The Daily R-r-r-ibbit

It's a laid back day in the holler

I'm just hanging out in the holler today after a fun time in Knoxville last night for the showing of Coal Country at The Square Room...my first experience there and a really good documentary, plus good music and a good-sized crowd. The post-film discussion gave me some ideas for how I want to focus my future blogging on coalfield issues.

I got home around 11 and the moon was so bright I didn't need a flashlight to find my way back into the house. Both dogs came out to greet me; Celie went down to the creek and barked for awhile. I'm sure there were lots of critters out in that moonlit landscape.

Here are some dog photos from our walk today. Leaves are about 80% dropped up here...it was cool and sunny and the dogs were loaded with energy.

Still experimenting with doggie action shots...here's Celie running toward me...

and here she is on the bank of Hudson Branch, sniffing the breeze, though it almost looks more like she's getting ready to howl.

Shadow finds sticks for us to play with every day.

Later I caught him in handsome prince mode.

Last night I experimented with images of stars and moonlight, but none of them came out. The star ones were streaky as I don't have a tripod or cable release, and the moon ones looked like the Eye of Sauron or something very un-moonlike. Here's another image from our walk today...sun coming through a poplar leaf:

Another Rowdy Day in Frog Pond Holler

The day after Celie and Shadow cured their cabin fever, they went into prevention mode, I think. While they were playing I got a few pictures of them as well as some bugs. Today the dogs were less rambunctious and I found even more amazing things to photograph. I'll put the dog and cat photos here at the R-r-r-ibbit and post the others at Earthbytes.

Shaddow chases Cheyenne

Shadow Swimming, Cheyenne Wading (Note beaver cuttings!)

Shadow "herds" Celie

And today: George, King of the Forest

We're all back in the house now but I'm the only one not sleeping.

Celie and Shadow Cure Their Cabin Fever

We didn't go out for a walk the last couple of days because my energy was sapped by a bug or something. I hate when that happens because the dogs won't go very far from home without me, and Shadow expends his pent up energies picking trash out of the wastebaskets and strewing it all over the house.

I did make it out today and caught the dogs in the act of recovering from cabin fever:

Miss Celie in hunter-hound dog mode

Shadow plays in the deep end of Terry Creek

I also got some wild-eyed pictures of George and Buddy hiding in the woods...but I'm going to save those for Halloween.

The Shadow Grows...(mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!)

When I published my treehopper post, I noticed that my piece about Shadow, the new dog in the holler, was still on the Daily R-r-ribbit's front page...boy does that little dog look different now!

I thought Shadow had an interesting look in his eye in this July 12th photo...kind of serious, like he was zeroing in on something. We had just come back from a walk down the lane. Both dogs' fur was wet from snurfing around in the grass. It's hard to see in this photo, but Shadow had just come out from the dog holes under the porch -- Celie dug out some big ones to lie in on hot days -- and he had dirt all over his face and paws. This happens a lot.

A few days earlier, Shadow discovered Terry Creek and spent about thirty minutes splashing around, biting at the water, running in and out, going each time further toward the center where deeper water flows. He had watched Celie cross the creek several times on previous walks. I could tell he was curious. A couple of times he'd gone down to the edge but this was the first day he got wet.

Since then he's gone in several times and is now exploring segments of Hudson Branch --closer to the house -- with Celie.

He got in deep enough here at the ford that he had to swim a little. I figured he could, but it was nice to know that he could.

In the summer, we do the walks in the morning when it's cooler (and fewer bugs). On really hot days Celie lies in the holes she dug, but sometimes she goes down to the creek for another dip.

Right now Hudson Branch and Frog Pond Holler both have fairly low flows, but there are a few spots with pools deep enough for her to get water onto her back.

The heavy rains this spring did a significant scouring job on both stream beds. It even blew out a large beaver dam upstream from me. The patterns of flow and pooling seem to have shifted as a result. Terry Creek still has a fair amount of water in it.

When we all get up, Celie and Shadow usually have what I call a wrestle-mania session on the bed. A lot of times they continue it outside when we go for a walk, or after we get back, or anytime I go outside to mess around in the yard or take pictures.

Observing how the two dogs approach our walks, I can appreciate the difference between Celie the hunter and Shadow the herder. I'm wondering if Shadow will take on some of the hunter mode the more he hangs out with Celie.

When he tries to engage her in rough-housing while she's got her nose to the ground, she usually goes in to warp drive for a few seconds and leaves him behind. Shadow is able to keep up with her for a greater distance now, and is gradually stretching the boundaries of exploration.

At one point Shadow began taking his toys outside and leaving them. He moves them around and plays with them outside, occasionally bringing one back in for a short time.

This play has a feel, to me, as something symbolic, something that speaks to a relationship unfolding between him and the world.

The blue toy he has here is my door snake that he co-opted. It's innards started coming out all over the driveway yesterday. For a minute I thought he'd stolen some of my socks and dragged them outside, but when I went out to retrieve them, I saw that it was just stuffing from the snake. He also co-opted a couple of orange mice that belonged to Buddy and George, but they never played with them much anyway.

If we're lucky, the weather is good enough to go out every day. During the last storm series, everybody wanted to stay inside, and after just one day without a long walk, Shadow was driving the rest of us bananas.

I put a few more Celie and Shadow swimming and wrestling photos up on my Flickr page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39993830@N05/

If you didn't see my original post about Shadow, you can hit the "Next" link below the treehopper story to see the first post, which includes a picture of him at about 6 weeks old.


 

Close Encounters in Frog Pond Holler

                                                                                   Treehopper (Photo by me.)

Lots to celebrate this 4th of July! Besides the usual Independence Day stuff, I'm celebrating a new computer system and liberation from dial-up Internet! Woohoo! This will allow me to do a lot more (with less frustration) to share photographs and experiences with some of the other residents of Frog Pond Holler.

I decided to start with the little treehopper above because my close encounter with her (or him!) is representative of the ordinary magic of life in the holler. The diversity of creatures on Earth never ceases to amaze and delight me. On the day I came across this treehopper, I was just enjoying a break, taking the opportunity to photograph some of the flowers around the yard.

I had taken this photo of some white flowers on a tree -- which I later identified as most likely a common elder. As I made note of the leaves and flower structure so that I could identify it later, I noticed a dark thorny-looking spot on one of the branches. It was hard to tell what it was. It looked so much like part of the stem that I almost moved on, but something -- maybe intuition that this object was not what it seemed -- kept me in the exploratory mode. I put my camera on macro and poked the lens down near the spot. Once I had it focused, it was clear this was not a thorn or dead tissue.

It had feet! And maybe an eye and some wings! It was a little hard to tell by the smaller image on the camera screen. By the time I'd taken several frames, the tree hopper started moving along the stem, confirming that it was indeed an insect of some kind.

Once I uploaded the images and saw them on a full screen, I had to let out a couple of woohoos. What an amazing creature in the detail!

With the images on the screen it's also easy to get out the old bug book and translate the visual info to key in on the family trees, so to speak -- in this case I had a tree and a bug to identify.

(The first image I saw on the screen -- definitely had feet. Photo by me.)

For any bug fans out there, I'd say this is indeed a treehopper, otherwise labeled order Himiptera and family Membracidae. The book I use (Insects, Spiders and Other Terrestrial Arthropods p.98) says this family has about 2,500 species. I'm just happy beyond measure to have found this one.

Over the next few weeks I'll be sharing more close encounters with life in Frog Pond Holler.

UPDATE: 7/5/09

I didn't realize what a great resource I'd hit upon when I snagged a link for the guide book I use. The site, BugGuide.Net, has "Identification, Images, & Information For Insects, Spiders & Their Kin For the United States & Canada." You can register to create an account and make comments on entries or even contribute your own images.

Check out a really great photo of a similar-looking treehopper at BugGuide. I learned a lot by reading the notes with the photos. From now on I'll be sure to note what kind of plant I found the bug on. In the case of this genus (Enchenopa), the species can sometimes be narrowed down by what plant the treehopper was on. I'll have to verify where mine was. I thought it was on the elder, but there is kind of a tangle of limbs in the vicinity of the photo due to a recently fallen peach tree (boohoo!) and it might actually have been on the redbud that is close by.

If you do a "treehopper" search at the BugGuide site you'll find lots more species and notes made by the person who took the photo. This is a fantastic resource for bug people, or anyone who just wants to know what crawling (or flying or hopping) around out there.

 

New Dog in the Holler

 

Two weeks ago today, Celie and I went to the spring with two empty water jugs and came home with two full jugs and a puppy...

While I was filling the jugs I kept hearing a sound I could not place. At first I thought it was a bird of some kind but I couldn't track the sound visually to its maker. I was about to get back into the car when I saw some movement in the grass. A few seconds later a small puppy stumbled out of the tall grass and onto the gravel pullout.

He was a mess -- skinny, and much of the hair he still had was matted with something that smelled really gross. He came over to me. I picked him up and put him in the car with Celie (my Walker hound) who took one look at him and slunk into a rear corner of the dog-car space. Since I was not sure how long the next piece of the adventure would take, I decided to take Celie and the water jugs home before I took the puppy to the vet.

By the time we got home, he had slipped down to the floor and had dropped a huge turd on the floor mat, but the poop didn't smell near as bad as he did. After I let Celie out, I took him in for a quick bath because I wasn't sure I wanted any more of whatever smell it was to penetrate the interior of Soloman (yes, I name my cars) or the interior of my nose.

Dr. Babbi and the crew at Jacksboro Veterinary Services did a great job checking him out. For one thing, his temperature was fairly low. It had been raining for about a week and he didn't have a lot of hair to help keep the heat in. Dr. Babbi confirmed the mange and explained that the smell and matting of his hair was a result of the puppy having been dipped in motor oil -- a common "home cure" for mange around here in the hills and NO: IT DOESN'T WORK!

She estimated that he was about 6 weeks old. We put him on the scale and he was only 3 and a half pounds or so. The poop sample showed two kinds of worms. While they got treatment started and cleaned him up, I went to lunch -- by that time I was REALLY hungry, as I'd been ready for lunch before we even went to the spring. I planned to use the time to decide what to do next. I think I had already committed myself to go through with the rescue but start looking for a home for this little dog.

By the time I finished lunch I had a name for him -- Shadow -- and had decided to try to integrate him into the household with Celie and the two cats, Buddy and George. Now, two weeks later, everyone is adjusting to this little guy. Buddy in particular took an interest in him and has been helping him learn about how to be around cats...an interesting proposition for the relationship between this little Border collie mix and the cats, who are known for being difficult to "herd."

Shadow is now 6+ pounds. His hair is coming back after just one dose of Revolution, but we got a second round of it today, since the mange is still there -- at least he's not scratching or growling while he scratches any more. He got his second de-wormer today, too, and has a few more antibiotic doses to go before the bottle is empty. And he was strong enough that Dr. Babbi started the puppy vaccinations today. Right now he's crashed out in a cat bed down by my feet.

We've already had some interesting adventures -- Celie found a huge rat snake on our walk today -- but I'm gonna go watch Rachel Maddow now, and do some more stories and photo uploads later.

 

New Earthbits Page

The Earthbits Page -- follow the frog link below -- is an experiment. Lots of times during the day I come across interesting bits of info or news that fire me up for a minute or two and seem worth sharing with a few more words than a Tweet or Facebook status, but not as much as my usual blog post...although I guess I could do shorter blogs.

It was great the first day...seemed to serve its purpose...but I haven't really put much on there after that first day, even though I found lots of interesting stuff I would have put there.

One big sticker is the slow speed of this compose page on the computer system I have now...granted an aged one and dial-up to boot. It's more frustrating than Twitter.

But, at least I learned a little about doing a page, and now I have one to use for awhile to see if it works or not for what I want to do. 

Isis Goes to Heaven

  Isis

So many things happen up here in the holler in a year's time. I find that some of them can't be spoken of until there's some distance from the event. Such is the case with the transition of my little cat, Isis.

I wasn't with her at the moment she died, in fact I have not even found her body, but I'm pretty sure she's gone. She went in much the same manner as she came to live in the holler, kind of dropping in and dropping out. Two or three years ago I discovered Isis high above the holler in a maple tree. She was so high up and far off the lane that there was no way I could help her get down. I doubt that a utility truck could even have reached her.

Isis lived on that tree for a week at least. It was awful to walk with my other pets past that tree everyday. I tried to talk her down, imagine her down and pray her down. I even appealed to Buddy, my best tree-climbing cat, to go up and show her how to get down. Nothing worked. She rode out several monsoon-ish storms up there.

Then one day when desperation ruled, she began crawling out along the limb toward me. I waved my arms in a "go-back" direction. "No! Go down the trunk!"

But out she crept, the branch dipping lower and lower until it could only hang straight down. My soon-to-be cat was now suspended in mid-air, clinging to the leafy end of the branch. The leaves stripped off beneath her claws and she dropped straight down into some small trees and bushes, bouncing off of them like a kid on a trampoline. Buddy, George and I watched in amazement as she crawled out of the bushes then ran to us -- apparently uninjured -- and tail-gated me all the way back to the house.

It didn't take me long to name her Isis. When she sat, she presented a tall, thin, graceful profile like those ancient Egyptian cat statues. She was absolutely fearless around Celie (my Walker hound) and ruled the 2 guy cats from day one. She took over the snuggler-in-chief position from Buddy, as well as my desk and all of my chairs. More than once she disconnected me on phone calls and typed long lines of random letters on my computer monitor as she paused on the keyboard to clean her fur.

She stayed healthy until this past June when she developed feline irritable bowel syndrome. After medications failed to correct her symptoms, everybody figured it was a food allergy, and I started a long process of trying to eliminate various ingredients commonly implicated in feline foods. Unfortunately nothing seemed to correct her diarrhea and she kept losing weight even though she was eating.

We went through about 3 cycles in which I thought she was going to die but it seemed she would get hungry enough to try any new food I gave her, if only for a meal or two. Finally she got to a point at which she refused to eat or even try anything I offered her. One morning I let her out with Buddy and George, hoping she might catch something that nourished her more than what I could come up with.

She never came home. I looked for her every time I went out over the next few days. Eventually I learned that some neighbors had seen her but did not recognize her as my cat. One of them had gone inside to get some food for her but Isis was nowhere in sight when they returned. It is so weird how many thoughts and feelings that made no sense when I noticed them in hindsight had been clues that might have led me to find her and at least give her an easier death. And of course all that hindsight just magified the sadness and sense of loss.

A week later I had to go to Nashville for a 3-day training. One night while I was there, I had a dream that I was with some people who I know have already made the transition. Isis was with them. As we visited she came right up near my face. She looked contented and healthy, her normal weight restored. When I remembered this dream in the morning, I felt happy, assured that she had made it over okay and was no longer suffering. Now and then I still experience twinges of guilt that I should have been able to help her more and should not have let her out that last day. Mostly I remember what a delightful little feline goddess she was, and how much she gave me in return for sharing a home with her.

Miss Celie's Elk Report

Miss Celie--my Walker hound--has several barks that I'm learning to decipher, but until recently I'd never heard her howl. At first I thought she might be onto the coyotes that started rounds through the holler about the time of the autumnal equinox. However, I never heard any coyote sounds trigger or answer Celie's howl, and her behavior continued after neighbors' reports of coyote howls stopped. We share the holler with other wild things--turkeys, deer, foxes, bears, bobcats, cougars--but except for turkeys, I'd only ever seen occasional tracks and scat, not them, and I'd never heard any of their noises.

On one of our morning walks last week I talked to a guy who'd been working in his son's orchard further up Frog Pond Hollow. He said he'd heard an elk near my place the day before and had actually seen a cow not too long ago. A thought raced up my brain-hollers to awareness: Maybe Celie's howling at elk?

Several years ago some elk had been re-introduced into the Sundquist unit of Tennessee's Royal Blue Wildlife Management Area, an upstream neighbor of mine. I'd seen some tracks a couple of years ago when I hiked way up the holler--beyond that, I had no proof that elk were moving into this part of Royal Blue.

This morning as I began my Tai Chi practice after our walk, I heard a sound that I couldn't quite place. Celie immediately took up her hunter persona stance and let out a huge bark that accelerated into one of those long howls. In the gap that followed the howl's echo, I heard the sound again. This time my sound memory bank opened up and linked to a file from my experiences as a naturalist at Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota, where I'd heard my first elk bugle. Celie howled a confirmation.

Alright! Welcome home, elk people!

Let's hope that TVA decides not to lease any coal permits in Royal Blue. That's right...the State owns the surface rights for Royal Blue and--on behalf of the citizens of Tennessee--manages the area for these elk and other wildlife. When I moved into the holler (just a few months before the elk!) a permit application for mountaintop mining on Braden Mountain was on the books. It included plans to fill the upland reaches of Frog Pond Hollow with mine spoil. Fortunately, the application period expired and the permit was withdrawn. Subsequently, TVA decided to draft an environmental impact statement on future options for their Koppers Coal Reserve rights, which includes about 12,000 acres of Royal Blue.  Unfortunately, for reasons that have not been made public, TVA is sitting on the completed draft EIS.

If TVA ever turns it loose, maybe I can talk some of the elk into testifying at a public hearing that it would be a really stupid idea to trash their home for a few lumps of coal!

The Daily R-r-r-ibbit Moves to TypePad

   

Cricket toes tappin'

Bull-froggie's loose banjo string

Maw Nature's bluegrass...

                                           -- C. Hawk