yet another overdue post

I don’t remember the last time I wrote (common way for me to start a blog post!)

It was a long time ago… when the things were blooming and I was sneezing much more. Now it is very green and the sun is actually shining today.

Working backwards: yesterday was the solstice and we BBQ’d to celebrate. On the fly I called everyone I could and invited them to share some outdoor time in Diablo. Good times. Then an evening paddle on Diablo Lake with Kate and Teresa… I was so good sitting in the princess seat… dead weight and conversation-making…

Finished two books, “The Naturalist,” Edward O. Wilson’s autobiography and Robert Murphy’s “The Peregrine Falcon.” Reading two books simultaneously was a bit of a challenge, but overall it was nice to go back and forth so as to stay fresh. When my eyes might start to close during Wilson’s theoretical analysis of island biogeography (interesting, but dense), I could turn to Murphy’s hypothetical situation of a female falcon’s tribulations and life-cycle during her first migration from the Barrens (arctic) to the Florida Keys.

I have had some time prepping and training for the Cascade Climate Challenge program that will be keeping me busy this summer. Short: we get 20 teens, get them canoeing and backpacking in and around Ross Lake (North Cascades National Park Complex), do service work, do some teaching and facilitate lessons with Park staff. The topics revolve around the background of climate science and the research being done to understand current species adaptations and struggles with changing climate patterns. This helps us “get” to the meat of the “Climate Change” or “Global Warming” debate… what does it mean and how can we tell?

Cousin Athena got married to Sudip two weekends ago!!! It was a great ceremony… they mixed Indian and Jewish customs nicely along with a little bit of American culture too. It was rough to go to New Jersey only for two days, but seeing family was great and spending time with folks was a treat… O-hisashi-buri, deshou!

Here are some pictures of that wonderful occasion.

Male cousins... first time in a long time... my brother is not pictured.

Centerpiece of one of the tables: Midsummer Night's Dream

The ceremony... fun mix of Jewish and Indian traditions
Athena reads vows to Sudip after he spoke to her. Fabulous!

Final note on the peregrine falcons I was watching. Seven weeks after I started following them, we came to realize that this year’s eggs failed… and the parents took off. For over a week, the three eggs were sitting on the ledge… in the eyrie on a small “scrape,” the indentation of sub-straight dug by the falcon to contain the eggs and to prevent them from slipping off the ledge and down the cliff. Nothing. Nature is brutal. After migrating 1000’s of miles, mating, laying eggs, incubating… nothing. Was it too cold or too wet this year? What factors caused them to fail?
Leave, go eat, fly somewhere else, come back again next year and try again. I’ll write it again. Nature is brutal. Not the cuddly, fun stuff that we wish to see on all of our TV shows. But rather, REAL and not always successful. May it serve as a lesson for me. You can do everything right and factors beyond my control can influence the outcome. Just goes to show… And with that realistic and seemingly fatalistic approach that I now have, I also recognize the importance of every second. If we are fortunate enough to hatch, then we had better use every moment of breath to focus on living fully. Some eggs get infinitely close but don’t even hatch.

I'm Famous!!! --- Forest Service Award

I just won an award... let me toot my own horn!

http://news.wwu.edu/go/doc/1538/1090987/WWU-Graduate-Students-Honored-With-United-States-Forest-Service-Award

Sweet!

ramblings

I haven’t written on this blog in a long time. I went to California to see my family. Ran into Wayne and Drew too. Awesome five days in SoCal included some beach time, hiking in the blooming chaparral of the coastal desert.

Since then I have continued to be busy. Graduate school is ridiculous. Work your ass off. Make no money but actually PAY to do all the work and to be stressed out. But have the opportunity to do amazing things… of course this is a problem when there are way too many awesome things to do…

So, I have been doing a lot of doing. Thinking steps ahead, planning and plotting and working out logistics… and then I forgot about the present moment. It came to me one day when I was three steps ahead of myself walking and I realized I wasn’t even enjoying the walk. I was outside in nice weather (not common here, for reals!) but inside my house in my head and even at work the next day in my thoughts. It was then that I stopped and had to stop everything to catch back up with myself… or rather to reel myself in from the non-existent future that kept me oppressed from staying focused… and from actually learning from and enjoying the work that I was slated to do (and had been doing.)

I will never accomplish the gamut of tasks and ideas I have. But I should focus on doing my best at each one that is presented to me. And in zeroing in on quantity, I haven’t felt fully invested in the quality. And that is unacceptable. So it has changed.

There are still articles that I long to write (and will), but I am in the finishing process of the coyote I am trying to tan. My needle broke, so I can’t sew up two major holes in the hide, but they aren’t that big a deal. I am an amateur taxidermist, not a pro. The whole point is to show kids the pelts, not to sell high quality animal-fur merchandise.

Ski2Sea is in exactly two weeks. I have to train for the downhill skier leg. This means that I have to boot pack uphill for a long time and then strap on the snowboard for a run downhill. It isn't the snowboarding that is hard or time-consuming… but the hike up carrying my ride. So, I am training by hiking straight up Sourdough Mountain trail (5000 feet over 5 miles) for 30~40 minutes and then hiking down, all the while carrying my board. I may be in decent shape by the time the race comes around, but the elevation will be much different. I am at 1000 feet now and will be hiking at closer to 9000. I just plan to try hard and be consistent, even if I am a bit slow.

Two weekends ago, I helped with an institute course, studying reptiles and amphibians on the east side. It was drier and gorgeous, albeit cold. I got to hold some snakes including a northern pacific rattlesnake… it was awesome to go to a real rattlesnake den! It was amazing to hang out among a bunch of snakes and realize that they are docile creatures… that is after the initial rattling and striking of course!

Last weekend I met and heard Richard Louv speak in Bellingham. He is author of Last Child in the Woods and the recent one: The Nature Principle (which he of course signed for me after I bought it…) He may be one of the reasons why folks are actually supporting the work my colleagues and I are doing. Kids of all ages (elementary, teens, high schoolers, ADULTS!) need more nature in their lives… I can go on and on about this. Get outside. Period.

Lakers lost to the Mavericks a couple weeks ago. That put me in a downer mood. It was an ungraceful loss…oh well, time to rebuild. Thank you, Phil.

Writing this out is great. Oh, lastly… I have been following a pair of peregrine falcons over the past month. From the flirting, preparing to mate, copulating, and nesting. Every day or every couple of days, I get the spotting scope focused onto a precarious ledge over a hundred foot drop into the chasm of Diablo gorge… at the base of the dam. And there, nestles, sits one of the peregrines on three (maybe four?) eggs, keeping them warm until they hatch- I have calculated that this will be between May 31~June 4. And then there may be some more falcons on which I can spy! I have seen them fly, sit, copulate, live… I hope to see them feed sometime; perhaps even perform the mid-air transfer of prey I have heard about. Nature is amazing. And I am really transforming into a Birder (nerder!) by focusing on the sounds from and visuals of all of the spring visitors and residents of the Diablo Lake watershed and western North Cascades Mountains.

I want to write more, but I also want to read more… there are three current books, but the one I like the most is E.O. Wilson’s, The Naturalist. I have a bunch of pictures that will hopefully add to your understanding of my writings… there are three more blog postings (5 pix each)... ciao!

Snakes in the Methow!

Holding a gopher snake that an instructor grabbed from a hole

Close-up on the gopher snake an hour later... it was catching some rays.... check out the tongue!

Holding a Racer... they sometimes den with garter snakes and rattlers in dens (on the sides of STEEP hillsides) to maintain heat during cold winter months. This one was sunning itself next to the den we visited and it smelled funny after it peed in defense.

Northern Pacific Rattlesnake tail reverberating in my hand! What an awesome experience and a unique feeling and sound. This rattler was 4 feet long and rather timid/ friendly once we got it into the tube. The instructors coerced it into a plastic tube that would ensure we wouldn't get bit.

Said rattlesnake in the tube! I have other pictures, but this one says it pretty good...