BIG SKY COUNTRY

We’ve watched the sun rise and set over the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the China Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the North Sea. And over a pond in York Township. 

The view here includes east, west, south, and half the north sky. 

City lights are exciting and fun, but they wash away the stars. Our night sky is like a planetarium because luckily, there are no big farm lights nearby. 

The Milky Way, the space shuttle, eclipses, and Hale-Bopp-- we have viewed them all from our front row seats on the deck.

Move over, Montana. Move over, Colorado.
Make way for the flatlands.

IT’S A MATTER OF DEGREES

In a world that seems to have turned on us (or perhaps is seeking revenge on us), it’s nice to know something makes sense, something is predictable.

Hear Ye, 

Hear Ye, 

Here Ye:

 Sun dogs make sense.

Sun dogs are like rainbow parenthesis on either side of the sun. They are a beautiful sight, a little unexpected bonus in an otherwise normal day. They often occur later in the day, just when you need a boost. And sun dogs have a wonderful name: Parhelion for one, Parhelia for more than one. It's Greek for by the sun. Aristotle called sun dogs mock suns. Of course he called everything something.

You can catch a glimpse of sun dogs in the city, but we have a 270° view horizontally and nearly 180° vertically, so sun dogs are a common occurrence.

Is there anything in nature that is this predictable: sun dogs appear 22° on either side of the sun. My own dogs are far more erratic.

To understand why sun dogs occur, you need to search your brain for that file drawer marked Physics and the folders marked Refraction and Angle of minimum deviation. You’re on your own with that. In the case of sun dogs, light is refracted by prisms in the form of hexagonal ice crystals.

The colors of sun dogs are predictable, too–red nearest the sun, then moving through the color spectrum to a white halo on the outside.

If you can’t see a sun dog, perhaps you can catch a moon dog when ice crystals refract moonlight.

I love the surprises in the country: the deer leaning over the fence in the morning, the coyote looking in the double doors, the turkey sniffing my oregano. But it’s also nice to know that some things in nature know how to follow the rules. 

NANCY

When our country school closed, we were shipped off to the big city, a nearby town of 3000. The townies in 6^th grade had been together since kindergarten, and they looked suspiciously at the three of us country bumpkins. There was one exception. A girl with long hair so black it was nearly blue. She sat quietly in the back corner. She had just moved to the area and looked as lost as we did. I later learned she lived on the opposite side of town on a huge hog farm. We two misfits were soon drawn together. Turns out we both loved being in the country, words and writing, and school. That September day in 1957 was the first day of our fifty-year friendship.

Nancy and I went through school together and were roommates at the University of Michigan. While we both still lived in Ann Arbor, we traded off watching our combined 4 children under 4. Then I moved, and she moved. Over the years, we’d lose touch, then regain it, but we always wrote long letters. Mine were plain and factual, Nancy’s were flowery, poetic, and exploding with her current loves. Folded inside were pressed flowers or scribbled poems. She shared her joy at living in France, writing poetry, hiking and always, always her children. There were a few rare visits along the way.

Nancy and I had two special bonds: nature and our cameras. We shared snapshots and later electronic photos of our individual adventures with trees, bugs, birds, and most especially, turtles. Nancy loved turtles so inordinately that she finally had to call a moratorium on people sending her turtles in every form. I knew my own obsession with turtles was understood by someone, even if she was hundreds of miles away. Like grandmothers pulling out a stack of photos of their grandchildren, we tolerated each other’s turtle tales.

It is rare to find someone who just needs a word or glimpse of your life to understand and be right there with you, no matter how far away. I sent her green heron pictures. I inundated her with green heron pictures. I knew that she understood what it was like to be with them. She sent me pictures of her hike on the Appalachian Trail. I could picture her sitting on a rock in the mountains, taking out her journal full of dramatic, Baroque handwriting.





Sometimes I would sit on my antique wooden chair sunk in the mud up to its rungs and call her to describe the warblers I was looking at in the marsh, and she would be right there with me. She always knew something special about each bird or beast I was fixating on at the moment. "If it has that tail stripe, it's a king bird. You can count on it." And I do.

Nancy filled a room with laughter. Her laugh started deep in her gut and traveled up the scale. Life in general delighted her. She was unfettered by convention, and had a light around her that drew people to her.

When nature turned on Nancy, she lost her battle with cancer, but she kept her spirit intact. When I see a king bird, which she loved, I instinctively think, “I need to call Nan and tell her about this.” Then I remember. Sometimes I just tell her about it anyway because if anyone can persist in this universe it is Nancy Ann Huelsberg from Chelsea, Michigan. And Vermont. And Massachusetts. And France. And anywhere there are streams, ponds, and trails to hike.