Thankful for a Childhood in Nature

         This morning, the day before Thanksgiving, with eight inches of fresh beautiful white snow on the ground at my house, I'm thankful for snow. Its beauty in the silence of early morning reminds me how grateful I am for a childhood that taught me to use my senses.

        I was born on a California island, where the Pacific Ocean laid the cadence of its heartbeat over mine, but I spent a childhood in the South, where I learned to use my senses. The sense of smell, for instance, I learned to use on my grandparents' Kentucky farm—tobacco curing in barn rafters, barnyard manure of cattle and hogs, hay being baled in the fields—and at my home in the north Georgia woods, with the smell of sweet gum bark, sun warmed pine needles, and the heavy, damp moss I replanted in my secret rock garden. I knew the sweetness of wild azaleas from hiking on the Appalachian Trail, the fetid thick smell of the Okefenokee Swamp from canoeing there, and underground dankness form spelunking in Alabama caves. Now on the mountain where I have lived for almost five decades, I know the vivid fetid smell of Oregon grape blossoms, the vanilla smell of Pondrosa pine, the pungency of incense cedar, and the acrid stink of the stink bug.

          In my childhood my mother taught me to belong to the land by naming what I see and hear: a green figure in a green sheath—a jack-in-the-pulpit; a flash of red in a dogwood tree—a cardinal; a three-syllable whistle from the woods at dusk—a whippoorwill. From those lessons I learned to name my neighbors in nature on my mountain in Oregon: shooting star, pedicularis, ox-eyed daisy, Applegate paintbrush. I know the meadowlark's trill, the drumming of grouse, the whir of a rufous hummingbird in my honeysuckle. I know the barred owl sweeping through the firs, the great blue heron flying into my swimming hole, and the osprey splashing into a lake to rise with a fish.

          When my sisters and I caught a chameleon, my father showed us its color-changing magic. When we brought home from the woods a black and yellow, hard-shelled creature we called a turtle, he explained why it was a terrapin. When bees swarmed on a tree limb, he wiped them bare-armed into his hive, telling us, "Swarming bees don't sting." He taught us to recognize copperheads, black snakes, and garter snakes, to walk unafraid in the woods. Today, therefore, I honor the bears and cougars in my woods, the snakes in my garden, and the bats at my house. I swim in the cold mountain lakes of the wilderness as much at home as newts and dragonflies.

         During the barefoot summers of my Georgia childhood, I tread lightly on the earth, recognizing thorns and caterpillars before stepping on them, squishing my toes in the mud of warm summer rains. Here on the Oregon mountain, my foot recognizes sharp pebbles, the pointed tips of oak leaves, and the hard carapaces of scorpions and stink worms before it crunches down.

          After a childhood in the South, I returned, like migrating salmon and monarch butterflies, to the place where birth rhythms called—to the West Coast. In this almost half-century of living here in the Siskiyou Mountains, I have had reason, time and again, to recall these lessons of that childhood—lessons of nature and of the senses—and to be grateful for them, as they have been the foundation of my life.

Isn't It Supposed To Be Winter?

        I hate to be curmudgeonly. I'm not a grump, really. I generally have a bright outlook. I've been called a glass-half-full person. So I've tried, not very successfully, not to complain about this gorgeous autumn weather everyone says we're having. And it has been, really. Glorious hiking weather, and I've taken advantage of it as much as possible. And I love it.

        For a while. Through, say, September, or even mid-October. But it's November, ye gods, and this warm, sunny weather has gone on and on and on. Will winter never come?

        Yesterday I went into the garden and found, to my great surprise, a rose bush with eight blossoms on it. That bush hadn't bloomed since I put it in the ground last spring, when it gradually lost all its blossoms and then drooped and sighed and languished until I finally got the right kind of irrigation on it (thanks to Mike's help), when it perked up but never bloomed again. Now it must have thought it was still summer (as well it might, since it can't read calendars, and determines summer by warmth more than by daylight hours, maybe), and so it put out midsummer energy and all those blossoms.

        They are a gorgeous deep pink, a rich sunrise color. I picked the two best blossoms and brought them inside, where I enjoy them as no curmudgeon ever could.

        But it's November, for God's sake. 

        Two days ago we did actually get some rain, slow and slight, but it was recognizably rain. Things got wet. 

        Now we're back to that everlasting sun, though the temperatures have, I am glad to say, dropped ten degrees or so. Actually, since I'm not a curmudgeon, I'll say that chilly sunny days are my favorite kind of November days. (A little colder would be even nicer.) But these days should come after days if not weeks of dreary, gray, rainy, drizzly, what most people would call miserable weather. After that, chilly sunny days are glorious, especially when there's snow on the ground and blue skies above. 

        We can enjoy this kind of autumn, but let us not be anthropocentric. We all need the rain, in whatever form it comes. I would give up these sunny November days for days of rain. Even my rose bush would be happy with a good hard rain. 

Hiking Partners: Me or the dog?

        When I first started going out with Mike, he had a dog. Let it be known right away that I'm not a dog person. Bailey was an all-right dog, and I probably don't do her justice because I didn't have much to do with her (or she with me) and because she was an elderly dog and wasn't showing off the best that dogness has to offer. But I recognized that Bailey was an important part of Mike's life and that they had hiked many trails together before I came along. It was understood between them that she would go on hikes with him, whether I were there or not, so, if I were going to hike with Mike, which I very much wanted to do, I would have to hike with Bailey, too. Love me, love my dog.

Bailey is the light brown dog at the water's edge.

       Bailey died a few years ago. And Mike and I have hiked many miles together. Somewhere recently on some trail for some reason we started talking about the differences between me and Bailey as hiking partners. As the pros and cons were thrown out, I began to get a little nervous that Mike would get another dog as a preferred hiking partner.

        I had to admit that Bailey had some advantages over me, but I was quick to point out that I had the advantage in other ways. I am, for instance, by far the better conversationalist (one point for me). On the other hand, Bailey didn't talk back to Mike or argue about the names of the peaks. If Mike said, "Oh, there's Mt. Elijah," Bailey didn't say, "No, it isn't. That's Grayback," as I am apt to do (though I am usually about as correct as Bailey would have been). Bailey never corrected Mike if he used "imply" when he meant "infer," either. Bailey didn't care. That put grammar-dictator me up against all-accepting Bailey (one point for Bailey).

        I don't run off into the forest chasing squirrels, so Mike doesn't have to call me back, as he did Bailey (point for me). On the other hand, Bailey did obey him (point for Bailey). If Mike said, "Comel" Bailey came, wagging her tail. I'm likely to balk at commands and sometimes affect a fetch-it-yourself attitude.

        Bailey accepted that Mike was her master. He is not mine. I did not promise to "obey" in my wedding vows. Bailey's hero-worship was flattering, but, sorry, as much as I love Mike, I'm not going to take him as my master. Still it's another point for Bailey, the yes-master worshipful hiking partner.

        Bailey, like me, liked to swim in the lakes. My advantage is that I don't spray water over Mike with a vigorous shake when I get out (big point for me).

        Bailey would lie next to Mike in the tent and keep his body warm. I do that, too, except sometimes my feet are so cold it's like putting a bag of ice on Mike's legs. Point for Bailey, though I'm reluctant to concede it because my warm body feels good against Mike's, too.

        Mike doesn't have to follow me picking up my poop. Big plus for me.

        I don't jump up and lick Mike's face when we meet, no matter how glad I am to see him. But maybe Mike liked that kind of greeting from the dog. Some people do. I don't. From my point of view, this is a plus for me, but Bailey would say such an enthusiastic show of affection would be a plus for her, so this is a draw.

      After a hike Mike had to feed Bailey, whereas it's I who give Mike good things to eat. Big plus for me.

      I don't shed hair. Well, I do, these days, but not a lot. Not like a dog. Point for me.

       Bailey was always in a good mood. I'm usually in a good mood, but I get irritated from time to time, which Bailey never did. Bailey never complained, as I sometimes do. Point for Bailey, the good-natured, Pollyanna, thank-you-master dog.

        Counting points, I barely come out ahead, with six points to Bailey's five, but an even stronger factor is the strength of various points. Being a good conversationalist is a very big factor, but so is Bailey's never-complaining outlook on life. I am fairly secure in thinking Mike won't replace me with a dog for a hiking partner, but maybe, without moving into hero-worship or obeying every command, I could learn a few things from Bailey about being a good hiking partner.

When God Forgot the Chlorophyll

          It has been a great mushroom season. The woods are so full of mushrooms my friend from Lithuania complains about how easy they are to find. In Europe, she says, you have to hunt all day for mushrooms. Here, you just go into the woods and pick them.

          Walking in the woods this season reminds me of an essay in my first book, Fire from the Dragon's Tongue, about how beautiful mushrooms are, so I'm using it for my post this week.

When God Forgot the Chlorophyll

          God was in a frenzy of creation. He only had six days in which to finish the project, and there was so much to do! But deadlines always arrive; the sixth day did come, and God was just finishing up, painting those last-minute thin lines on the wood duck and looking forward to a day of rest, when he saw the mushrooms.

          "Oh, my God!" he cried. "I forgot the chlorophyll!" But it was too late. Chagrined, God hurriedly bestowed on mushrooms four compensating factors: strength, shape, the use of all other colors than green, and edibility.

        Thus it is that mushrooms push up through the earth with iron-fist force, the eponymous metaphor for unstoppable strength and sudden emergence.

Nothing stops a mushroom once it begins pushing itself into the dark, damp light of the forest. Sticks, leaves, bark, logs, and stones are shoved aside. Vines that would bind anything else are forced to stretch around and twist the shape of but never stop a mushroom, the quintessential "out of my way; I'm coming through!" emergent. And yet mushrooms are so soft. How could anything as delicate and soft as a mushroom, so mushy to the touch, so spongy and fragile, have such strength?

          Mushrooms are flat like tabletops or pointed and curved like umbrellas. They are bulbous or convoluted, small as buttons or big as cups, thin as platters or thick as steaks. They are smooth as a madrone limb, scaly like lizard's skin, bumpy, flaky,

or in the terminology of the mushroom book, covered with warts, a word much too ugly for the delicate flakes and spots of white on the regally scarlet amanita.

Large, yellow-brown, flat mushrooms with edges slightly curled look like buttermilk pancakes, which, when they age, look like they've been left too long on the griddle.

        Mushrooms are freckled, striped, or plain. They whorl with concentric rings or fade their colors with the delicacy of a sound fade-out. They grow singly, in clumps, or in large colonies The white ones look like scattered eggshells, the brown ones like chocolate wafers, the orange ones like yam skins. A scattering of mushrooms in the woods looks like a turned-over compost heap.

They are shiny, wet, dry, slimy, curly, convex, concave, rubbery, slick. They emerge folded like butterfly wings, or they jam a six-inch-wide top through the earth like the head of a nail being pounded from below They measure from half an inch across to eight inches or more.

They have curdled edges or smooth, tree-trunk stems or toothpick stems, under-layers like petticoats or like leaves of the Bible slightly warped with dampness or like sponges from Florida's seas. They have all the floral colors: red yellow, purple, grey, white, brown, pink, coral, but no matter how bright the hue, the tone is muted with earthiness.

          And they are edible—sometimes. Mushrooms are the big gamble of the vegetable kingdom. "Try me" is the tempting message. Just as good as some are to the palate exactly so poisonous are others. Some mushrooms are so good enthusiasts dare the edges of edibility, others so poisonous the unwary can die for having touched them and brought fingers to tongues. Some mushrooms are poisonous to some people in some circumstances. Other people eat the same mushrooms safely with gusto. And even as some delight the tongue and some poison the body, others send the mind on strange journeys, another gamble between sensual delights and mental dangers. Nothing is certain except the gamble. 

          But the inconsistency is understandable. God was rushed.