Week of May 17-24

May 17, 2005

The cold weather continues. It dipped into the forties last night. As nice as it is that the chill is keeping the mosquitoes at bay, it’s also keeping me indoors. It’s about 3:00 PM, and I’ve only gone out a couple of times today—once to photograph a snake Gussie rustled up (see below) and another time to plant my new cantaloupe (which I encased in a cut section of plastic bottle to protect its stem from the killer grubs).

I was finishing my coffee this morning, when Gus began barking. I went out to investigate, and discovered that he’d found himself a big garter snake, a Western species with red dots, more colorful than the Eastern ones I’m used to. I picked it up and placed it atop my chopping block so Gussie wouldn’t hurt it, and while it was there I got some good photos.




I read in my North American Wildlife book that nocturnal snakes have vertical irises. Diurnal snakes have round ones, like this snake. I saw a different species of snake the other day while I was adding a fenced run to the chicken coop. It was a beautiful little snake, one I didn’t know, and it kept poking its head out from the cedar shakes. I didn’t have the camera with me. I’ll keep looking for it.

Here are some recent photos I shot when I did have the camera with me:


Black-legged tick, found walking on Gussie’s back.


Gussie keeping vigil over the bane of his existence. Reminds me of the cartoon with the sheepdog and the wolf.
“Mornin’, Ralph.”
“Morning’, Fred.”


My bathroom at night, kerosene lamp burning.


The daisies have opened, and all the meadows and roadsides are littered with them. They fill a vase nicely.


A bearded iris, planted by a former resident. He or she would be glad to know I’ve been enjoying it. Note the raindrops.


From above.


Wild rose.

While I was in Ashland, I stopped in Bloomsbury Books and bought the Audubon’s Field Guide to Wildflowers, Western Region, and it’s been a total flop. Hasn’t helped me identify a single wildflower except Elegant Cat’s Ear. I should have known better; their bird guide stinks, too. Here are five flowers the book either didn’t include, or which it does include but the photos look nothing like the actual flowers.











Here’s a link to Lang’s wildflower site. It probably includes them, with Latin names. I just haven’t had time to download all the pages.


I started T.C. Boyle’s newest novel, Drop City, and it’s a riot. It’s set at a California commune and later in Alaska (after the commune moves there) in 1970. Time to gobble up a couple more chapters.


May 18, 2005

Can you say, “Rain?”

Today was a miserable mizzling drizzling day. There were patches of blue—little teases. Rays of sun—false hope. It would rain for ten minutes, stop. Rain for twenty minutes, stop. Rain for five minutes, stop. Now randomize and repeat. As with yesterday I ventured out about twice. Once to replenish my kindling supply, a task which I had to finish on the deck because it started to rain. Another time to take Gus for our evening walk. Yes, it rained then, too. I bet if I were to step outside right now it would be, yes, you guessed it, raining. I thought that May was supposed to be a beautiful month here. So far it’s been wet and cold. I’d say that in the last fifteen days it’s rained about twelve of them. I’m hoping things change by the weekend.

I couldn’t get motivated to write anything today, so I read a bunch of chapters in Drop City and started making a collage. Last time I was in town, I picked up some Mod Podge glue and some heavy sheets of card stock. My other collage glue must have been in the package that got lost in the mail. It was fun to get back into collage-making, and so far, so good. I’m still ripping off Bearden, but it’s what I like. If it comes out as a keeper, maybe I’ll frame it and hang it in here as another donation of mine to DHH.

Speaking of which, I bought a composter, too, when I was in town. I’ve been trying to compost, but the bin in the garden was in a bad state of disrepair, and I didn’t like the looks of it or fancy the prospect of trying to nail it all back together. It looked like the kind of setup that makes compost about once every two years. So, I went to The Grange Co-op at the south end of Grants Pass and bought a nice round-barrel rotating type composter. This way I’ll have usable compost in 4-8 weeks, depending on the heat and moisture. It’s a sturdy rig, and will come in handy for future residents here as a batch composter.

I’m pleased to say that the garden looks happy after all the recent rain. My cukes and squash have survived the killer grubs. One plant has a 2-inch yellow squash on it! And the cukes are sending out tendrils. As soon as it’s sunny again, I’m going to erect some poles for them to climb. I can’t wait to start harvesting veggies. My red and green Romaine are looking good, and I think I’ll be able to start picking those in three weeks or so. I plan to harvest some of the mesclun greens tomorrow. After our walk up to the pond, where Gus took a long swim, I harvested a second batch of strawberries—a half-dozen nice-sized ones. I’ll have them with cereal tomorrow.


The local deer family is getting braver. Apparently, they’ve realized that Gussie’s bark isn’t ever accompanied by teeth, so they’re grazing close to the cabin and in broad daylight. I shot these two photos late yesterday after dinner.



Okay, time to climb on the bus with the Drop City characters. The commune is moving up to Alaska, after “the man” chased them out of California. This is such a fun novel. Add it to your summer reading. You won’t be disappointed.

May 20, 2005

Today’s highlight was doing telephone conference calls with three of my classes at old THS. I had to wake up bright and early—5:15—for my first class, and that was rough. It’s by far the earliest I’ve woken up since my last day of work on March 30. It was even more difficult because I couldn’t sleep last night. Perhaps it was a case of nerves at having to use an alarm clock. I was up reading at 2:00 and slept only a few hours, fitfully. But it was a delight to talk to all my students again. The creative writing classes read me poems of theirs, and I read some of mine. I answered questions they had about my experiences out here. Some of my colleagues stopped in and got on the phone, too, and it was fun to chat with them as well. For my seniors I read my usual summer send-off poem, “First-Year Teacher to His Students.” The only annoying thing about chatting with the classes was this radio phone. I only get to talk for ten minutes, and then I get disconnected, and I also have to click the mic every ten seconds or so, or the thing thinks the call has ended and it’ll hang up. So, while kids were reading me their pieces, I had to keep clicking the darned mic. And with each class I had to call three times. I guess the radio phone is better than no phone at all, or the satellite phone last year’s residents used. You had to stand in a field to get a signal on that one. As much as I’m liking being here, I do miss my students. It’s sad that I won’t see the seniors finish up the year. Maybe I could go into town on graduation day and watch it on streaming video on the Internet.

Another day of rain. I’m beginning to get a bit nutty with all the rain. I’d like a few days of sun, please. At least long enough for everything to dry out. The road is a muddy mess. And it’s been too cold to sit out on the deck for more than a few minutes. And I haven’t gone down to the river in three weeks. It’s weird that a month ago, my second week here, I was lying out in shorts and a tee shirt. I’d gladly take one or two of the hot days everyone promised. I’ve had the stove going all week. I don’t think the temperature has ever climbed out of the fifties.

Neil Curry called in the afternoon. He’s arriving at the Grants Pass bus depot on Wednesday evening. I’m looking forward to having company.

Well, it’s another Friday night at DHH, and I have to say that Friday and Saturday nights are the hardest. Back in my old life, I always found something to do on a Friday night, and in the last several months before I left I would typically go to the Peekskill Coffee House to listen to live music or to the Paramount Theater to see foreign movies. Those are the two things I miss the most out here. A movie on DVD would be nice, but I’ve watched all the DVDs I have here. I need to buy some. I looked some over at a store in GP last time I was in town, but they were all bad adventure movies or sappy romances. I like independent and foreign flicks. If anyone out there has any of those you wouldn’t mind parting with, send ‘em along!

P.O. Box 1212
Grants Pass, OR 97528

Tonight I’ll have to settle for a bowl of popcorn and the last few chapters of Drop City.


May 21, 2005

Finally, a day without rain! To cure our cabin fever, I took Gussie down to the river. I packed us a lunch, dressed in light clothes to spot ticks, and took the spinning reel and rod along just for the hell of it. As expected, the river was really high and cloudy after all the rain. In fact, our little beach beneath the osprey nest was completely under water. I threw about thirty casts with a rooster tail, but nothing. Gussie swam and was his usual crazy self. At one point he ran past the fishing rod and got the lure caught in his hair. Then he wouldn’t come to me so I could take it out. Finally, I enticed him with a biscuit and disaster was averted. The hook was nowhere near his skin. We had lunch on a rock, waved to some rafters, watched the osprey.

I saw another interesting bird, charcoal gray with a short tail. At first I thought it was a blackbird of some kind, but then I thought it might be a black rail. According to my bird guide they’re rare. I didn’t see the telltale red eye, though. So I won’t add it to my residency bird list.

After lunch we hiked upriver toward a scenic bend in the river, but then I lost Gus for about fifteen minutes. Apparently, I somehow got ahead of him, and when I finally turned around and saw him again, he was biting at his paw. I looked, but didn’t see what was bothering him. Then back down the trail a ways, I saw rusty barbed wire from the old telegraph line posts, and some of Gussie’s hair on one barb. I think he snagged himself on it. We were both tired after the steep hike back, but his paw seemed fine. And after dinner tonight—homemade sausage pizza with fresh mozzarella—he was chasing sticks like the crazy canine that he is.

Okay, time to dig into another T.C. Boyle novel. This one’s called East Is East.


May 22, 2005

Mr. Bear!

Yes, I finally got a good look at a black bear. A fat, tan-nosed ursine snorfler. All afternoon I’d heard it in the forest just beyond the meadow behind the garden, where it was knocking around stumps and making a racket. Then around four o’clock, I went out to lie in the chaise. Gussie came along and lay beside me. I had my eyes closed, soaking up the rays and petting Gussie’s warm back. And when I opened my eyes, there was Mr. Bear out in the meadow, about 400 yards away. I was afraid Gus would see it and make a chase, so I got him to follow me to the cabin. Once he was safely inside, I went on the deck and got another good look. By the time I got the binoculars focused, though, it had wandered back into the woods. Then Gussie sensed something was up and started barking. I figured I’d take the camera out and see if I could get a photo from behind the garden fence. Gus stayed inside, and he was beside himself, barking and whining and scratching at the sliding glass door. He hates to miss out on adventure of any kind. So I went back in. I don’t know if the bear was male or female. Maybe next time I can have a closer look with the binoculars.

Worked hard in the garden this morning, pruning the grape vines, ripping out some old netting and wire, and eradicating every stalk of blackberry within the garden fence. I pruned the hell out of the Concords, which were in a bad state, all tangled up with blackberries and growing out of control and leaning on broken posts. I reset the posts. I also pruned half of the wine grapes. After that, I trimmed around the garden fence. My decision to spray Roundup around the fence has turned out to be a good one. It killed a small swath around the barbed wire, and now I can trim without the weeder’s strings breaking all the time. And the fence is far enough away from all garden beds and fruit trees, that the Roundup wouldn’t have affected them. I hate to use chemicals, especially around an organic garden, but it saves a lot of hassle.

More trimming slated for tomorrow—up at the pond. The grass never stops growing. Every night after dinner Gussie and I take a walk up to the pond and he goes for a swim. He thinks he’s a retriever, fetching every stick I throw in. The pond weed and algae has diminished significantly, I’m glad to report. Maybe when it gets hot enough, I’ll get up the gumption to swim in there, too. All those newts kind of creep me out, but I suspect that when it gets hot I’ll want a place to swim. The river is great for swimming, but it’s an exhausting walk back up.

May 23, 2005

A perfect day at the ranch—sunny, warm but not hot, light breeze, oodles of birdsong. My big chore of the day was mowing around the pond. I made a nice, wide swath, some twenty or thirty feet around, and cut a wide path to the shortcut through the forest. I hit a huge patch of yerba buena with the trimmer, and the whole place smelled minty and fresh. With the grass all short, the pond will be tick-free for Neil and I to go up and check out the newts and watch Gussie swim for sticks. While mowing I saw two blue-tailed skinks, neat lizards with bright blue tails. I’d seen them before at my house in New York, where they lived in the stone terrace.

The bear was in its usual spot again—the woods behind the garden. I could hear it back there all day making its racket. No sight of it, though. Once the cherries are ripe, I’ll throw all the windfall ones over the fence for it. That might deter it from trying to get through the fence.

The deer family has a fawn! I saw it last night after dinner, a tiny thing with white speckles. I guess I was right about one of the does being pregnant. It’s dusk now, and I’m hoping momma and baby will come into the meadow again.

I encountered another critter last night of a completely different sort. I was on the couch listening to some tunes, when I saw something black creeping across the kitchen floor. It was a scorpion. I’d heard there were scorpions around here, but I expected to see one in the wood shed and not in the house. Bad karma that it is, I stomped it. I was afraid of getting stung if I tried to pick it up and throw it outside. Here it is prior to the stomp:


I think I saw a digger squirrel today, too. This morning Gussie was sniffing around the pile of boards I shave into kindling, and something was squeaking in terror. I was inside sweeping, and so I went out with the broom to investigate. I stuck the handle into the little cave the thing had found in the pile of wood, trying to drive it out Gussie’s side, and the thing popped out his end and leapt through the air so fast all I saw was a dark flash of fur. It looked to be bigger than a mouse, and it didn’t squeak like a mouse. I think it disappeared into one of the many digger squirrel holes under the deck. Ergo, I think it was a digger squirrel. I’ve come to hate these little buggers. They make holes all over the meadow, holes that the mower wheels get caught in. Little piles of dirt pop up in new places every day. They must have a huge network of tunnels all over the property. They’re like the Viet Cong. They’re the Varmint Cong.

Here’s a picture I dedicate to my nephew Ezra. I took it while Gussie and I were lazing in the yard eating pistachios (a snack Guster favors as much as any liver treat).


Worked out this sonnet today:

Strawberries


Not enough for a bowl of cereal,
so I tasted them there in the patch—
four sweet spotted hearts, arterial-
red, but cold. And here’s the catch:
I was thinking of some other berries,
ones that bit back, their long stems
a swarm of thorns, and how she,
too, had bitten my sticky thumb
as we ate them in an Iowa ditch—
me feeding her as if she were a queen,
she baring her straight stained teeth.
How apt that such gems ask a fee—
tart flesh to feed a lonely wretch
for a little blood left on a latch.