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Just add fresh water

Last month we flew over Kansas on a flight west. As the plane passed over the western part of the state, we noticed big swaths of charcoal land, many field acres still actively burning. You could see smoke rising from 30,000 feet above. Cousin Mark sent me a link to an article about those fires and subsequent evacuations. A few days later we scouted for breakfast before tidepooling at Point Lobos State Nature Preserve in Central California. There was a light mist and maybe one or two drops that landed on skin. I commented to the coffeeshop owner that rain was forecast. He said, “It is raining.”

Tule Elk at Tomales Point, Point Reyes National Seashore

We drove between the Coastal Ranges where the vegetation of the subranges indicated quite clearly which would climb fastest on the posted fire-risk meters. The western-most subranges were dotted with green, even on the slopes with their back to the Pacific Ocean. To the east, the mountainsides were golden straw grasslands. The region’s native Monterey Pines and coastal willows bore burn scars but survive in their respective microclimates. Flowering radishes and other agricultural escapees are subject to rapid burning while native California Poppies, Seaside Daisy, Coast Indian Paintbrush, grasses and sage brushes step in reclaim their footing through intense restoration efforts. I was excited to see Ice Plant covering sand dunes. flowering pink and yellow. You can buy this succulent here in pricey greenhouses. Then I found out that Ice Plant was introduced to Central California for erosion control. That effort didn’t work and now Ice Plant is a west coast scourge. We have introduced aggressive Amur Honeysuckle; they have Eucalyptus trees that explode in wildfire events. We both have Poison Hemlock.

Ohio has the fresh water that California and other states covet. While we were away, our part of home received lots of rain. The vegetable garden sprouted. The Prickly Pear Cactus bloomed. The lush green that we returned to was a sight for sore eyes. The birds here squeal, chirp, and warble under cover of glossy leaves fully veined with moisture. Some show their Springtime faces long enough for Deb Weston to take photos of them. There is a skunk that sometimes joins her on the nature preserve trails. Ottawa Elementary students and Owens Community College Early Learning Center collected some of the green leaves and grasses to paint shirts with rainwater and Rit Dye. Findlay Art Camp walked the trails, took photos, and planned art projects on the trails and in the pollinator gardens. Putnam County students mixed water with vinyl patch to create steppers. Cranberry Run was full and flowing for the Putnam County Educational Service Center Summer Camp. Campers did their annual wade through the Run after hiking with honeysuckle staffs and making t-shirts and bark masks.

Last week, I visited Fort Wayne’s Foellinger-Freimann Botanical Conservatory. While others lined up to watch butterflies strain their net enclosure, I enjoyed the Desert Garden. I don’t know that I would have prior to hiking in Central California, across the sandy fissured trail of Tamales Point and appreciating the riotous succulent walled yards in Seaside. Almost every inch of California coast that we hiked, from Carmel north to Inverness, was draped in blue sky and rolling Reseda Green beauty and a wild salted Pacific. It is a different color palette for this Northwest Ohioan. A young Californian boy who was volunteering at a park restoration event overheard me say that I was visiting from Ohio. “I love Ohio!” he exclaimed. Back home, I breathe in waves of rain on this June night and know that I do, too. This place is worth staying home (most of the time) and fighting for.

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when the trees are sobbing faintly

There was a chair in my grandparents’ house. It was a nondescript stool with a square burgundy seat mounted on four iron legs. It was the kind that you could spin in circles. You could push off with your feet or lay face down across it and turn, walking the circle with fingertips to the floor.

I spent a lot of childhood in that house. One warm summer evening, while Grandpa was in the milkhouse and Gran was making Jersey milkshakes for after chores, I sat on that stool and watched Silent Running, a 1972 environmentally-themed American post-apocalyptic science fiction film starring Bruce Dern. I sobbed as Earth’s last forest traveled out of reach.

As a teen, I sat in Gran’s kitchen and bit my nails while she talked with a caller at the back door. The visitor wanted to buy the property located a mile east of the farm, the 50 acres of woods and stream where Grandpa pastured senior calves in summer. I knew they could use the funds from a sale. I was so afraid that this last forest would be gone.

“No thank you. We don’t wish to sell it,” she said to this offer and to many others.

Carl and Joyce Seitz were my grandparents. My grandfather was a dreamer; a handsome rake who was a lover of books. He was a college graduate, but the farm fell to him while the country was dealing with depression and world war. He would drive a tractor and whistle. My grandmother, a college grad, too, was a stylish beauty who became a farmer’s wife. They raised eight children in that farmhouse. In the warm months, the family sometimes picnicked along the creek that flowed through that 50 acres to the east. In winter, they skated on the old flooded stone quarry there.

For as long as I can remember, that place has been called “The Quarry Farm.”

We lost Grandpa 25 years ago. Today, we lost Gran. Because they both valued the black walnut, maple and oak trees that grow here, the dogtooth violets, mayapples, bloodroot and spring beauties on the ridge and in the floodplain–because they were educators and dreamers–The Quarry Farm is still here.

11845208_10207924019201794_3438920111096809137_oDuring a trip home from university, one of my uncles looked out the kitchen window in time to see Gran hand-feeding a skunk. Two weeks ago, I took Sebastian the Skunk to visit her. Gran would have celebrated 101 years in November, but she was sharp as a tack and delighted in ‘Bastian as well as what we do here.

Chryssy the Cat climbs on my lap now. She shared that farmhouse, the one where we all climbed trees, made mud pies, collected fireflies in a jar, photographed migrating monarchs in the trees, and where our Gran worked art in her kitchen while teaching us to reach for the whole world outside.

http://www.lovefuneralhome.com/notices/Miriam-Seitz

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In the Storm

IMG_5770[1]Things here at the Quarry Farm are as they are everywhere else it seems. We’re cold, we’re trying to keep warm, and we’re trying to keep everyone else warm. The drifts at the start of the drive are at least four feet deep and the wind persists in howling. The auxiliary heat in the house has kicked up and we humans, when not caring for the animals, are glued to our books and Netflix, covered in layers of dogs and cats and they in turn are covered in blankets and pillows.

Outside, the turkeys are in with Johnny and Andy (Canada goose and duck), the chickens reside in their henhouse, the pygmy goats are staying in their shed, and Buddy and the goats are huddled together beneath their own roof.  So far, we have kept everyone alive.

This cold is dangerous, as the weathermen and sheriff departments keep telling us.  The pigs almost flat-out refuse to go outside—bellowing and pushing backward until we’re able to shove them out the door. Lolly, our bulldog mix, has so little fur to cover her skin, and so it makes the cold that much worse for her. On her first outing she ran out and right back in, but on her second go, she went around to the side of the house, became too cold, and huddled crying beneath the hutch off the side deck. She had to be carried back in the house.

IMG_5780[1]It is Buddy, however, that has made us worry.  He made it through the night, which we worried about, but he is still here. However, as you can see, he is sporting a new look. Quite fetching, I believe.

Our neighbors across the road just plowed out our drive. We saw them start to, but were on a mission to look after another house with animals, so a quick thank you by waving was all that was conveyed. I shouted a thank you across the road when we returned home, but they had already retreated to the warmth. So we shall have to thank them properly later. When it is warmer.

To all:  I hope your days in the snow storm have been at least slightly comfortable. Good luck for the rest of the duration!