Summer Heat, Sleep Outs and Flying Birds

It hit 106 degrees in Corvallis today. Only one person I have met remembers anything this hot. Out here it was a couple degrees cooler, it might have reached 102. Last night it cooled off to the low-mid 60's. In town people said the air was stagnant. Really speaks to living with a lot of green around. It also helps that we are on a slope and there is the flow of hot and cooler air happening between the Valley floor and the Coast Range. The heat that gets trapped in the concrete and asphalt just stores all that thermal energy and then releases it into the world. When I walked through a parking lot today it reminded me of being in a Phoenix, Arizona gas station in July. It was like a blast from a kiln. The difference is that the humidity (43% today) is higher than Arizona.

Last night I put the inflatable bed out on the deck to sleep. It was great to see the first quarter of the moon hanging between the trees as it sat behind the coast range. The stars are so prominent out here... there is very little light pollution. When it is overcast, we get the glow from Eugene. But on a night like last night it was stars, stars, and more stars. As the daylight faded the bats and the Nighthawks came out. These were the first Nighthawks I have seen, where have they been. They were making their high pitched calls. I remember the male birds making their deep, basal calls when they make their swooping mating runs into the sky and back down.

Nighthawks is also the term used for one of the more famous pieces of American art by Edward Hopper. ( Here is a link to a Wikipedia page about him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Hopper). This type of painting, done in 1942, remind me of my parents and grandmother. The diner is the type that my mom and grandma worked in for years and years.

Another term for Nighthawks is a term I was introduced to in The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. He describes the business of x-rays and other images being read by professionals in Australia and India while the people in North America sleep. Then the report is available the next morning, when the nighthawks have gone to bed.

The flying nighthawks and bats had disappeared into the dark by the time I settled down for a night's sleep... looking up at the vast panorama of stars. I lay there and drifted, then would wake to look at Mars rising in the south, then doze. Then the first buzz of a mosquito and it would disappear with a bit of my blood. Then the dogs started barking, not real loud. Probably barking at a deer, raccoon, skunk... or some other mammal. It is possible it was a coyote, bobcat or cougar. Bear wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility. Well, they started barking, the mosquitos kicked in with a high toned violin.. pretty soon there was quite a chorus. The idea of a nice night in the cooler evening outdoors soon turned into a night of not sleeping so deeply.

When I worked with Outward Bound I had around 800-900 days in the field. That is a lot of time to sleep in sleeping bags on ensolites (and later Therma Rests). That has been many, many years ago and sleeping on the ground still has a cachet with my romantic memory, but I do like the thick air mattress on the deck. Comfortable bedding treats this body easier.

The turkeys haven't been around much. I've quit feeding the doves with millet on the ground... the very thing the turkeys have been eating. The creek is down to a small trickle. The water is dripping into the pool beneath the bridge, but the surface creek is dry. There is some sub-surface water that is trickling down. This is the home of the Rough-Skinned Newt.

From Aisling, a good night.

Turkeys and Other Rural Dilemmas

Fourteen turkeys, 3 hens and 11 poults scratch a living from this land. Meleagris gallopavo, subspecies Rio Grande, are doing very well since the early 1900's when only a few thousand were left in this country. Now it is suspected that there are close to 7 million. This flock loves the dirt. They have cleared out two crops of corn as they were coming out of the ground, scattered wood chips from beneath trees, and accidentally dug up plants.

On one hand we are tempted to chase them away. Maybe have them live-trapped and transported elsewhere. On the other hand, this is their land and has been long before we came here. To what extent do we domesticate the land and remove the animals we don't like. The turkey question is a dilemma for us.

It is one of many potential dilemmas that people in rural areas face. We moved out here to be surrounded by trees, song birds, sprinting bobcat (a story for another blog), the sound of the creek and wind... being removed from the high tech convenience society. Yet we drive 40 minutes each way to our work, use chain saws/weed eaters/lawn mowers to remove what we don't want. Listen to iPods while mowing the lawn and take digital shots of this beautiful land to put onto an online image storage site. We plant beautiful flowering plants to go with the preexisting abundance of color. Yet we mow down the beautiful dandelions in our yard/meadow.

I once heard a report that people who live in rural areas of the United States use 17% more energy than those in urban areas. We move out here to be part of the land and wind up using more energy to keep it the way we want it.

Life is filled with dilemmas. I think life is a continual shade of gray. It is analog rather than digital. When I was younger it seemed that life was going to be more certain as I got older. Yet the truth is that it is more complex. During my idealist days in the peace, environmental, and social justice movements the direction and purpose seemed so much clearer. Now, I am certain of the complexity of life; the impermanence of all that lives; the fact that all that lives will decay and die. Creatures transform, just as concepts, principles, and ideas morph during different phases of life.

One constant is that Mother Earth needs our attention. This is our home and we each have a part to play. The way we play our part is where the dilemmas come in. Our logger/hunter/rancher neighbors see their path as leading the good life and taking care of the land. Our friends who deeply believe in Peak Oil and the coming dark ages see that it must be taken care of in another way.

The problem with gray is that there is not a clear point of accomplishment. Is success when we get rid of the turkeys? Is it when we shift our minds to include them as part of our extended family and just don't plant what they will destroy? Is it when they are on the dining table of a local bobcat?

Any one who professes to have THE answer, doesn't.

We are constantly faced with dilemmas: turkeys, dandelions, gas use, concrete footprints, carbon trade-offs. The best we can do is our best.

John Mayer, in the song Belief, sang the following lyrics:
Is there anyone who ever remembers
changing their mind from the paint on a sign?,
is there anyone who really recalls
ever breaking rank at all
for something someone yelled real loud one time?
oh, everyone believes
in how they think it oughta be
oh, everyone believes
and they're not going easily

Good luck with your dilemmas.