled patterns on the surface of the bread, and is an honorable and classic method.

I have one of those reed baskets. I thought it would be craftsmanlike and attractive to make my own intriguingly spiraled bread. However, no one had told me how to keep the dough from sticking to the basket when you try to "plop' it over onto the peel.

As you no doubt infer, I've had many difficulties with perfectly risen dough that totally collapses when trying to pry sticky dough out of that infernal basket. I've studied "The Bread Baker's Apprentice," by Peter Reinhart, and other expert sources for a solution to this problem,to no satisfactory conclusion. In the end, I just load up the basket with flour and hope for the best.

Thankfully, this time it worked. Plopped the dough over onto the peel. No problem! Nice spirals of flour on the surface. Slid the dough into the oven and onto the stone. I say “stone” as if I have a purpose-built wood-fired stone floored hearth oven a la Poilane, but it’s really just a very large square ceramic flooring tile I got from a discount building supply warehouse for $3.95. But it works pretty well, especially if the oven is heated up for 30 minutes prior to baking.

Threw some water into the oven to make steam. This is a great trick: the steam makes the crust crisp and toasty.

Time again passed. Nothing with bread is fast. Eventually, the oven began exuding a delicious yeasty and slightly acrid aroma, an olfactory signal that I’ve learned means that the bread is becoming ready.

Rocket Dog jumped into my lap for a bit of connection and love. While she licked my face caringly, I asked myself the eternal question. No, not one of those why are we here in the universe questions, but the bread baker's question: Is the loaf done?

In Reinhart's charming description of the boulangerie of Lionel Poilane, arguably the best bread baker in Paris and thus the world, we learn that their bakers use only wood-fired ovens, and determine the correct baking temperature by tossing bits of parchment into the hot oven, and counting the seconds until the paper explodes into flame. Given the correct temperature, it is only a matter of a given number of minutes to baking perfection.

Lacking parchment and the correct second-count, I had no idea how long to bake the loaf. It smelled great, but I’ve been fooled before into taking out the loaf before it’s time, only to end up with a soggy mid-section. There's only one way to really know if the loaf is done: take it's temperature. It should be at least 205.

After throwing out 3 cheap digital thermometers after each one unexpectedly ceased working properly, I asked Santa for a professional temperature gauge. Santa answered and now I own a marvelously accurate and sturdy tool, lab-tested and guaranteed accurate from -58 to +572 degrees. I inserted the probe into the loaf and watched the little digits race upwards until they steadied and stopped. Ah! 205 degrees internal. Perfect.

Moving from modern technology to that of ancient peoples, I used the wooden peel to bring the loaf out of the oven and reverently placed it on a rack to cool. It smelled wonderful, and looked even better. When I say, “reverently,” it's not an abuse of the word. Breadmaking is a mystical art, and when one gets it to work well, it's a somewhat religious experience. Just try it without using a bread-making machine or a loaf pan, and you’ll see what I mean.

Now then. Here we are. The Rocket Dog is asleep, there's some nice stew in the crock pot. The aroma of just-baked bread fills the kitchen. A bit of stew, a break of bread and a glass of wine will make a satisfying little dinner.

















As Emeril LaGasse often says on his cooking show, I wish you had Smell-o-Vision. This loaf with it's "intriguingly spiraled pattern" is alive with rich aromas of herbs and wheat. If you could only smell it! Alas, a picture will have to do.

Bad Weather and Scavengers

(note: the following was written several months ago as autumn was fading)

FARMING IS AN INCESSANT GAMBLE with the weather. Recent weather reports have been forecasting a lot of rain on the way, and we've had many wet days of overcast, with a few glorious, revitalizing sunny charmers thrown in.

To me, this variety is interesting, even beautiful. But for other people around here, the coming rain can spell difficulty, if not disaster. As in many things, timing is everything. Trying to get a harvest in quickly can scatter leavings that attract pestilential scavengers. Like grackles.

Yesterday in the blustery cold wind, Dan the farmer who works our neighbor farmer's land, harvested his feed corn in the field next to ours. He worked all day, driving his old red tractor and equipment steadily up and down across the swath of dried corn. And he worked well into the inky blue night, harvesting by headlight.

Dan had left the corn out for a long time, trying to get it dry enough so it won't spoil in storage. He uses this corn to feed his beef cattle during the winter. With rain coming he had to scurry to get as much in as he could. He didn't get it all. The field next to ours, out by the farm road, is still full of thousands of whiskery tan stalks, each with 6 or so cobs, each cob with 800 kernels dried hard and saffron yellow.

It was a lot of work to grow that corn. I've often seen Dan tending those fields. He drives his tractor, bareheaded and shirtless, white hair flowing in the wind as he turns in his seat to watch his machines. He's five years younger than me, but looks ten years older. Like most people raised on the land, he presents a genial, cheerful visage, his face crinkled into a friendly snaggle-toothed grin as he imparts savvy and sometimes inscrutable points of wisdom or opinion. But I've also seen him distracted and anxious, impatient with the questions of a greenhorn neighbor. His concerns are not minor.

Dan uses very old equipment, all he can afford. His combine, used for harvesting wheat, cost all of $3,000 and was built in the mid-40's. It uses a fortune in gas but he can repair it himself. It's a nightmare of exposed wheels and belts. His corn harvesting gear takes up the corn cobs and chews up the stalks for silage. But it leaves quite a bit of waste on the ground.

Corn kernels left in the field.

Five and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie...

Had I a shotgun, and a yen for grackle pie, I would have scored a lifetime supply today.

By dawn after Dale's harvest, there were scores of grackles sitting in the trees and on the fields, picking everything clean. By this afternoon, it was like the days of carrier pigeons - the tree down by the bottom of our land was full of them and they rose like a black cloud off the cornfields.

The sheer chittering racket of them a hundred yards away made the 17 year cicada infestation of two years ago seem like soothing background humming. It was loud and evilly weird enough to scare Daisy. The chickens not unwisely (if I can use the word with respect to the judgment of chickens) stayed huddled inside their coop.

In the late afternoon the grackles were all over our place, sitting and fluttering in the walnuts and forest trees, more than anyone could count, like black stars in the grey sky. I walked out and flushed the whole crowd. Stood in the grass up by the barn shooting with my camera upwards as they swarmed from trees up in the forest overhead, in an incessant flow lasting more than 40 minutes, thousands and thousands of them.

I ran out into the neighbor's field hoping to catch the incredible vision of them flying through the skies and over the fields. They would rise and swirl, settle then rise again like a bizarre animated swirl of soot particles over the simple scene. It began to rain but I stayed out, shooting in all directions like a maniac. But the light and my excitement worked against me and most shots didn't work. Too dark, out of focus, everything wrong. but perhaps one of over 150 images will turn out.

I went through the fence that divides our land from next door, stalking the black avian mass pecking corn on the ground, hoping to flush them in a rise over the land. They rose reluctantly from their gorging, a grumpy fluttering mass lying, a malevolent low cloud over the land until I retreated.



---------------

They have disappeared. All of them. It's evening now, almost dark. A flash of light low on the horizon to the East forsages a thunderstorm and the land is quiet. Not a bird in sight.

Where did the grackles go? Where did they come from?

Not all the corn is in and the rain is coming. I fear that the standing corn, and the months of work required to plant, protect and harvest feed corn will be wasted in hours by the rain. But Dan's a very tough, determined man and has been farming since he was 11. He's got more than a few tricks up his sleeve.

No farmer, I feel blessed and grateful to be warm and secure after this day, and not worried about feeding my livestock.

Suddenly, it's Skunks

They seem to be everywhere all of a sudden. Skunks are not often spotted in day light unless they're sick or wounded, so their increased presence is evidenced mostly by the ones that didn't make it. One ended up as roadkill on Route 75, and I spotted another casualty on the lane that connects us to that road. There was another one on the road near our mailbox a few days ago. This always makes me feel a little sad. Skunks are truly beautiful animals.

Darrin came over a few days ago to check on the flying squirrel traps. He'd set them to catch the little invaders that occupy a narrow space between the first and second floors, which is another story all it's own. In the back of his truck was a cute and very alive little skunk he'd caught for a customer who badly wanted the li'l darlin' out of her basement, and fast.

Here's Darrin getting ready to pull the towel off the trap. In his hip pocket is a tool I crave - a foam gun that lets you use only the amount of rigid expanding foam you need, and doesn't let it set in the barrel. I go through a lot of cans of foam, trying to plug leaks and block critter routes.

I wondered why we seem to be seeing skunks everywhere. “The deep freeze is over now, so they're coming out to feed and breed,” he related.

To show me the skunk, he carefully, gently, peeled the towel away from the trap. Crouching inside, the small animal was still, quiet as a mouse, seemingly almost asleep. She seemed kind of resigned and glum. I'd feel that way too, surrounded by a bars like a prison. But better days lay ahead for her.

Noticing with a sudden jab of alarm that the business end of the skunk was aimed at me, I quickly but smoothly moved to Darrin's side of the truck. He grinned, as if to say, "Now you're getting smart!" He explained that a skunk will usually give plenty of warning before it sprays. “He'll stamp his feet, turn around, try to escape. Spraying is almost a last resort for the skunk. Most people don't know that,” he explains.

Skunks supposedly make make good pets, if they are de-scented, and I asked if he thought that was true. A smile came over his face, and he said, “I'd love to have a skunk as a pet. They're gentle and affectionate, especially if you get 'em young and can hand-rear them. But I don't know of any vet who will de-scent them. I can sure find the skunks, though. If you ever learn of a vet who can do it, let me know!”

What if your dog gets a good dose of skunk? "Wash him real good, and call me," advises Darrin. " I've got a commercial grade ionizing air cleaner that works wonders. You just put the dog in the same room as the air cleaner and wait a few hours. You'll notice an amazing difference. And by the way, tomato paste doesn't work. It just makes your dog gummy and smelling like tomatoes in addition to skunk."

Darrin knows the habits of all kinds of animals. Bats, among other things. He's an expert at ridding belfries, attics and other places of bats.

He's also a son of the land, and has many skills of observation, experience and insight. Such as where to find morels by the hundreds, or wild leeks, and wild raspberries and blueberries. I'm hoping he'll let me tag along for mushroom hunting or berry picking some day. Especially after his story about seeing a black bear in the berry patch he'd just finished foraging in.

After we discussed the flying squirrels, he left down the dirt road, only to come barreling back up in reverse to announce that there was a skunk down in the lower field, and did I want him to shoot it?

Darrin is a gentle man, who despite his work as an animal control specialist truly loves living creatures and does not harm them if it can be avoided. But, as he pointed out, skunks can also carry rabies and this one was walking a bit wobbly. This skunk was in the hunting range of the Rocket Dog, so we decided with a bit of regret that the skunk's time was up. He went back down the road and I put R. Dog in the house.

I heard a series of pops and then he came walking back across the field to his truck. “Yeah, I got 'im,” he said with a touch of regret. “I think he was sick though, so it's probably just as well. Sick animals don't last long out here and can spread disease.” He put away his large silvery pistol.

A lot of guys carry pistols around here, 22's mostly. It's not a macho thing or for “protection.” You don't see men flashing guns around or walking around with surreptitious bulges. It's just part of how one lives here. For example, my neighbor shot a copperhead with his pistol a couple of years ago, while riding on his tractor.

We chatted a bit more, then he took off to find a place to release the little skunk.

This one will make it.

The Cardinal

It snowed yesterday. Outside in the apple tree, a cardinal sat, taking it all in.

Inside I sat, writing this.

It's been hectic lately, so please bear with me – I'll be back with more about hats, the art of firewood cutting, and the Rocket Dog before long.

Retro Sound in the Woods

I'm enjoying this morning. It's very early and cold all around, but I'm bundled up in my "Lord of the Manor" robe and high boots, drinking cocoa and listening to the radio while writing in my blog. The fire in the background is starting to warm the room, everyone else is asleep still.

I'm using headphones to listen to a retro 50's theme station called Illinois Street Lounge on Soma-FM - the piece I'm hearing right now is Zofka - Une Derniere Fois...very fun and energetic. Soma-FM is "extremely independent" listener-supported radio from San Francisco. They have 11 channels, each odd and interesting.


I love being able to tune in the world while enjoying the remoteness and quiet of the forest and fields around the house.

New Light Paintings

The quietness of the old stone house is peaceful and conducive to creativity, or so I find. An example is a new exhibition of light paintings called Pinturas de la Luz: Morro Group. These images were made by using long exposures, which allowed light to trace across the screen, composing spatial volumes and energy. Although there is some control through the motion of the camera during exposure and the length of the exposure, the interaction of various light sources and their respective intensities combines in ways that can't be predicted. The result is a kind of collaboration between preparation and chance, and between artist and scene.

Back to the Coop

Well, we're back. From one extreme to another.

There:


Here:




Getting back to the Farm I found the chickens in fine shape, thanks to our good neighbors Grant and Charlie who came up every three days to check the water and feed.

Rocket Dog loved the snow and pranced and cavorted in twirlings of insane joy, snuffling under the white stuff to find mice or racing from one tree to another.

I was lost in the beauty at times but was soon caught up in reality by notices like the following from the Emergency Advisory service:

THE COLDEST AIR OF THE SEASON CONTINUES TO FILTER INTO THE STATE
AND WILL STAY IN PLACE WELL INTO THE NEW WORK WEEK. THE
COMBINATION OF LOW TEMPS BETWEEN 5 & 10 ABOVE ZERO.AND
A GUSTY WIND OUT OF THE WEST WILL CAUSE WIND CHILL READINGS TO
AVERAGE 15 TO 20 DEGREES BELOW ZERO FOR A TIME LATER TONIGHT AND
EARLY MONDAY.

WHILE THE WIND CHILL READINGS WILL CREEP UP FOR A TIME LATER
MONDAY MORNING.IT WILL STILL BE VERY COLD WITH WIND CHILLS NOT
EXPECTED TO RECOVER MUCH ABOVE ZERO EVEN DURING THE AFTERNOON
HRS. THE BITTER COLD WILL CONTINUE INTO MON NIGHT & EARLY
TUESDAY WHEN AN ADVISORY MAY ONCE AGAIN BE NEEDED.

Brr…. It’s cold up here. And we’re getting low on firewood. The idea of a little hacienda on some balmy-breezed island begins to have some real appeal.

Flying the Coop

We'll be gone on a trip from the 19th until Feb 2 or so. Can't say exactly where but one thing's for sure: it won't be cold.

The Fire Demon

My heart is still pounding. The awesome power of the fire beast, the heat and the helplessness I felt was something truly frightening.

Some months ago, my friend and contractor Grant came over with his helper Ralph to do some work in the barn. The product of their labor was a pair of dead flat, laser-leveled new floors capable of supporting a Sherman tank or a 12 inch table saw, which ever came first. When they were done we had a pile of old timber that once comprised the tack room, or “granary” as Grant termed it.

The woody remains of the granary were put in the field, south of the born. Out here, you call it the born, not barn. And out here, your don’t call the trash company to take away stuff like a 25 foot long pile of old wood. If it’s big, you deal with it yourself. Like burn it.

This pile of dirty nail-filled old lumber had been awaiting a cold wet day for burning. I was content to wait until the grass was soaked, or covered in snow, or until a downpour.

That is, until friend and master farmer Dave noted that he had to plow the grass under soon if we’re going to put in oats come spring. “It has to rot, before we can we can plant oats.” said he. “Otherwise we’ll get too many weeds.”

One thing is connected to another thing it seems, in farming as in much of life. I’d asked Dave to plant wheat in our fallow fields. When I asked him if he’d like to have the wheat from our fields, in exchange for straw bales, he treated me to one of his sweet, patient smiles. “Hey buddy,” he grinned. “We can’t plant wheat here, not now. You’re way too late!”

Turns out that you have to plant wheat in the last days of autumn, well before winter comes. Who knew? By the time the hay farmer who’d been cutting the field, decided he didn’t want our second-class grass, it was too late.

I must have looked pretty depressed, because then Dave said, “But we could plant oats in the Spring!”

Oats are good. They’ll grow quickly, in Spring. And best of all it gets harvested in the form of grain and straw bales. Dave will get the fine oat grain for his animals, and I’ll get the straw bales.

I felt a twinge. Not a burst of delight at the prospect of getting a nearly unlimited supply of free straw bales, but of fear. Because of Randall.

Randall, my indomitable and highly knowledgeable next door neighbor, had once told me in great and deeply disparaging detail, about the former owners of our place, who had burned some wood in the very same field, in the same place as my pile, and nearly caused a forest fire.

“They lit a fire when they shouldn’t have. And that fire spread out into the field and ran like murder towards our fields. I wasn’t home so my wife Gladys got out the tractor and ran it around the field, turning over the earth to stop the fire. And she stopped it!”

Knowing how particular Randall is about his land, having his land cut up like that must have been similar to having one’s skin flayed.

I am afraid of Randall. The idea of burning up my own field, much less letting the fire get to his, just was too horrible to contemplate. I had decided that the only way to prevent this was to wait until a fire-proof (i.e. totally cold and wet) day came along.

Yet I had to fire that wood, since it was sitting in the middle of our (future) oat field.

Dave offered to cut a firebreak with his tractor and tiller, in a large circle surrounding the wood .

Out there, in the field, was a bonfire in the making, firebreak all around. I hemmed and hawed all morning, as the morning dew slowly dried off.

I decided to burn it. Checked to be sure there was no strong wind. Poured kerosene all over.

Applied match.

Within ten minutes, that old wood was burning like hell’s own fires transplanted onto the surface of the world.

Fire when released, is a terrifying, unstoppable monster. If you’ve never seen a big fire out of control, you haven’t seen the fire fear demon that lives deep in our psyches.

The heat was unbearable. It was so hot that wet grass five feet away ignited. The fire demon grew larger and hotter.

Licking, crawling, unstoppable flames burned the grass and moved quickly to the edge of Dave’s firebreak. I had no way to slow the unapproachable, frighteningly voracious fire. My heart was slamming like two sledgehammers. I was, to be honest. terrified...


... to be continued

Contrails

Going out to feed the chickens yesterday, I glanced up to see that the sky had become a gigantic blackboard with long lines crisscrossing from one side of the horizon to the other.

Around 7:30 AM, numerous jets fly over the farm at high altitudes, flying mostly west. At 7:40AM I counted more than 10 at once. At no other time does this seem to happen.

Their icy contrails are like massive sculptures in the sky. Yet these huge forms decay and disappear within half an hour, leaving the eternal sky. The way these lines trace and form beautiful, or disturbing backgrounds to the prosaic scenery fascinates me. I feel awed by the immense power of the contrails, which are extremely large but very far away (30,000 feet up in the air or about five miles).

These absolutely straight lines seem at once foreign to a medium which is anything but linear or geometric, and made of it since being water vapor, contrails are literally clouds. They look pencil-drawn. One line made a scissors cross behind an electrical wire, forming double arrowheads that face each other. Surprising to see such geometry in the normally soft sky.

In one image, the sky is converted into a minimalist canvas, divided by a single severe stroke. I think about the speed of the jet, about 570 mph. That line races across the sky. Despite the formality of the composition, the line seems comical, like a series of cartoon exhaust puffs.

In a way these contrails are technological graffiti on a massive scale - aside from the unusual geometries involved, the sky also seemed marked and scarred by them. At a lower angle, the angle and size of the trails made it almost seem like the sky was falling into the edge of the horizon.

Over the barn, an explosion of lines placed alarming exclamation points, or perhaps an aerial Statue of Liberty crown, over the sturdy dowager building. I shot one frame without a contrail, as contrast to all this drama. And another, with a faint contrail faintly behind a tiny morning moon lurking behind the branches of a walnut tree.

More images at Contrails.

Fog

The fog just arrived, descending rapidly over an otherwise sunny day. In the late afternoon the air was overcast, an hour later it was distinctly foggy. Before long, a deep and mysterious fog had surrounded every object within perception. I stepped outside to blanket myself in the silence.

The mercury vapor lamp that illuminates the farmyard after sundown had switched on, and had become a moon, casting a frosty, crystalline light into the dense air, and limning the inky dark branches of a nearby walnut tree with surfaces of bluish glow. Stepping slightly to one side, so the light was behind the tree trunk, increased the spectral effect. Inside the bowl created by the branches was a luminous spherical glow of steely cold, yet oddly comforting light. My own private moon dog, I thought.


Behind me, the spring house lay crouched into it’s bank, like an ancient building slowly sinking into a Irish bog. On either side, two huge walnut trees reached upward, their branches like a thousand arms eerily reaching toward a dark sky, like hundreds of devils at worship, but frozen in time. The fog carries sound extremely well but no sounds came, making the silence a deep cavern of acoustic space. The bluish glow in the background replaced the familiar detail of trees and bushes sitting on the rising hill behind, which had the slightly unsettling effect of pushing the powerful trunks and grasping branches forward yet keeping them flat, in silhouette.

The fog became still denser and it seemed, more quiet. Behind me was the pond and I turned, and walked toward it. By this time the fog had painted out the entire background including Shade Mountain, the nearby hills, the fields in front, even our own fields. The treeline just beyond the pond just barely be seen, against a hazy deep blue urple backdrop. It was as if everything further than 100 feet was replaced with an out of focus curtain.

The trees became mysterious and important. The water was still and glasslike. My imagination conjured beauties behind the curtain, and imagined that ghosts and flying wraiths could come flying up towards me, like a scene from Harry Potter. I felt odd emotions.

I love the fog here. Day or night, it always profoundly alters perception. It seem that subtracting the background or obscuring it, changes one’s perception of things nearby. It creates a new context for the familiar, one possessing both more depth and less information.

To balance and fill this void of visual information the mind seems to activate, and within foggy scenes, people seem to sense beauty, or threat, or insecurity, apparently dependent , Rohrshach-like, upon their psyches.

It is tempting to think of fog as a metaphor for ignorance, and a clearly lit day as a correlative metaphor for clarity of perception and vision. Yet this leaves out an important function of the mist, for fog, like mystery, engages our imagination. The crisp clarity of sunny daylight turns the world into a knowable, measurable, apprehensible mass of detail. We lose all the magic.

Conversely, when we’re presented with a mystery (or a partial truth surrounded with confusion) with a tantalizing promise of answers just around the corner, we are drawn into conversation with it. We yearn to solve the mystery. We supplant the missing information, meaning or understanding with myths and symbols of our own invention. And if we cannot solve the mystery we worship it.

In November 2006, Wired magazine devoted an issue to a subject they termed “The New Athiests.” In the lead article, “Church of the Non-believers,” author Gary Wolf presents the argument that logically, religion makes no sense. There is a simple clarity to this argument that appeals to me. Yet like the flattening snapshot quality of a bright day, something deeper is missing.

It might be possible to be satisfied intellectually with an argument that dispenses with the idiocies of religious dogma, ritual that mainly serves to elevate and distance the priest from parishioner, and blinding obsession that has led to more human death and misery than any other source. Even so, the argument doesn’t explain the process of imagination and the function of creativity. I feel the need for a more deeply satisfying engagement with life, and a way to admit the mysteries of origin, perception and awareness.

Imagine a Mass, being said in a large, ancient cathedral. Censers swinging slowly, dispensing incense, the priestly group advances to the altar. Mysterious words and concepts beyond understanding float into the space, which is adorned with impossible images of perfect creatures and angels, with reflective gold glints, and scintillating bits of colored light streaming in through a rose window. The contemplation of such rich pageantry is somehow satisfying on a non-verbal level, perhaps because the twinkle and pomp engages both the sub-conscious and the imagination.

When the mind is deprived of a complete and full answer, the imagination goes into gear. When the fog shrouds familiar objects, or when snow obscures the once familiar road, our subconscious supplies answers.

Similarly, when out of place information is added to a scene, especially light, it triggers emotional and sometimes spiritual responses. Light rays (formed by openings in the clouds) become known as “God’s rays” and confer a kind of majestic blessing over an otherwise ordinary scene.



“Imagination and “subconscious” are similar but not interchangeable subjects —I think the imagination is a conscious view screen of the subconscious process. It is the method of the sub-conscious to float visions and symbols, word fragments, emotional sensations and bits of taped experience to stimulate response, stimulate instinct and suggest solutions. We see this cornucopia through the imagination, and sense it through emotion.

When presented by a view of the pond that differed from the “norm,” and my imagination began throwing up ideas about flying ghosts, it would have been tempting and “normal” to put such thoughts out of mind, to suppress them. This time however, I did nothing and instead of pushing them away I tried to open and embrace them. I allowed images, emotions and ideas to flow through me as water passes under a bridge. Looking at the blue-violet mist, I simply enjoyed the show and laughed inwardly at myself for the crazy things the mind sometimes does.

After a bit, the purplish haze behind the treeline simply became a purplish haze. It wasn’t possible to clearly focus on the trees, so I simply enjoyed their arborescent mass as a bristly brushstrokes against the background. The pond was glass smooth and only reflected more of this out-of-focus impressionism. The gentian landscape fused into a unity, and seemed peaceful.

That’s when I think I saw it most clearly.

My Cabin in the Woods

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to build a cabin. A nice, old-fashioned cabin, tucked into some picturesque site. My cabin would have a large hearth, Hudson’s Bay blankets on the rope-strung beds, maybe some kind of rustic rug on the floor, and would be cozily primitive. I picture getting up on a cold morning and making ranch-style coffee in an old chipped enamel coffee pot, heated on some left-over coals in the hearth.

I’m not sure where this comes from but I suspect it has to do with my parents. Their generation, at least in the Colorado Rockies where they went to college, met and fell in love, was into cabins. Somehow the quiet dreams of one generation pass down to the next in an invisible cascade, filling our ways and attitudes almost without our knowing it.

One of the ways my child brain was filled was through art and drawing. I have memories as a six-year old watching my Dad draw his cartoons and drawing fancy letters with his Speedball pens, going to watercolor classes later, and learning from my mother to draw and observe. We also had a cabin, and spent a lot of time there.

I don't draw much any more, and shoot a lot of photographs instead. Building skill as a photographer is a complex, demanding process, and once in awhile I'm pleased with the results. This is rewarding. But something's been missing.

In his wonderfully competent book, “The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa,” Michael Kimmelman talks about the emergence of amateur photography when George Eastman came out with his Brownie camera, and how it replaced the fine art of sketching.

“Before cameras, educated, well-to-do travelers learned to sketch so that they could draw what they saw on their trips, in the same way that, before phonograph recordings, bourgeois families listened to music by making it themselves at home, playing the piano and singing in the parlor. Cameras make the task of keeping a record of people and things simpler and more widely available, and in the process reduced the care and intensity with which people needed to look at the things they wanted to remember well.”

Echoing this way of seeing and of recording sight by drawing, my mother wrote to her mother often and later, to us children, and frequently included her own drawings of things she had seen. Perhaps her desire to draw rather than photograph stemmed from an earlier cultural prototype that came from pre-brownie times.

In Kimmelman's view, to draw is to see more acutely, and thus experience our surroundings with greater intensity and authenticity. My sister gave me his book for Christmas this year, which increasingly seems prophetic. My mother gave me her treasured copy of Sara Midda’s book, “South of France – A Sketchbook,” full of hundreds of little sketches and observations, and a blank sketchbook. Quite independently, my brother also gave me a beautiful leather-bound journal, ready to be filled with drawings, thoughts and collages.

Perhaps these vectors of thought and intention reflect a greater process of handing down ideas and attitudes about life, art and observation, from ancestors who drew and wrote to record their thoughts and experiences. Perhaps it's also a message, alerting me to the possibilities and imperatives of opening my own eyes to see, observe and experience in an more authentic way.

It is both frightening and exhilarating to contemplate making little sketches of my surroundings, instead of using the camera. Today’s brownie camera is an incredibly competent machine of optics, digital processing, software and image processing all contained in a small portable package about the same size as the old box camera — but with skilled industrial design in the form of hand grips and display graphics. It is so easy to use, and I find my thought process being that of instant comprehension and almost instant manifestation of the image I see in my head. Instant concept, instant results.

I wonder if all this speed and processing is but a complex smokescreen, that comes between me and the world. Perhaps that’s why sketching seems so frightening – I must come out of headspace and really look at things the way they are.

I’ve long thought that anyone can learn to draw competently, since drawing is about 95% observation and 5% manual skill. If you can write your own signature, you have enough manual skill to draw, I’ve often said. But that belies the hard work of observation.

That hard work lies behind the fear of drawing that I feel. Yet I’m drawn to it, and want to draw now. It seems simpler, more authentic, more difficult and probably in the end, more sustaining. I justify these thoughts by saying to myself that if I draw, I will learn to see better and that will inform my photography. But I know that there’s something more going on, something mysterious, ineffable and primal.

Similarly, this deep desire to build and spend time in a small, hand-built cabin somehow connects to a basic vein of desire to connect to texture, to be engaged in authentic process. I feel a deep need to shuck the plastic of civilization in order to get back to a kind of world-contact that is only dimly remembered, in large part through the passed-along memories of my ancestors.

Not surprisingly, one of my most treasured books is “Your Cabin in the Woods,” by Conrad Meinecke. First published in 1945 (the era of my parent’s youth), this book is a handbook of methods and plans for cabins from the extremely basic to the large lodge, but all made by hand, of native materials. It’s extensively illustrated in one of my favorite styles, the romantic pen and ink style of travel posters and stories of the West. Crooked pine trees in dark black provide background for quaint drawings of secure-looking cabins, each with a curl of lazy carefree smoke rising from the chimney. Just looking at these drawings gives me a feeling of safety and contentment.



The book was also given to me by my sister, in a Christmas past. It’s been on my bookshelf, close to hand, ever since. Now that I have some land and maybe enough trees to build a cabin, it may be possible to manifest the dream of building my cabin in the wooods. It will take much work. I wonder if I’ll have the fortitude to build it. Cutting trees and fitting logs, even with chainsaws is hard, slow work. So is building a fireplace and chimney of rock.

I’ve selected a little spot where the woods give out onto a meadow overlooking Shade Mountain. Perhaps by going very slowly, one bit at a time, I can confront the work and skills needed to build it. It would be wonderful to complete the cabin in 2009, which would be 30 years since my vision was given form through the book my sister gave me, back in 1979.

If a dream or vision lasts for 30 years, it must be real, and is thus worth respecting. In the process of trying to build it, maybe I’ll learn something about facing hard work and challenge, and why I love this land so much.

Another Window

Looking out another window, this time the computer, I revisit a favorite silly site, jacksonpollack.org, that allows anyone to make colorful "painting" in moments. It's great as a distraction when things get too serious, or just to stimulate the mind. Or do like I do and goof around just for the fun of it. It's a little addicting and sometimes the results are fantastic!

Soft Light Through the Window

This winter has been like Narnia, where weather comes in cold or warm at the whim of a magician. In Denver and points West people huddle under major storms, while we enjoy 50 and 60 degree weather. Freshly washed sheets are drying on the line, undulating like horizontal flags in a mild breeze.

Peering through the old glass of the kitchen window, I can see the old walnut tree next to the smokehouse. A squirrel flits across the grass, scampers up the side of the smokehouse and disappears under the eave.

The Tree in the Basement

If you were to place a marble on the floor of the hallway outside the door of any bedroom on the third floor, it would roll towards the center of the hallway and almost all the way up to the other side, then back. It would roll back and forth, assuming it did not fall down into the stairwell, until reaching a resting point in the middle of the hallway.

The floor is not flat. Without having to do the marble test you can see evidence of this looking at the door of the bedroom. The old-timey box lock on the door does not match up to the latch on the wall by a good inch. How it closes smoothly is beyond me but it does. Another way to tell is to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Like in a slightly zany funhouse the floor isn't quite where you expect it to be, and while half-asleep, one tends to weave and reach out for wall or banister on the way. More than one person has laughingly said they felt a bit like a drunk walking down and back.

The floor below is just the same. And if you go all the way to the basement, aka living room, you will see in the middle of the room, what appears to be a large tree trunk, stripped of bark. This sturdy trunk holds up the center of the floor for the entire house. It does its job well, but whoever put it into place, left the floor low by about 2 inches.

The tree is not at all in the same style as the other woodwork in the house which is generally of high quality and detail. It’s simply an old tree, stuck in the middle of the floor, holding up a massive beam.

Actually, I should say a pair of beams. The entire house-wide cross beam is comprised of two huge oak beams, joined by a craftsmanlike scarf joint, pinned with a very large hardwood dowel. The dowel is actually what woodworkers refer to as a draw-pin. It’s pointed on one end, an essential aspect of how a draw-pin works.

To draw two pieces of wood together and hold them there, the old carpenters first chiseled a square hole into the end of one beam, and a matching square tenon on the other. Then they drilled a hole in the first beam, through the side of the hole and another hole on the side of the matching tenon. The tenon fits into the square hole (the mortise). The hole in the tenon piece was offset from the other by a small amount. When the pin is driven in, the pointed tip finds it’s way into the center of the offset hole and draws the pieces together as it is pounded in.

It takes a year per inch of thickness for wood to naturally dry. As wood dries, it shrinks. The original carpenters didn’t have five years to wait for a five-inch thick beam to dry before using it, so they took advantage of the shrinking effect. They knew that the draw pin would pull the ends of the two beams together, and that over time as the wood dried, the pieces would shrink, making the joint ever tighter and stronger. Today it might be impossible to drive the pin out.

But this leaves a question. If the beam sagged, and had to be supported, what went on before the tree trunk was placed in support? Was there a time when the house threatened to fall into itself? Or was there just a gradually bending and bowing of the floors until one day one of my predecessor owners deemed it time to put a stop to the movement?

We may never know, but one thing’s for sure — that tree in the basement is a very important piece of wood.