One of the reasons I love living in the country is the daily connection with plant, bird and wildlife. I think it keeps me honest about our connection, role and place in the natural world.  I am known for frequently stopping the car in the middle of road to watch wildlife: a hawk flying overhead, the gnarly prehistoric looking snapping turtle crossing the road, this years new goslings from the pair of geese that return to the pond each year, a magnificent buck standing tall at the edge of the forest, or the flock of turkeys moving through that field. It never gets old.

It drives my son a little crazy. Moooommmm, do you have to stop? Yes, son I do! Check it out, observe, appreciate, we are so lucky to see this! Happily, our country road has very little traffic, so I can stop and usually take my time watching. Seeing a hawk with some prey in its talons (hope it is one of the plague of pesky mice that drive me nuts) probably will be the highlight of my day. I also talk to the animals. Yes, it’s true. I’ll admit it. Not in some Dr. Doolittle manner, but just acknowledging their presence and beauty: Good morning hawk, look at you magnificent buck, thank you turkeys. You’ll be happy to know the animals haven’t talked back….yet. I don’t think that Andrew is convinced that all this is acceptable parental behavior, but I am patient and will wait for that time when he’s in his 30’s and has his own kids and comes back to tell me how great it was that I screeched to a halt often and made him look at so much, all the time.

One of my frequent stop, watch and talk to wildlife friends lived in the valley below us. There is an old 1800’s farmhouse with a big pond, just down the road. We, neighbors and wildlife alike, all live in the headwaters of Greens Creek, one of the tributaries to the Blackwater River, which flows to the Roanoke River, which meets the Atlantic at the Albemarle Sound. At this upper end of the road/watershed, the valley is bit wider (by Blue Ridge standards) and just downstream of this pond is a wetland full of cattails, bull frogs, turtles, dragonflies, spring peepers, birds, wildflowers; a whole specialized and wonderful ecosystem. As you move further downstream, the valley becomes very narrow, rhododendron covered slopes climbing steeply to narrow ridges (I live on top of one of those ridges) and the water channelizes into a fast flowing and rather beautiful mountain creek, crossing from one side of the road to the other.

This wetland is a rich haven for a variety of wildlife and plants. When the farmhouse neighbors dug drain trenches through that area to dry it out and create more cattle grazing land, I was up in arms. Everyday, as we passed, I would get on my soap box about leaving the wetland as is, for goodness sake, all the reasons why we need these wetlands intact, all the reasons why cattle shouldn’t be running around there and that draining wetlands is regulated, for good reason, you just can’t go digging ditches when ever you want, etc, etc. Bless my son, for he ends up being the recipient of most of my rants – along with the animal talking and middle of the road stops.

For a few years there was a red tail hawk that perched on the telephone wire running above the pond and wetland: a perfect perch for surveying the surrounding area for prey. Every morning when I drove by, I would say, “Good morning hawk”. It was there more often than not. On mornings it wasn’t, I wondered where it was and if it would be back. Seeing the hawk almost daily became a comforting ritual. Then, one cold winter morning as I was heading to town, I saw in the distance that something was lying in the middle of the road.  A chill set in and as I pulled up, my heart sank and my stomach knotted. It was a hawk, and I’m quite sure it was my morning companion hawk. Damn it all. I had to get to town to meet a deadline, but I couldn’t just leave the hawk there, so I  carefully moved it to a protected place on the side of the road, planning to take care of it on my way back. A beautiful creature like this deserved more than to lay in the middle of the road, to be hit again.

Coming back, I stopped and retrieved the hawk, placing it in the back of my pickup. I was struck by how large, yet how light it was, how fearsome the talons and beak were and yet how soft the body felt. While deeply saddened for its fate, I was also in awe. Here I was holding a red tail hawk, in my own hands, getting to examine it more closely than I could have imagined possible. What an exquisite creature. I have long had an affinity for hawks and can think of several significant life changing moments that were punctuated by their presence. This was another special moment.

I took the hawk home with the intention of giving it an honoring and appropriate burial. After grabbing my shovel, I realized the ground was frozen and impenetrable and there would be no digging for awhile. It was so darn cold the hawk would also be frozen until the weather warmed, so I knew I had time. There I was, with a dead hawk in the back of my truck. Life is never dull around here. I scouted my land for the right burial spot and found it. At the end of the ridge, just down from my home,  is a slight rise, the high point on the land. My morning walks end up there often and I visit to sit and meditate. A lovely, peaceful spot with mixed forest, lady slippers and blueberries, high enough to have a view in winter, where a stiff breeze can move through the trees, and the many rocks are covered with green mossy coatings. It has long been a special place to me and I knew it was the perfect final resting place for my hawk friend.

Finally, a few warming days arrived and the ground thawed just enough for me to chip at it and dig a place for hawk. I happen to love ceremony and ritual, so I made this one good burial. Just before I laid that master of the air into it’s new earthen home, I clipped one tail feather and one wing feather, which I keep for a reminder. A reminder of the sacredness of all life, that we share this land with a host of other creatures that deserve respect and consideration, a reminder that there is much to learn from knowing and understanding the natural world around us.

We share this earth with an enormous variety of other species in tremendously diverse landscapes: it is not just a place for us to use and abuse as we damn well please. We should, at the very least, try to understand and appreciate what’s around us. Use is OK. Use with appreciation and maybe even reverence, better. Use without any thought but our own needs….NOT. I try, on a daily basis, to acknowledge the environment around me; it’s beauty, and the life support it provides. We are all in this together: humans and hawks alike. The moments I have with hawks, turtles, bears, trees, and birds keep me grounded and connected. A connection I feel the need to share with others, to help them understand that the world is a richer place when more wildland and even semi-wildland is left intact. A life where bears can’t roam, turkeys can’t nest, hawks can’t be hawks is a lesser life.

When we live in cities and suburbs it is too easy to forget that we humans, with our homes, roads, businesses and other contrivances are not the center of the universe, that there were other environments and residents here long before us, which we have displaced. We forget that we actually need those natural places, with all they entail, to support our lives and spirits. We relegate wildlife and nature experiences to something completely separate from us and our daily lives: a thing to be experienced on occasion, acknowledged and perhaps even appreciated,  but then forgotten as not relevant to our daily needs.

I am grateful for this experience with hawk, for the years it stood sentinel over the wetland and gifted me each morning with it’s presence, for it’s majesty and place in our ecosystem. I think of it every time I walk down that ridge, which is just about daily and its final resting place has become affectionately known as Hawk Hill.  I feel blessed that every day I get to enjoy forests, fields and wetlands and see wildlife, living for the most part, as nature intends. This is my neighborhood and these are my neighbors. I can’t forget.

Post script:  While I occasionally see a hawk on the wire, no new hawk has taken up daily residence. I miss seeing it. Sometimes I have the wonderful fortune to see a kingfisher, another grand bird, up there above the pond. Kingfisher days are good days. The generations of family living at the pond farmhouse came to end a few years back too. The older couple living there passed away and the land is now up for sale, has been for years now. Seems that people don’t want large acreages of forest and grazing land and an old homestead anymore. We need those large tracts of land, intact. So now the house is empty and the land less used. Someone still runs some cattle on the land, but the effort to maintain the drainage ditches has ended so, to my delight, the wetland is coming back. Yes!

It’s Throw Back Thursday again, or TBT in FB speak

Prom night 1983 and a blast from the past story. My high school class, along with several others of that era, are having a joint 30^th reunion next month. Good lord, that’s hard to believe. I won’t be there, but all the old pics and memories flying around have me thinking. Came across this old picture of me and my prom date, John Rudolf. It was the first and last dance I ever attended during my high school years. Here’s a belated shout out to the late John Rudolf, who died far before his time, but back in 1983 was a gracious – and whacky in his own John way – host for my last minute prom date request, which I needed because my boyfriend backed out just days before the event.

Said boyfriend told me he couldn’t go because he had no money for Tux and all the prom “stuff”. Turns out, he took the money his mom gave him for tux rental and prom “stuff” and bought tickets to the US Festival (Yes, that 1980’s Steve Wozniak multi-day mega festival). The Clash was the headliner that night, so I can see his dilemma… girlfriend… prom…Clash…. girlfriend…. prom… Clash.   I found out about this alteration of the truth when I attended the US Festival myself the next day after prom. Amazingly, in a sea of some portion of the 670,000 people that attended that weekend, I ran in to said boyfriend within the first hour of being there. Moral of the story: sometimes karma is a bitch and it gets you fast! And sometimes you end up going to the prom anyway with a better person. Cheers to you brother John!

It’s Throwback Thursday, that trendy facebook created special occasion to post past pictures. While I don’t usually go in for those trendy things,  I must admit I do enjoy looking back through my old pictures to find a fitting post for the day and it is a nice break from the plethora of “selfies” that usually predominate.

Supposed to be putting up some wood with my kid for winter during this, my staycation week (if I can get over the darn sickness that’s got me). Here’s me and the kid with his once favorite chainsaw back in the day. Andrew has long helped out his ma when it comes to wood time. As cute as my helper was back then, I must say my 10+ year older body is very thankful for his now man size and strength and ability to use real tools!

Life is not all chickens and snakes and snow and mud on the homestead. We watch movies, stream videos, have multiple computers around the house, order things online and stay connected to “modern life”. No luddites here. Here’s a different kind of post today. Just random thoughts on last nights video watching.

Last night, we ran out of Fringe and Freaks and Geeks episodes. Now what?  These two have been great for Andrew and I to enjoy together. Without TV service and limited streaming ability, we most often watch movies and select TV shows borrowed from the library. Love discovering older shows I never saw – Freaks and Geeks, or even knew about – Fringe. Right now I’m having a completely geeky, Freaks and Geeks moment, please forgive me.

What a show. That WAS my high school era and experience so it was a happy surprise to find a show that took me right back to that era and then share that high school experience with my now high school age kid. The laser light shows with ELP playing, the music, friends in bands, disco, punk, the cliques, the cars and clothes,dungeons and dragons: I knew those freaks and geeks, I was them. The 30-piece drum kit, Neil Peart worshipping stoner dude – I dated him:) Meanwhile, my kid could relate to, and both of us connect on, those timeless high school issues: high school is still high school. Here’s to all those kids now heading back to high school and to the rest of us who walked those same halls…..and survived. Let us embrace our inner freaks and geeks.

A few days ago, I was stung. Badly. By multiple mean bald face hornet stinging machines. It’s a good thing that I live off the beaten path, as any nearby neighbors would have seen me running while stripping off clothes and heard an unholy string of profanities that was being unleashed, loudly, while I ran. Several months ago a nest was begun, on an old internet satellite dish that still resides on the once living space turned chicken coop/work shop. My general policy about such things is to let them be, it’s all nature right….until a problem occurs. However, this nest was forming directly over the chicken coop door. Everyday, twice a day, as I let the chickens out in the morning and closed them in for the night, I negotiated the bald face hornet zone. I moved slowly, raised and lowered the board that serves as the door calmly and carefully and while occasionally stirring up a few hornets, seemed to have worked out a system. Neither of us were happy about the others presence, but the you don’t mess with me and I won’t mess with you policy seemed to be working.

Until this week. I don’t know what changed, but the MFBFHB’s (and no, this is not an acronym for My Favorite Best Friend Hornet Buddies) were not pleased with my presence. The détente was over. As I slowly and carefully raised the door board, BAM, nailed in the back, causing me to drop the board on the poor chickens neck who was just trying to get out for the day, and further angering the other MFBFHB’s.  Bam..again….and again. Now I am running, clothes coming off, profanities flying.  BAM and BAM… a few more stings, just for good measure. I suppose it could have been worse, but really, it was not the way I wanted to start my day. I was awake now!

To take a step back, these little hornet bastards, the MFBFHB’s, (the “live-and-let-live, just part of nature” went out the window when they attacked) were not the only woodland neighbors I had to worry about. My morning chicken duties usually consist of me walking down to chicken coop and yard, in my not quite awake yet mode, wearing some crazy form of dress from random sleep wear to professional workday clothes, with an odd flannel work shirt and chicken yard shoes thrown in. This particular morning, I had on a dark blue lacy sleep tank and shorts, clearly not adequate MFBFHB armor. And not only that, but in my subsequent research on these stingers I learned they don’t like dark blues or bright colors; better to wear tan and light-colored items. Note to self – next time don’t dress to piss off the hornets in the morning.

My morning and evening walks down to the chicken yard had become “The Gauntlet” this summer. I swear that I must have every kind of stinging insect living near by. Paper wasps, bald face hornets, yellow jackets, ground wasps, carpenter bees, honey bees, mud daubers and an assortment of others I don’t yet know. On my front door, a mud dauber was building its nest, I often could hear the buzzing as it worked inside it’s mud hut. At the top of the hill is a ground wasp nest, which thus far has been easy to avoid, but certainly must remember it is there. And then there are the snakes. One night on my way back up the hill, I heard a slight rustle in the grass. It was quite subtle and I don’t know why it caught my attention, but I looked over in the dusky light to see a Copperhead, well camouflaged, just to the side of the trail. It was on this same hill the previous year that I had seen several Copperheads, one of which had bitten my new little pup, and was then killed by me….but that’s another story.

For night-time chicken duties, I wear a headlamp, and after seeing the Copperhead, sometimes carry a big stick and always constantly scan the terrain for snakes. While winter has its own challenges, I almost miss those easy breezy days of just walking without constant vigilance and ground scanning for things that could bite, sting or hurt me or my kid or my dog friends.

So now the dilemma. What was I going to do about this situation? While the pain from the stings slowly subsided, I did what I always do and started the research. I didn’t necessarily want to kill anything and the main way of managing trouble nests, with powerful spray pesticides, was also not my favored option since this was right above my chicken yard. I learned about the colors to wear and not wear. I learned how to dress for battle, to deal with it at dusk or night when they were less active, but for god’s sake don’t shine your flashlight right at them, and really you probably should just get a professional to deal with it.  I also learned that the MFBFHB’s, when not located in a place that causes us humans problems are beneficial in many ways. They are beneficial predators of other insects and if you’ve ever had occasion to examine an old, abandoned nest, they are rather magnificent.  When I  think of all that they do to create them, one tiny, chewed-up woody-material mouthful at time, it is rather amazing.  Hell, I’ve had old abandoned nests as decoration before.

I wrestled with what to do all day. I couldn’t even imagine going back down there, they most certainly had my attention now, but the chickens needed to go in and out.  Leaving the door open, in the past, had led to some serious flock losses – those chickens have their own list of predators. The door had to be opened and closed, and the chickens fed and I had to do this without being stung repetitively.

So what, in the end, did Miss I love nature and try to be natural all the time do? I bought the    pesticide, the kind that you can spray from up to 25 feet away:  it even came in a handy cost saving 2-pack. That night, I followed all the guidance I had read and armed myself to do battle. Carhart work pants, thick wool socks and boots, pants tucked into socks….check. Long sleeve heavy army shirt, with another long sleeve TAN colored work shirt on top of that just for good measure, buttoned from neck to bottom…check. One wool cap…no, that’s not enough, add another cap and safety glasses…check. Finally, good work gloves were added to the ensemble. This was not appropriate summer wear, and I’m sure I was a sight to behold, but I defied any hornet to find access to my body this night. It was dark when I went down there, but I dared not turn on my headlamp. The moon lit the night enough that I could see alright, and I knew exactly where the nest and entrances were so I let ’em have it.  I sprayed and sprayed some more, soaking the nest as per directions. Seemingly nothing happened; it was all rather anti-climactic with only a few hornets flying in and out. Trudged back up the hill, this time slowly taking off layers of protective wear and wondering if I had done the right thing or anything at all.

In my recent visits, there still seem to be a few buzzing around, but I think the damage has been done. This weekend I will knock the nest down, dressed again in battle gear, just in case, and dispose of it properly. The chickens will be able to come and go and I will not have to risk welts, stings and pain to care for them. Still have to watch for snakes, and ground wasps  – oh cool days of fall I will welcome your arrival. I hated using chemicals, and destroying the nest. On its own, in a place not associated with my dwellings, these nests are actually works of art and beauty. I hated destroying, just like I hated killing the snake last year, but sometimes I have found, on the homestead you just have to do these things. Through it all, I still try to maintain and appreciate a reverence for nature and life. Not every bald-faced hornets nest or snake is to be feared and destroyed.  Each serves a purpose and has a place in the environment and most of the time I do believe we can coexist.