Back home

The pace of life back home does not slow.  I've been involved in several projects that inhale time.  But there are reminders of the different pace that animates the wildlife around us.  The latest such reminder came in the form of a pileated woodpecker, the giant pecker of the forestlands around us, swooping as they ususally do in front of the new clunker truck that is my transportation around here. Is there a more vivid red than the red of pileated woodpecker?  Maybe the scarlet tanager's -- but few others.  Also glimpsed a broadwing flying fast across the landscape, heading south for an annual migration.

Then, recently coming home one night on Warwoman Road, there was that big, old and slow black bear -- moving much more slowly than normal. This fat bear could barely scramble up the roadbank -- must have been weighted down by a recent meal.   Guess even bears need to slow down sometimes, like people.

Of circadian rhythms

Sunset over the Pacific @ Todos Santos, Baja California Sur, Republic of Mexico

Every once in a blue moon, it is good to get away from the everyday rush of America and kick back, which is what we did recently for an an entire two weeks!

No phones (cellfone coverage is spotty down south,) very little internet, no newspapers. The hurricane that came through a few weeks before had left no evident damage. Time to kick back and assume a simpler schedule. Hike the beach at dawn, followed by breakfast, nap, lunch, nap, watch the sun go down. I ended up reading every trashy pulp novel previous visitors had left for us to read. The night sky in Baja is stupendous, with so little light pollution that the Milky Way paints the firmament, something that is becoming increasingly rare at home. The Pacific is not very pacific, with wild rollers every day, while the Sea of Cortez is like a warm bath by comparison.

It was good to get away, just as now, it is good to be back.

Ode to the clunker

That old Chevy truck that served so well in these mountains got "clunkered" this past Friday, heading to the scrap metal boneyards of U.S. consumerism. It had accumulated 230,765 miles of tortuous wear-and-tear on curvy mountain roads, a good bit of backcountry 4-wheeling where no truck should be taken, and a wonderful, well-Rabunized look and feel.

I will miss it. Welborn, the salesman who sold it to me in 1998, told me what I needed in the mountains was a short-bed truck with 4WD and the biggest motor I could afford. He was right. That was a 5.7 liter Vortec V-8 with lots of horses and a true thirst for regular unleaded gas (12 MPG in the city!) It was fast and pretty much indestructible, if unsustainable. I ripped the back bumper half-way off one day trying to vault a big stump; but it got dinged back in two days later when a yahoo from South Carolina -- in an even bigger, "dually" truck -- smashed into my backside on Route 28. The only major repair turned out to be need for a new clutch, which in 11 years, ain't bad.

It also hardly ever failed to attract the birds, like owls and hawks, that regularly make their appearance in these parts.

Now, I wonder if the "new clunker," a very down-sized, 4-cylinder truck with the shortest bed and the smallest motor I could find (but up to 27 MPG on the highways) is going to be up to the task. At first glance, I think it will do. Coming up the driveway in that new vehicle, we spied a furry image loping up the driveway. A truly fat and fast black bear cub! Then, Saturday, miraculus mirabili, my hawk swooped over the new truck to check us out. I take that as a good omen.

More hawk tawk & bobcat ramblin'

Well, my hawk is still doing well, and I'm still trying to "speak" to it when it perches in front of the truck. But last Thursday, it seemed nervous and flighty as a bird. It swooped over me coming home and kept on going, then swooped over me again before the driveway, perching on a nearby tree branch. I stopped the truck and got out. But before I could "say" the first word, it was gone. Very nervous. My hair stood on end on the back of my neck. I took this as a warning to be aware.

The day before, a skinny bobcat loped diagonally across the Highlands-Walhalla Road in front of me. As usual, this predator owns the spaces it occupies, no matter how fast it moves.

Hawk Talk & Rattler Rattle

I've started trying to "talk" to "my hawk," the broadwing that so often swoops around these parts. It curved gracefully up in front of me as I was going back up the hill to the house from the garden one morning (about 10-12 days ago) and perched on a tulip poplar branch.

First, I tried a human version of the high-pitched screech that is this bird's signal. Click on the following to listen:

http://www.enature.com/fieldguides/view_default.asp?sortBy=has+audio&viewType=list&curFamilyID=218

Then, I tried just old-fashioned English, and told it that our friend Honor had recently rescued one of its brethren, when it surfaced dazed and confused on the side of Warwoman Road. Click on the July 10 entry at the following site for rescue details:

http://silvermoonfrog.blogspot.com/

Well, I'm not sure if my hawk heard this talk, but at least it did not fly away right away. I feel that it heard something. Now, I am trying to hear what it has to say to me. This is an interesting exercise for one usually so "linear."

More recently, we find that a good-sized timber rattlesnake has taken up domain under one of our wooden decks, as a worker found out last week. Its high-pitched rattle is distinctive and pressing and puts you on definite alert when you hear it. This rattler is about as thick as a man's forearm. Big. Territorial. Likes to let you know that it is there and not to be too disturbed.

Wonder if he's the same one that, as a juvenile, used to hang out on our pile of two-by-sixes (see post for March 19, 2009.)

That is all for today.

Wondrous Sightings No. 8 -- Broadwing of the Badlands

It swooped so fast in such a graceful curve today that I barely had time to stop the truck before it kissed a nearby white pine branch and then quickly dipped farther into deeper forests. Gone in about two seconds. The curve of its flight, like the sine-cosine dips of a radio wave, is beyond beautiful -- an omen of good.

Wondrous Sightings No. 7

Dear Blog People: I continue to be blessed with sightings of birds of prey, most recently by the baby Broadwing Hawk that plummeted to the side of the road, right in front of the truck, to claw out a little vole, mole or chipmunk. Something small anyway. Where else -- but Warwoman Road. By the time it appeared, this hawk was upright with talons down. Pretty fierce, even for a baby.

Several weeks ago, up in Montana, a bald eagle rose up from the Flathead River and led us along a forest byway for several miles. That is one big, powerful bird!

My mate tells me there is likely to be message in all this -- like what am I going to pounce on next?