TIPPING POINT

Each year, without fail, we have one special guest, some sort of beast we’ve never seen before. It becomes our focus as we learn about it and enjoy observing it. One year we had an orchid in the woods, but just that once. One summer we had the Green Herons. (See March 17-20.) Before that we were inundated with dragonflies of every kind and color. I’d never spotted a warbler, then two years ago a flock took up residence beyond the pond.

 Last spring we hit the jackpot. There was evidence of a beaver in our pond, and I’d never seen them at work. I was excited.

Because the water was so high last year, small trees that once had been around the pond were now in the pond. They were about a yard or two from shore. Some of those trees, which would rot anyway, had been downed by a beaver, leaving a field of freshly sharpened pencils sticking up out of the water. A tall tree would be down on the water one day and gone the next.

The beaver was taking these logs to a small island at one end of the pond. In dry years, the island is part of the shore; in wet years, it becomes isolated. It’s a big mound of earth with several huge trees and some underbrush. The beaver, working efficiently, simply added logs to the island rather than starting a lodge from the ground up. I watched day after day as our drowning willows and poplars disappeared, and the lodge took on surprising proportions.

Take a whiff––this is my place!

 I didn’t catch sight of the beaver for a while, but I knew it was there. When I paddled my kayak around the  island lodge, there was a pungent aroma very appropriate for a huge rodent. They make a pile of not-so-jazzy scat on the shore nearby as a way of claiming their territory. I'm glad we go with house numbers.

One night I walked, flashlight in hand, down to the dock where I had left my glasses. When I reached the pond there was a massive smack, then I could see water splash four feet in the air. It took a minute to get my heart rate back below 200. I got the message. This is my pond at night. 

How cool is it to see a beaver lodge built right before your eyes? And without losing any trees from our woods at that. These guys were cleaning up our pond––that was a bonus. Excessive dead trees and leaves are not good for pond water.

I did catch a few glimpses of the beaver. Once he let me drift quite close to him. When I pushed my luck, he dove down, and I saw him disappear under the island. At times like that, I cannot imagine living in the city.

Then one morning I spotted something a couple of yards up the hill in the woods. It was the pointy stump of a large tree. Not a little tree. Not a tree in the water that was going to die anyway. There were still trees in the pond the beaver could have harvested, but he had gotten greedy. He’d taken down a beautiful, viable tree.

At that moment, 


Interesting, cute, industrious beaver 

became 

Evil, destructive enemy of the people. 

War was declared.

Tomorrow: Bring it on!

ack ack ack ack ack ack ack     PARSNIPS   ack ack ack ack ack ack ack

Remember parsnips, those nasty, acrid wanna-be carrots that sit on your uvula and repeatedly kick you in the gag reflex? When my mother said I had to sit at the table until I ate all of my parsnips, there was only one reasonable response. “Then this is where I’ll grow up.”  Well, it turns out there’s something even worse than parsnips! There are attack parsnips. 

Meet the Wild Parsnip, aka Pastinaca Sativa. Sounds like Silvio Berlusconi’s latest love interest, but he’d regret that liaison.

Here’s what you need to know about Wild Parsnips:

1.          You do not have one Wild Parsnip. If you have one, you have 

             thousands.

2.         You cannot kill a Wild Parsnip.

3.         A Wild Parsnip will laugh at you if you try to kill it.

4.          They disguise themselves as Queen Anne’s Lace.

5.          No matter how mad you get, you don’t want to touch them.

Ever.

Oh, you may think it’s no big deal to touch a Wild Parsnip. You grab one and say, “What’s the big deal?”  Indeed it is a big deal, a big deal called photodermatitis. 


Wild Parsnips have chemical components called furanocoumarins. (That’s probably why parsnips taste so nasty.) Furanocoumarins get all excited when hit by UV light; they are photoactivated. Touch a parsnip, let the sun shine on the spot it contacted, and that area will become red, begin to itch, and then blister. The itching will not be a problem for long; that’s because the pain that follows will make you forget about it. If you get a good exposure you can erode your skin and deeper tissues.

We have been lucky not to have invasive Mustard Garlic in our woods, but Wild Parsnips have crept across the county. They love the ditches and sunny fields.These plants start out as flat rosettes on the ground. They put up tall stems (3-4 feet high) with leaves and then multiple yellow flowers. You can dig, pull, mow, cut, burn, and spray these plants. Then you can listen to them snickering. They just call in reinforcements. Most people let them do their thing, but I have a need to eradicate parsnips of any kind. I do admit that one of the silliest things I ever uttered was, “I got them all this time!”

I guess there’s some poetic justice when The Girl Who Wouldn’t Eat Parsnips ends up being haunted by Wild Killer Parsnips for the rest of her life.

For a photo gallery of Wild Parsnips, cut and paste this ginormous address:

http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3F_adv_prop%3Dimage%26va%3Dwild%2Bparsnips%26fr%3Daaplw&w=531&h=425&imgurl=www.wiseacre-gardens.com%2Fplants%2Fwildflower%2Fwild_parsnip_foliage.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wiseacre-gardens.com%2Fplants%2Fwildflower%2Fparsnip_wild.html&size=139KB&name=Wild+Parsnip+-+f...&p=wild+parsnips&oid=f97531296510b13d02ab3eff29c4be81&fr2=&no=8&tt=2030&sigr=123mlvhfe&sigi=123a4dk6q&sigb=12mlku2sj&.crumb=Suv5Qbrozs7

THE BRIDGE PARTY

When we got married I made a deal with the groom: you quit smoking, and I’ll learn to play bridge. He quit many times, but each time he fell off the tobacco wagon, I figured I was off the hook. Our dental insurance covered the only bridges I ever came near.

Eventually he really did quit, and I––stonewalled. All the bridge players I know always, always, always say, “We just play for fun. It’s not that serious.”  Then they proceed to snarl their way through the game, kicking their partners under the table. They end up not speaking and get divorced. I’m more of a euchre girl. If you trump your partner’s ace, it’s justifiable homicide. Other than that, it’s fairly relaxed.

I never kept my end of the bargain. That creates some internal conflict, but I can live with it. Guilt and a shredded self-concept are preferable to learning how to play bridge.

I was on my way home from a trip last summer when my husband informed me there was going to be a neighborhood bridge party that very night. We don’t have a neighborhood. And the closest neighbors don’t have that telltale musty smuggy smell of the bridge player. And besides––he knows I can’t play bridge. I figured he was kidding.

There was a bridge party all right, but it was Bridge, Iowa County style. After a year out of commission, the bridge over the Black Diamond Road was finally going to open the next morning.

The bridge over Old Man's Creek––open at last

In a matter of minutes,  60 people from a 5 miles radius arrived for a bridge opening party. They came on bikes, in cars, and on 4X4s. They ranged from the wrinkled newborn to the wrinkled octogenarian.
Tailgates dropped and Weber cookers, 8 ft. tables, beer coolers, and chairs appeared. There was pea salad, glorified rice, 7 layer salad, bean dip, burgers, chicken, rolls and mostly there were pies oh my. It was wonderful to have the bridge open. It was inspiring to have the bridge open while eating cherry pie.

A realistic man, my husband gave me credit for being at a bridge party, and our long-standing deal was satisfied.