SWIM

I had intended to go somewhere else today and not mention the snow or the weather again, but the permafrost has permeated me.   The good news, I suppose, is that the winter has created a sense of semi-community in our Pennsylvania neck of the woods, something I have never felt before.  Usually it’s simply the getting-and-spending dynamic (emphasis on spending) that joins us.

Last night the dark and cold, Jane’s absence and something I saw on television reminded me of my most memorable winter homecoming journey.  I was returning from Deluxe in Chicago, as I always seemed to be, on a Friday evening in a snowstorm.  After several delays at O’Hare we eventually landed in Newark sometime after midnight.  My car service had waited for me, thank heaven, and we drove north toward Tuxedo along 287 in the worst snowy weather I had ever seen on a highway.  The driver, an immigrant from Pakistan, performed splendidly and I wondered what the weather was like where he grew up.    We arrived in Tuxedo, passed through the gate, and headed up the hill toward my house.  At the bottom of Ridge Road, it was clear we’d reached the final safe place to drive and I told him I would walk the rest of the way.

  

It was probably about one-quarter to one-third of a mile only, but I was dressed in a business suit carrying a fairly heavy suitcase.  Snow was still falling fast and heavily and drifting high under the night-for-day moonlight.  It was about 2 am then, utterly silent and still, and it reminded me of an Albert Pinkham Ryder painting or one of these Alexander Calder sculptures.  I struggled up Ridge and cut through the Grosses’ to catch the downward slope of Pepperidge, our road.   I remember thinking that my health and heart must actually be pretty good to survive this.  We have a very long driveway, but eventually I reached our door and the light, warmth and palpable human and animal presence reassured me that I wasn’t dreaming, I had survived.   


Caroline and Jane were upstairs sleeping, but I’m sure various cats JOINED ME in the cat-bird seat of our glass house kitchen where I drank Scotch and viewed the maelstrom for a little while longer.  I thought to turn on the television before going to bed and for the first time saw Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice” show, which was horrible.  When I heard TRUMP say “You’re fired,” I turned it off and would never consider watching it again.  He really drains life of its mystery.  I would have added a perfect link here to Peter Blegvad’s song “Swim,” but it isn’t on Youtube.  You can find it on his “King Strut and Other Stories” album, which I recommend.  It is a masterpiece worthy of Ryder, Calder, Caspar David Friedrich and other Northern masters.

BIG SINISTER MYSTERY

The biggest mystery I’m working on solving is finding out what exactly happened to the animal wildlife in Tuxedo Park, New York.


We’ve lived in TP since 1992, and prior to that had spent a lot of time there visiting my parents and friends who moved there after discovering how beautiful it was.


One of the Park’s great glories was its wide and splendid assortment of forest animals – gentle deer and opossums, groundhogs, chipmunks, raccoon families, squirrels, wild turkey hordes, black bears, abandoned and often feral cats (we adopted many of them), and a vast array of other residents and transients.

They are all gone now.  Our only visitors now are crows.


The “deer culling” programs of the past, which justifiably caused loud local consternation and controversy, have clearly been replaced by something more sinister.


But what?  Bins of poisoned corn in the woods?


Tuxedo Park was once a place absolutely teeming with animal life.  Sighting newborn fawn deer every late spring gladdened hearts and raised hope.   


The woods now are sterile and silent.

PAM AND KURT

Learning the news of Kurt and Pam Graetzer's untimely passing yesterday (Link) was uncommonly shocking, sobering and saddening.


We weren't close friends by any means, but they were both always so very kind to Caroline, Jane and me.


This was true as an everyday matter and also during one particularly trying time.


We are desolated.

Our Friend The Turkey (Ornicopia 10)

432. Which bird in the United States has the largest tail?   

Many birds have extremely long tail feathers, both in proportion to their bodies and in actual length.  The ring-necked pheasant, brought to American from Europe and naturalized, has the longest tail feathers.  Its relative, the golden pheasant, often raised by pheasant fanciers, has an even longer tail.  Of the native birds, the wild turkey has the longest tail feathers while the scissor-tailed flycatcher has the longest in relation to its body length. In all these instances, it is the male bird of the species that shows the extreme length of the retrices.

435.   How do birds with extremely long tails such as the pheasant or very broad tails like those of the turkey control them?   

Among the multitude of skin muscles of a bird are many that control the tail making instantaneous work of extreme adjustment whether tilting, fanning or contraction.

365.   Is it true that some birds produce musical sounds with their wing feathers?  

Goldeneye ducks are often called whistlers by hunters because of the whistling sounds produced by their wing feathers as they fly.  Similar sounds are produced by the wing feathers of other birds, among them mourning doves, as they fly.

Many birds produce sounds deliberately with their wing feather.  Among such birds are the ruffled grouse, which makes booming sounds, turkeys that make clicking sounds, and woodcock, which, with wing feathers having special development, plunge downward through the night, causing the air to whistle through them.

366.  Does the sound made by the wing feathers serve any purpose?   

The sounds produced by the wing feathers of grouse, turkeys and woodcock all play a part in courtship activities.

NOTE:  This post is dedicated to my mother, Joan Brown Roberts, who really loved the wild turkeys who lived in her meadow in Tuxedo Park, New York and made us love and appreciate them also.  Here's one (link).


From:  1001 Questions Answered About Birds by Allan D. Cruickshank and Helen G. Cruickshank (Toronto, General Publishing Company, 1958)