GETTING INTO IT: WINTER? LIFE? WHAT?

It would be harder, I think, if I lived in a city to mentally escape the horrors of Trumpism.  Yes, sure, here in the country I'm up with the latest data, the latest news, the latest hideous outrages.  There are so many; they multiply hourly.  It's not possible to look away.  Nor is it right to look away.  We've got to see the whole bloody thing.  

But there are other parts of life, after all.  I remember my late boss Margarat MacVicar said to me once, "Don't let what's urgent get in the way of what's important."

So what is important?



Winter came quickly, suddenly, this year.  One day it was fall, and the next day all was frozen in place.  Leaves hadn't fully left the trees.  Even now some are falling, blown off mostly.  The cold was a bit of a shock.

Caught a cold, this hydrangea did.

Before the first snow fell, at my altitude anyway, as snow always hits the mountains first, there were days when he pond remained unfrozen.  It was in the morning of a couple of those days with temperatures above 32 degrees that the muskrats–smaller than beavers, larger than rats– that have been living around the pond appeared.  They emerged from their tunnel, more likely tunnels plural, carved out under the bank on the far side of the pond (not wanting to risk–whatever risk that might be–from the Canus familiaris domesticus who lives on the other side).  Out in the open they calmly munched grass or foraged for creatures that live in the grass–slugs maybe?  One day, before ice covered the pond, I counted four of them, the first time I'd seen more than one at a time.  I suspect that may be the entire family, as offspring–and muskrats produce a lot of them–tend to find new places to live while still young.  Only the late arrivals are likely to remain to overwinter with their parents.  

One on land, one a-swimming.  When they're moving underwater, only ripples give them away.

A closeup (tail hidden); but not my photo; not my muskrat either.

After the snow, out in the field with Canus familiaris domesticus 

As for the other pond, the swimming pond that was built this summer, it too went through some quick changes.  One of those last chilly days before the freeze I noticed there were many large clumps of algae dotted here and there, not surprising because the water was longer being filtered.  (The pump was removed in the nick of time.)  I decided to grab some of the algae with my skimmer.  It came up in chunks, unlike the stuff I'd find in the summer.  I took a lump of it, this thick bright green carpet-like stuff, and prepared to toss it into the field when I was shocked by the presence of something alive inside, moving.  Oh my god!  What was it?  Protruding from the lump of algae was the leg of a large frog, the rest of him fully encased. Quickly I tossed the ball of algae-plus-frog back into the pond. I worried that I had upset his life-cycle as it dawned on me that the frog must have been in a state of near-hibernation.  I looked at the other clumps of algae, probing one or two of them, but decided there would be no further removal of algae this time of year.  

One of the odd-looking clumps of algae.  Maybe with frogs inside.

This is only a guess, but I imagine they wrapped themselves in algae because there were only stones, no mud they could burrow into in this "unnatural" pond.  I wondered whey they chose to winter here at all.  They found this new pond on their own, having originally lived in the big muddy pond, so why not go back there?  Why pick this less hospitable place?  Or did the cold take them by surprise too?

The other pond, a frozen swimming pool.  The ice is thick, even where the snow cover is thin.

Early one morning–I'd just gotten up and hadn't even gotten dressed–I heard a sound that I thought might have been a bird hitting the glass of the back door.  I didn't look out.  Often a bird is merely stunned momentarily, and then flies off.  Not long afterward I let Skyler out.  When he came back in a while later, to my horror, he had a good-sized bird in his mouth.  (He is a bird dog, after all, by breeding if not training.)  I picked up the bird the monent he put it on the floor.  It was a mourning dove, and it was severely injured.  Could this be the bird that hit the glass? I slipped on my boots and stomped out in the snow to put the body in the woods, out of his reach.  It lay on its side.  As I was about to turn away I was startled to see that it move.  It was still alive.  A luminous dark eye on the soft gray head looked at me.  I felt it look at me.  But I was frozen in place.  I didn't see how I could save it, but I also couldn't bring myself to kill it. No, that was impossible.  I wrenched myself away and went inside.  It was cold.  I was still in my bathrobe.  I made my coffee.  But I was in tears for the beautiful bird, and my uselessness.  

Hours later I went back outside.  I covered the bird–now lying stiff in the snow–with evergreens.  How silly.  What was the point of that?

Here's another story.

Ken's grandson Spencer was out hunting about a week or so ago.  It's black powder season, rifle season having ended after Thanksgiving.  He wanders a large territory when he hunts.  He was somewhere in the Breadloaf wilderness, alone, when he heard the sound of a moose.  If I'd heard this sound I would go in the opposite direction, but Spencer, with his interest in the forestry and wildlife, turned toward the sound.  As he got closer it became clear that the moose's call was one of distress.  He slipped quietly through the trees, and when he got to the site what he found was this: an injured moose, alive, was lying in the snow, surrounded with areas of blood, and over him loomed a huge black bear, of a size Spencer estimated at around 300 pounds.  Startled, it immediately ran off.  Spencer recorded the scene on his phone.  Then he loaded his powder (you can only load one shot at a time) and killed the moose.  All this while presumably keeping his eye out for a returning bear.  This was an unusual encounter, for many reasons.  Bears do not normally bring down moose.  He reported the episode to Fish and Wildlife.  (He had to make clear to F&W that the bear was there before the moose was shot, otherwise killing the moose would have been illegal.)  

Spencer's dad, Bill, showed me the video of the moose a couple of days ago.  I wished I hadn't agreed to look at it.  It was the eye, the moose's eye as it lay there, death imminent, that got to me.  Its large eye looked at the camera, or at the person behind the camera, or at the world for one last time.  Or at me.

What did any of this matter?  I can't really say.  Ken felt more strongly about the life and death of all living things as he grew older, and more reluctant to kill even a small insect.  Maybe that's what's happening with me as well.   

None of this is urgent or anything, it just feels important somehow.

BIBLE BELT TO THE FOODIE BELT

FIRST, THE BIBLE BELT

A megachurch in Little Rock whose pastor visited with the present occupant of the Oval Office 

Down Arkansas way, where the churches are often the size of office buildings and more ubiquitous than Chick-Fil-A’s, my host Barbara and I drove north to Arkansas' northwest corner at the border of Missouri and Oklahoma.  Bentonville.  The hotel we stayed in there was in a kind of office park. I entered my room wherein lay this card:

The Embassy Suites isn't interested in profit, only your happiness.  Who knew?

Having a church tie of some kind, even if it's one with a strongly liberal theology, seems to be a connection that carries weight.  If you’re going to advocate for the Good, a religious foundation appears to be an asset.  (God for the Good?)  By the Good, I mean a belief in man-made climate change, recycling, alternative energy, gay marriage, immigration–the whole lot.  My host, Barbara, is an exemplar of this kind of advocacy.  She got her church to consider solar panels, for example, (and they got them!).  Solar panel are a fraught political issue.  They apparently represent all that is associated with a liberal ideology.  As if having solar panels led to belief in climate change, gay marriage, immigration, and so on.  Several people Barbara introduced me to seem equally grounded in liberal advocacy.  I salute them.  They are working for these ideals in a place where the majority is working against them, or, at the very least, is not particularly supportive; blues in a sea of red.  Being openly atheistic here may demand either courage or chutzpah or both.

A sticker on Barbara's car:  An example of advocacy plus faith

On the flip side of piety:

It should be noted that this Little Rock concert we attended one night was a fundraiser for the Oxford-American, a literary magazine of southern writing.  In addition to pre-concert hors d’oeuvres, free booze was available in the lobby so there was much getting up and heading out for refills during the concert. 

I couldn’t help but notice that the audience was 100% white and all the servers were black.  That was not unique to the concert.

I went with Barbara to a lecture at her church––a church we in the East would consider a mega-church although it isn’t one in this context; it’s simply big––on the topic of the latest findings concerning the Trump-Russia connection, a lecture given by a local bigwig liberal columnist.  From the audience reaction––nods of agreement here and there, hearty applause at the end––I gathered he was preaching to the choir.  The message (“Don’t jump to conclusions; could be as much stupidity as conspiracy…”) suggested ‘educating’ to be a better word. 

Columnist John Brummett explains the news

Some of us probably have images in our minds of what the Ozarks look like.  In fact they look a bit like Vermont, but with different foliage, and many rolling hills that don't rise nearly as high as any of the Appalachians.  Brown, mostly, this time of year.  Someone commented that the only trees that get color in the fall are the imported ones planted to beautify parks or strip malls.

A photogenic roadside wreck. Maybe purposely arranged.  Most homes in the Ozarks don't resemble this at all,
although the general style (long porch in front) is common.

A liberal hot spot in Little Rock is, no surprise, the Clinton Presidential Library.  (The Little Rock airport is named after both Hillary and Bill.)   A couple of enthusiastic docents at the library told us they are eagerly awaiting, in fact yearning for, Chelsea Clinton's run for President.  Seems like a long shot.  Everything Clinton is there, including a precise, down to the last detail, replica of the Oval Office as it was during his time in office.  It was pretty cool to be able to poke around in what almost feels like the real thing. (No poking around allowed in the real thing, as I found out a year ago.)  But I have to say, the gold curtains are as ugly as the gold curtains of the present, uh, occupant. 

The Clinton Library. Some might say it looks like a shoebox. Sort of striking though.

The trip to Bentonville, home of Crystal Bridges, is a 3-1/2 hour drive from Little Rock, and took us through part of the Ozarks up near the corner of Missouri and Oklahoma. Thanks to the Walmart (Walton family) fortune, Crystal Bridges is a destination museum.  Designed by an international big-deal architect (Moshe Safdie) it has an art collection of great breadth and depth that only a huge fortune could have put together. The accumulation of such art, works often bought from institutions in need of funds, reminds me of the initial outcry when the Getty museum was first opened in Los Angeles with its seemingly unlimited funds for art, poaching art from all over.  CB's collection includes an entire Frank Lloyd Wright house, moved from its original site.

[From the top:  part of the Moshe Safdie-designed museum buildings; "tree" from the Chihuly glass exhibit; the spider, called "Maman," another cast of the work we saw in Bilbao, Spain; Wright house rear exterior; the oculus.]

I couldn't resist including these lesser works, only because they are (a) creepy and (b) unintentionally funny.  

What makes this particulaly unsettling is not just the fact that it is incredibly real looking,
but the fact that it is weirdly larger than an actual person, frighteningly cut off at mid-chest,
and viewable at ordinary human height.

What is there to say about this family foursome?

SECOND,  THE FOODIE BELT

What could I say about San Francisco that everyone doesn’t already know? 

Sign on a shed in the little town of Pescadero

Tasting, in Napa, with Davey and Andy

Here's where I stayed, a delightful over-the-top Victorian inn, in the Mission district, with roof deck and garden.  

Inn San Francisco, on South Van Ness

This trip I visited only the places I hadn’t been before.  This meant spending time in the neighborhoods (the Castro, Potrero, Mission, etc.), the parks (Lands End, Golden Gate, etc.) and seeing the other wine valley (Napa) and the coast south of SF. 

A visit to the mother ship:  Tour of Apple headquarters in Cupertino
The move to new headquarters (the big circle) happens December 8.

In the Castro with Davey and Andy. 

And yes, everyone talks about food.  (We ate well.)  I was always informed about where to find the best restaurants, the best bakeries (everywhere!), best ice cream (a couple of places vie for that distinction), the best way of cooking (sous vide!).  I was never starving for more than a single half-hour, and, alas, never hungry after a full meal which limited my intake of all the wonderful extra goodies I could have sampled.  I met up with a guy Ken and I had hiked with in Argentina and Chile.  We hadn’t met in nearly ten years.  What did we end up talking about?  Food, of course!

Freshly baked artichoke bread (still warm!) and freshly made goat cheese from a goat farm, both from Pescadero.

On the Pacific Coast Highway north of Santa Cruz:  where we ate the artichoke bread and goat cheese.

In the Japanese Garden, SF

North of Santa Rosa, site of the fierce October 2017 fires

We drove to Napa via the areas that burned in October.  Everywhere there were lone chimneys and burnt out trucks and cars in driveways of houses that no longer existed.  We drove the winding mountain roads the fire had also swept.  It was hard to visualize people trying to escape the flames on roads like these, often with tree branches meeting overhead.  Crews were busy cutting down trees on both sides to keep charred brittle trunks from falling across the road.  I heard that the night of the fire, around 3 AM, firefighters had lined up in great numbers with all their firetrucks along a six-lane highway, ready to stop the fire at what look like a viable perimeter.  Then the furious wind blew the fire over the road, over the fire trucks, and began to consume the other side.  A lone green tree or intact house here and there demonstrated the fickleness of the fire.  Even in Napa Valley the distant hills were blackened.

Delores Park, near So. Van Ness

Carolyn on the deck of my inn