Schoolless

Communing with Nature

This is a picture of our toilet on Boblo Island.

You will note, that although it is a perfectly serviceable toilet, it is situated outdoors on a deck, where its normal use is somewhat impractical.
Issues with the toilet on Boblo have a long and colorful history. Last summer, Chris spent two days beating it into submission, and we were finally able to make partial use of it. This time, too, the toilet's capricious nature made it necessary for Chris to remove it from its usual location while he attended to needed repairs.
I mention all this only to explain how it was, that I found myself in the thicket, with a shovel and a roll of slightly damp toilet paper, communing with nature.
While I was thus engaged, I heard knocking. It wasn't the insistent tdtdtdtdtdtdtd! of the woodpeckers I've grown accustomed to in Chicago, but rather the slow, deliberate knock!.... knock!.... knock!... of a much larger bird. I quickly composed myself and pointed my face up into the tree canopy. And there, on a branch not ten feet above my head was the most beautiful pileated woodpecker I ever saw.
I've glimpsed others before, and they were doubtless just as attractive. It's just that none ever sat still long enough for me to appreciate its charms. This one continued its laborious knocking, slowly circling the tree trunk as it went about its business, as if I hadn't been there.
This was, understandably, one of those moments when I didn't have my camera. I rose to my feet and gingerly started to move in the direction of the cabin. The bird continued to ignore my presence. Encouraged by this, I ran to collect both the camera, and members of my family. Alas, while the woodpecker was tolerant of a solitary person in the vicinity, a larger group alarmed him, and he took wing, and disappeared from view. Chris and the kids gave up on him, but I was determined to get a photo. I knew where he had gone, and reasoned that if I stay still enough, as I, after all, had been doing when I first spotted him, he was sure to reappear.
He did. But, sadly, I never got close enough to him to get a decent picture. He was now aware of my presence, and every time I raised my camera, he flew off to a more distant branch. I followed him as stealthily as I could through the damp woods, and I was able to observe him quite well in flight, but this was the best I could do. This one's for Kim, such as it is.

This bird has flown

The bird looked like a discarded candy wrapper as we approached. Though he was in plain sight, my eyes scanned the grass nearby trying to find him, as my brain resisted identifying the shock of bright blue on the ground as an actual living creature.

It huddled along the edge of the bike path, with feathers fluffed out, and head thrust deep into its shoulders. All four of us squatted around in consternation. We knew nothing about birds. He didn't appear to be hurt, and hopped around a bit, as if to reassure us that he was OK. He twisted his head sideways a little, to try to get a good look at all of us. But whenever I reached out and tried to touch him from above, he skittered back, and tucked his head in a little more.

We couldn't let him stay there. The climate was inhospitable; the neighborhood full of predators. Now that we have seen him, he has become our responsibility. We knew nothing about how to win his trust, let alone how to care for him.

Chris suggested I hold out a finger, and the bird hopped on, gripping my finger gently with the bony, sharp claws. I had never held a bird before, and certainly never had one hold me. His grip communicated unmistakeably the vibrant life, a life now perched bravely on my index finger.

I rose gingerly, and started walking very slowly toward our house. I trusted that along the way we would come up with some plan on how to preserve and protect this creature whose trajectory unexpectedly collided with ours. As we walked, the bird hopped along my forearm, and settled in the crook of my elbow, facing me. I observed with wonder the raised tuft of feathers running along its back, and the long, extremely slender, dark blue tail. I marveled at the intricacy of its markings, and the curious arrangement of its claws. I was immediately smitten with tender love for this creature that I had never seen before, and never suspected I could love.

He seemed to return the sentiment. As I walked slowly, planting my feet with deliberate care step after each cautious step, he nuzzled into my arm, and soon was nibbling gently on the folds of my wool sweater. He continued exploring it with his beak thread by thread, moving ever so slowly along my arm back toward my hand.

And then, as quickly and decisively as he jumped onto my finger, he flung himself into the air with outstretched wings, and disappeared like a spirit into the thicket of leaves above our heads.

We stood there stunned, with our faces pointing up, wanting him back, we, who minutes ago didn't even know he existed.

Will work for food

Nadia and I were dragging our feet returning home from a walk along the stony beach of Boblo Island. The boys ran ahead with my friend Mary, and I fell even further behind than my daughter, as I scanned the ground for the perfect letter-shaped stones to spell a message to our island neighbors.

I heard Nadia yell for her brother, but he was too far ahead to hear her over the hum of the waves. I ran up to her, but before I could say anything, she put her finger on her mouth: "ssshh.... snake!..."

No, it wasn't the one pictured above. That's a rattlesnake. Yes, they have them on Boblo. But for this experience, I was again caught without my camera. Nadia and I gave up trying to call the boys back, and gave our full attention to the snake. He was probably a common garter snake, with a beautiful, velvety black on its back, and two yellow stripes along the sides. His head and neck were about the size of my thumb, and bright orangey-yellow. He was less than two feet long.

We watched as he deliberately made his way up the stony beach. He swayed his head side to side, and every so often flickered his tongue, using his unique snake organs to sense some prey that we knew from his behavior had to be there. We looked around, but couldn't see anything obvious. We saw a few small hollows in the ground that we thought might have harbored some insects, but the snake slithered right over them, and continued doggedly on his way. In twenty minutes, he traversed about seven feet of beach, sensing his way with patience, and assurance. He did not seem bothered by our presence.

When he crested the ridge of rocks, there was a small mossy area, and Nadia observed that some of the moss was slightly disturbed in a couple of spots. The snake made his way to this opening, and plunged his head under the moss. We held our breaths. The snake emerged.

"Froggy!" yelled Nadia, hid her head in my shirt, and burst into tears.
"Sweetie, you knew he was hunting!"
"But I thought it was going to be an insect"
"Oh, honey, you don't have to watch this if you don't want to, but the snake has to eat"

In the end, she elected to run and join the boys. I determined to see the spectacle through to the end. I squatted in an awkward position on the stony bank, and watched, transfixed, a scene that I had only read about in books. The snake's head, as I said, was roughly the size of my thumb. The frog, or toad, most likely, was the size of a small chicken egg. The snake clasped its head in his jaws, as it pulled it out of the burrow. Though the frog twitched somewhat, it put up surprisingly little struggle. I don't know if this particular type of snake used any kind of venom, or if the prey simply asphyxiated.

I expected I don't know what. That the snake's jaws would open like the gates of hell, and swallow the toad in one giant gulp? In fact, the bulk of the toad passed through the snake's gullet extremely slowly, and the effort the predator had to make to earn his meal was palpable. He paused frequently, uncoiled and contracted his body drawing the meal in very gradually. It did not pass through the snake's body as a big, round lump, but rather was formed into an elongated thickening as the snake worked to engulf it. There was also surprisingly little gore. However, there was an element of the macabre, as the snake finished drawing in the body of the toad, and rested a spell with the grotesque handlebar mustache of frog legs sticking out of its mouth.

Although the snake was the predator, it occurred to me how extremely vulnerable he was at a moment like this. Whatever ability he had to move with a large prey slipping slowly though his throat was further impeded by the prey's large limbs getting in the way of escape from a potential larger predator.

I further wondered whether, if such a predator came along, would it be getting two meals for the price of one. The toad, after all, was still very much in evidence as a separate entity. When would the prey cease to have an identity of its own, and become fully a part of the snake?

These are the insects in our neighborhood (and beyond)

This summer, we've been spending a lot of time at my mom's. Big house, big yard, big woods. Sort of empty without my dad. And without him, not much for the kids to do, while mom and I attend to boring adult business that inevitably follows a loved one's departure.

My mother's neighbor across the road owns a beautiful piece of property with a lovely river running through her some 120 acres. Initially, the kids thought it would be boring there, but once they started searching for frogs on the riverbank, they could not be pulled away despite a fierce mosquito attack.

We spent a large portion of this summer looking around just seeing what we would find. One of the most numerous and interesting things we've found were bugs. Here are some of them:

Bumblebees seem to be the most active pollinators in our yard.

Here's one coming in for a landing.

Just a wasp, but isn't this a great flower?

Ah, my favorite, a hawk moth that hovers like a hummingbird.

Never enough of these guys.

They have competition for the milkweed.

And don't you think they are all so pretty. Here's something to give you goosebumps:

A ladybug with her herd (or is it horde?) of aphids.

Hey! They're not pollinating! They're ...um ...fornicating!!!

Bird poop on my car? No, it's a wood nymph moth, aka "bird poop moth". Good thing Peter stopped me before I scraped it off.

And finally, a stickbug on the patio door screen.

"Lesson Planning" with my son

Sorry. No picture in this post.

Where is the camera when I need it?
Last month, I missed a doe tandem nursing her twins across the street from my house.
Today, Peter and I watched, appalled and fascinated at the same time, as a hawk swooped down and went after a sparrow within yards of us. The sparrow hid in the grass, the hawk perched above. Who won this waiting game?

Later, in the car, Peter and I were having the following conversation:

So, how do you most like to learn?
I dunno.
I mean, I know you don't like worksheets, but do you like books? Movies? What?
Well, if I was gonna do worksheets, I might as well be in school.
Right. But what way do you think you'd most like to learn.
Just go out there and see stuff. Like the hawk today. That was cool.
Yeah, wasn't it? But what other kind of stuff would you like to go and see?
I dunno. You just go out there and see. Some days nothing might happen. But other times you might see something cool. But if you don't go out, you won't see it.

The reason I don't have a camera handy for all these "learning opportunities", is that it's impossible to tell when one will come up. As I learned from searching for owl pellets last year, the more you look for owl pellets, the more they will not be there. But if your eyes and mind our open to new discoveries, sooner or later you're bound to find something that will astound you.
Like revelations from your own kid.

Teen Mom

No one ever told this teen mother not to nurse in public.

Right there, in front of our house, in broad daylight, tandem-nursing her little spotty-butted twins! I felt pretty silly about not having my camera. By the time I got it, the twins disappeared into the tall grass.

But this young mother is no shrinking violet. I first met her a few weeks ago on a Sunday morning on the new bike path that runs by our house. At first, I couldn't understand why a young doe kept walking back and forth across the busy section of the bike path. It was curious: she'd saunter slowly one way, turn her head back, and trot back vigorously. Over and over again. What the...?

As I got closer, I noticed in the thicket on the edge of the path, a small, no bigger than a beagle, wobbly-legged creature, far too timid to cross the road with its mother, what with the people, and dogs, and bikes and strollers everywhere. It occurred to me that she must have just given birth to it that morning, right there, behind Sauganash park, and now was trying to walk it to the relative safety of the woods.

Silly, young, inexperienced mother!

I later realized she had twins. I don't know how I recognize her; I just know it's the same doe. Very young, svelte, with a caramelly coat, big ears and gorgeous moist eyes. Well, it sounds like a lot of does, but this one is different. She hangs out on the edge of the woods, or right by the bike path, and her little ones have been seen wandering, seemingly unsupervised, down the neighborhoods street.

I know there are too many deer here. But I hope they make it, this charming little threesome.

Angelface

Have you met Angel?
She's our dog-in-law. She belongs to auntie Lisa. Lisa adopted her from a shelter, and now Angel enjoys a truly heavenly life.
The reason I'm thinking about Angel right now is that I am itching.
Angel is much too well cared for to have fleas, but I am remembering that the occasion when I last saw her was when I got bitten. We traveled to join our relatives in Indiana to celebrate a milestone anniversary with Lisa.
After a lovely dinner we were relaxing in the screenhouse enjoying cake and cocktails, and feeling somewhat bad for my mother-in-law who spent the better part of the afternoon afternoon applying anti-itch remedies to her limbs. It did not occur to any of us that whatever had bitten her might be hanging around for more. Protected -- so we thought -- by the screens, we were lulled into a false sense of security, and enjoyed our beverages and conversation without the slightest thought of insects.
It was on the drive back to Chicago that night that we realized we had fallen prey to some miniscule, vicious and voracious little creature, that made us look like we were coming down with the measles. Even worse was the way the little bites felt. All the tried and true remedies for mosquito bites failed to bring appreciable relief.
The insects attacked only those parts of use where skin was exposed. Did Angel's thick, beautiful coat protect her from the indignity?