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Alaska, August 2018

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Alaska is a vast land of deep forests and wild oceans that provide habitat for some of the world’s most charismatic creatures and livelihood for humans rugged enough to weather its harsh climatic and economic conditions. On a nine-day cruise of the Alaskan Inside Passage with family to celebrate my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary, I was continually struck by the disjunction between the fierce beauty of the natural environment and the manufactured consumerism of the gigantic ship on which we traveled. Like all tourism to areas of ecological preservation, Alaskan cruises are paradoxical in that the boat is invasive and even destructive of the very thing upon which it depends: Alaska’s wildness.

I call this picture “What are these people looking at?” As family members are looking, in fact, at the sea and sky at the southern end of the Inside Passage, I caught the gorgeous golden glow of the setting sun reflected against the ship.  While they peered through the viewers, I noticed the light’s intensity and quickly snapped the shot. I haven’t done anything to the camera or photo to get these colors. Even though it all looks artificial, the air, light, and water form the natural environment engulfing the ship, an eerie juxtaposition.

My own participation in the tourism paradox made me uncomfortable, but I went on the cruise to be with my parents, who at 80 needed the comfort of the boat to travel to a state they had long wanted to visit. I loved being on the water but not on the ship; stops at the ports of Ketchikan and Skagway for hikes and tours outside the established tourist consumer areas were highlights for me, although these encounters were still tourist “excursions,” as they’re marketed, and therefore still part of a manufactured experience.

As I write about my time in Alaska, I’m trying to differentiate between my discomfort with the ecologically unsustainable aspects of the trip (not only the waste from the ship, but the ship’s very presence in Alaskan waters) and my gratitude for the opportunity to witness a small part of the state’s ecological wonders, maintained and supported by the indigenous knowledge and customs of its Native peoples that provide yet another—and more ecologically beneficial–juxtaposition of human and nature. This seems a big undertaking—but it’s a big state.

Writing Exploration: Write about your own observations of disjunction between the natural and human-built environments. How were these environments different or in conflict? And how did you experience your own participation in these paradoxes? What insights do you draw about your position with/in such ecological frameworks?

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Return to Wonder

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I had to look up a lot of things last week. It’s amazing how much, at middle age, I still don’t know. For example, what do you call a group of butterflies? According to the internet, possible collective nouns include a flight, a flutter, a swarm, or, more poetically, a kaleidoscope.

All of these answers evoke the lovely assembly of color and movement displayed by butterflies, but when my grandson and I were encircled by orange and black fritallaries on the Nighthawk trail of rabbit brush and yucca framed by red Colorado buttes, “cloud” was the word we chose. Sweeping and brushing above and around us as if we weren’t even there, dozens of butterflies accompanied us thirty feet down the trail, alighting only long enough for a five-year-old to touch a wing with the gentlest of fingers while I snapped a few photos for future ID.

Back from our hike, we loaded the photos onto my laptop and pulled up my go-to page for “butterflies of Boulder County.” I have to admit I’d never heard of fritallaries before, so we had to search by individual photos rather than type. Once my grandson and I zeroed in on the fritallary family, we found 10 to choose from, each with a different pattern of spots and stripes on both sides of their wings. Comparing each species with our photos, we decided the butterflies circling us were Northwestern Fritallaries. We had to look up how to pronounce their name, too!

Five-year-olds are all about understanding their world, whether through books, play, or jumping with both feet into whatever curious mud puddle of a situation presents itself, despite the appropriateness of their boots. Children of that age take time to ask questions to help them learn how the new and often odd things they encounter line up with what they already know. My grandson stops me when I use a word he doesn’t yet know, or asks me what something means when he’s reading on his own. He favors non-fiction, but he’s always up for a good story like My Side of the Mountain. His favorite area of inquiry is the animal kingdom, which extends to insects when confronted with those of particular interest such as butterflies swirling alongside as we hike.

Five is a powerful age for blending fact and fiction, magic and science. On the trail where we saw the frittalaries, my grandson also glimpsed the back side of two retreating mountain lions in the scrub oak, members of the feline family, as he reminded me, I wasn’t quick enough to see. When in imagination mode, he often pretends he’s an animal himself. After our hike, he gave me a “bear” kiss. “That’s the best bear kiss I’ve ever had,” I said. To which the little bear replied in his growly voice: “I don’t think you’ve had very many others.”

Our next hike was at a place we call Heron Ponds since a heron rookery, or heronry, is located nearby and we often spot great blues on our walks there. This time, we spotted a bird neither of us had noticed before, a black bat-winged duck with an orange beak and long neck down which it was struggling to swallow a very large fish. We watched duck and fish in their mortal tug-of-war for ten minutes before the duck won, its neck stretched fish-shaped as the prey slid down its throat. Was the bird a loon? A grebe? We weren’t sure, so again we turned to an internet source for Boulder County and quickly found our duck was a double-crested cormorant, an increasingly common resident to our area because of the shared heronries.

But that wasn’t the only interesting animal we encountered at Heron Ponds. Out in the depths of one of the ponds lurked a dark shadow from which thin branches protruded. “There’s a hippotamous!” my grandson cried.

“Really?”

“Yes, I see it.”

“Maybe so,” I say. “Don’t they usually live in Africa?”

“Yes, but it might have walked here.”

“Across the ocean?”

“Yes, it walked underwater,” he says, although the giggle in his voice shows this idea doesn’t quite square with his knowledge of how the world really runs.

The next time we drive by the ponds, my grandson says we should call them “Hippo Ponds” instead of “Heron Ponds.” He still insists he saw a hippo there, and I don’t disagree. Instead, I suggest what we really saw was a “Hippopondamus,” a hybrid creature blending a hippo and its adopted habitat, the pond. Hybrids are a new interest for my grandson. After we’d looked up the cormorant, we watched a video about strange animals like the “tion,” a combination of tiger and lion bred in captivity, and the “groler,” a grizzly/polar bear mix that has occurred in nature as a warming climate brings the territories of these creatures together.

Clouds of butterflies, fish-necked ducks, and animals from another continent taking up residence in our own backyards. I know my grandson realizes that no such thing as a “hipponpondamous” exists, but we like to say its name and tease each other about it. When we’re together, I remember the planet is too amazing to worry about what’s scientific and what’s imaginary. The world is big enough for both. Everything we experience is curious and beautiful and alive. Five-year-olds remind us that nature is full of wonder. Just look around and you’ll see.

Writing Exploration: Ecobiography is a way of writing about who we are and how we live through our relationship with/in the natural world. As adults, we’re trained to look with the eyes of science in which facts are true until proven otherwise and imagination is relegated to fancy, magic, or art. But by only looking through the lens of a so-called rational system, we may miss out on how incredible the world can be.

What might we see if we suspended the science we already know to look at the natural world with fresh, five-year-old eyes? A leopard lurking in spotted shadows? A winged tornado? Trees that grow upside down?

For your ecobiography, write about a childhood discovery of the natural world. What did you observe and how did your evolving sense of the world help you understand what you saw? Write it from the perspective of a five-year-old, too, to bring an even greater sense of wonderment into your writing voice.

Or go to the natural world and try to recreate a child’s view. How might you look at nature’s habitats and creatures differently by forgetting taxonomy or biology? How might your imagination create a new story about the world swirling around you as you walk?

 

 

 

 

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Emerge

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March is a month of intermittence. On Colorado’s Front Range, the weather changes daily, often mid-daily, from sunshine to rain to snow and back again.

March is also the month of emergence. After the dormancy of long winter, plants and animals wake up to spring’s warmth and light, an arousal reinforced for humans by the “spring forward” of clocks.

Walking around the farm these days or weeding cool beds in preparation for planting, I search for green. Poppies and daffodils reach for the sun. Tiny leaves of mint and thyme unfurl along roots and stems. Fall-planted garlic pokes through grassy mulch. Rhubarb propels its brainy head above a deep mat of autumn leaves.

With longer days, the chickens have started laying again in earnest. I laugh at myself for thinking that daylight savings time has made a difference in their productivity. Chickens respond to longer daylight, for sure, but do so quite separately from our mechanical and digital manipulations.

Near the bridge by the flower beds, my grandson and I find a hole an arm’s width in the grass fifteen feet from the edge of the ditch now flowing with snow melt. Muskrat, most likely, which means its burrow cuts under the bank much farther back than I would have imagined. We are disappointed not to be greeted by a furry neighbor popping its head out its back door, but we think it’s cool a creature lives under our feet.

All these signs of emergence promise growth and regeneration of the natural world. Early spring—late March and April on the anthrocentric calendar—is a time of emergence for humans, too, at least those who live in a climate where the seasons make a difference. Warmer weather and longer daylight brings more time outside as we shed heavy coats and boots and the ennui of cold and dark. Many of us celebrate a spring holiday of renewal in faith or love. Ever the optimists, farmers start seedlings in the greenhouse.

I have to admit I need a little shove in March to get myself back out into the world again. January and February are quiet times for me when I write, organize, read, and stay home by the woodstove as much as possible. March is my transition to a very busy summer and fall with farming and writing, not to mention recreation with family and friends.

But March also gives me a chance to emerge a bit at a time, taking my cue from the weather. When sunshine beckons, I keep an eye on the sky, not trusting the forecast. Spring snows don’t bother me as I prolong my respite by the fire. But finally, I awaken to find flowers blooming and the first spinach ready to pick in the fields. By my late March birthday, I’m ready for new plans (I’m an Aries, after all, so dreaming up the next big project is part of my MO), with winter forgotten behind me.

Ecobiography can examine the influence of the natural cycle of seasons on human activity and the plants and animals with which we share an ecosystem. Thinking of the transition from winter to spring as emergence brings an opportunity to consider what is new in our lives, as well as observe the changes such transformation plays in the natural world around us.

Writing Exploration: In a short essay or journal entry, write about your experience of spring. As the days grow warmer and longer, in what ways do you experience the transformation from winter to spring? From dark to light? From cold to warmth? From quiet times to busy-ness? From solitude to social ties? From root stew to fresh garden salad? From fireside to patio?

As you write, think about words that evoke a sense of emergence. You may have noticed I’ve used some in this post like “propel,” “awaken,” “transition,” and “renewal.”

Next, write about the ways spring brings new interactions with the natural world. What do you observe in spring that was missing in winter?

Finally, reflect on the idea of emergence. With this change of season, what are you emerging from? And what might you be emerging to?

 

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Walking the Ditch

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Stonebridge Farm is crossed by three irrigation ditches: the Palmerton near the house, the Highland to the east, and the Rough & Ready in between. Melting snow from the Rockies runs through these ditches from spring to fall. Before the 2013 flood, some water or ice could be found in the ditches in the winter because the old head gates from the St Vrain river leaked, but following the flood, more efficient head gates were constructed that keep water out of the ditches after shut-off in late fall.

An empty ditch in summer means drought, an alarming sight for a farmer. But an empty ditch in winter reveals a new view of the riparian ecosystem that supports our farm with water, shade, soil, plants, and animals. With its slanted light and bare outlines, winter exposes the natural world in intriguing ways: trees tower over head as the ditch becomes an open road. For our five-year-old grandson on a winter day, an empty ditch needs exploring.

            The night before our ditch adventure, we read Signs Along the River by Kayo Robertson, a children’s book about using the five senses to find the evidence creatures leave behind like tracks, trails, bones, and, to put it plainly, poop. With these clues in mind, we set out the next morning from the bridge over the Rough & Ready to see what we can find. That bridge is next to our swimming hole, a place we often see muskrats paddling when the water’s flowing. Not far from the bridge we find the mouth of a burrow and imagine cozy muskrats in hibernation up inside the ditch bank behind the hole.

            The topography of an empty ditch is a meeting of curves and lines as the flowing water follows the natural limestone walls created over thousands of years, exposing textures of grass, sand, and roots along the ditch’s perimeter. A tree too close to the edge that was felled before our time left a tapestry of tangled roots that now fortifies the bank from erosion.

            Near another bridge, my grandson spots tracks in the dry sand along the ditch bottom, with many tracks in one spot as if an animal were circling. “What do you think it was?” I ask him. “Coyotes,” he guesses, and he is right because next to the tracks we are delighted to find coyote poop. Coyotes are a constant at the farm; it’s no surprise they run the empty ditches as winter highways.

In snowy patches further down our walk, we find deer tracks crossing the ditches, also not surprising since mule deer are in residence in our fields this winter, eating the cover crop and what’s left of the winter kale and chard. We discover a place where deer bed down in tall grass along the ditch in a spot farther back from the cultivated fields, a place we think of as “wild” because we don’t walk or farm there, in part because the trees form a small forest along that stretch of our northern boundary. The empty ditch allows us access into the heart of this place and now we can see how its wildness creates a refuge for the deer.

My grandson and I walked the Rough and Ready from one end to the other and back again, stopping to explore whatever caught our eye, including an aluminum baseball bat half-buried in silt and grass, a relic of the flood, perhaps, like the eight-ball we exhumed from a different ditch last spring. In the 20-some years I’ve lived at Stonebridge, I’ve never walked the ditch from end to end before. Seeing it from the inside out was like opening a door to a new room in my house that I hadn’t known existed and realizing that life went on there, with or without me. Now I know that the winter ditch is something I’ve been missing.

 

Writing Explorations: In ecobiography or ecology-based memoir, I’m always interested in how humans live alongside and amid other forms of life. We write about the places that bring us in contact with the natural world, especially on a regular basis, and we reflect on what we can learn about ourselves through the plants, creatures, and elements around us.

But before we can write of these interactions, we must notice them. A change of season, weather, or situation—as in the empty ditch—provides a wonderful opportunity to look with new eyes at a familiar place. In fact, deeper exploration of our relationship to nature can be inspired by the lens of change as routines are altered and what seemed normal or ordinary is exposed as cyclical or distinct.

In a short essay or a journal entry, write through the lens of winter. Right now, how do the places you inhabit or visit look different in the winter? What does the starkness of a winter landscape reveal to your curious eye? What surprises do you find in the dormant world that are hidden from view in the growing season? What do these details show you about your place in a wintry ecosystem?