It's Not January, Unless

Fern vs Ice? No, Fern and Ice together.

.  .  . unless, on a rather temperate January day in the Divine woods, among its cliffs, ravines, craggy dropoffs, brooks and pools, placing myself in unnecessary physical danger, I crawl, sidle and mud-slide toward a vantage point to photograph a frozen waterfall hoping for a photo more eloquent than most. I feel a responsibility because no one else will ever see these moments in rugged eastern Missouri nature unless I photograph and share.

Beneath the ice, fresh water comes to life.

I love this time of year, anticipating spring's potential, so I chose as my theme "signs of spring."Although it's a bit early yet, an optimist will see what she or he wants to see -- and find it.

Need Some Green?

Buds on trees are only tiny fists yet, and the grass isn't green, but the moss and ferns are. Just to provide us the relief of seeing some greenery. Fiddleheads that grow next to the double waterfall are about two weeks away.

Hawks are pairing; hawks hunt together only when they're choosing mates. Last night in the pink twilight two bats flew overhead and I was so pleased to see them. As I walked to the creek today to hunt fossils I heard a turkey squawking, and it didn't up and flap away as I approached, so it was probably in the process of finding a mate or mating. Turkeys visit my yard but they like to live farther up the lane, near my neighbor, because her house backs onto the woods while mine backs onto a steep cliff like this one.

I'm just going out now to chop tall dry weeds obscuring my view of the bluebird house. A few days ago I cleaned it out because they'll be nesting any day now.

How to Get the Freaking Ice Off Your Freaking Satellite Dish

Overnight the ice storm coated my WiFi satellite dish: a very serious matter because WiFi is my freaking life. I suited up for freezing rain wondering how to de-ice it. Of course I should have sprayed it with Pam at the start of winter, but I forgot, and now the dish two-and-a-half feet wide and seven feet above the ground with a quarter-inch layer of ice on its face presented a problem. I had to restore my freaking WiFi. Whacking the ice with a stick or garden tool might damage the dish and then I'd have no WiFi for weeks until the satellite people from India got here. I could see myself telling them "I hit it with a rake." I'd have to melt the ice, not break it. Planting a stepladder there would be too treacherous.

My solution: Soak three rags in a bowl of hot water. Take the bowl, plus a worn-out corn broom kept on the porch to chase raccoons with, out to the dish. Wring out a warm rag and lay it over the broomstraws. Lift the broom overhead and rub the rag on the dish for about a minute until the rag loses all its heat. Replace it then with the next warm rag, and the next. Go back into the house, refill the bowl with hot water. Realize that the rags left freezing in the yard should be soaked in hot water too before re-using.

Bring the rags back into the freaking house, soak them in the bowl, bring the bowl back into the yard, wring out a freaking rag, put it on the freaking broomstraws, and keep wiping. The thinnest ice threatened to refreeze. I concentrated on the top third of the dish until it was clear. Went into the house for my can of Pam spray, lifted it overhead, tilted it heavenward, prayed and its spray reached exactly the top of the dish. Each time I melted another sector of ice, I Pammed it. Repeated this activity for 25 minutes, sometimes gently tapping the thickest ice with the broom handle and cracking its thinner edges just enough to broom the ice off the dish, bit by bit. Yay.

Brought rags and bowl into the house, hung the rags to dry, washed the bowl. Crunched across the frozen grass, picked up the broom and put it back on the porch. Tried the WiFi. It worked. It's now 1:30 p.m. and I myself can get to work.

Spring Thaw on the LaBarque

Thaws and about three inches of rain raised the level of LaBarque Creek and made it swirl as it rounds the bend on our property. The spring peepers began singing six days ago. I am awaiting the emergence of mayapples as a sign that the soil is warming.

I Want to Be Cute

Before	After
(Note: I had just removed a hat.)	Ninety minutes later.

Fallen in love at first sight: 48 percent of men have; only 28 percent of women. (Citation.) From the back of the pack I've been watching as men at events -- middle-aged events such as networking, singles, and hikes -- go straight for the blondes, falling in starry-eyed love right there in front of me. Kitchen-sink bleach-bottle blonde with an inch of dark roots doesn't matter, weathered skin and a voice like a foghorn don't matter. I'm fitter, thinner, better educated, very cute, or, in a tight dress, a ringer for an exotic Russian spy. Doesn't matter. In Jefferson County, 7 of  every 10 white women can be classified as blond because they've been quicker to learn that blondes have more fun. I've examined this issue from every angle, and it is what it is. A woman who hasn't clearly and deliberately altered her natural appearance might as well be a man.

My natural hair color resembles 80-percent-cacao chocolate. I've never colored it. Furthermore it's short. I think I'm wonderful. But, maybe it's just wintertime, I consulted my hairdresser, who thought I'd make a terrible blonde and suggested highlights instead. I made an appointment for the very next day.

Now my hair is more like a peanut butter cup. Come hither, gentlemen! Let me sort YOU out by your hairlines.

What Does "Ozark" Mean?

We say “Ozark” but where did that name come from and what does it mean? Is it French, perhaps formerly “Ozarque”? Is it Indian? Which Indians, the Osage, or maybe the Sioux, who named Missouri, calling it Oumisourite, meaning “men with large canoes”? I wondered.

Although the name “Ozark” is fixed on maps by 1815, its origins are unclear. The most common explanation goes like this:

The Arkansas River was a great trade route flowing from Pueblo, Colorado (!), through Kansas and Oklahoma and then Arkansas, draining through a huge swamp into the Mississippi. The Quapaw (Sioux) Indians living in its delta were called the Arcansea, from the Sioux word "acansa" meaning "downstream place," and other Indians called that river the Arkansas before Europeans got there. In 1686, Frenchmen established a trading post about 35 miles north of the confluence at a bend on a tributary. They either shortened the word “Arkansas” and called this place “aux Arcs,” or “place of Arcansas Indians,” or, less likely, they called the river bend an “arc” and referred to the place as “aux arc.” Either way, surviving letters from trappers and traders prove that the post was indeed called something like that. Eventually it shared its name with its whole watershed including multiple rivers and mountainous areas to the north and west, including Missouri.

The Ozark plateau, vast as it is, the size of Tennessee, is pretty much a petticoat for the formerly volcanic St. Francois Mountains in east central Missouri. Travel southwest from St. Louis on Interstate 44 about 30 miles and suddenly an ordinary road opens out onto a majestic vista of hills. Those are the Ozark foothills.

River of Death

Someday when chips are implanted in all of our heads, officials will be able to keep folks from playing and swimming in said River of Death, the Meramec River, subject of this vivid new warning sign at Castlewood State Park, formerly a summer resort for the wealthy of St. Louis. Each year a family or a troop of kids comes to a Meramec River beach or bluffs, often at Castlewood, and tries swimming across, or swings over the water on a rope, having no idea that the Meramec (called by the Indians "river of ugly fish") runs more fiercely and deeply than its appearance would betray, and has powerful and temperamental currents. Somebody, usually a child, struggles horribly and drowns. A Fox-News-televised search (with weeping parents among their beer cans) commences, with the body being discovered downstream in a day or two. Common sense being scarcer now, and because people are no longer trained to read rivers, signs such as this must be erected. "Rio Mortal," people. The river is so lovely and summer so hot, but please, take the young ones to splash in a stream. The Meramec River, while ideal for canoeing and tubing many miles farther upstream, is not a swimming hole. If it will help deter anyone, the Meramec is home to eels--big ones-- and in addition to drowning the unfortunate person pictured will probably become eel food.

The Blue Angels Were Here

Last year because of government budget cuts they did not appear, and in fact there was no airshow at all, disappointing thousands, but now the annual airshow is on again, and even at the sparsely attended first local farmer's market of the season, at 9 a.m., people were talking about going to see the Blue Angels exhibition that afternoon, clearly a point of pride. I wasn't planning to go -- the show attracts huge mobs and creates giant traffic jams -- but a friend offered his hillside, which has an excellent view. With a bottle of chocolate milk and a blanket I lived the life o' Riley on a perfect afternoon in May and watched stunt pilots looping, barreling, flying upside-down  and diving, and two slow-dancing helicopters. Then we all clapped our hands over our ears as the Blue Angels team roared over, scaring the daylights out of every creature within hearing distance.

Curious, I looked them up, and learned: The crafts' wings are just 18 inches apart when they fly in close formation. The Blue Angels exhibition team, affiliated with the Navy, dates back to 1946. The pilots' average age is 26. Yes, there are female pilots. The Army's exhibition team is called The Flying Tigers and I have seen them perform as well.

All highways and byways were jammed for miles with cars all trying to get near the airport and watch, so folk just got out of their cars where they were and watched the show because they weren't going anywhere.

On the White Sand Beach

LaBarque Creek has beaches of pure white silica sand; I sunned myself on one yesterday, the first day of spring, and gave thanks, and watched crayfish in the creek water: Their presence indicates that the water is pure. Wanted to catch one and take its photo for you, but last time I grabbed one the creature pinched my palm (ow! like a needle!) and I dropped it into the water pronto. The creek water is low, leaving several sand bars and small islands, so I said, "There's something interesting on this beach; I'll find it," and leaped the creek back and forth hunting fossils until I came upon this prehistoric-looking creature, an armadillo, the first I've seen this year. They dwell near water, needing a lot of water to drink, and a predator likely caught it off guard and attacked, but found it wasn't able to get at any meat, so left it whole, and it was quite fresh. Always I remember my dictionary saying, in words of one syllable, "Their flesh is good food." Probably because they drink lots of water. I was sorry it had lost its life, but could approach it now without disturbing it (or risking a pinch) to be fascinated by his armor's artful design. They have become common here only in the last ten years.

Adult Onset

1. Prolonged and violent sneezing in the mornings for about an hour, beginning mid-to-late February.
2. Sensation as if a small Sputnik satellite was lodged in one nostril.
3. Same nostril constantly running.
4. Cloth handkerchiefs all washed, ironed, and strategically placed throughout the house, and in pockets, purse and car, because paper tissues for this purpose are too expensive and impractical.
5. Itchy eyes, and a belief lasting about two days that it's merely my powder eyeshadow.
6. Chills.
7. Sweats.
8. Utter exhaustion in midafternoon.
9. Nose blown until it's red.
10. Coughing up what feels like car parts, lasting most of March.
11. If I'm too cocky or luck is bad, bedridden for two or three weeks with crippling flulike sensation of having been beaten up with a baseball bat, with inability to eat anything but Rice Chex with rice milk, and me to miss Mardi Gras and the first few Lenten fish fries and all the rest of life, followed by three weeks of coughing up car parts and all my own bones.

Measures taken:

1. On or around February 18, begin daily dose of Loratidine (generic form of Claritin), taken at night to minimize violent morning sneezing; continue through November. They say if you take it before the season "really" begins you can squelch your histamines before they act up. [Note, from the above Weather Channel Chart, that measurable airborne allergens began floating up our noses on January 27.]
2. At first sign of hayfever take heaping tablespoons of locally-farmed honey, straight from the spoon: one tablespoon each day for seven days. (This seems to reduce symptoms by about 20 percent.)
3. Wash bedding; vacuum carpets.
4. Wear paper mask outside.
5. Monitor pollen forecasts and numbers.
6. Shower and shampoo after time outdoors.
7. Consume Cold-Eez zinc cold-prevention tablets.
8. Close doors and windows.
9. Start portable air filters.
10. Hot compresses on swollen sinuses.
11. Garlic broth.
12. Early bedtime and late rising.
13. At the Black Madonna of Czestochowa Shrine, dunk my whole head in its miraculous spring  and breathe its water up through my nose. This plus prayer eased symptoms for about four days.

January Hike - 1852 Graveyard

Twelve days previously this scene was buried in a foot of new snow and well below zero at night. In fact winter is can be great for hiking: no heatstroke or chiggers and an antidote to cabin fever. Yesterday, with a  high around 40 degrees, the hiking group walked the 12-mile circuit of Little Indian Creek Conservation Area outside of St. Clair, MO; its 4,000 acres straddle Franklin and Washington Counties. Among the few highlights of this mostly forested multipurpose (horse-appled) trail is a little cemetery with weathered stones, most unreadable, yet with a few graves decked with fresh artificial flowers. At the cemetery, about 5.5 miles along, we met sudden high winds and light wintry mix, perhaps because we were uninvited and disturbing the peace. Quickly we departed without finishing our lunches and soon the winds calmed and the sun broke out. Near the 7-mile/3-hour point I'd had my hike and bailed, taking the connecting path back to the parking lot for a total of 7.9 miles, which is plenty.

Sandy Creek Covered Bridge: Peace

All seemed so crisp and fresh this first day of 2014 that I treated myself to the historic 1872 covered bridge in my own home county, one of the four remaining covered bridges in Missouri. A former toll bridge partly destroyed by heavy weather, it was rebuilt in 1886 with most of its original materials. The Sandy Creek Covered Bridge, on Old Lemay Ferry Road, was closed to traffic and made a state historic site in 1967 and, following the original builder's plans, restored in 1984. It's 18 feet 10 inches wide. The site includes picnic areas, a trail of maybe half a mile, and a small "beach" on the little murmuring creek. In the early days, anyone could build a bridge and charge any toll they felt like until government stepped in. I walked across twice so I'd have paid 6 cents according to this chart. Merchants also posted ads on the inside walls.

Happy Divine New Year! Treat yourself to a historic site sooner than I did. Twelve years in the county and this was my first visit to the covered bridge.

Let It Snow

The first snow came, only an inch or two but enough so that I woke to the screaming demands of the local Pileated Woodpecker that I get up, shuffle out through the snow and replenish the suet because all of a sudden he can't find his own food. And for years I've tried to be a good backyard bird-feeder and give my year-round cardinals a balanced diet of millet mixed with sunflower seeds, but they always ate only the sunflower seeds. So, just a few days ago I gave in and now serve only sunflower seeds. My reward is more cardinals, males and females, in constant motion from tree branch to feeder to wire, like a mobile.

I 'm secretly delighted to be hosting and serving birds -- mine are the world's finest.

Pumpkins for Cheap

Pumpkins in the grocery stores are usually high-priced at around $5 for a cuddly little (and in my kitchen, doomed) pie pumpkin and around $20 for a tubby ol' future jack-o'-lantern, and I'm sure the markup is all transportation costs for these big dense heavy vegetables, so I try to buy them from open-air markets or farm stands like this one. Cost of transportation from field to retail shelf is low, without middlemen or overhead; the farmer simply goes to his field, loads them on a wooden trailer, and pulls the trailer about 200 feet to the stand where he prices and and arranges. The farmer preferred that I not identify him personally, but I wanted to show him at work with the plump and glowing fruits of his labor. "By their fruits you shall know them."

What Mayapples Can Tell You

Out on the morel-mushroom foray last week I made sure to join the group led by the man who'd been hunting mushrooms for 60 years because one must listen to one's elders. He pointed at a galaxy of mayapple plants in the middle of the woods and said, "That doesn't mean there's mushrooms there, but it does mean the soil there is rich." So it's a good sign that mushrooms could be nearby.

Could be near, because we didn't see or find any. Coincidentally on my own personal three-hour mushroom hunt on the Divine property today I didn't find any morels either. But I saw and traipsed through dozens of mayapple galaxies in search of my prize, and also experienced in the wild what my elders had told me:

• Look near deadwood, particularly downed and rotting ash trees.
• On downed and rotting trees and branches, the presence of Devil's Urn mushrooms that have popped open (pictured) is a sign that it is morel season and they could be near. Seeing Devil's Urns told me I was indeed looking in the right places, even if morels weren't there.
• Most fungi require a soil temperature of 50 degrees or more. (It hasn't been warm enough.)
• It's best to hunt on a slope, preferably a south-facing slope. In fact, don't bother looking at all for morels anywhere there is not a slope.

The previous tenants of this property said they invited a morel-savvy European to comb the woods for morels, but he found none. But now that at least 12 years have passed I gambled that there had to be some on 100 acres. I didn't find any today, but the journey, and the education, was my reward.

The Hummingbirds Are Here

Ever since the big snowstorm three days after the spring equinox, it's been so windy and stormy that the house (and the car!)  feels like a schooner in heavy North Atlantic seas. Today was drippy and dreary. But today the season's first hummingbird drank at my nectar feeder! Knowing that my favorite birds don't usually show up until the wonderfully green and floral dates around April 24 -- but pining for them like a lovesick teenager -- I put up the feeders April 1. Still -- today, a full week early, was the great day! It was a male Rubythroat. I will get his photo and show you his glorious colors ASAP. In the meantime, this is the glory that was ten days ago: my favorite flower, the crocus, during the thaw. The signs of spring come and go so quickly. . .

Hungry Pileated Woodpecker

This male Pileated was hungry enough, in the seven inches of yesterday's snow, to allow me to stand in the open porch door and take his picture while he breakfasted on suet. His mate was nearby, but it wasn't her turn yet to leap onto the suet cage, clutch it with her long black toes, and eat. Not only that, but when they fly back to the tree trunk they wipe their beaks on the bark like it's a napkin.

Midwestern Graffiti

Back East where I used to live, when a car window or a truck was dirty or dusty as they so often are in late winter, people wrote vivid and highly creative obscenities on it so that in traffic it could offend absolutely everyone.

The tone of such things in the Midwest is so mild and different--so Midwestern--it makes me laugh. Frequently the classic "Wash Me" appears. Whereas out East you might read on the passenger side of a dusty van that its totally innocent owner would do a sex act for a stated amount of money, here you see "I Love You" or "Go Cardinals" or "Jesus saves" or peace signs. I took this photo in a parking lot while the owner sat in the vehicle, and he/she didn't even try to call the police on me. It's just that relaxed.

High Water

My Weather Radar app forwards National Weather Service warnings by making the smartphone shriek and vibrate. It's been issuing flood warnings for this area since Sunday's heavy rain. This was taken where LaBarque Creek empties into the Meramec River -- the flood's peak, if it doesn't rain again today. A foot or two higher and the water'd crawl up over Highway FF as it did in '08, when all my three possible routes home, including the Interstate, flooded and the National Guard turned us back and I couldn't get home for four days. When the water gets up about this high I try not to leave home (which I'm grateful is on high ground). Flooding is a growing problem as more land is developed and paved. Jeff County Highway W is under water -- don't plan on going there.

The Garden in the Brain

I lost six days sick with flu and am just now catching up on mid-March's favorite activity: seeding summer vegetable plants. Last year all 12 tomato plants came up thriving. This year I planted 6 tomatoes, 2 parsley, and 4 Genovese basil in potting soil in an egg carton. This was shut in the furnace closet. When the seeds sprout the baby plants will be grow-lamped until May. Directly sown will be (not this week; next week, when I'm m strong enough to break and turn the soil): turnips, radishes, kale. When (or if) the sun comes out, then arugula.

Compared to March 2012's 70- and 80-degree days, here in eastern Missouri we've had cold rain, wind, mud, sleet, and wintry mix (everybody loves a wintry mix!) daily, so the imagination had to work overtime to first plant the garden in the brain, which is required before the garden in reality can manifest.