Angel Oak

There exists in the low country of the Southeast, an aged tree. A tree known as the Angel Oak. The Angel Oak is said to be 65 feet tall, over 25 feet around and, wait for it... over 1,500 years old. The Angel Oak is a live oak - a still living, breathing, growing live oak.

Around the time of this aged oak's purported sprouting, Justinian was the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, silkworms had only just begun to be cultivated (by Byzantine humans) to produce silk, St. Benedict (near and dear to my own heart) was busy founding the Monte Cassino Monastery in Italy and the first pandemic of the bubonic plague hit Constantinople (now Istanbul).

These were the times of King Arthur, Beowulf, Gregory the Great and Mohammad. This was when one tiny acorn took root and sprouted in sandy soil in what is now South Carolina. Maybe its continued existence today tells us that the larger trees around it fell down at the precise times at which it needed to expand and use more space but not so early as to expose it too harshly to the elements. Maybe it tells us that there was never a single year of weather since sometime around 500 A.D. that this individual vegetative structure couldn't withstand.

Think of the bazillions of acorns this single tree has produced. Think of the amount of carbon it has drawn down from our (troubled) atmosphere. Think of the plethora of birds that have nested in its branches, the ants that have traversed millions of miles along its bark, the countless other living things who have used it as shelter, a landmark, food.

These days, we can think of the thousands of humans who have made the trip to see this magnificent being. To take photos of it (plural, because one photo will not do, cannot even include the entire expanse of the tree). To eat a lunch or have a soda under its shade. These days, the tree is surrounded by a fence topped with barbed wire. It has visiting hours. It has beams and rods propping up its various drooping parts. It has a gift shop. It has signs that say please do not sit, please do not carve, please do not climb. People do these things anyway. Maybe not the carving so much, but sitting and climbing. It is irresistible.

If a tree can be majestic, then this one certainly is. I can think of no better word to describe it.

Majestic

Worms at the picnic

I went on a picnic with some long, lost friends the other day. There were sandwiches, cookies, cold soda pops and fruit salad. There were sunshine, a light breeze, green-leafed trees and a nearly complete absence of flying bugs that could bite us. It was an idyllic spring day with good food and good company.

We situated ourselves at a picnic table in the shade and commenced our lunch. In the silence that followed the commencement of our lunch (yes, the food was good), I looked closely at the picnic table in front of me. And I noticed some non-flying bugs. Several different types in fact. No less than three types of caterpillars making their slow, purposeful way around our table in search of I-don't-know-what - food probably.

A worm in an apple may be considered bad luck, but these little fellows were not really causing any harm at our feast, so they were allowed to continue their independent paths across the table - probably unaware of us or one another. They presented a brief photographic challenge (which I accepted). And as with many things, I came to appreciate them more after seeing them through a camera's lens.


This guy was the first one I noticed (perhaps because he was the biggest and furriest). He was also the most sedentary.



Then this fellow appeared - to me this is very near the stereotypical version of a caterpillar that is the stock picture in my mind when I think of caterpillars (which is really not that often, I suppose).


And then this miniature cousin appeared, and he walks kind of funny. I actually just googled inchworms and found out that they are indeed caterpillars, not worms as their name suggests. I suppose I may have known this, but confirmation was necessary. This was not as shocking to me as when I found out (not all that long ago) that glow worms are real, non-fictional beings (though again, not truly worms). Perhaps more on them another day...



Oh, and Maximilian was there too, being his regal self (eye goop and all), sitting and watching children play and birds fly and leaves rustle on the trees, enjoying the sunshine as he is so wont to do.

A good time was had by all.

Feather-brained

Question:

How can you tell when you have recently spent too much time weighing feathers?

A) It becomes apparent to you that feathers possess personalities
(i.e. scraggly, bold, well-put-together, wily, cantankerous, jumpy, froufy (you know who you are), jealous, cooperative, candid, calm, and so on and so forth)

B) You dream of explaining feather asymmetry to someone
(n.b. not "dream" as in hope or wish for, but "dream" as in nighttime manifestations of subconscious)

C) You think (often - as in more than once a day) about whether you have weighed a pound of feathers yet (keep in mind that each feather can weigh less than one milligram). And in your head, a pound of feathers is somehow grotesquely related to the proverbial pound of flesh in Merchant of Venice. Subsequently, the various characteristics of Antonio and Shylock are mulled over for a considerable amount of time.

D) You can discern with a moment's glance which of "your" three species from which each feather originated.
(n.b. these three species are ones which an average birder would have difficulty identifying even after seeing their whole physical being in its entirety)

E) Taking photographs of feathers is actually a welcome break from weighing feathers.

(Remember feathers are inanimate objects and not that interesting in and of themselves.)

or (because I am a teacher (sometimes), I present the ever-appealing (and increasingly likely) option of)...

F) All of the above.



Example of rather uninteresting feathers...



But if you look more closely... wait, they are sort of pretty, aren't they? In their own, little way?

Correct answer: (F)

Scrumdiddlyumptious

Since it is so close to Easter and all, I thought I'd share a story from a recent, brief car trip in the spirit of the season.

I was traversing the short distance between home and work. I had not yet eaten lunch. It was well past lunchtime. Lunch was in my satchel. The satchel was on the passenger seat right next to me.

These were the facts that led up to my decision to reach inside my satchel, withdraw my lunch and begin (and... let's be honest... finish) eating it within the seven whole minutes that make up that door-to-door commute.

Lunch on this day was several hard-boiled eggs and a string cheese. Rather strange, yes?

At some point during the consumption of the second egg (while intermittently biting off small pieces of string cheese), it struck me. It struck me that I would put down all of the money I have to bet that there was no one else in the whole, wide world doing this same thing.

Perhaps it should have also struck me that I have the faculties and means to create a better lunch for myself. Perhaps it should have struck me that I might desire a better lunch than that. Perhaps it should have struck me that the reason that there was no other human being on our planet doing the same thing (and it's possible there never, ever has been someone who did this same thing) is that the thing I was doing was a little ridiculous. Perhaps more than a little ridiculous.

At any rate, lunch was done. Check that off the list for a busy day. Always an accomplishment to keep one's self fed and nourished (such as it is).



Consequently, this reminds me a little of that time in Armageddon where Ben Affleck is playing with animal crackers on and around the torso of Liv Tyler. She asks him if he thinks it's possible if anyone else in the world is doing this very same thing at the very same moment. He hopes so. I do too (about the animal crackers and the hard-boiled eggs/string cheese lunch).



And then Steven Tyler starts singing and (let's be honest) kind of ruins the moment because you're thinking about how Liv is his daughter and how in the world that can be biologically possible. In any event, it appears that it can be helpful to believe that we have a world worth saving (at least in part because there are, at any one time, duplicative numbers of people doing the same strange (but interesting) things).

(And for the record, I agree with Mr. Affleck about the animal cracker/cookie debacle.)

Happy Easter everyone!

Capers of the Beagle

The Beagle found me via a newspaper ad in May of 2006. At this time, his name was Spot, and he was 15 months old.

Soon after his arrival, his name was changed to (the slightly more regal and gentlemanly) Maximilian. And he began two (apparently) new hobbies.

1) Collecting shoes (it doesn't really matter to whom they belong, but mine seem to be the preferred variety)...

2) And lying in the sun (as if he were a cat).

Other qualities in Maximilian changed as well. He was a bit overweight upon his arrival in my life. We fixed that by walking and walking and walking (and sometimes running or rollerblading). Now we walk 3-4 miles every day with the (possibly sole) motivation on Maximilian's part that the world is his great, big buffet line. Maximilian also learned to like water (an element of which he was terrified at first).

Eventually he became comfortable enough to ride (and even fall asleep) on the back of the kayak.

But in fine beagle fashion, when he is not otherwise engaged in an outdoor activity, he is typically lounging in the most comfortable spot he can find. Sweet, wonderful beagle that he is; that's a good beagle Maximilian.

The Name

Life can be demanding. Life can be funny. Life can be maudlin, morose, rich, fleeting, finicky, furry, bouncing, balancing and blustery (all at once). Whatever life is for each of us, we all get to wake up every day and move about (whether literally or figuratively) in this great big, beautiful world. My overarching plan is to enjoy as much of it as possible.

That means looking in the cracks in the sidewalks, looking up at the sky more often than every now and again, listening to the wind (through pines, grass, eaves, car windows), listening to music as if it were a singular activity, stopping to smell a flower... These are the goals of my life: noticing color, taste, sound, smell, touch.

Rachel Carson wrote a book published in 1956 called The Sense of Wonder. In this books she explains the multitude of simple ways she has found to help guide her young nephew, Roger, to a lasting appreciation of the world and its contents. I am of the opinion that this strategy is a good one for each of us. And so I try to appreciate. I want to be one of those people who really knows and experiences things. I want everyone to be one of those people (then maybe we could talk more easily).

So my goal here is to post about the things I see, taste, hear, smell and feel and what these mean to me. Sometimes these will seem to be minutia (but I'm not sure I believe in such a thing), and other times these will seem vague (but I'm not sure I believe in that either). Because I believe that pictures really are worth many, many words, I suspect a lot of these posts will rely heavily on photographic evidence for my claims.

Thank you for following, and please enjoy!