Runnaversary!

 July 30, 2011, was my one-year runnaversery. Having run almost seven days a week for a year, having been out in every kind of weather from weeks of icepack to sweltering 90's, I am more than a little pleased with myself for sticking with it. I've probably run almost 800 miles in the past year. Not a lot for a serious runner, but it feels good to write that. Good? It feels unbelievable, in the purest sense of the word.

I thought I'd lose weight. You'd think, reading this, that by now I'd be one of those sinewy stick women. Nah. Not an ounce lost. I gained several pounds of muscle. Oh well. But what I noticed once the soreness wore off was how much better I felt in my body. It was a revelation.

How could I not stick with it? I'm hooked, as much on this landscape and these colors, as I am addicted to the exercise.

 

Nothing is the same from day to day. Everything is different and new every time I go out. One fine morning the thistles will have bloomed.

 The colors change. Some mornings they're dull, some mornings they're glorious. I feel blessed to have this road stretching out before me, to have it almost all to myself.

I stay off the paved road. Gravel has proven much kinder to my feet and knees than pavement would be. But every morning I stop and look down at Carl's house, at the place where his beautiful leaning barn used to be. I listen for the catbird.

 Just before the birdsong died out (naturally, I'd add, for they're done breeding now), I started carrying a folded piece of notebook paper and a little pen in my pocket, and scribbling down the birds I heard singing every morning. It was a wonderful way to take my mind off the heat and the hills and the sweat and the toil. I write lots of other things on the paper, too--usually a few haikus every morning, or song lyrics, or ideas that come to me when my blood is pumping.

My personal best for the 2.8 mile daily run was 48 bird species on July 9, 2011. Because I am a nerd, I will list them here in bander's code, because anyone who knows enough to care what birds are singing on my road will probably be nerd enough to figure out what they are (Yes, KatDoc, I'm talking to you) and anyone who cares but can't figure it out can ask me. I love this list so much. It is pure, distilled essence of what makes Zick happy--getting out every morning, rain or shine, recording what I hear and see, and paying full attention to the wonders all around. Note that all these birds are breeding right around my house. That's not all that breed; the worm-eating and black-and-white warblers and many others aren't singing any more, but gee whiz! How's that for a chest full of treasure?

 EATO

AMCR

BLJA

ACFL

CHSP

FISP

NOCA

AMRE

TUTI

KYWA

RTHU

REVI

HOWA

BGGN

EAKI

INBU

EABL

HOSP

CACH

DOWO

AMGO

RBWO

EWPE

AMRO

SCTA

YBCU

YTVI

BASW

EUST

MODO

GRCA

WBNU

BWHA

BRTH

PIWO

CHSW

COYE

NOMO

BHCO

EAME

WOTH

YBCH

RSHA

WEVI

NOFL

SOSP

CAWR

EAPH  48 spp. 7/9/11  (PERSONAL BEST FOR RUN SO FAR)

It is a great regret of mine that I can't carry a camera every morning, but even the slight weight of my Canon G-11 is too much to want to haul. So on one particularly lovely misty morning I carried it along in my hand as I ran, and recorded some of the beautiful things I see every day, just to share it with you. It took hours. In the tree above is one of those beautiful things. Can you find him? If I had a soundtrack you could. Astute readers will notice that YBCH eluded me on July 9, though there were three pairs along my route. Ever-changing, never predictable. I bet I coulda broken 50 species with the chat and a raptor flyover. Oh well, next year. It keeps you thinking. Listening to birdsong, sifting one from the other, is my thing. 

A yellow-breasted chat, quacking and clicking and grunting and hooting his heart out.

I'm writing this post while waiting for Phoebe's nightly cross country training--45 minutes to the school, two hours for her training, then 45 minutes home. She loves it. And she's built for it, like a gazelle, unlike her little brick outhouse of a mama.

Whoda thunk just a year ago that running would become such a huge part of our lives? Needless to say, I highly recommend it. Yeah, I thought I hated running too--until I committed to it.

Welcome to My World

Every time I go out running, and that is every morning

I wish I could bring you along. But you are usually sleeping, or at least not in the mood to stretch yourself out and then get very sweaty. 

You would think I'd tire of this road, running it every day, but the fact is that watching it change its clothes and its soundtrack each day fascinates me endlessly.

There are always surprises. Sometimes it's the deep violet blue of the morning's first chicory.

 

Sometimes it's pink chicory. I know of five plants on this curve that are pink. I don't know how common that is, but it feels singular to me.

 

There's one intergrade that is a bewitching periwinkle bluepink.

Sometimes it's an eastern tailed blue mimicking a flying bit of chicory. I love ETBL's. They are a most friendly and confiding butterbug. You can see the tail on his left hind wing.

Sometimes it's a hayfield, suddenly cut, with meadowlarks circling overhead not knowing what in the world they should do. (They wound up leaving the next day, but that's OK, because I had seen their babies fledge weeks earlier). If there's one thing meadowlarks know about, it's haying.

 Sometimes it's an unexpected curve in a treeline that reminds me of England.

 Or black-eyed Susans against a misty tree scrim.

And always at my side Chet Baker, sweet companion of the morning and my life. In him I have a dogmometer. I can tell how hot it is by whether he's in front of me, beside me or yards behind. Over about 82 degrees and I'm liable to have to wait for the boy. Under 80 and he waits for me.

 We always stop and think at the cemetery. We breathe and sweat and are glad to be alive and not having a red cedar and pizen ivy growing up through our rib cages.

Feeding Sluggo

I am delighted to say that after taking his first two slugs on June 26,  Sluggo has expanded his dietary horizons from slugs to fresh cantaloupe, 

strawberries, blueberries, bananas, black raspberries, peaches and Repto-Min turtle sticks (the green things in this photo).

 I encourage him by soaking the Repto-Min in cantaloupe juice, or by pushing the dry sticks into fresh cantaloupe, where he can't help but devour them. Repto-Min is a wonderful complete food, that raises some mighty nicely shelled baby box turtles for me. Every day I put more Repto-Min in his fruit. He cleans it up!

Sluggo's housed in a 20 gallon long aquarium, with moist peat and sphagnum moss and some groovy shallow rock-like dishes just for reptiles. He's right under a south window, which gives him sun for basking. It's important to have water always available. Hurt box turtles often soak all day and night. It makes them feel better. You really have to stay on top of them, though, and keep that water clean, because they like to poopify their water. Choosing to poop in their water actually makes caring for box turtles easier, if a bit disgusting. Overall, it keeps their limited artificial environment a lot cleaner. About twice a day I'm taking sloshy poopified water outside to throw it off the deck. Ick. Worth it, though.

More than a month after finishing his injections, Sluggo's still not using his hind legs much. That's all right. They seem to work, in that he can extend and retract them. He'll get around to it eventually, and I'm not going to rush him. He's had a rough summer. And he still doesn't trust me to mess with his hinders. It takes box turtles a long time to trust someone who's once hurt them (with Baytril injections) but he'll get there. Every day he's a little more outgoing, and he'll eat from my fingers now.

 He can stay here as long as he needs to. I'll take care of him. If that means a year or two, that's fine with me. But we all look forward to the day when I can call the folks who brought him to me and tell them he's ready to come home. He'll be released right where he was found. Minus the lawnmower.

Many thanks to those who chipped in on Sluggo's treatment costs. I wasn't expecting that. Y'all paid for his Baytril, his Repto-min, his Tegaderm, his Silvodine cream and some very nice cantaloupe, and for that I thank you sincerely. You always surprise me, in the nicest ways, and fill my heart.

Votati pt Lauren la Tubey Awards

Television Without Pity are un set de sondaje numit "Tubey Awards", la care Lauren Cohan este nominalizata. Categoria in care o veti gasi se numeste "Best Guest Star". Votati AICI!

Bald Eagle Hunt!

Bald Eagle on the Missouri River, Montana

You know, I’ve been thinking about this whole dustup over hunting cranes in Tennessee and now Kentucky. And my thinking has come around 180 degrees from where it was. I get it now, I really do. I think it’s time to hunt Sandhill Cranes. And while we’re at it, I think it’s time to open a limited season on Bald Eagles. Look at the facts, lay your emotions aside and listen to reason—exactly the same reasoning that’s been so persuasive in convincing me that hunting cranes is the right thing to do.

1. We’ve always hunted Bald Eagles.

Bald Eagles were nearly exterminated from the Lower 48 by the mid 1970’s. There was a lot of hunting for Bald Eagles—it is traditionally a game species.  There was a bounty on them in Alaska from 1917 until 1952—up to $2 a head! Yes, they have been an endangered species for as long as most of us can recall, but remember, they were traditionally a hunted species. Now they’re off the red list and bouncing back into the black. The total population in the continental US has risen to around 100,000 individuals. In my home state, Bald Eagles are breeding in 35 Ohio counties. Soon, they may overrun available habitat.

2. Bald Eagles are doing well enough now to support a hunt.

Each Bald Eagle pair has the potential to produce 1.7 young per year. All regional populations have nest success >50% and are showing the productivity required to produce stable populations. So there will be an ample supply of young birds coming up for harvest.

3. Bald Eagles will provide a sporting challenge for hunters.

Bald Eagles are big and slow-flying, and they will readily come in to bait. Hunters don’t even need to use decoys. However they are wary and have famously sharp eyes, so bagging eagles will be a true sporting challenge for hunters. The Bald Eagle has the potential to be the Holy Grail of game birds.

4. Hunting eagles will not hurt, but enhance non-consumptive wildlife viewing opportunitites.

Many people like Bald Eagles—it’s almost as if they consider them sacred. These passive wildlife enthusiasts like to go places, especially in winter, to watch them. Having a hunting season on eagles won’t affect those opportunities. In fact, hunting eagles will enhance the birdwatchers’ viewing opportunities by concentrating the birds in places where they aren’t being shot at. Imagine big flocks of Bald Eagles massing on our wildlife refuges. Birder viewing opportunities will be even more spectacular.

5. We need to give hunters new opportunities and new species to hunt.

Many people similarly feel sentimental about Bald Eagles, what with their being the national symbol, but that is just an example of misplaced emotion. No bird species should be exempt from harvest. It’s our right to hunt whatever wildlife is abundant enough to support the harvest. We need to give hunters new opportunities to hunt.

6. People who protest our proposed hunt are trying to strip rights from the hunting public.

Anyone who protests this hunt is making an assault on the American way, on our right to harvest our native wildlife—a right that we have held since the first colonist fired a blunderbuss in what was to be America.

6. Bald Eagles are delicious.

Some people say Bald Eagle doesn’t taste good, but they probably have never tried it. Most people who’ve eaten eagle say it is delicious. With the right marinade, Bald Eagle is indistinguishable from a good New York strip steak. With a rapidly growing population exceeding 100,000 birds, Bald Eagle could easily become our National Dish.

So I hereby propose a season on Bald Eagles in Ohio, with the anticipation that many other states will follow suit. Let Ohio be the first to re-open a season on this traditionally hunted bird. Now that we’ve almost succeeded in pushing a Sandhill Crane hunt through in Kentucky, the sky’s the limit.

Now that I’ve got your attention, here’s the final action alert for the Kentucky Sandhill Crane hunt proposal.  I’ve already summarized some reasons NOT to hunt Sandhill Cranes in this post:

Last Gasp for Sandhill Cranes

ACTION ALERT:  The USFWS has published its intention to approve Kentucky’s Sandhill Crane hunting proposal. The final deadline for comments is FRIDAY, AUGUST 5. The USFWS isn’t accepting emails, but you CAN comment online. Here’s how to do it.

Go to regulations.gov

Click on Submit a Comment

Type or paste  FWS-R9-MB-2011-0014-0204  into the keyword box & click Search

This will bring up the regulation page. You want "Frameworks for Early Season Migratory Bird Regulations." Buried in the text at that link is the proposal to hunt Kentucky Sandhill Cranes, along with a bunch of duck hunting stuff. It's interesting to look at it, especially the USFWS' refutation of various organizations' concerns about hunting cranes, under Section 9: Sandhill Cranes. If you want to cut to the chase and get your comment in,  click on Submit a Comment at the far right of this regulation. The idea being, despite the done-deal tone they take in the "proposal," to let the USFWS know you're out there, too.

Write your comment in the box provided (2000 characters or less)

Do it by Friday, August 5, 2011.

Snail mailed letters make an impression, especially when there are piles of them. Send your polite, well-reasoned letter to:

 Attn: FWS-R9-MB-2011-0014

Division of Policy Directives Management

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services

4401 N. Fairfax Drive

MS 2042-PPM

Arlington, VA 22203

I sent mine today.

As always, thank you for caring and thank you for acting.  The petition to the USFWS to re-evaluate its proposal to hunt eastern sandhills now has 2,733 signatures. Go to the link above, make your comment; sign the petition if you haven't. Make your voice heard.

Sluggo, You Have to Eat!

One of the scary things about reptiles, at least to me, is that they can go a very long time without eating. And they do. It's never good when a patient won't eat. For someone like me, who loves her charges and her babies, her friends and family with food, it's doubly upsetting.

Every day for two weeks I put tempting food right in front of that turtle. Twice a day. He'd look at it, sometimes even crane his neck, but he stolidly refused to take a bite. I tried bananas, peaches, watermelon, mealworms, earthworms, black raspberries, blueberries and slugs. Slugs are like candy to box turtles.

I went out with my headlamp, breathing the clouds of midges and gnats who were attracted to it, and hunted slugs at night. I put melon rinds out as bait and gathered them, keeping them in a little slug farm in the living room. You have one, don't you? I feed mine lettuce and spent daylily flowers.

These are Arion subfuscus, an imported European slug. Don't ask me why we have imported slugs here. We just do. Not surprisingly, they vastly outnumber our old gray slugs. 

And the turkle would look at them and let them crawl right by. Until the day when I offered two slugs on a nice piece of bark from the forest floor, which was covered with fresh earthy-smelling loam. The turtle's head shot out and he craned his neck and bam! he grabbed a slug. And then a second.

I was so excited I took these photos from across the room with my 300 mm. lens, just to document this Gandhi of turtles, digging in. He was so skittish I couldn't let him see me.

After that magic moment, no slug was safe around Sluggo. My theory is that the scent of fresh loam reminded him of home, and stimulated his appetite. 

Goo-byeeeee!

I was one relieved turtle nurse when Sluggo finally lived up to his name.

Meet Sluggo

I have kind of an unusual Ohio wildlife rehabilitator's permit. It's for songbirds, bats and reptiles, specifically box turtles. Boxies get on the wrong end of our machines more often than I'd like to see. Cars, well, they usually don't survive an argument with a wheel. Lawnmowers are bad, too. Turtles' shells often save them, but lawnmowers can inflict some truly grievous injuries.

This handsome older gentleman came to me in late June 2011 from a wooded yard in Athens, Ohio, where the caller had accidentally hit him with a rider mower. I hate getting turtle calls because it's so hard to gauge how badly hurt the animal is from a verbal description. Is he bright? Crawling? How big is the wound? Where is it? Any limbs missing? That kind of thing. I still shudder when I remember the female boxy a couple of sweet young hippies brought me. They were very vague on the phone. Her shell was in pieces, apparently. "Yes, all the pieces are there." What they neglected to tell me, because they wanted so badly for me to somehow wave my wand and magically fix this hurt animal, was that the pieces were no longer connected to the turtle. They were rattling around in the shoebox with her. 

I could instantly see that this turtle had a better prognosis. Hey, he had a prognosis. What you're seeing here is not exposed flesh but pink shell bone, crushed and compressed, with the colored scutes knocked off. Oh, it had to hurt. The callers had done just the right thing--cleaned him up with some disinfectant and put Band-aids over the wound until they could bring him to Marietta. I took the Band-aids off and soaked a paper towel in Betadine, and let him crawl around  while the disinfectant soaked the grass and dirt loose.

Part of the protocol for turtles with bad shell wounds is eight days of Baytril (antibiotic) injections, at about $10 a day. Ouch for turtle and rehabber. These are administered in the back legs, one every other day, with a very fine needle. Still, it hurts, and the turtle purely hates it. This is the second boxy I've had who learned within a day to keep his hinders tucked and to crawl away from me using only his front legs.  That's what he's doing in the photo above--booking with his hind legs tucked.

I picked all the grass and dirt off, washed him, disinfected him again, and let him dry. I couldn't even budge the smashed-in shell pieces so I decided to let them heal as they were. He still had control over his back legs, though they and his tail were quite bruised, and I thought I could probably do more harm than good by messing about with the shell. 

Time for some spackle.

The white Crisco-like substance is Silvodine cream, an antibiotic cream for burns and deep wounds. I packed the wound with cream and got some Tegaderm, which is a surgical membrane that acts a bit like skin. Silvodine, unfortunately, needs a prescription, but Chet's veterinarian, Dr. Lutz, was happy to help with that and the Baytril, too.

Peeling off the white backing and laying the clear Tegaderm over the cream. It's adhesive.

Smoothing the Tegaderm.

Better. Not all better, but on the road to recovery without risk of infection.

Next: Sluggo, you HAVE to eat something.