Fox Haven Journal

Beau February 17th, 2010

I know it must be spring somewhere… quite a few latitudes south to be sure. I hope you’re enjoying the weather down there. One of these days we need to come visit.   Ah, but lovely February in Missouri. Where would we be without a little cold and snow?  Okay, it’s colder up north- you guys have me there.   I think I’m just ready for the next season.

I went looking for daffodil tips the othere day, trying to find them poking up through the ground. Too much snow yet to see them, but I know they’re there! Besides, in just a couple of weeks it will be March already. How weird is that?

The weekend past was spent enjoying some new fallen snow, and plowing the driveway.   Finally.  It’s under the snow where the Shiba is sitting… the wind drifted it up a little.

Our cars do fairly well considering the “big dip” in the middle of the driveway.  But it’s a slippery affair. Once last week I was taking a good run back in the driveway with the car squirming all around, steering wheel spinning like four-wheeling through the mud and just barely gaining traction. From the back seat the boy yells, “I feel like a chicken on skis!”  I smiled and complimented him on his description of our ride.

So I finally rigged up the old 6′ blade behind the tractor and got busy. It cleared a wider swath of snow than the little bucket could.   But you can only do so much with a gravel drive if you don’t want to ruin it. There’s going to be a lot of packed down snow no matter what, and most cars do just fine.  This was before we got another 4-5 inches.   You can just see the sunset reflection in the house’s window in the distance.

Besides, the next day it gave us a chance to get out the Flexible Flyer! Surely some of you remember sledding long ago, or perhaps not so long ago? Seems like we had more snow when I was a kid, you know, like when we walked two miles through it to school?  Maybe like everything seemed bigger as a kid, everything seemed snowier too… 

But in the winter I think I lived on the sled. This is one of them… it’s over 35 years old now and the boy is just getting to try it out.

 

You need some good packed-down snow for it, and the driveway was just the ticket.  At least the icy parts around the gravel patches.   So there we go- on the far side coming back down the driveway. “Get on,” I tell him as I lay down. He climbs on my back and I demonstrate how to properly steer one of these things. “Wheee!” and away we go.

It was pretty fun… except for the part with the yellow lab running right in front thinking this is some new game for him… we weren’t half way down the little hill and the dog, running alongside as we zoom by, reaches out and snatches my hat off my head and runs away! “Bring that back!” I yell but he’s having too much fun. We roll to a stop with the boy laughing and the dog shaking my knit cap like a rag doll.

Thus educated, the boy proceeded to have a little fun.  Even with the limits of our little hill.  He tried the bigger slope to the pond.  Alas the snow wasn’t packed down enough. Then the sled got away and almost ran out to the pond alone. Fortunately a tree stopped it short. Reminded me of my own youthful adventures….

I was ten or eleven years old and liked testing myself.   One snowy weekend morning my brother and I (he a year younger) joined a throng of other exuberant souls at the top of a big hill near some woods. The goal was to see who could start the highest up, and then go down the fastest off a big ramp or jump, fly through the air and then continue all the way through the trees to the bottom.

After watching a few fainthearted boys try their luck, and older ones too, I marched up higher than anyone had gone and stated those fateful words that evey co-pilot dreads, “Watch this!”

Away I went, zooming like mad headfirst toward that ramp looking at the trees beyond.  I was enjoying every second and smiling at the sheer speed, blissfully unaware of the total lack of control I was about to encounter.  Then all at once I knew, with some primeval instinct, that I was about to enter uncontrolled flight….  I hit that ramp and went soaring high into the air, parting with my sled and feeling mad at myself for not figuring it out better as I hurtled toward a huge tree. 

I just remember an enormous “Crash!!!” and the yells of the other kids.  I think someone asked, “Is he dead!?”

It was a long walk home, what seemed like a half-mile but was probably less.  I cradled my right arm to my chest trying not to cry but it hurt like crazy. I looked at it and told my brother I broke my bones in my arm. “How do you know?” he said. “I just do!” and I was more worried about what my parents would say. Finally we arrived home, meeting the folks outside and I let loose, crying that “I broke my arm!”

“Oh, it’s okay, don’t worry… you probably didn’t…lets take a look…” said Mom or Dad… followed quickly by, “Oh! Umm… well lets get the car and go to the hospital…”

That day provided a good lesson. Something about showing off while doing something you really had no idea about. In a strange sort of way I remember the gleam in the other kids eyes as I was about to launch myself down the hill. I remember the yells and screams… and I remember liking that.   And then feeling pretty stupid afterwards too.  I think it provided some measure of a data point for the things I would do, and the things I would not do later on.   As much as I’ve always enjoyed speed, sports and fast machines, that single day gave me a bit of experience for how things can turn out differently than you thought.

It wasn’t the last of my youthful lessons by a long shot.   I was pretty lucky a whole bunch of other times… and I’ll probably write about them too.  I wish I could data-dump some of them to the boy… share my stories and mishaps so he doesn’t have to learn them quite the same way. I think Benjamin Franklin once said, “Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.”  I appreciate his point, and think there’s a lot of wisdom there.

Yet while I’m a big believer in academic learning, mentorship and helping others avoid the hard lessons… most of us seem to have our own stories to tell, and our own scars to mark our experience.   You can only teach someone so much, and our experience is priceless.  It shapes us in so many ways.   Which makes it one of my parenting goals… trying to put it all together so that what shapes the young one as he makes his own choices, isn’t quite so rough along the way.   Time will tell.

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Beau January 18th, 2010

It’s often amazing to read about what some people are doing with their lives. I have written of one such person in the past, and I find myself following her progress nearly every day.   Her name is Jessica Watson, and at 16years of age she is making the journey of a lifetime.  There has been much discussion or even amazement at how someone so young could be on such a journey at all.  But I don’t write this to entertain the “Why” or “Why not” of such a trek.

Today I’m simply offering a salute to a fellow adventurer on this great journey of our lives.  Sailing the world in a tiny 34 foot sailboat (see what it looks like from the top of the mast!), She has just in the past week accomplished an incredible feat of rounding Cape Horn single-handedly as part of her attempt at a sailing solo circumnavigation of the earth.   Just sense the excitement as she shares a little of her experience:

 

Her parents even made the journey from Australia to the Cape so they could fly over her sailboat in a plane. She is now journeying northeast past the Falkland Islands, continuing and only about half-way around the southern seas of our planet. 

One may reflect upon the challenges, strife and human suffering we see throughout the world… but does that diminish the triumph of the human spirit in a different context? As simply as one who reaches out to help others, I believe we can choose to embrace life and each new day as a chance to grow and achieve. We may see human effort and consequence in stark moral terms, and that is our privilege or failing, as the case may be. Sometimes however, others help frame the context of life in ways we may leverage to show us what is possible. To each their own.

For now a young woman has chosen this path for her life. I can find no fault in it… rather it seems to me quite empowering to reflect upon the opportunity and challenges that any of us may accept and accomplish, no matter how mundane or encompassing. She writes of her journey from the heart with such honesty… I find it inspiring, courageous, amazing and even a bit breathtaking to imagine it all. We wish you fair winds and safe passage, and… Godspeed Jessica!

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Beau October 18th, 2009

I believe that if we are truly fortunate and determined, we can experience moments within our lives that are transformational.   That we may create opportunities to experience and encounter amazing things… life-changing things, and to lift ourselves up in ways that we’ve only previously imagined.    It doesn’t have to be an epic journey, or a singular event.  It might be the experience of helping another person truly in need, or sharing the life of a new-born child that might never have come before.  Maybe it’s a personal spiritual event that only the individual will ever really know about.

And yet maybe it is indeed an epic journey.  For Jessica Watson, today begins an incredible journey that most of us can hardly imagine.  At just 16 years old, Jessica is attempting to become the youngest person to ever sail non-stop around the world.  She left Syndey Harbour in Australia this morning, beginning what may be an eight month journey… by herself.   Can you imagine?  

It’s a dream I’ve always had, and yet with nearly five decades behind me I doubt I will experience that dream in my lifetime.  I’ve seen the tumult of the seas first hand, but from a far different perspective.  Some of which included standing on the deck of a thousand foot long aircraft carrier, watching enormous waves pitch such a ship around, sometimes breaking over the bow more than 60 feet from the ocean’s surface.   I’ve flown off such a pitching home, and landed on the same.  I remember the ship pitching and rolling so precipitously at times that the enormous propellors, taller than a house, were lifted nearly all out of the waves for brief moments.   I’ve watched the smaller frigates and cruisers far astern being tossed like toothpicks (as I merely rolled around on the carrier), and marvelled at the power of nature.  I’ve seen Cape Horn and waves that looked like mountains rip catwalks and lifeboats off the side of the ship.  I’ve seen storms in the North Pacific toss aircraft over the side. I’ve launched off the bow in an approaching typhoon, riding hell bent toward the waves as the ship pitched up just in time and my craft went airborne.   So much more, and yet it’s all so beautiful too.

I remember watching the sun set while waiting to launch off the deck, only to see it rise briefly as I climbed thousands of feet into the sky, and then watching it set once again on the same day.   All those years I looked below at the world’s oceans, thousands of miles from anywhere else.   It’s a beautiful, tranquil place at times.  And a lonely place.  I remember flying alone in my small fighter from Iwo Jima toward Tokyo just after sunset one evening.  Everything was cloaked in a glowing gray and white, incredibly beautiful to see, and spanning nearly the entire 600 miles of ocean between was another typhoon far below.  I  looked down from around 39,000 feet at the swirls of white clouds, and traveled over the eye of that storm marveling at the energy of wind and waves that must be taking place so far below on the ocean’s surface. 

Perhaps it’s because of what I have, or more importantly- what I have not experienced, that I find her journey all the more amazing.  Jessica and her supporters have prepared for this journey for a long time now, and she is an accomplished sailor.   Yet the strength and courage that such a journey must take is staggering to me to consider.  In an age of digital communications, and where news travels literally at the speed of light, we may too easily take for granted her age or journeys such as this.   No matter the technology she may have on board, nothing can change the fact that a young woman, alone, is sailing around the world in a sailboat.   She is facing the seas alone, and I pray she will be successful on her long journey.   Fair winds Jessica!  And following seas where you most need them!

You can read updates about Jessica’s journey at her blog, Youngest Round.

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Beau September 11th, 2009

Has it been eight years?  I was awakened near midnight, half a world away. Within 24 hours we were in the South China Sea heading toward the Strait of Malacca. The next three months were spent a few miles off the coast of Somethingstan Afghanistan. No contact with home. Strange folks coming and going… whatever we could do, we did.  Caught glimpses of the news in the States, and shared tears for those lost and remembered.  It seems like yesterday.

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Beau June 26th, 2009

Today may be the hottest of the week as temperatures have soared.  I heard a swimming pool in the region brought in 20,000 pounds of ice to cool it down for a swim meet!   I remember growing up with temperatures over 100 degrees for quite some time, but we just seemed to make do. “Dang it boy… when I was young…!”      No, we enjoyed air conditioning (and a cool basement!), but a lot more folks made do without.  We spent a lot of time working outside none-the-less, and just drank lots of water.  But we didn’t think about it- everything was “local” back then, and weather was a lot more mysterious to the lay person without digital radar updated every few seconds.  We tried to find out what the weather was like in a few cities to the west, and guessed at cloud formations.  The forecasters were often as wrong as they were right- a lot less accurate than today.   Of course we didn’t have internet, email, or cell phones- but it’s more than that.  Because of our networked world today, we have instant-on news and information from nearly every part of the world. 

With that data-centric awareness we can always be ”plugged in” but our minds can easily be filled with extraneous and brain-consuming information.  I use the computer every day, and love technology for the productivity it can bring to our lives.  Yet sometimes I wonder what we miss or give up to stay so connected.   They say that folks aged 16-24 are “texting” around 50% of the time while on the road driving… that amazes me.  And that about 20% of adults are texting on the road.   I’m sorry but that is a dumb thing to do.  It just isn’t necessary- why risk your life or someone else’s to have a conversation with your fingers? 

I don’t like the idea of state laws dictating what we can or can’t do in a car, but can you imagine being responsible for an accident while texting (or even talking on the phone)?   The problem is that it doesn’t relate directly to operating the vehicle.    Even voice converstations can be so distracting- I’ve talked on the phone while driving, but it takes a lot of concentration.   It’s just not a natural thing to do for most people, and because it doesn’t relate to the physical activity taking place, it is a separate activity. 

There’s a reason the FAA has rules for airline pilots that prohibit “small talk” unrelated to cockpit duties while the aircraft is below certain altitudes…  so they can concentrate on operating their aircraft.  I flew a couple jet aircraft in the navy- incorporating some amazing technologies.  Sometimes our hands would operate dozens of near-simultaneous command inputs while flying- usually without voice actions inside the cockpit.  But tons of voice information would come into the cockpit at the same time.  I can tell you it’s very difficult to concentrate on the mission- but just about everything is related to that mission.  And there’s a ton of training that takes place.   Texting and talking while driving is not related to the actions of driving- it’s a distraction, and it’s usually a distraction in an incredibly dense operational environment.  Anyway, it’s an issue sure to grow, I would think especially in legal realms.

It’s more than just driving.  I was in the grocery store a while back- stuck behind a woman in the aisle.  I thought she was trying to choose something from the shelf… then after a couple minutes I realized she was texting!  Sheesh…  for some people it’s like their brain turns off.   She was embarassed when she realized she was blocking the aisle, lost in her digital world.  

Sometimes I yearn for those days when our world seemed so much smaller at home, and bigger far away- we just didn’t know everything, hear everything… or wonder or care about everything.   I think it’s important to get outside, slow down and take the time to detach… for me, a rural lifestyle provides that balance but it’s a choice.   Real life matters.  

*******

Two icons of pop-culture passed away yesterday.  I remember growing up admiring the Farrah posters that I would see in stores or at friends houses- and yes, I even watched Charlie’s Angels a time or two.   Seems like yesterday, and we all have our time.   And the musician.  I remember wondering what the point was of a tv music channel that was on every day… until I spent a summer in college studying physics.  Then I would take a break and watch MTV at a friends place, amazed by it all.   Watching Michael Jackson’s Thriller music video the next year… what an amazing musician and performer. But I never watched a lot of MTV.  Real life mattered more.

That long range digital forecast says it will start cooling down this weekend, with a cooler week coming up.  That sounds pretty good and I hope you stay cool too.

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Beau April 1st, 2009

On this first day of April I finally feel like spring is here.  The days are warming up and flowers and leaves are coming out everywhere- and the birds! When you walk out the door at sunrise, the singing is amazing.  Cardinals, Phoebes, Towhees, Sparrows, Bluebirds… it’s a wild cacophony of twittering and song.  Well, twittering means something else to most people these days…  but for me it’s the birds.

It is a lovely time of year though.  It reminds me so much of exploring the forests when I was younger.  I remember a spring in the early 1980’s when I really learned about the plants and wildflowers throughout the Ozarks.   I was taking a botany class in college, and wouldn’t you know it- most of what we had to do was hike and walk around looking for plants to identify.  My kind of class!  One time we were hiking throughout the northwestern Arkansas Ozarks and the professor had us gather around to examine a plant.  He gingerly held something up and asked if we knew what it was… no one answered.  He handed it to one of the guys, and said “Feel the little hairs on the stem, and tell me what you think…”  Within a few moments the young gent dropped the stinging nettle yelling “Owww!”  It only stings and itches for a short time, but we thought that was pretty funny- and I never forgot the plant.

On another trip to some beautiful highland slopes above a river, we wandered along below a bluff admiring the landscape.  One of my classmates found a neat little bush with white flowers, and was about to pull some off… “Don’t touch that plant!!!” the professor screamed, as we all jumped wondering what was the matter.  He ran up and we gathered around as he excitedly described that the plant, Alabama Snow-wreath, was very rare and only found in a few places across the southern states.

Alabama Snow-wreath (Neviusia alabamensis A. Gray) GFDL Kurt Steuber

 

He knew of only two places it was growing at the time, one of them where we stood.  There were just a few bushes in a small circle, covered with white flowers.  The plant is still classified as threatened and is very rare, but has also been found in Missouri and a few other southern states.   Oddly, some have propagated the plant for gardens as it’s similar to spirea, but it’s still very uncommon.  I remember admiring the wispy white flower heads and standing in awe that the plant I was seeing only grew in a few places in the entire world.  As startled as I was by the professor’s response at first, I had to wonder how many other plant and animal species across the globe had a similar distinction.   The more I learned about plants and wildlife, the more I appreciated his convictions.   Perhaps that awakened the realization that the world is much smaller than it seems.

The journeys I would later make throughout the world became an exploration of nature too, and proved just how small the world really is- even while at times I felt torn watching the machinations of mankind against the backdrop of world politics.  I felt a greater responsibility than being a mere instrument of political will, and sought balance within myself through the years.  Nothing was ever as black and white as it seemed, but I am thankful for having made the journey.

Spring was never quite the same for me after those early days in school however.  Instead, the season after winter became a quiet revelation of the wonders of the natural world, instilling a sense of appreciation and mystery that has always remained.   How can one describe the joy and excitement of finding a new flower, plant or bird in a place you haven’t seen before?  Not everyone appreciates that mystery and beauty… to some it’s the same old thing.  But to those of us who feel the pulse of nature quicken in our hearts, it is everything.

A year or so after that botany field trip I was somehow chosen to pick up none other than Jean-Michel Cousteau at the airport one day, to bring him to the school for a speaking presentation on the environment.   I barely remember the event or what he did after I brought him to the school.  I do remember waiting at the little airport, wondering how I could be picking up the son of the famed ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau… the man I grew up watching on television and dreaming of the adventures and explorations he made throughout the world.

I wish I could even remember our conversation as we drove for a half hour to the school campus.  It was unremarkable, and he was tired from his journey.  I was young and wanted to make a good impression… mostly by not having an accident while driving the van on the way to the school!  I do remember that I tried to share a bit of the beauty of spring that year- he agreed, brightening a bit and  saying something like,  “Ah, oui! Yaas, ze vorld iz a beootiful place, non?” I remember wishing I could see the places he had seen, and travel to faraway lands.    Eventually I would, but in such a different way!  His life of course has become a celebration of environmental awareness and education, especially in terms of water and ocean issues- and a testament to his father’s life and research.

*******

Speaking of water and another spring ritual, our Koi Carp have become active once again in the pond.  They’re not true Nishikigoi or Japanese Koi, but rather a hybrid carp of sorts grown here in America.  But they’re placid fish, cruising around the pond, and I enjoy seeing them.  In November or December they seem to disappear- and all winter long I wonder if they are doing okay, especially under the ice.  They go into a near hibernation or stasis of sorts in winter, finding a deeper, muddy place to wait out the cold months.  In mid-to-late March they reappear near the shorelines, and begin cruising around in the shallow warmer waters.

Those in our pond are very large fish now- between 2-3 feet long.   Most are orange and black in coloration- but this one is a mottled white.  We call the very orange ones “Orangey” and the ones with a large black spot, “Spot.”  Very orginal, huh?! I haven’t been able to get close enough to tell them apart, but this year I’ll try to get more pictures like this.  We may call this one Motley or Patch…  That’s the tip of a bluestem plant in the foreground- the fish probably weighs 20-30 pounds or more.

We had five at one point- beginning with three about 8-12 inches long, and stocking two smaller ones about 6-8 inches long a year later.  One of those disappeared, and we’ve seen the same four large Koi Carp together now for the past couple of years.   I don’t feed them- they help control the vegetation and subsist on a natural diet.  Thus far they seem to be doing just fine, and based on their life cycle, may still be here long after we are gone.

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Beau March 16th, 2009

It was so warm out this weekend that it felt like the middle of spring.  We’re not there yet of course, after seeing the low 20’s last week.  Many trees and shrubs have begun to leaf out, and hopefully everything hangs in there as winter gives way and the days grow longer.  Will we have another hard freeze?  I hope not… with luck we may actually have a little fruit from our small orchard this year.

Meanwhile I’ve enjoyed watching some of our avian friends returning, including several juvenile Red-tailed Hawks.  

I remember writing two years ago that I worked with raptors quite a few years back.  I worked alone as a biological research technician in a southern swamp for a few splendid seasons… big words for someone who ran through fields and forests gathering data. 

It was a great job, with some key prerequsites, like being okay wading through waist deep water with snakes drooping from branches above looking down at you.  For me it was an amazing experience though- I saw the natural world first hand and thought about what I wanted to do with my life.  It was quiet yet engaging work, and afforded time to watch the unfolding rhythms of nature as the seasons changed. 

In this case my charter was to follow a nesting pair of hawks around most of the day for three overlapping seasons.  Using radio tracking equipment I could tell when they were flying or sitting, and then go find them to observe what they were doing.  Sometimes I would climb trees adjacent to their nest and watch them feed other critters to their young fledglings, witnessing the stark realities of nature each day.  I remember seeing otters in the wild for the first time in my life.  While abundant in Missouri now, they were rarely seen in those days. 

One time I was canoeing down a swampy canal in the middle of the bottomland forest, peacefully watching those snakes glide off branches into the water.  And then while feeling totally relaxed, a loud “Smack-splash!!!” from a beaver’s tail and I nearly jumped out of the canoe.  The beaver non-chalantly climbed up on the bank and sat there licking it’s fur and watching me glide by.  How I wish I had taken a camera along on so many of those days.

On another warm, early spring afternoon in that watery place I watched in amazement as a pair of bald eagles performed incredible aerial maneuvers in preparation for the mating season.  It was like nothing I had seen before- I was enthralled, watching them zooming, climbing and diving towards each other with talons extended, and then doing quick snap-rolls as they passed while their talons touched briefly.  

I had dreamed for years as a youngster of learning to fly, and not just anywhere… watching the eagles was incredible and at the time seemed like a vision or a sign to pursue those dreams.  Through a series of fortunate events, I then met someone and took a job as a graduate assistant at the University of Missouri, studying and teaching biology.   There I was, barely out of college, teaching science labs to over a hundred undergraduates.   That was a wonderful, humbling experience in itself, and as lifetimes go I ended up meeting someone else and fumbling furiously towards my dreams to fly. 

I ended up spending the next 20 years traveling around world, flying off aircraft carriers for much of it, and seeing places and things I would never have believed.  I haven’t written or talked about it much because it was a different chapter of my life.  In some ways it’s almost like a movie that I saw long ago, and wonder about at times.  Parts of it are difficult to share, and others better left unsaid.  I enjoyed most of it, especially the sights and sounds of lives and places I didn’t really understand.   It fulfilled a desire for service and I loved the flying immensely- in many ways it was hard to let go.  Flight became an extension of an earthly life- literally to see new horizons in a given day.  Much more, but with that said I think I’ve been looking for a way to share some thoughts about those days or places, and maybe where I’ve held back at times.  I’m not really sure yet.   But when I might write about something far away, you’ll have some idea of how I got there.   Now we’re here, on a new journey for the past few years and it’s a chance to explore a whole new set of dreams.

I was thinking of that day long ago watching the eagles when I saw a pair of Red-tailed Hawks last week.  They perform similar flight maneuvers and I watched as a juvenile pair circled high above the pond calling to each other.    Here’s a fuzzy picture of one several hundred yards in the air as it dropped towards another hawk. 

They too extended talons and flew at each other, but it wasn’t quite as dramatic as that day with the eagles long ago.  Still it is something to watch and I can only wonder why they seem to love dancing in the sky?  Are they showing what good hunters they are with legs and talons thrust out aggressively, kind of “showing their stuff”  to their possible mate?  

Their flying antics continued for about five minutes, with shrieks and cries, and then all at once they separated and headed back over the woodlands towards their nesting site.   One of them dipped quickly toward the treetops, wings tucked and whispering quietly as it flew past me just a few meters away. 

Birds, and raptors especially, have always been part of my life.  I’ve watched and studied them since my school days and there’s a connection with flight that I’ve felt closely through the years.   I loved the change that flying provided too- a physical change of perspective as well as a mental shift.  You can be sitting on the ground, shrouded in fog and drizzling rain… and a minute or two later you burst forth through clouds into a shimmering sky,  with sunlit mountains of white all around. 

Isn’t life often the same?   Stretches of rain and gray at times, and then days filled with light and promise where we embrace our surroundings, finding it a sheer joy to be alive.   We’ve all lived lived through such challenges and bright days.  And I believe we have a great deal of choice regarding whether it’s the gray skies or the sunlight we see the most.  It’s neither the weather or our eyes that really tell us so.

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