The Isle of Skye

     I thought I was going to Scotland just for the hiking, but as it turned out, I enjoyed touristy things on the Isle of Skye, where Margaret and I spent the second week of our trip, almost as much. 

    Legends were fun—the Holy Pool of St. Fillan (where I swam), the monster of Loch Ness (where I also swam).

The captain of our Loch Ness boat ride told of being on a research boat when a submerged camera came up with a photo of the monster, which he showed us. He let us gasp in disbelief a few minutes before telling us the camera had found a submerged life-size model used for a Hollywood film.

    Connections with my academic past made castles and museums fun. Walking across the moors in the dramatic rain and wind was like stepping into Wuthering Heights. Seeing the stone ruins of Urquart Castle on Loch Ness reminded me of the Old English poem "The Ruin" and that the Anglo-Saxons walked among Roman ruins just as Scots walk among Medieval ruins. At the MacDonalds' Armadale Castle

I not only was in the presence of the Gothic architecture I had studied, but in the museum there I recognized the Anglo-Saxon culture of lords, thanes, and hall life in the Scottish clan culture of the same era. The museums told of Viking raids in Scotland as I had read about them in Old English texts. Everywhere I was reminded of Mary Queen of Scots, beheaded by Queen Elizabeth, and the Jacobite Rebellion after Elizabeth's death, the war between Catholics and Protestants, and the Scots trying to put James I of Scotland on the throne—history of importance to much of the literature I have studied. The nineteenth-century novelist Sir Walter Scott; that great man of eighteenth-century letters, Samuel Johnson; Johnson's excellent biographer James Boswell—these men had stayed at Dunvegan Castle

(of the MacLeod clan and still occupied today); we read their letters of thanks, in their handwriting. We peered down the Dunvegan Castle dungeon, deep and narrow and made of clammy stone, where one clan chief had put his wife for fourteen years. It was in such a dungeon that the Red Crosse Knight had been thrown, personifying Despair, in Edmund Spenser's six-book, seventeenth-century poem, The Faerie Queene. We saw many monuments and tributes to the Scottish Brigade of World War I, who fought so fiercely in their kilts that they were called the "ladies from hell." 

    The language was also an unexpected enjoyment. Gaelic, Welsh, and Scots-Gaelic are their own language family, unconnected to either Germanic or Romance languages. Generally, my knowledge of French, Latin, and English is a basis of familiarity in European countries, but in Scotland, where road signs were in both Gaelic and English, I could comprehend nothing of the Gaelic, even though both languages use the same alphabet. 

    A third surprise was our stop for breakfast at Sligachan Hotel at the base of the Black Cuillin ridge. Lining the walls in all the hallways were photos and placards about famous mountain climbers who had been there. I remembered then that the Scots were great mountain climbers as well as great walkers. Many came to the Black Cuillin mountains to train for ascents of Mt. Everest, among them the famous duo John MacKenzie and Norman Collie.

Statues of MacKenzie and Collie above the Sligachan Hotel

When a Nepali sherpa came to Sligachan, he climbed to the top of Cuillin and back in less than an hour—barefoooted. Being doubted for this achievement, he got up the next morning and did it again, faster, a record that wasn't broken till the fifties. Boswell and Johnson also stayed at the inn. Boswell hiked up the mountain, I learned from the placard, but "the portly Johnson did not."

    There is a legend that anyone who put their face in the Sligachan River for seven seconds would receive eternal beauty. I figured that such a benefit was more difficult for someone of my age, so I made sure to leave my face in the cold water for a count of fourteen.

Hiking the West Highland Way in Scotland

     Eight days. Ninety-six miles. By foot, with packs. 

    Over the moors, in the blustery wind and driving rain,

                                                                            photo by Margaret della Santina

beside Loch Lomond for two days (and twice a swim),

                                                                            photo by Margaret della Santina

past crumbling ruins of ancient stone huts and churches,

                                                                                        photo by Diana Coogle

past sheep grazing trail-side and dotting the far hills, up the Devil's Staircase to a grand view of Scottish peaks,

At the top of the Devil's Staircase             photo by a willing hiker

up Conic Hill to a grand view of Loch Lomond, up one hill after another, up and down the old stone military road, on the trail through moors and woods, through the graceful and grand old native oaks,

                                        photo by Margaret della Santina

past waterfalls and waterfalls and waterfalls cascading down rock faces,

                                        photo by Margaret della Santina

past plantations of non-native fir trees waiting to be timbered, past the ugly devastation of clearcuts with their stumps and piles of slash and exposed earth (everywhere else we saw earth only on trails), past purple-blooming heather

                                                                        photo by Margaret della Santina

and yellow fields of buttercups and tall purple foxglove, past green, green, green expanses (grass, heather, ferns), past the highland "coo" (cow) with its shaggy red hair falling over its eyes,

                                                                            photo by Margaret della Santina

past centuries-old rock walls winding across the landscape,

                                                                            photo by Margaret della Santina

under the looming peak of Buachaillie Etive Mór (the Big Shepherd of Etive, "the most iconic and most photographed peak in Scotland"),

                                                                        selfie by Margaret della Santina

 and at last, after the seven or ten or fifteen miles of the day, to whatever lodging we had booked for the night: an 18th-century inn

                                                                        photo by a willing stranger

or a bunkhouse next to a hotel or "the most haunted house in the UK" (Drover's Inn)

The Bar at Drover's Inn                                    photo by Margaret della Santina

or "glamping" in the tube of a "pod,"

                                                                                        photo by Diana Coogle

and, first things first, a beer at the hotel bar

                                                                            photo by Margaret della Santina

or down the street in the oldest consecutively operated pub in Scotland (since 1752)

                                                                                        photo by Diana Coogle

or at the bar of Drover's Inn, where the wait staff wore tee shirts that said, "Voted best pub 1703."

    Margaret della Santina hiked every step with me, even with a bum knee, which she iced every evening when we got to our inn and which didn't keep her from loving every minute of the trail. Because she was walking carefully, when we came to a hill, she would say, "See you at the top," and I would take off at my usual steady pace. At one especially raw-weather moment, as she walked up to me where I waited on a beautiful old stone bridge in the cold wind and driving rain,

                                        photo by Margaret della Santina

she said, gleefully, "This is what we signed up for!" And indeed, yes. It was Scotland, after all.

    On the third day, Margaret studied the map and came up with a plan for changing our itinerary. We could hike as planned to Inversnaid but then taking a ferry across Loch Lomond to Tarbet and a bus from there to our lodging, cutting out seven miles of a planned 15-mile day and adding a lovely ferry ride on the lake.

                                                                            photo by Margaret della Santina

(We made up those miles with extra hiking to our various lodgings to equal the 96 miles of the trail.)

    The end of the West Highland Way is in Fort William, at the Statue of the Man with Sore Feet.

                                                photo by a willing passer-by

(How appropriately depicted!) That night Margaret and I toasted our accomplishment with a glass of Prosecco. Not a small feat, I said as we clinked glasses, for the lame and the old.

                                                                                        selfie by Diana Coogle

    

    

    

Singer the Whale swims again, Part 2

     Because details of installation were still taking place and the inside of the building still a hard-hat construction zone, the guests at the inauguration ceremony were looking at the whale through the large windows. Champagne was passed around, and the ceremony began. 

    Bianca Perla, founder and director of the Vashon Nature Center, who had the original inspiration for the project and approached Ela about being the sculptor, gave a beautiful speech, focused on the many things that Singer had brought the community. There were other brief speeches; then it was Ela's turn. 

    He looked for a moment at the assembled, excited crowd, then said, "This is an emotional moment for me," as indeed it must have been. He admitted he missed the bones, which had been in his studio since last fall. The most important part of his speech was to introduce the friends who had become his crew, three guys who had shown up one by one, wanting to join the project, brilliant men with engineering minds and aesthetic sensibilities. 

                                                                                    unknown photographer
Ela and his crew at the Art Center, before the sculpture went up 
(l-r) Kevin Flick, Rob Wheeler, Ela Lamblin, Wes Cherry, Bob Powell

 One by one, as Ela called for them, they appeared in the doorway in their hard hats. Ela explained how Singer would not now be in place without the contribution of each one. 

    Then the ceremony was over, and cake was served. Congratulations poured out. People were awed. What a magnificent thing, they said. What a work of art and engineering. What a tribute to the whale, Singer himself.

    The next day I went back to the Art Center to walk under the bones without the buzz of the crowd. The peace of the space was soothing, the pace of the tail conducive, in its rhythmic motion, to contemplation and understanding. I lay on the floor and peered into the ribs.

I found the vestigial pelvic bones, the scapula, the jugal.

The jugal is in the center of the photo.

I touched for the last time the finger-like bones of the flippers, which Ela would attach in a few days.

The flipper bones. Note the chair for size comparison.

 I watched the slow mesmeric movement of the long tail propelling Singer through the sea. I imagined the expulsion of water and mud through the baleen, leaving in the massive mouth the tiny crustaceans Singer fed on. And there in the silence of the space, I mourned Singer's death by starvation. Warming seas are depleting his Arctic feeding grounds of the food he needs for the long migration to Mexico, and he died on the way. We can look at the sculpture in the Vashon Arts Center and feel the magnificence of this creature. I love his bones; I love the beauty of the sculpture; I am privileged to witness it; I am over-the-top excited for the artist and his team; I will always love to stand again in Singer's presence, to feel the powerful movement of the body, to lie under the bones, to admire the intricate beauty of the sculpture, and to honor the spirit of this great creature who has come back to us in this form to remind us of who we are in relation to all beings on this earth.

A few days later, with the flippers attached.      photo by Ela Lamblin

Singer, the Whale, swims again, Part 1

    When I arrived at the Vashon Center for the Arts three days before the inauguration of my son, Ela Lamblin's, sculpture—skeleton, steel-outlined body, and suspension structure—of Singer, the gray whale (see post on November 5, 2025), the bones were still on the floor. I entered the ribs and walked through them, like Jonah, who, if he was my height, would have been walking almost upright.

I am in front, Ela in back.             Photo by Michelle Bates

I caressed the bones for the last time. The whale was going up, to hang from the ceiling of the Art Center and to imply, by swimming through the air, how Singer had once swum through the sea.

    Now I had a better idea of the scale of the project, from the tiniest, most intricate creating of beautiful, spliced (not knotted) cables 

Kevin Flick splicing the cables that will hold up the sculpture

to the joining of the bones and the sculpting and building of the steel framework; from the immense size and weight of the skull to the delicacy of the jugal, the smallest bone in the whale's body; from the millions of years during which the whale evolved its complicated mechanisms of structure and movement that allowed it to cease being a land creature and return to the sea—to the centuries of math and science that resulted in the mechanism, beautiful in itself, that Ela and his team of brilliant engineers devised to allow the tail to move in graceful, up-and-down sweeps.  

Each wheel turns a different set of vertebrae to make the tail move.

The entire length of the tail moves in a swimming motion.

    It took a long day for the tail to go up. The intricacies were unimaginable. The data on the computer was checked and rechecked. Skeleton and distances were measured and remeasured with various methods: tape measures, laser, pacing. Once the tail was up, would it be in the right place? Was the space for the skull and ribs correct? Did a whole whate really fit in the building? More than one person on the crew told me his neck was sore from looking up so much. 

    And then, at last, the tail went up.

This whole assembly will be lifted to the ceiling.

    I didn't see the skull go up a couple of days later because I was hosting the party Ela had planned to hold at his house before the inauguration ceremony, scheduled for 6:30 that evening. Ela wasn't at the party because he was still helping install the skull. He told me at midday that he didn't think it would happen in time, but just before 6:00 it looked like all preparations were ready. There was a count-down, and the skull was raised to join the tail at the ceiling. 

    I left the party for the Art Center at 6:10. The guests would have to see themselves out. 

Singer with some of the rigging still attached and
missing the flippers, but in place at the art center.

   

Next post: The inauguration ceremony

(All photos by Diana Coogle unless otherwise noted.)

Tree Trimming

 I live in an area with an unusual preponderance of beautiful California live oaks.

These tall evergreen trees provide a wealth of shade with branch after bushy branch of tiny, serrated leaves. Several of these oaks grow just off my front deck. One in particular is a beloved tree. It shades the deck and provides habitat for birds and acorns for the red squirrel that bops along my deck every now and then. 

    But when I first moved into this house, that same tree was a tangled mess blocking the view of the mountain from my bed. So I called a tree expert, my friend Chuck Dahl, who came, climbed, cut, and sawed until I had a beautifully shaped tree through which I could see Humpy Mountain from my bed.

    Ten years later, that tree's limbs were again blocking my view, and the limbs of other live oaks were cluttering the gutters with leaves. So I called Chuck again. The overhanging limbs were an obvious fix, but he went into my bedroom to see what I wanted there. He tucked his chin onto my bed, said, "Hm. I see," then went outside, geared up, and started climbing.

    For Chuck a tree is not an adversary to fight but a partner to dance with. In his heavy work boots, he dances up the tree en pointe.

 He bows horizontal to saw a limb. He pirouettes to a different position to use his chain saw on another one.

He manipulates a ten-foot pole to clip another one. He clips and saws and cuts; he hangs and swings and dances. If ballon refers to the smooth and elastic quality of the jumps performed in ballet, Chuck is a ballon-ist in a tree.

    When it was over, I had a beautifully shaped tree as well as an extended view from my bed. I had gutters unhindered by leaves. And I had wagonload after wagonload of branches to haul away.

Chuck went home, and I got to work.

    It didn't take long, though, and now, every morning when I wake up, I look out the window at the oak tree that danced with Chuck and beyond it to the music of the mountain I can see from my bed.

Mothing

     Butterflies are like prom queens. They're beautiful and showy and get all the attention. Moths are like the other girls—get to know them, and you'll see how special they are!

    There are about 750 species of butterflies in North America—and about 12,000 moth species. How many species of moths live on the Siskiyou Crest? No one knows, but the Siskiyou Crest Coalition has invited "citizen scientists" to join lepidopterist Dana Ross to try to find out.

    That's why I was setting up a tent at 7000-foot Observation Gap at dusk last week.

    It was cold and windy. Mt. Shasta rose majestically on the horizon, snowy in twilight. In the opposite direction the sun was setting with scarlet brilliance behind the forest. On two places on Observation Gap double sets of large white sheets, billowing in the wind, gleamed in the beam of strong, battery-powered black lights. 

As dark descended, the four citizen scientists and one learned scientist gathered at the sheets, waiting, glass vials in hand, for the moths.

  And the moths came, flying into the sheets. Soon we were all busy scooping moths into vials.

 Then we would show the captured moth to Dana, who would say, "Oh, it's a [such-and-such] moth. That's great!" or, sometimes, "Oh, I don't know that one!" All went in a cooler to take back to the lab to be identified and labeled as one of the moth species found on the Siskiyou Crest. 

    In only a few hours we had 50 or 60 moths in the cooler. Some were thumb-sized. Some were a quarter-inch long, as thin as pencil lead, and so insignificant I thought they wouldn't be worth the catch. But no moth was beneath Dana's consideration. He likes them all, whether tiny or large, dull or beautifully patterned.

    By midnight I was yawning and ready to retire. Soon the others followed me to their tents. Dana suggested we could get up before daylight and see what was still flying around, but when predawn came, I decided I was pleased enough with my contribution to scientific knowledge of the Siskiyou Crest that I didn't have to catch more moths. I snuggled deeper into my sleeping bag and let images of moths flit again through my dreams.

All photos by Suzie Savoie.

Birding on the East ART

     Last week I went on an early-morning bird walk on the East ART (Applegate Ridge Trail). The light was soft and beautiful over the mountains and through the woods; the open hillsides were lushly green. We saw, or heard, many birds: gnatcatchers, vireos, grosbeaks, woodpeckers, a kestrel sailing over the hills, wren tits, warblers…I couldn't keep track of them all. 

    The most thrilling moment was to watch, even through my pitifully inadequate binoculars, several pairs of brilliantly blue birds flying from bush to bush in the dense buckbrush on the steep hillside, one pair chasing others out of their nesting site. Their brilliant blue heads flashed in the sun. They were lazuli buntings. 

https://marinaudubon.org/jrbird/level-6/Lazuli-Bunting.php

    But they were not, as I had thought, "la-ZOO-lee" buntings, as in the rock—"LAP-is la-ZOO-lee," because the bird, I learned, is the "LAZ-oo-lee bunting." No one could tell me why. Later I learned from Partridge's etymological dictionary that the word comes from a Persian word meaning "a blue stone," so "lapis," meaning "stone," is tautological. The bird, then, must be named after the stone, for its similarly scintillating blue color. "Lapis," however, is "o.o.o.," in Partridge's terminology—of obscure origin—and there was no help in understanding pronunciation differences. Such are the mysteries of words. Isn't that beautiful?

    Nor, I also learned, were the the lazuli buntings (did you pronounce it correctly?) blue. The shining, eye-catching, luminescent blue on the head of the birds as they flew from bush to bush was, I'm sorry to say, an illusion. Birds can't make blue feathers.

    Not only did the bird experts on my walk tell me this, but so does Scott Sillett, a wildlife biologist at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, who says, on the Smithsonian website, "No bird can make blue from pigments." Apparently, they can make red and yellow feathers but not blue ones. What I was experiencing when I saw that flash of brilliant blue on the lazuli bunting was "light waves interact[ing] with the feathers and their arrangement of protein molecules" to make me think I was seeing blue.

    Wait. I was seeing blue. So was everyone else. "Look at that brilliant blue!" we exclaimed, binoculars at eye level.

    I could almost accept that what I was seeing was a trick of light when I watched the bird fly, but it makes no sense whatsoever when I hold a single blue feather in my hand. I turn it over and over. I put it in shade and in sunlight, and it is still blue. I put it next to a red feather. This one is red. This one is blue. How can you tell me there is no such thing as a blue feather?

   Such are the mysteries of nature.

    And isn't that beautiful? "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious," Einstein tells us—in words, I say, as much as in birds.