February 2014 – peerspirit.com

Weather Reports

February 18, 2014/0 Comments/by Christina Baldwin

It is mid-February. A few days ago I was sitting on the deck of our house, in the sunshine—and it was 55 Farenheit/12 Celsius. I hesitate to mention what a lovely winter we are having when across the North American continent there is so much snow and ice and disastrously low temperatures—however you measure it. And England is awash in floods; heavy rains, and storms tearing at its coastal towns. And Australia is broiling hot and dry and afire.

Our mountains have looked craggy—cliffs showing through which should be covered with snow—until this week they are finally getting a super load of snow. From near drought conditions (for rain forest mountains) to normal snowpack depths in a week! Ann and I are hoping to take a day-trip, get out the snowshoes, and go tromping if the storms back off by the end of the week and the avalanche danger settles down. Not safe yet… we have to be content with beach walks and greenery until NOAA gives some kind of all clear.

All this to say, looking west and east at the mountains that hover over Puget Sound views, I have joined the collective vulnerability that weather is creating this season in both hemispheres. A wake-up call, to what we are not sure. Several faraway friends are writing or phoning in search of information on the community garden we started a few years ago, and recommendations on the woodstove we bought—as suddenly they are taking seriously their own needs to retrofit and reshape their life-styles for greater self-sufficiency.

Anxiety and ambiguity can be helpful motivators as long we experience them in moderation and keep educating ourselves in chunks we can cope with. We don’t know what’s coming; we don’t know when the collapse of things is going to hit our individual lives and plans, and thwart our hopes for ourselves, our children, or our grandchildren.

I just finished cooking the lentils I bought to get through Y2K. This year our goal in the garden is to find some kind of grain or protein we can grow successfully in this climate—the cool salted breezes are not Mediterranean here. I want to set an example of a person awake to the larger picture, doing what I can in my work and my lifestyle to contribute to commonsense and rationality. I want to lean down, enjoy what is, build resilience in my own heart, my family, my community—and in the wider outreach that something like a blog touches.

Here are some photos of beauty that I see from my front steps. May they green a place in your heart as well.

Heather and yucca in the yard

Olympics in new snow–western view

Tracking

February 9, 2014/1 Comment/by Ann Linnea

We rarely get snow at sea level, but this morning we awoke to an inch of new snow. I realize this is almost laughable for my Minnesota, east coast, and Canadian friends. But it brought out a huge sense of wonder for me.

On my morning dog walk I made quite a discovery—a raccoon walked down the middle of our road sometime during the night! Maybe we have had a raccoon around for quite a while, but since they are often nocturnal we had not seen it. The other day I actually told a neighbor I did not believe we had raccoons around.

Raccoon tracks are fairly easy to identify. Both front and rear paws have five delicate thin toes, which we know work in almost human hand ways to grasp and manipulate.

By contrast, the tracks of my little dog reveal four roundish toes with claws—no prying off lids for her.

Another set of tracks came from the little bunny that lives under the cedar bushes in the front yard. Note the staggered back two small paws and the larger staggered front paws.

The snow has put quite a damper on our brave tulips, but it will likely melt with the predicted rain this evening. I am grateful for the world of tracks and the stories they reveal and my ability to get out and enjoy them before neighborhood cars obliterated them.

Who Won?

February 4, 2014/4 Comments/by Ann Linnea

Nature teaches us many lessons. We tend to like the nice ones with inspiring scenery or cute animals. We don’t talk much about the more disturbing scenes that leave us unsettled.

This is the story about a hybrid seagull and a female bufflehead duck. It is a story about a predator that is 7 or 8 times the size of its prey. And I am still not sure “who won”.

Watching birds on a winter, open water pond, I was looking at a flock of several dozen black and white bufflehead ducks. These are the smallest North American ducks—cute, tiny, compact, and determined.

All of a sudden one of my birding buddies said, “Look at that!” I put down my binoculars and watched as a large gull swooped down on the flock of buffleheads and scattered them in all directions. It methodically separated out one of the females and chased her. She was frantically trying to get back with her flock, but the gull forced her down to the water.

Immediately the little duck dove to escape. The gull stared at the water and swam around. As soon as the little bufflehead came up for air, the gull was right there waiting to pounce. Down again went the little duck. They repeated this dozens of times until the little duck was so exhausted she HAD to stay on the surface. Then the gull opened its beak and tried to chew on her neck and pull on her wings. It seemed like the end for the bufflehead.

But somehow she escaped—a bundle of sheer determination and will. The gull pursued her relentlessly. At least four or five times the cycle of gull pulling on duck and duck escaping and diving repeated itself. I spoke aloud to my friends. “How can she keep this up?” At this point we had been watching the pursuit for 15 minutes.

Suddenly the gull flew off and an immature bald eagle took over the pursuit of the bufflehead, who promptly dived again. Twice more the eagle tried to catch its stolen prey, but it was no match for the feisty little duck and gave up.

Looking through our binoculars, we judged that the tiny duck was swimming OK. Within a minute three buffleheads—two females and one male— flew in to check on her. They swam circles around her, and then swam quickly in the direction they had come from. It was obvious she could not keep up with them. When they flew off, she flapped her little wings, but did not appear to be able to fly.

Slowly she started to swim towards the dock in front of us. We remained completely still, not wishing to add further trauma to her afternoon. When she disappeared under the dock, which was about twenty feet in front of us, we slowly walked away.

“We must let her be,” I said. “She has either gone there to die or recover. We will never know which. We just got to watch one of life’s ordinary little creatures in a truly brave, remarkable moment.”

Sometimes it is not about winning or losing. It is about giving life your all. None of us know how life is going to turn out or when we might be asked to exert extraordinary energy on our own behalf: we just do what must be done when it’s asked of us. Coming through this winter of death and mourning, of going on with my half-healed heart, I know what it is to be buffeted and buffleheaded. And I know you also carry such moments. May we keep swimming and surviving.