I ran out of time to do today’s post on our hike up into the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest behind our house in search of bears, cougars and snakes. Oh my. The best laid plans of mice and moose— you know how that goes. There were chores to do. So, I decided to pull a post from 2014 I did on kayaking a small lake that’s about 8-miles from our home. I’ve blogged on Squaw Lake since. You may have seen photos but each trip is different. It is quite beautiful. Enjoy.
Peggy paddling our inflatable Innova Kayak on Little Squaw Lake. (Her hair has grown like umpteen inches since— grin.)
Since Squaw Lake is only a few mile from our home, we can easily head up there when we have a couple of hours to spare.
Paddling under cloudy skies, we thought it might rain.
But then the sun came out, allowing for this very green reflection shot.
We kayaked up to the end of the lake and caught this photo of a young steer, who also seemed happy to see the sun.
Towering cumulus clouds dominated the horizon and spoke of a later thunder and lightning storm. We would be off the lake by then. Peggy and I have been caught out on much larger lakes during storms. Dangerous. Once, in Prince Albert National Park north of Saskatoon, Canada, we barely made it back to shore.
The clouds were reflected in the lake.
A curious turtle, blending into the green, checked us out.
Peggy’s sister, Jane Hagedorn and her husband Jim, joined us. We often take friends and family up to Squaw Lake. Its small size make it an ideal location for beginning kayakers.
A final photo capturing the beauty and peace of the lake. Ripples from a fish that had just jumped are on the lower right.
I don’t know if you kayak, but it is hard to find a more peaceful experience than kayaking on Squaw Lake. We hope to be back there soon. (Look for another post!) We are also planning a trip to Klamath Lake where you can follow ancient trails through the tules once used by Native Americans. That, plus the fact that large numbers of water fowl stop there in the spring and fall, makes it another favorite of ours. And finally, if you are ever in our neck of the woods, we would be glad to take you kayaking on Squaw Lake.
FRIDAY’S POST: The blog on our trip up the mountain, assuming I’m not distracted again!
I am continuing my exploration of the wild side of our property and the surrounding forest by looking at deer behavior today. While I am not sure that it is amusing to the deer, it is amusing to us, except of course, when it involves their eating Peggy’s carefully grown plants. We try to maintain a sense of humor about that. Watching the deer, and all of the wildlife around our property, is also an education. That’s half the fun.
“Okay, guys. Listen up. I am king here. As long as you remember that I eat first, we’ll all get along fine.” Not everyone agreed.
A buck is up at the deer block having a discussion about his right to eat first. It isn’t so much about eating as it is about dominance. If everyone agrees, he will have a few bites and be on his way. And then someone else will have the discussion. It works it way downward. This time, a teenage buck was chased off— rather dramatically. But it doesn’t end there. Buck number one is sent packing by buck number three, who has bigger antlers. Size matters.
“I warned you. Now you pay.” Note how other deer slip in to grab a bite while the confrontation is taking place.“Not so fast. You may be larger but I have bigger antlers!” Ah, the agony of defeat when the small guy kicks your tail.
I’ve watched a scene unfold several times where the dominant deer chases away the next deer in line, who immediately goes over and kicks the next deer, who goes over and kicks the next one, etc. until there isn’t anybody left to kick. The confrontations are rarely violent. They often end with a gentle tap— as long as the other deer gets the idea. Sometimes there is no confrontation at all, especially among families. And everyone lets fawns eat their fill.
“I’ll scratch behind your ear if you will get my neck.” Grooming is one way deer families build and maintain ties. It starts with moms and fawns and continues even after the kids are fully grown.This short video captures the deer grooming each other. I found it humorous. Peggy said “so much for social distancing.”
Peggy and I usually don’t put up a deer block. We prefer that the deer behave like deer and eat plants. (As long as they aren’t ours.) But I do put up one when the moms are in their last stages of pregnancy. My reason/excuse is that it helps supplement their diet. But I confess, I like the fact that it encourages the moms to bring their kids by, not to mention all the action we get to see.
Not much action here. One of the extended deer families is having an afternoon snooze with the deer block only a few feet away. Every once in a while, one stands up for a nibble.Other animals and birds also like the deer blocks including ground squirrels, jays, turkeys, and acorn woodpeckers. In this particular instance, a raven has come to visit. It’s the first one I have ever seen on our property. Judging from Momma-to-be’s reaction, it is the first time she has ever seen one either! Her expression says, “Who and what are you? And what do you intend to do with my deer block?”“Eat!” appears to be the answer. “And if you don’t like it, I’d suggest you bounce on down the canyon!” Momma deer didn’t buy it.
While the deer block is only up for a few weeks, our bird bath is open for business 24/7 year round. I’ve never seen a bird bathe in it (maybe we have dirty birds), but just about everyone stops by for a drink.
A gray squirrel slurps up water while its companion looks on…And then joins in.Although there is a natural spring down in the canyon, the deer seem to prefer the bird bath. We’ve learned that one deer can drink a lot.And two drink a lot more. Peggy and I are constantly refilling the ‘spring.’Let me introduce Young Buck. His antlers are just beginning their growth spurt. He’s a handsome fellow.And a bit full of himself. If he looks like trouble, that’s because he is. Consider the following:We work hard to keep the deer away from our plants. One solution is planting things they don’t like. The poppies I featured last week are an example. Lavender is another. Our garden has a ten-foot high fence around it! And this is what I call the Maginot Line of deer barriers. Peggy and I built these Gabion cages several years ago. No deer had ever leapt over them. That is until……Young Buck. He jumped over the Gabion cage barrier, scrambled over the cement block wall behind it, sampled the newly plated honeysuckle and leapt over the seven foot dirt wall beyond that. Three times. The last time I had a discussion with him on how delicious venison stew is. Peggy and I also added another small fence. So far, he hasn’t jumped over again. But with him, there aren’t any guarantees. The other deer just stand around and watch in awe, waiting to see what happens. Normally lots of yelling, “BAD DEER!”Having shown a bad deer, I’ll conclude today’s post by showing a good one eating Mekemson-approved deer food, young oak leaves. The problem here is that the deer was using one of Peggy’s planter villages as a ladder. She had been wondering why her houses and elves kept ending up on the ground!
NEXT POST: More wilderness encounters and lore. Peggy and I hike up the mountain looking for cougars and bears and snakes while a small bird feeder provides more entertainment than either the deer block or the bird bath spring. It’s the law of the jungle out there!
Today, Peggy and I continue our ‘walks on the wild side,’ which are a primary form of entertainment for us while sheltering at home. Our local spring wildflowers provide the focus but I couldn’t help adding the rosebush that came across America in a wagon train.
Calochortus elegans lily, or as more commonly known, elegant cat’s ear. It’s easy to see how this fuzzy fellow earned its common name. It is closely related to an old friend of mine, the Mariposa lily of the Sierra Nevada’s.
Our common names for flowers are often amusing. Hound’s tongue and elegant cat’s ear certainly are. But they can also be confusing. For example, one of the flowers I will feature today is Oregon grape. It isn’t the plants only common names, however. I found one list that included holly-leaf barberry, mountain grape, Oregon grape holly, Oregon barberry, blue barberry, creeping barberry, holly barberry, holly-leaved Berberis, holly Mahonia, Mahonia, Mahonie, scraperoot, trailing Mahonia, Uva de Oregon, Vigne de l’Oregon and water-holly— in addition to Oregon grape— for a total of 18 different names! Probably the best physical description is Oregon grape holly, but the plant is neither a grape or a holly. Nor is it found only in Oregon. It’s easy to see why botanists depend upon the plants scientific name, Mahonia aquifolium. Or is that Berberis aquifolium? (Grin) There even seems to be some debate over its scientific name!
These bright yellow flowers of Mahonia aquifolium or Oregon grape will eventually turn into blue grape-like berries. The leaves have a distinct holly-like look.Regardless of its name, Oregon’s state flower is quite beautiful. It’s also known for its healing properties. Native Americans used it for stomach trouble, hemorrhages, and tuberculosis as well as a number of other ailments. Modern herbalists have also found it useful.
I started out mis-identifying hound’s tongue. I thought it was a forget-me-not— lots of pretty little blue flowers lighting up the day. I even had an old rant of mine prepared for today’s post. Legend has it that someone in Europe fell off a cliff or drowned in a river while clutching the flowers. His final act was to throw throw them to his lover while yelling, “Forget me not!” My experience with the plant is that when it goes to seed, all of its pretty little flowers turn into hundreds of obnoxious burrs that end up on your pants, socks and shoe laces! They are extremely hard to brush off and leave numerous stickers in your hands. Once you have had this experience, you never forget the plant.
My apologies to hound’s tongue (Adelinia grande), who apparently only wanted to lick me. (Kidding on the latter.) It gets its common name from its leaves that are said to look like a hound’s tongue. They can be found along the west coast of North America from British Columbia to California.
The small blue flowers reminded me of forget-me-nots but the prominent white center and leaves said it was another plant. As to whether the leaves look like a hound’s tongue, they certainly don’t look like the tongue of Socrates the Basset Hound who hung out with me for several years.The white center of the flower turns into prickly nutlets that look suspiciously like they might also stick to you..
And now, for the rest of the flowers:
This beauty is a lemon fawn lily (Erythronium citrinum). We normally only have a couple of weeks to catch it bloomingAnother view.I grew up with these, white leaf manzanita flowers (Arctostaphylos viscida). By late summer these flowers produce bright red fruit that is sweet to eat, a favorite of raccoons, coyotes and a number of other animals, including small boys. The plant can live for a hundred years and the seeds can last in the soil for decades. Peggy and I were hiking up in the forest when she spotted this flower. It was new to us, and striking. Of its two common names, grass widow or satin flower, my favorite is the latter. Its scientific name is Olsynium douglasii. Another flower from my youth are shooting stars (Dodecatheon hendersonii). They grow in profusion on our property and are one of the first flowers of spring. And by profusion, I mean profusion! The lonely little yellow flower is a butter cup.My immediate thought was violet, but the leaves seemed wrong. Violet it was, however, Shelton’s violet (Viola sheltonii).We call this pretty flower a red bell or scarlet scarlet fritillary (Fritillaria recurva). It’s a native of Southern Oregon. Another view. The petals demonstrate why”recurva’ is part of its scientific name.There is no doubt about this flower’s family. Arrow leaf balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittate) is a member of the sunflower family. Apparently, Native Americans found it yummy. Nearly all parts of the plant were eaten.This photo provides a view of where the name ‘arrow leaf’ comes from.A photo of the flower to show off its camouflaged spider. Check out the face on its abdomen!And finally, I had to include our pioneering Oregon rosebush. Like my Oregonian ancestors it originally came across America in a covered wagon. Unlike my ancestors, it had been stuck into a potato to survive. Peggy obtained the rose as a sprig and has grown it into the beauty it has become today. It has literally hundreds of blooms. It just started blooming this week!A close-up to finish today’s post.
On Monday… We are going to check out the bear’s cave to see if anyone is home and visit with some of our local wildlife, or at least check out some of the signs they left behind! Who ate the turkeys? Who ate our baby Douglas fir? Who left the fur-filled scat (non-scientific name: poop) behind. And that’s just the beginning.
Peggy and I are continuing to hike around our five acres and the Rogue River–Siskiyou National Forest that abuts the back of our property. It serves as a form of entertainment and exercise during our ‘sheltering at home.’ On Monday I featured white oaks with personalities. Today I had picked out ten flowers to feature but the California poppies (Eschscholzia californica) growing down our hill in ever-increasing abundance demanded their own post. These guys produce a gazillion seeds (something like 100,000 per ounce) and are a bit aggressive. Since they are invading territory previously occupied by star thistle— in serious competition for being the world’s most obnoxious plant— we encourage them to invade away. Go, poppies, go!
It was about 9 a.m. and our poppies were just waking up when I took this photo. A spider had used it as a convenient post for attaching its web.
Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies…
Remember this rhyme from your childhood? London Bridge is falling down. I don’t remember anyone telling us the grim story behind it in the second grade, but it isn’t totally irrelevant today. The ditty was created during the time of the plague and the rosy was a red spot on a person’s body that indicated that he or she had caught the dread disease. A pocket full of posies were a pocket full of flowers and herbs that the individual hoped would keep the disease away.
The posie evolved into a small bouquet of flowers that could be warn in a person’s hair, fit into a lapel, or placed on a dining table. I’ve further adapted it to mean all flowers. Thus, pretty poppy posies. It’s good for alliteration. As for the plague, if our California poppies want to keep covid-19 away, we won’t complain. They are, after-all, said to have several positive medicinal benefits including managing pain, anxiety, and insomnia, which sounds pretty good, given our present pandemic.
If this also sounds like heavy-duty drugs, you might recall that the California poppy’s distant cousin, Papaver somniferum (which translate as the poppy that brings sleep) is the opium poppy. Derivatives of opium include morphine, codeine, oxycodone, and heroin. Used properly they bring relief from pain. Used improperly, they are all sorts of bad news. Just think of the hassles that Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, and Toto had when they crossed over the opium-poppy field to get to the Emerald Palace. Snore. Fortunately Scarecrow and the Tin Man didn’t suffer the affliction.
You’ve probably sampled the opium poppy. And I don’t mean that you are shooting up heroin. Its seeds are included in muffins, on bagels, in salads, etc. While the trace amounts of opium aren’t enough to get you high or lead to addiction — although I confess to an unnatural fondness for poppyseed muffins— they are enough to disqualify you for the Olympics or possibly get you fired since they show up in drug tests. “But Coach, I was just eating a poppy seed muffin.” Right.
California poppies don’t have the same package of alkaloids that opium poppies do, but what they do have is enough to discourage deer from eating them, which is the number one criteria for range-free flowers at our place. And that certainly seems to eliminate a lot of pain, anxiety and insomnia for us. So maybe the claims made by the herbalists are true.
But enough on that; it’s time for the pretty poppies posing part of this post!
When we moved into our house 10 years ago, what was growing here were wall to wall star thistle plants. I pulled them out, chopped them down and poisoned them, but they insisted on coming back. So we planted poppies. Nothing happened for several years and then three years ago poppies started popping up. They have been spreading like crazy ever since.This will give you an idea of how steep the hillside is. Weed whacking and pulling is a real hassle. Watching poppies spread is ever so much easier! This is three weeks ago before the poppies had started blooming in profusion. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)Here is a view of what the leaves and early buds look like.A close up of a poppy bud.The poppy reaches a point where it begins to shed its bud cover.Almost there…Free at last. Free at last. Are these guys twins?And the flower begins to open. The sheer beauty of these flowers explains why California chose the poppy as its State Flower in 1903.And further along. As far as I can tell, the opening of the flower here is the same as the flower opening every morning. Poppies close in the evening and reopen in the morning. They also prefer to remain closed on cloudy days and when a cold wind is blowing.Early morning has always been one of my favorite times of the day to photograph poppies.By ten or eleven the flowers are close to being fully open.Which this one is here. (The white flowers that you see are Cryptantha flaccida, or limp stem cryptantha, not a very flattering name.)And here.Once the poppy petals reach this point they are about to drop, which leads to the next phase of the plant’s life.The poppies in the middle have been pollinated, dropped their petals, and are ready to develop seeds.Here is a close up of the seed pod. It grows longer, a lot longer.Almost ready to spread its seeds. One of the flowers donated this pod so it could live forever on the internet. (Grin) It is packed full of up to 100 seeds. When mature, the pod explodes, shooting seeds up to six feet away. Which is why the poppies are marching down our hill! Outliers can be seen at the bottom. They will soon be joined. Come back at this time in 2021 for the next installment.
FRIDAY’S POST: The rest of the interesting and gorgeous flowers that Peggy and I have found hanging out on our property and in the national forest.
From the beginning we declared this the Hobbit Tree. Look carefully and you can see Smaug sweeping out of the sky on a mission of vengeance.
Peggy and I continue to shelter in place and find ways of entertaining ourselves. One is to go for extended walks around our five acres and in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest that abuts our property. Naturally, I carry my camera on these daily excursions and look for things of interest. I’ve done several posts on these ‘walks on the wild side’ over the last ten years. It’s time for another one.
Walking is one way that many of us are dealing with our extended home-stays. One doesn’t have to live next to a national forest. A local park that is still open, the neighborhood— almost anywhere that is safe— works. It gets us out of the house and it’s great exercise. Looking for things of interest adds to the fun. Peggy, for example, is infinitely curious about what the neighbors are up to. She is constantly urging me to go on detours to find out.
As I was going through my photos last week for this blog, I decided I had enough material for three posts. It’s all about weird trees today. On Wednesday I’ll feature the spring flowers that Peggy and I have found over the past few weeks, including one on the endangered species list. Friday will be pure nature as in who is doing what. For example is a bear living in the bear cave? Peggy makes me throw rocks into the cave to check before we venture in. I’m pretty sure that all that will do is irritate the bear, but I accommodate her wish. And I am sure you will want to help us figure out whether a cougar, bobcat, or coyote left the scat (poop) we found full of hair. How could you not?
But first the trees. A few years ago I decided to do a inventory of what trees grow on our property. White oaks were the most common. I counted over a hundred. For the most part, these are handsome representatives of the tree world— standing tall while providing shade in the summer and a plethora of acorns in the fall. Just about everyone joins in the harvest, or so it seems: deer, tree squirrels, ground squirrels, turkeys, bears, etc. We watch the deer play human and stand on hind legs to reach beyond where their imagination normally takes them. Ground squirrels leave the ground and can be seen precariously perched in the highest branches while they madly chomp away with sharp incisors to free acorns before the acorn woodpeckers arrive.
But not all of the white oaks stand proud and tall. Some are stubby and twisted, and ancient— almost scary. A little horror music please. They look like they could easily fit into your favorite scary flick, or a fantasy movie, or a nightmare. My post on last Friday where I featured gargoyles from Dubrovnik made me think of them. Here are some of our favorites:
Smaug stares down at us from the Hobbit tree.This is the Evil Seal tree, definitely resembling a gargoyle.Here’s a close up, complete with vacant eye socket and a grinning, tooth-filled mouth. “Come closer, my dear. Let me whisper in your ear.” Chomp.This eyeless buck with its twisted horns also borders on evil. I may cover the nose in red come next Christmas. And here is where the werewolf hangs out on the upper right. I’m sure we hear him howling on moonless nights.Maybe not so scary, but still… the elephant. Interesting eyebrow, or is that a cap.The Brain!A gaping maw. It would take a brave (or foolish) person to stick her hand into it! “You first,” Peggy suggested.A great tree to be perched on the edge of a graveyard in a horror movie. The snake-like creature coming out of the tree is preparing to strike.Why am I thinking Voldemort?An even better graveyard tree! Perfect for a dark and stormy night.And finally, I will leave you with this lovely creature born out of fire. Make what you will out of it!
When I was a child, I used to believe in the Easter Bunny who hopped around delivering brightly colored eggs to children all over the world. He was like Santa, magical, but he didn’t have a sleigh and flying reindeer. So he had to be very, very fast. I believed that he was a jackrabbit, which happened to be the fastest bunny I knew. So what if he was a hare.
The bunny would need long legs and a streamlined body like these two jackrabbits that showed up in our back yard a few months ago.I mean, how in the heck could a fat, contented fellow like this make it around the world in one day? Furthermore, why would he want to?It’s much nicer to sit around munching green stuff and sleeping in the sun.Any suggestion that he slim down and start exercising would get you the ‘look.’He might even become a bad bunny. An no, no, no— you wouldn’t want that.
As an adult, I sadly gave up the idea of one Easter Bunny. It would take hundreds, thousands even millions of bunnies to make all the deliveries. But why not. Given the proclivity of bunnies to make other bunnies, lots of other bunnies, it is completely feasible. So I now believe in bunnies, bunnies everywhere. I even found one of their bunny production facilities. A few years ago I was traveling up the Northcoast of Oregon and came to the town of Tillamook. You may know it for its cheese, or even better yet, its ice cream.
I pulled into an RV campground and found enough bunnies to easily handle the city and surrounding countryside on Easter. I also noticed bunnies chasing each other around. I stopped one and asked one what was going on. “Are you blind,” he asked in amazement. “We are making more bunnies so the old fat bunnies can retire. They get nasty if they have to work too hard.” Oh,” I had replied.
Everywhere I looked in the yard I saw bunnies.A young bunny was chowing down on grass so it could grow up and be an Easter Bunny.She stopped long enough to allow me to take her photo. “Aren’t I pretty,” she noted. And yes, it’s true. Girl bunnies have an equal opportunity to grow up and become Easter Bunnies.
NEXT POST: It’s another arm chair travel day as I head off to the lovely city of Dubrovnik.
I was walking up to my writing place on the edge of the national forest when I ran into Floppy. “You are looking a little pregnant, Girl” I told her. She gave me the look and laid back her ears. “There is no such thing as being a little pregnant, Curt” she said primly in deer language. And she should know. She’s been dropping babies on our property for the past several years. Her two teenagers were hanging out in the grass 10-yards away. Floppy has been urging them to leave home lately. I saw one dashing down the hill yesterday with Floppy hot on its heels. This isn’t cruelty; it’s normal doe behavior. Floppy is about to have her fawn and the teenagers hanging around will give away its hiding spot to any number of predators.
I have several writing places around our property. In general, all that is required is a flat spot and a comfortable chair. And a view. Inclement weather normally calls for a more protected environment, preferably with heat. Thermometer-busting heat also sends me scurrying inside. This time with air-conditioning. I’m such a wimp. But the view is still required. As I mentioned on Friday, the variety has proven particularly valuable in the Age of Coronavirus. It helps counter the stir-crazy feeling of isolation.
It can’t decide whether to rain, or snow this morning. Blue skies are predicted for this afternoon and seventy-degree weather later in the week. It’s spring! I started writing this morning at 5:30 in the living room and then moved back to the bedroom at 7:00. Peggy, on occasion (2-3 times a week), likes to be served breakfast in bed. Who doesn’t? And she likes company. Nine a.m. is our limit for getting up and about, however, and I have now landed in the library.
My living room view, assuming of course that the sun has come up. The Red Buttes are looking a little wintry today.My bedroom writing location. Peggy has already vacated the premises but she returned to take the photo. The gorgeous quilt is one she made.The view from the bed.
Today I am going to take you on a tour of my favorite outside spots. I’ll start from the top and work down.
Quivera the Van’s home in the pole barn makes an excellent writing space. It is both protected and outside. It also sits on the edge of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. I took this photo from the national forest sign that marks the edge of our property.Peggy took this photo of me working in my comfy chair.A view down our road from my writing chair.Another advantage of the pole barn is that Quivera provides an even more protected place to write. She also comes with a stove for making coffee or tea and a restroom. This, BTW, is my writing place when we travel in the van.My next writing place is down the hill and sits on the edge of our canyon. The round object is my Weber smoker. It’s a good place to write and watch baby-back ribs smoke. The three handprints were put on the shed by our grandsons Ethan and Cody plus our neighbor William when they helped paint the shed a few years ago. The coffee table is our old safe re-purposed. And no, it is not stuffed with cash!While Peggy was taking my photo, one of the kids showed up to check out what we were doing. It even came with a teenager mohawk! (Actually it is shedding its winter coat.)Here I am writing on our patio. The table is covered with a large patio umbrella that works as a sunshade. We find bats sleeping in the folds of the umbrella on occasion when we open it. Eventually, they fly off. Our back porch also comes with a writing chair. The window is the library window that provides my view of the backyard. The extra chair is for visitors. My Weber grill is much smaller than the one that used to live in its space. A very large bear came up on our porch and tipped it over on a dark night. It made a big bang.I have no problem filling the visitor’s chair.While most of my views from the porch are the same as the library, I can check out the side hill with its white oaks (the deer like to lie up there and chew their cuds).Or look up the hill behind Quivera where Peggy and I do much of our hiking. It’s a great escape and exercise as we hang out at home. It’s a lot higher than this photo implies— about a thousand feet!I can also admire the beautiful madrone that stands next to the porch and provides welcome shade in the summer. Deer like to sleep at its base.And finally, there is our sunroom, lit up here by the early morning sun.Except on hot days, it is always a prime location to write.The views are always great, but a storm adds drama.If I need a break, I can talk to the giraffe…Or if I am suffering from a particularly bad case of writer’s block, watch Peggy’s sunflowers grow.I’ll conclude with a final photo of the sunroom. Romantic, eh? I caught the picture when I was rolling our garbage can down to the road! Oh yeah, one final thing. Thats not a squirrel up on the roof. It’s the top of a tree on the other side.
WEDNESDAY’S POST: It’s off to Athens as part of my armchair series.
Eeyore dons a face mask for a trip to the grocery store. He’s out of carrots.
Word-smiths are able to handle seclusion better than most people. Self-isolation provides writers with the focus needed to craft sentences. At least that’s true for me. The smallest interruption in the middle of a creative moment and zap— it’s gone. And boy is it grumpy about coming back! Of course, life is full of interruptions. The phone rings. More often than not, it’s a spam call. I have won a free cruise. All I have to do is buy a time-share. Woohoo.
More common, Peggy has something to share. Nothing unusual about that. As a husband and friend, it is my duty to listen and respond— in a positive way. I think she wrote that into our wedding vows. We’ve been happily married for 28 years, so I guess I’ve passed that test. And vice-versa. But Peggy is also sensitive to my needs as a writer. She made me a small hanging quilt with two sides. The side with books on it means I am writing. It’s quiet time. She walks by and smiles at me while pretending to zip her mouth. The little devil. Or plants a quick, quiet kiss on my lips. No way I can object to that. Or brings me a cookie still hot from the oven. Now she just walked out to fit me for a coronavirus mask she is sewing. But, for the most part, she honors the sign.
I asked Peggy if I could take a photo of demonstrating the smile and the zip. She held up a book, Mission to Civilize. I think she was referring to her efforts to civilize me, a 30-year effort with few results to date. “I have more time, now,” she said. Should I be worried? Hmmmm.Here’s the mask that she sewed for me. Our county now requires wearing masks when we are out in public. It reminded me of wearing dust masks at Burning Man…Which led me to grab my Burning Man hat and shades. I’m ready for the Playa. Whoops, it’s been cancelled. In case you are curious about how serious Peggy is about this mask business, she even made one for our elephant. They have big trunks, right. Think big sneezes!Suddenly, we hear a squeak from the book case. It’s Bone, self-isolating in his Bone Cave, demanding that Peggy make him a face mask, too.Of course Peggy does. Bone requests that I take his picture with some rapids in his background to remind him of the 43 years he has travelled the world before coronavirus. For those of you not familiar with Bone, I’ve placed the Bone Interview in my pages above. And added a question about Covid-19. His answer isn’t for tender ears.Eeyore goes into a tizzy when the pandemic is mentioned. It’s worse than misplacing his tail. Here I give him a little TLC. Or maybe he is giving me the TLC?
I turn the quilt over when I am not writing as my part of the bargain. There are lots of things I do related to working on my blogs or books that don’t require the same concentration. Doing research and processing photos are two examples. Interruptions are okay, even welcome. Except for spam calls. I particularly like the kisses and warm cookies.
“Darn, Curt has his writing sign up. I have to be quiet. Maybe if I bring him a warm cookie…”“Yay! Curt’s turned the sign around. Now where’s my list of 25 things I need to talk about.”
Like many writers, I discovered that I can also work in coffee houses. In fact, I like to. The noise of people talking becomes background, a form of white noise. It’s a way I can have human companionship while still being able to focus on writing. Plus, it gets me out of the house. When I lived in Sacramento, I would start my day with a 5-mile hike along the American River and then head for one of my favorite coffee houses for a couple of hours of uninterrupted writing. And then move on to another, and another.
It’s not so easy now. We live 30 miles from town, on the edge of being off-the-grid. Try as I might, it is really hard to justify making a 60-mile round trip into Medford so I can spend a couple of hours writing, or even several hours. Coronavirus has eliminated even that option. I make do here. It’s not hard. As most of you know, Peggy and I live on a beautifully wooded five acres with the Applegate River on one side and the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest on the other. Views of the Red Buttes, still covered in snow, dominate our views out the front. It’s a great place to write— or hide out from Covid-19.
My primary writing space is the library. I am surrounded by books and reminders of our travels for inspiration. The major attraction, however, is my window on nature. My chair turns so I can either stare at books or check the action outside. Right now, a pair of rosy finches are pecking it out over who gets first right to the bird feeder while two grey squirrels are chasing each other around and around a tree trunk. Love is in the air.
Few things give Peggy and me more comfort than books. They are even more important now.Our library is also filled with memories of our travels. This hanging is from Alaska. Peggy found the quilt hanging kit in a quilting shop in Anchorage.The view out our library window.
The downside here is that nature itself serves as an interruption! And the woodland creatures don’t give a hoot which way my quilt is facing. Of course, I can turn around or look down, but how do you ignore a deer looking in the window, or bringing a fawn by, or a pair of bucks fighting over who gets the doe. Or a whole herd coming by while I am working on this post…
Are you in there? Are you okay? Where’s my apple?She’s mine!“So this is what happens when I do that! I’m outta here…” The fawns are so tiny when their moms first bring them by.The deer really cooperated when I was working on this post. The whole herd showed up when they heard they could get their photo on the blog. They are admittedly looking a bit scruffy. This is the time of the year when they shed their winter coats.
The creature that wins the trophy for the most flagrant violation of my quiet time is a male flicker. These large members of the woodpecker family would normally win their lady loves by holding drumming contests on hollow logs. He who drums loudest wins fair maiden’s heart. You know how that goes. One particularly large fellow has discovered that drumming on our vents creates a noise louder than the loudest log. To us it sounds like someone is using a jackhammer on our roof. And the ladies gather round. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve discussed his obnoxious behavior with him— or lobbed pebbles in his direction— it’s rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat. Over and over again.
But even here with all the beauty and wildlife to amuse me, I get restless. The need to wander is buried deep in my soul. Fortunately, there is a temporary solution. I’ve designated a number of different locations inside and outside as writing spaces. When I get itchy feet, I move between them. And that, my friends, will be the subject of Monday’s blog.
Me, self-isolating.And finally. There has been a lot of confusion about how best to test for coronavirus on the national level, in case you haven’t noticed. This isn’t the way.
A great blue heron eyed me suspiciously when I took its photo in Florence, Oregon. Peggy and I had gone over to the coast for my birthday three weeks ago. The town has several excellent restaurants and we had made it a point to visit several. They are closed now. Coronavirus has arrived. The world has changed.
This coming Thursday we were flying out to Fort Lauderdale in Florida to climb on a cruise ship that was going to take us through the Panama Canal. There were to be stops along the way in Costa Rica, Columbia, Nicaragua and Mexico. Peggy was super excited. She had lived in Panama in the late 70s BC. (The BC here stands for Before Curt. DC is During Curt. We are hoping to avoid the AC.) She wanted to see her old home at Fort Amador, to revisit where her daughter Tasha was born, and visit the Canal again.
I was equally excited. Just watching Peggy would have been enough. But Panama, Columbia and Nicaragua were new countries for me and I am always up for seeing new places. Cartagena has been on my bucket list for a long time. I figured I would get enough blog material to last up until summer! But it wasn’t to be.
We watched nervously as coronavirus made its way from China into other countries. Given the nature of the disease and its rapid spread, the President’s words that we had only 15 cases in the US that would soon number zero rang hollow. It seemed to us like it was time to gear up and get ready, not play down the danger. It was hardly rocket science, or so it seemed to us.
Nothing focused our concern more about the trip than people being stranded on cruise ships with a highly contagious disease. Countries were refusing to let them land. Reluctantly and sadly, we came to the conclusion that the trip wasn’t worth the risk and cancelled. A few days later Princess Cruise Lines cancelled all of its cruises. That’s how fast this pandemic has developed.
As my post goes up this morning, I expect that our Governor, Kate Brown, will issue the same stay-home order for Oregon that our neighbors in Washington to the north and California to the south have. Our trips into town will be limited to quick in and outs to buy groceries and other necessities. (And no, we aren’t hoarding toilet paper.) We will practice the same social/physical distancing and hand washing/use of sanitizers that people throughout the world now find themselves doing. And we will try ever so hard to avoid touching our faces. The mere thought of it makes my nose itch.
We are lucky in that we live on five acres out in the boonies with our property backed up to a million acres of national forest. Social/physical distancing doesn’t get any easier. Our property is excited that we are going to be around to give it more attention than in normally receives— and the star thistle is bummed that I will be around to yank it out by the roots. It’s a nasty plant that spreads rapidly like coronavirus, kills off native plants, and sucks up precious groundwater. I’ll probably do a blog on it. Woohoo. Also on my to-do list: go looking for Bigfoot. There’s a reason why the world’s only Bigfoot trap is located three miles from our house. And I may go searching for gold. Why not. An old gold mine is located a few hundred yards behind our house up in the forest. Maybe Bigfoot hangs out there. I’ll let you know.
And speaking of blogging, it is hard to imagine a more positive activity in these perilous times we are facing. For one, it is the ultimate in social/physical distancing. Two, it keeps me occupied. And three, most importantly, it allows for safe social interaction with a number of people I have come to consider as close, Internet friends over the past several years. So keep blogging, stay safe, and don’t scratch your nose.
As I was writing about Bigfoot, this teenage doe slipped in and started drinking out of our birdbath. I grabbed my camera. Wildlife is an important part of our entertainment here. I’ll be blogging about it as well. We should soon have fawns. And then there is the flicker, a large woodpecker that has decided the best way to call his love is to pound on our roof vents. It sounds like a jackhammer. We’ve had a number of discussions but it seems that nothing can get in the way of true love. And finally, I’ll conclude with this butterfly hugging a flower, or so it seemed. A nice message. Take care.
NEXT POSTS: Still thinking about Wednesday. I may take you back to my journey down the Pacific Crest Trail, or off to Europe. Since travel is out, I have plenty of posts to remind me us of the how fun, interesting, and exciting travel there can be. Friday will be special. Peggy and I just made a trip up to Crater Lake National Park to see what it looks like in the winter. One word comes to mind: beautiful.
I didn’t have a clue what I would find the old boy brewing up at the Devil’s Kitchen in Bandon. But I was expecting something like the Devil’s Churn, which is found farther north up the Oregon Coast.
I figured the Devil had to cook with ghost peppers, and that got me excited. I like my food spicy hot and it doesn’t get much hotter. A tiny bit goes a long, long way, even for me. Lacking that, I thought I might at least find a churning, boiling sea like you find at the Devil’s Churn. Instead, I found a quiet, bucolic scene. Crooked Creek flowed peacefully out to the ocean.
Crooked Creek flowing out to the Pacific Ocean.
But wait a minute, I thought. The Devil is sneaky, right. Maybe Crooked Creek was indeed crooked. Maybe it tricked people into crossing and then sucked them under with quicksand. With this in mind, I went seeking other subtle reminders of the Devil’s presence.
And found this. If ever there was an example of the Devil’s handiwork… Note the smiley, evil face on the left. And then, Gonzo. Next comes an inebriated Santa, followed by a busty Old Mother Hubbard. And finally there is Tex Ritter. You can tell by the cowboy hat. But just who is Tex Ritter? What? Maybe you can’t see any of the above and you’re thinking Mekemson has gone over the edge. Maybe he is possessed. Backing up, I realized the truth. I was looking at a sand castle made by a kid who obviously needed some counseling. He didn’t even know that the moat was supposed to go on the outside.And then I saw it, as clear as the day. A hell hound. Look at those flaring nostrils and bulging eyes. I looked again and saw Goofy needing a haircut. Was this yet another example of the Devil being sneaky?Something had been eating rock! I looked up and saw an evil turtle glaring at me. I was becoming a believer.Even the driftwood took on a scary countenance. Look at the snout on this fellow and his hollow, haunting eye. I didn’t want to be around when the sun went down.At first I thought I saw a face here, maybe George Washington in his dotage. Then I realized that something very big had eaten a chunk out of the rock.People sometimes fall off cliffs. That seems a devilish thing to do. Usually they are standing on the edge taking a selfie of themselves. Don’t they know that selfies are the creation of the Devil? While I feel sorry for these folks who give their all for a fleeting moment of fame, I can’t help but wonder if something Darwinian isn’t involved. Given that this particular cliff was three inches high and the water was two inches deep, there wasn’t much danger, however.And finally the ultimate proof. Most people think of this as kelp, but actually, it is the Devil’s bull whip!In the end, even though I had discovered several hints of the Devil’s presence, I decided that the area was just too pretty to be associated with Hell.Even the rock with the chunk missing looked harmless from the distance.And this sea stack caught in the afternoon sun was close to beautiful.I walked back toward my van through the trees…And found this sign. Turns out there was nothing devilish about Devil’s Kitchen at all.No longer fearing for my soul, I hung out on the beach to see a final sunset before I left Bandon heading south. I’ll be back.
NEXT POST: The Wednesday Photo Essay. Four years ago in February, Peggy and I went for a ride on the Alaska Railway from Anchorage to Fairbanks with our son Tony and his family. Join us as we check out Mt. Denali and attend a world championship ice carving contest.
Wandering through Time and Place 