Walking Again, More Than A Month Later

"Tomorrow" was a false promise.

The video I took of the [idyllic] "sludge pond" after it had been back-hoed into mud and clay is too big to upload. I wonder how many singing frogs met their doom under the back-filling of the pond.

I know that the cemetery is not:

• a wildlife preserve
• my personal property
• protected wilderness

I also know that the "sludge pond" is where extra earth is dumped in the course of maintaining the cemetery, and that open water there might be a breeding ground for mosquitoes. It nonetheless bothered me very much to see the frog (and duck, and sometimes heron) pond turned into a featureless flat of brown dirt. I'll post a still picture of its magnificent ugliness.

Life intervened, as it often does, and we haven't walked much (or for very long) since April.

However, Jake was very enthusiastic about his walk today, plunging into the underbrush after (to me) unseen quarry. The foliage was wet, and so was his head when we returned home.

I found another wonderful feather, too.

All in all a good morning.

Earth Day

I didn't intend to post today, though everything that Earth Day signifies also resonates deeply with me.

But I heard Terry Tempest Williams speak this evening in Brookens Auditorium at the University of Illinois, Springfield, about the preservation of wilderness and wild lands. About the high percentage (70%? I didn't fact-check this) of Illinois land that is privately owned. Audience members mentioned rampant development on Springfield's west side, turning some of the richest soil in the world into subdivisions (of bland architectural sameness, in my opinion), and questioned the wisdom of a MacArthur Boulevard interchange for Interstate 72.

Converting farmland to commercial strips and opulent housing is still just re-purposing private land, and proves that the owner of land can do with it as s/he pleases, even sell it to someone who will transform it, oblivious to its heritage -- and its natural resources, including other "beings" who reside there.

Williams made a point about sustainability depending upon respect for animals, plants, rocks and rivers. And that is where my recent personal experience overlaps this discussion.

I give you an audio/video recording I made on March 17 in Oak Ridge Cemetery, of frogs calling. Elsewhere on this weblog is a shaky video of more frog calls, and a pair of Mallards browsing the edges of what I've been calling "the sludge pond."

I've seen a Great Blue Heron here twice, and an owl once, and often see and hear Red-Tailed Hawks hunting in this area. On my walks with Jake, I eagerly anticipate reaching this spot (among many others) because of the wildlife I might see or hear there. Just a few minutes' walk from home, instant spiritual enrichment.

Tomorrow I'll record a video showing this same spot as it appears this week. The tree trunk will be a visual reference point.

Some Recent Sightings

On our walk today Jake and I saw some mallards -- two pairs, although the very shaky video only captures one pair, with a chorus of frogs in the background.

I can't believe this pond sustains any life (I call it the Sludge Pond); I'd hate to fall in it, and I don't let Jake wade in it, either.

My notes from last year indicate that on March 31, we also saw mallards and heard frogs -- and saw a flicker and a woodchuck. I didn't take photos on our walks last March, so some photos of the same animals sighted recently will have to represent them.

I'm fond of woodchucks. I may be the only one who is, but the one who lived in a burrow under my neighbor's shed persuaded me. We called him "Chuck," but we eventually had to change that to "Charlene" when four (the most I saw at one time, anyway) absolutely adorable baby woodchucks appeared one May 7, popping up out of the burrow in twos and threes like Muppets. I learned that the males leave as soon as they're able, but a female from the litter usually stays with the mother for an entire season before moving on; I did observe this, watching mother and daughter graze together through the summer and early fall that year.

I also love Flickers. Having grown up in Chicago, I thought there were only sparrows, robins and starlings. Oh, and pigeons, of course. Stepping out of one's Central Illinois House and seeing/hearing a Flicker is splendid. They're unmistakable. I've discovered other wonderful birds since expatriating from the city -- but those stories will wait.

Yesterday Jake surprised a fox squirrel, which ran up a tree and scolded him, hanging upside down from what seems to be incredibly precarious purchase on the bark. Both gray and fox squirrels are everywhere in Oak Ridge Cemetery, and in the Spring they act frankly squirrelly. I love to watch them chase each other up, down and around tree trunks, sometimes suddenly breaching the quiet with their chatter.

Plants are sending up sprouts, trees are budding. It's an ebullient, hopeful season.