Jack's Pulpit

Yesterday I led a quick guest tour of the property, including Waterfall #1, Waterfall #5, and "the beach." Sloshing our way up a rill to Waterfall 5, the mud nearly pulled the boots off our feet. I've posted photos and video of our waterfalls, but never a Jack-in-the-pulpit because the last time I was in the right place at the right time to see this awesome dramatic springtime wildflower, I didn't have a smartphone, so we are talking before the year 2008.

Jack-in-the-pulpits are in fact rare plants.

 

Every spring since then I have hoped to see one. While the guest photographed the waterfall, I knelt in the soggy loam to photograph the Jack-in-the-pulpit. At home, after a shower, I looked my photos over. None were razor-sharp; none expressed the Jack's imperial presence.

So today after a morning's work I suited up in bad clothes and trudged back. Rain had fallen overnight so the mud was muddier. I didn't see the Jack. Was it one of those flowers that last only one day? I sat by the rill and let the view settle around me and in five minutes found the Arisaema triphyllum. All by itself. There wasn't another.

Determined to get an expressive photo (the majesty of the thing!) I took pictures of it for half an hour. The flap over its top meant getting the camera down so I could shoot upward. I sat down in the mud. Then lay down in the mud. Mom always said I was determined. And I wasn't about to let you down.

Bluebells by the Acre

Did you want to see bluebells growing in their native sort-of-swampy habitat, during the peak of blooming? Me too. Today I took happy advantage of the creek-side path I personally cut through the woods in fall and winter. The farther I walked, the more bluebells (Mertensia virginica) there were, to the left, right, ahead, behind. Golly!

Good Morel Character

If you live around here -- east central Missouri or thereabouts -- get out and go looking, because now, now, now is the one week of the year you'll find morels. Look near paths or lawns or streams or game trails or parks -- any place that the earth gets regularly disturbed, because fungi like that.

I've been patroling for a week the strip of land where I found eight morels on the property last year. Twice a day I looked. No dice. Yesterday, enjoying some spring sun, I found a game trail not too overgrown; while cutting brush this past winter I'd opened it up a bit. Brushed my way on in there with my folding stool and had a seat where I'd never sat before. This is a wooded clifftop area. And what to my wondering eyes should appear but this nice fat good-sized morel. Just one. Only one. 

Normally you'll find morels in groups. Believe me, I looked for more; there were none. I figured this was a gift from the gods feeling sorry for me for looking so hard, walking up and down, finding zero all week. Here's a glamour shot. I sauteed and ate it within the hour.

Now stop scrolling and go out and hunt!

Violets on Earth

I have not much to say today that springtime can't say for me. First, April has had numerous sunless days. After several sunless days, turning into weeks, of no visitors and no visiting, fewer phone calls because we're all in shock and can barely mumble, and all aware we are all in the same waterlogged boat, and this is real life -- a sunny day and noticing violets at my feet felt like spiritual sustenance. I don't grow these. They're 100 percent free random grace.

Happy Earth Day!

Dogwood is Dagwood

Dogwood, seen here near the wilderness end of our lane, has no connection with dogs. Its original name is "Dagwood" and you won't believe why: The wood is tough -- legend says Jesus was crucified on a dogwood cross -- and the wood was used to make dagger handles and such, and so it was called "dagwood," and now we know where both the names "Dogwood" and "Dagwood" come from. Proves that life teaches you something new every day.

And those aren't white "petals," either. They are leaves called "bracts," and the corn-colored puff in the center of the bract is the actual flower, and don't that beat all. Photo taken about 7:00 p.m. on my new favorite day of the year: April 27.

Why Are Deer So Elusive?

Pulling the car into the garage in early evening I saw in its rearview mirror a doe in the meadow. I did not say "Hello," even from inside the car, because they are so sensitive. Imagine living with the knowledge that your flesh is so tasty all sorts of creatures want to kill you to eat it. That's why they're sensitive. But this doe kept standing there as I watched, leaving me plenty of time to fire up the phone and ready its camera. The doe stood firm even as I exited the car. I thought for sure she'd bolt at the sound of the car door slamming shut, but she didn't move a muscle.

I've seen similar behavior in female animals guarding their babies. One rabbit would not budge although a gas-powered lawnmower passed her within inches. At this time of year, fawns would be brand-new. The doe was standing exactly where a circle has been cut out of the tall grass so I can pitch my tent there. It's a choice spot. She might have been waiting to catch a scent. Or she hoped freezing in place made her invisible. Even when I lifted the camera and fiddled with the zoom function (actual distance was about 25 feet) she didn't move. I turned and pulled down the garage door. It whined loudly and rattled, and that did it. She leaped away, but not far. I then returned to minding my own business and let her go about hers.

Nests

 Without screens for 19 days the Divine Cabin looked like a skull, or a jaw without teeth, or eyeless, or simply shabby, conked-out, or abandoned until today I retrieved my new screens from the hardware store (again 3 round trips to bring all 7 panels home; for delivery one must buy $300 of stuff and my total was $284). I've had flu for the last eight days and now bothered only by malaise and cough, decided to shower, dress, go get 'em and see if I felt better.

One last time out on the screen-free porch I had to scrape from beneath a rafter a nest built by a persistent house wren (see photo), a nest loosely woven from moss and dry leaves and grass. Could you build a nest using only your bill and natural materials? I couldn't.

Pulled from the closet some army-green jeans at least 15 years old -- I haven't bought jeans since, they don't flatter me -- and darn, they fit; that was a good omen. When my wooden screens rolled out on a cart they looked lovely and although the frames are 80 years old nothing had been broken. All was just as I had handed it over, except for the new pristine and skillful aluminum screening.

Proceeded to cook and eat the most normal lunch I've had in a week, sit, rest, then attempt to install the screens -- a second huge effort that day, didn't know if it was smart. I did it. Here's a photo taken as the sun slanted across, about 6 p.m. I'll find out tomorrow if I've overstepped my recovery. But now I'll be able to convalesce if I have to on my porch. The divine porch! My nest!

Never Too Early

Not too well today, I did read that "Demons hate fresh air," so hauled my rhinitis-ridden self outside to LaBarque Creek where the bluebells (Mertensia virginica) were as yet a bit shy -- but unfolding themselves anyway. Usually healthy as a horse, by now, as early as possible every spring, I would have spent an afternoon on one of the LaBarque's mobile white-sand "beaches" -- each year altered in size, shape and placement by rainfall, beavers and erosion. We don't expect backup flooding from the Meramec River but I'll stay alert. Bluebells love creek and river banks and floodplains so either way, we win.

Elfin Saddles

Shoveling beneath some rotted wood exposed some unusual mushrooms plump as cooked macaroni and about the same size and pallor, mushrooms I'd never seen before. They had elegant saddle-shaped caps with white piping, and grew in neighborly little clumps. They are casually called "elfin saddles." It's said that bugs and millipedes can hide between the lobes for a while, freeloading.

Turns out these mushrooms belong to the Helvella family, whose saddle-shaped caps are characteristic, and specifically the ones I dug up are Helvella leucopus. Quite common, and formerly considered edible, they have since been downgraded to "suspect" or "unknown," probably because there's no one left to tell us that when eaten they have no ill effects. Interesting discovery, though.

Zero Gravity Chair

My old tube-framed, woven-plastic folding porch lawn chair finally gave out and I gracefully let it go, taking it to the recycling place, and then, because I spend so much time lounging on the screened porch, sought a new one and saw for sale absolutely nothing like those familiar tube-framed, woven-plastic patio chairs, as hard as I looked. So how to replace the chair I used to work in, doze in, carry to the meadow and sun myself in? That kind simply isn't sold any longer.

Instead, I saw folding "director's" chairs (don't need one) and "zero-gravity" lounge chairs, and there being nothing else, I chose the highest-starred one on Amazon, chose between burgundy and black, and in two days a box half as high as I and three times as wide appears on my porch and has to be dragged into the carpeted living room, where the item won't be scratched in case I want to return it, I'm that skeptical. With the box sliced open, I dump out and unfold a well-wrapped chair ALREADY ASSEMBLED, ready to sit in, a situation so knock-me-over-with-a-feather that in my confusion I actually looked at the instruction sheet, and from it learned how to lock the chair into position with handy little tabs beneath the armrests, and how to attach the utility tray (holding drinks, phones, and right now the tablet I took this photo with). The attached sun-shade is adjustable and folds away, over the chair back. Looks like they came on the market in 2015 and everyone was wise to them but me.

I was curious: What is so zero-gravity about it? Then I got in the chair, stretched it out, and locked it into position with the little pull tabs, and lounged. What a difference from the former chair that like those dreadful wooden "Adirondack"chairs had you seated with knees above butt level, pressuring the lower spine. I've about decided to keep this rather handsome chair as my living-room lounge chair and buy another for the porch. The white dot on the chair back is a reflection from the sun.

Spring Forward

The spiritual reading today said "Strengthen your will." I said, okay, I'll try, nothing to lose, and after my in-room coffee made the bed and dressed myself at once for the 6:30 p.m. ballet class, my favorite -- because then I won't have to change later. Without much back-and-forth or cellphone reading I willfully decided -- because the dawning day was wildly beautiful, the forsythia and tree buds all popping, the blue and white hyacinths in full bloom, the air clear and fresh -- to take a walk at Glassberg Conservation Area. One mile into the walk there's a fantastic vista of the Meramec River valley. Then one mile back.

Bluebells, violets, spring beauty, the white daisy-like flowers of the bloodroot, the first dappled leaves of the trillium -- all suddenly existed. Walking was easy and puddles few because gravel was recently shoveled over some well-worn parts of the path. There's a wooden bridge and some stepping stones across a creek tributary. The sun dribbled light into the narrow stream. It was 9:00 a.m. A sleeveless shirt was perfect. In the photo I'm relaxing alongside an energetic little waterfall with clear fresh icy water. How good!

After this willful walk I willfully fixed a full breakfast and ate it on the porch in perfect weather with singing birds alongside. This breakfast was a victory -- toast and egg and all that.

I had willfully washed and dried my new cotton nightgown, a great bargain, that arrived with sleeves four inches too long. I willfully set up the ironing board -- usually it might take me five weeks to feel like doing it, but I was strengthening my will -- and secured the ruler, shears and pins to shorten the sleeves, and hemmed the sleeves with iron-on sticky tape rather than needle and thread, although needle and thread might have been quicker. Finished in an hour.

Then I went willfully to work on my work. Did okay. Then fixed a banana-yogurt-peanut butter-coffee shake for lunch. Then wanted to get lazy. Just for today, I won't be. I need a hummingbird feeder (birds arrive around April 24; males have arrived as early as the 12th). After ballet class I will go get one.

Hey Guys, Keep It Classy

Guys, when you are on a first date, these are the dumb ways you give away to your date that you watch lots of Internet p0*n. You:

• Rate women on a numeric scale from 1 to 10.
• Ask if we shave, and regardless of our reply tell us in detail about the amount and styling of hair you find acceptable.
• Declare that you hate and will never, ever use condoms, that you can't use condoms, they're really uncomfortable, etc.
• Have only one erogenous zone, and believe that women have only two.
• Never read books or magazines (We know that is because you spend all your leisure time watching Internet p0*n.).
• Complain that your PC runs really, really slowly (We know that's because your PC is full of malware and viruses from Internet p0*n sites.).
• Declare, and illustrate with finger-in-mouth gesture, that romantic comedies make you sick.
• Openly and shamelessly tell us, "I'm a single guy, so I watch p0*n, okay?" (If we watched p0*n to get our ya-yas, we would have class enough to keep it a deep dark secret, especially on a first date.)
• Ask if we squirt.
• Proudly announce that you do not own a suit. (We know that's because instead of going to weddings and funerals you stay home and watch Internet p0*n.)
• You took guitar or sitar lessons for a while, but not any more (because all your time is taken up).
• Ask when we were last tested for STDs. If we ask you, your answer is always "I know I'm all right."

And I Lived in This Strange Culture

. . . I will explain to those in the next life that "I lived in this strange culture that believed that a giant rabbit sneaked through the world once a year on Easter morning and left edible colored eggs and candy in the shapes of eggs, rabbits, and baby chickens, especially to make little children happy, and the date of Easter was the first Sunday after the first Full Moon after the spring equinox, and they believed that this Jewish guy 2000 years ago who preached unconditional love was convicted of blasphemy and crucified and died horribly, but woke from the dead 3 days later and that was the reason for Easter, they really believed this, and that this guy had died to pay for everybody else's sins for all time, and the people who believed this were really pissed if you did not believe this and especially if you told them the word Easter was the name of the pagan goddess Ostra and it was originally her feast day and rabbits and chickens were her sacred animals. Once I actually saw the giant rabbit, at the gym where I was taking Senior Yoga class, and it was sitting on a white throne with giant eggs under it, and local mothers were bringing their children to the giant rabbit, I guess for its blessing."

Like Flesh

A known oyster-mushroom log at the entrance to the eastern woods produced these fleshy beauties in late April (photo taken 27 April); the scissors help show the size. I'd been harvesting that log for about two years, April to December; the whole area around it was rich in mushrooms edible and non-edible because that opening was a game path as well as my favorite path, and 'shrooms love to grow in disturbed earth.

Then one day in May came a huge New Holland earth mover that for no reason broke through this log and others and treaded well into the woods, crushing to mud the best chanterelle, oyster, and Bearded Tooth patches I have cultivated and picked from for three or four years. Apparently it was for no reason except wanton destruction. They went into the woods as far as the dump but did not clean it up. I don't own the land so I can't object and besides, what's done is done.

It's a heartache. I visited the site again today and can't set it right. Chanterelles are due in about four weeks, if conditions are right. I seeded those everywhere in that area of woods, so I believe all is not lost regarding chanterelles. But the oysters? If I am good, I will be led to more. Maybe this mechanically disturbed earth will make hunting there even better one day, when the scars of the treads heal over.

A Really Good Morning

This misty morning, 7 a.m,  after thunderstorms last night, was so dreamlike I took the creaky old Nikon (2004) and not the phone, because the Nikon has great optics, to photograph the marvelous drifting clouds of mist. As I approached the bluebird box, a pair of dark anxious eyes appeared at its opening. Bluebirds like and want to settle in the wooden bluebird boxes humans make; they thrive where humans plow and mow, allowing the birds to locate crawling things they can pin down and eat. I remove and scrub out the bluebird box twice a year (have found bats, snakes, piles of thorny sticks, and a colony of bees); and properly made bluebird boxes can be opened by the side panel for inspection by landlords such as myself. I came closer yet, raising the camera, and out the bluebird flew.

Then I unhooked the side of the box and gently removed the nest, and in it found five baby bluebirds in a warm little heap, breathing and sleeping, and took a photo only the Nikon, not the phone, can take, and here it is.

I Never Do That

About 6 p.m. I ordered vanilla ice cream for supper and savored every lick. At 8:30 p.m. I went to the mall I hadn't been to for years, and at the Godiva chocolate shop I've never been to, spent $24 on chocolates, which I certainly never do. Most of it went for a gift, but I bought a little golden box of two chocolates and ate them. I never do that. On the way home I stopped to buy a bagel for the next day. I never have bread in the house; too many carbs. At home finished up the day's pasta salad. I never eat pasta--too many carbs--except on Fridays. And I never eat after 7:30 p.m. because "it all goes to fat." Figured I'd just eaten chocolates so the whole day was blown, and after the pasta I went to bed.

Eudialyte, a mineral mined in Greenland

Up early, perfect 70-degree weather, and since I'd finished all my work couldn't decide how to spend the day. Mushroom hunting on a weekend morning would be elbow to elbow--I'll wait for a weekday after a rain. Walked in the woods for an hour, enjoying the morning freshness and spiderwebs sugared with dew. Persistent resentful thoughts clawed me so I put on a pendant made of the mineral Eudialyte, magenta, black, and golden, as a cure. Haven't bothered with pendants and crystals for years. Then I knew what I truly wanted: At the creekside on a shaded white-sand beach, next to a clutch of Virginia bluebells, I took boots and socks off, lay down in the cool sand, listened to the creek and the birds and a big granddaddy frog, and breathed. I almost never do that. My neighbor calls it "earthing." I lay there in peace, watching sycamore branches exercise in the wind, and a hawk riding thermals. I got a notion there to cook up the year's first hummingbird nectar and hang the feeders. They usually arrive around April 24, and for me (and lots of other people) it's an event, a holiday.

I savored a cup of coffee, filled and hung the feeders where I could see them from indoors, and on the porch in the lounge chair bought and downloaded a meditation app, although I never buy apps, and let it play, and breathed in and out, although it's all bogus and woo-woo and I never meditate. Then I looked around and marveled at the story-book-perfect weather. For lunch I split the bagel and stacked it with salami, which I never eat, with double the mayonnaise. Then I thinned my spring-onion crop and weeded some garden space I've neglected for nearly 10 years. Enchanted by the hum of 360-degree calm, peace, and satisfact I knew it'd get even better. Finally I sat down to work, and a hummingbird, the season's first, was at the feeder. --I'd had my day of celebration in advance.

Please to the Table.

It's a work of yard art that Patrick built and delivered today, the table made of scrap wood abandoned in the garage--now back outdoors where it came from, and under the twin oaks, replacing the old redwood picnic table. I had no idea what the new one would look like and am delighted. Its legs, old 3x3s, are specially and uniquely textured with termite channels (see photo). Patrick and his son installed it on paving slabs that'll settle into the earth after a few rains. It's built so it will be great as a gardening table and for barbecuing, since all I have is a hibachi. Come see it! I'll give you lunch and lemonade. I'll make you espresso, too, if you want. A table is a holy thing.

Someone Fought Here

My sister, when she visited, noticed a male cardinal attacking his own reflection in a garage window and told me. I came out, saw him doing it (he lives with his family and loudly sings his territorial song in a nearby tree) and hollered at him, "Stop that! Do you want to leave your children without a father?!" Problem solved. Until today, a windy April day, when he left evidence that he's been at it again: a red feather left wedged in a garage windowpane so cracked, as it has been for years now, that I had taped it both inside and out to prevent its shattering while the roofers worked. It's not neatly taped, but it didn't break.

It hung together well enough for the cardinal to imagine, today, that he was again seeing a rival in its reflection, and he fought valiantly, leaving one of his feathers. I checked nearby and didn't find a little bright-red body, so I assume he was the victor. I've seen cardinals--killed instantly--ricochet as far as 12 feet from glass they've flown straight into.

The Sibley bird guide says windows are the #1 killer of birds, taking about 998 million lives a year. That's almost a billion, and twice the number of birds killed by feral cats.

Part of the difficulty was in taking this picture, because there are reflections everywhere, inside and out. I went outside a second time to try to compose a single picture that'd tell the whole story, but the feather had blown away.

Reason to Live, Reason to Love

I was so excited to have relatives visit; they rarely do. My parents are too old to travel, my aunts and uncles all passed, and I never knew my cousins, most of them much older. I have two sisters too classy to come here, one with Danish Modern furniture, the other an Easterner now. To be fair, Sister Danish Modern and her husband visited once, 14 years ago, and I taught her to shoot an airgun, there's a photo (on paper; this was before smartphones); but she must have been appalled by the bathroom, as anyone would have been up until its renovation in 2011. I visit them but they don't come here.

So my third sister, her husband, and my niece from Wisconsin visit once a year and I weep with happiness when they arrive and weep when they leave, believing they are the only people my age left who both know where I came from and care to stay in touch. And they like it here. It was Easter weekend. We dyed eggs and they brought me an Easter basket with a peanut-butter egg in it, and a plush rabbit. Weep again. Weep over Velveteen Rabbit and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, also starring a rabbit. We went to marvel over and fondle baby chicks at the farm store, and to see an 18th-century homestead, and hunted fossils, and explored the woods. They thought 50-degree weather was amazing.

Some Easter weekends fall too early for the redbuds to be out. Wild redbud trees in spring are a major reason to love Missouri (they don't grow in Wisconsin). I am so thrilled to share them with non-Missourians. They were nominated as the USA's national tree; they lost to the oak. They were nominated as Missouri's state tree. They lost to the Flowering Dogwood. Redbuds, I think, are glory incarnate. They bring me closer to God, the other who knows where I came from and cares to stay in touch.

Secretponding

A spring day so intoxicating it sent me bushwhacking, off the path, in search of--I didn't know what, until I realized I wanted to hunt and collect secret ponds: either tiny dots on maps, or unmapped. This one's at Glassberg Conservation Area. Hard to get to; all around, cedar trees, which grew thickly, have been deliberately cut in order to conserve and restore the native oak and hickory forest.