Switched At Birth

Moments In The Life Of The Forest

It is not possible to walk through the woods here without remembering Hurricane Ivan. It has been almost two years, and the dead trees are still standing, their bark sliding until the shucked core is exposed, shiny and tight like fevered skin, riddled with holes, become bird and bug condo, still useful.

Some are twisted, others still standing with only a ragged trunk remaining, looking oddly like a huge, poorly sharped pencil.

Hurricane Ivan blew through our smalll forest and destroyed 350 trees outright, but only took a screen porch door for a souvenir from the house. Lucky doesn't begin to describe it.

Fifty yards to the west of the house, there was a wide ripped-up twister path.

We were out of the country when Ivan hit. By the time we returned, power had been restored, and a path from the gate to the house had been cleared by the same friends who cleaned out our refrigerator.

Nature has the benefit of a longer time horizon than people. At least it seems that way to me, looking at news coverage of Hurricane Katrina one year out.  A year for a person in a FEMA trailer is a long time.

We grieved over the loss of those magnicent old longleaf pines. One grand old oak tree would have survived, except that a taller pine, falling, split it right down the middle.

There is beauty and teeming life here again. The trees which struck the earth with such force were loaded with pine cones. More seeds than usual were shaken loose and driven into the ground by wind and rain.

The result has been a bumper crop of volunteer young trees, slash pine in abundance and many young longleafs. Combined with our longleaf planting program, the older surviving trees are presiding over a veritable nursery of toddlers. 

One of these longleafs was planted. One is a volunteer.

Look closely and you can see a young volunteer slash pine growing up through the underbrush.

As long as trees are planted here rather than subdivisions, this story has no ending. Storms are part of the life cycle. These photos are just a few snapshots in time.

August 30, 2006 in Life at Longleaf Preserve | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

It is not possible to walk through the woods here without remembering Hurricane Ivan. It has been almost two years, and the dead trees are still standing, their bark sliding until the shucked core is exposed, shiny and tight like fevered skin, riddled with holes, become bird and bug condo, still useful.

Some are twisted, others still standing with only a ragged trunk remaining, looking oddly like a huge, poorly sharped pencil.

Hurricane Ivan blew through our smalll forest and destroyed 350 trees outright, but only took a screen porch door for a souvenir from the house. Lucky doesn't begin to describe it.

Fifty yards to the west of the house, there was a wide ripped-up twister path.

We were out of the country when Ivan hit. By the time we returned, power had been restored, and a path from the gate to the house had been cleared by the same friends who cleaned out our refrigerator.

Nature has the benefit of a longer time horizon than people. At least it seems that way to me, looking at news coverage of Hurricane Katrina one year out.  A year for a person in a FEMA trailer is a long time.

We grieved over the loss of those magnicent old longleaf pines. One grand old oak tree would have survived, except that a taller pine, falling, split it right down the middle.

There is beauty and teeming life here again. The trees which struck the earth with such force were loaded with pine cones. More seeds than usual were shaken loose and driven into the ground by wind and rain.

The result has been a bumper crop of volunteer young trees, slash pine in abundance and many young longleafs. Combined with our longleaf planting program, the older surviving trees are presiding over a veritable nursery of toddlers. 

One of these longleafs was planted. One is a volunteer.

Look closely and you can see a young volunteer slash pine growing up through the underbrush.

As long as trees are planted here rather than subdivisions, this story has no ending. Storms are part of the life cycle. These photos are just a few snapshots in time.

Ode To Lazy (Creative) Wireless Joy

Lyle Lovett is singing "You Were Always There" in my left ear as I type. Oh, man, it's great to be untethered, disconnected, listening to music piped straight from Lyle's mouth to my ear, propped up in bed with a stack of pillows behind me, Buck running the day's market numbers from his laptop, and Maggie lying on her fluffy shearling bed down on the floor right at the bed's edge.

After Hurricane Ivan last year, we limped along with no landline phone for more than two months, tv service stuck together with string and sealing wax, and occasional dial-up internet service provided by an expensive cell phone connection.

Service was restored eventually and life as we had known it continued. But, somehow in the melee of rebuilding their sytstem, our cable television high speed internet signal  became anemic. It surged and ebbed, in unsatisfactory proportions.

I got a notice in the mail that Bell South in their wisdom had finally decided to extend internet service out to the back of beyond, where the busses don't even run, to our neck of the woods. Glory be.

We had just spent a frustrating week with Road Runner, their various nice fellas stringing line and new transformers, with much head scratching and mixed results. Bell South offered a rebate, discounts, and other blandishments that at the moment seemed purely irresistible.

Well, as the old saying goes, there ain't no free lunch. In my haste to install the latest greatest Bell South software, I screwed up the wireless connection to my own laptop, turned the old desk top into what might as well be a fishing reef, and worsened our position by at least 33%.

Hard headedness being what it is, I have lived with my errors for months, but the shoe finally pinched enough that tonight I dug around and found our ancient wireless router, hooked back up to the old cable system, didn't think about it, analyze it, or look at a manual. Low and behold, it worked smooth as silk and here I am listening to Lyle Lovett, untethered and unattached except for my undying love for the man by my side and the dog at my other side, writing to you.

Yes, writing to you. Here's the nub of this ramble. With my laptop hard wired, I was limited by time, energy and comfort level. The days are so frenetic right now with our building project that by 10 p.m. I am ready to hit the hay. Early in the morning is walking time, crucial to my physical, emotional and mental well-being. The time in between brings stock market trading and home building on-the-spot decisions.

So you guys have been getting on-the-fly pictures with Reader's Digest condensed versions of events, mostly sans reflective thought. I do the better, acutal writing stuff best about midnight-thirty, wirelessly typing, listening to music while Buck and Maggie recharge their batteries for the next day.

And worst of all, I haven't been reading your writing. That changes -- tonight.

Missed you. Nice to be back.

09:27 PM in Day Book | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0

April Fool's Flood

Water soaked fabric can feel so heavy. I felt like that today, water-logged, rain soaked, weighted and tethered. This April fool's storm, filling the rivers, the road, the cars as they take a chance on driving through their usual, unflooded route, filling the grocery store where the roof collapsed again. At 5 a.m., I was up again changing out the towels and pots I have lined up like steel soldiers, like the little Dutch boy whose finger plugged the dam. But, as usual, we're the lucky ones. Our small leaks are from new construction, not Ivan damage repairs.

I think of the Indonesian families suffering and dying from new tremors and the families in this community who are still living with blue plastic tarpaulins covering their roofs from Hurricane Ivan. Most of the families here do at least have a roof, but nonetheless it's not easy to face a morning like this one for them, flooded yet again, the almost fourteen inches which have fallen in less than twenty hours wreaking new havoc on the weakened infrastructure.

Making my way into town for an appointment, I thought how foolish of me not to have cancelled it. Just outside our gate, a small pick-up truck was stalled out. I plunged into the water-filled road. The old Lincoln Town Car is like a boat or a bathtub on wheels. It didn't even sputter.

I headed onto Interstate-10. The westbound lane was backed up for miles. Emergency vehicles everywhere. Passing by on the other side, I saw a small silver compact car sliced neatly almost in half, and felt a sourness in my stomach rise up my esophagus. It looked so surgical.

I heard on the radio that a transformer had blown downtown, causing a fire underground. How is that possible? Think of it.

Flooding, roofs caving in. Folks having heart attacks. People just sitting down and giving up.

All around the world, we're in our tiny storm-tossed boats. Some days it feels like Pi's Bengal tiger is on board with us. Who can blame dear Karol Wojtyra for taking the last plane out?

Ah, and yet. Everything changes. Everything changes. Sitting now, waiting for my appointment, a light at the window startles me.

It's the sun.

07:56 PM in Day Book | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Curious Deer

The regular hunting season for deer will end here February 15. Buck goes to the woods to contemplate shooting a deer several times a week, taking along his binoculars and a good book. There is no venison stockpiled in our freezer. We feed the deer year round. The herd grows.

Nonetheless, I stay out of the woods during hunting season, mostly out of respect for the deer, who are reproducing, and also a native caution in the event of a careless bow hunting poacher hidden away somewhere in a secret tree stand. I don't necessarily begrudge the poacher meat if it's needed to feed his family, and that's more common than we comfortable folk might think, but I don't want Maggie or me to accidentally run afoul of danger. Hurricane Ivan made the poacher's task more difficult. There are places at the swamp's edge where a human can only travel on hands and knees, so many trees are down, the debris formidable.

But I miss the deep woods, and look forward to daily explorations beginning again in a few days. I will look for lichens, fruiting spores, budding pitcher plants and the young longleaf pines reaching, reaching.

Standing at the kitchen sink this morning, I watched a healthy young doe walk right up to the edge of the house foundation, sniffing at the block and the red clay. For a moment, I thought she might leap up the three feet or so to walk around on the surface. Instead, she found a patch of green shoots to munch on nearby, then moved gradually back into the woods, where I could see the big ears of another, taller deer.

This is a very poor photo, I know. Here is where knowing something (anything) about camera settings and how to take a picture at a distance would have made a difference. I promise to learn. But perhaps -- I hope -- you can sense the sweetness of the moment in this dim outline.

 

07:26 AM in Homeplace, Longleaf Preserve | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

The Joy Is Back

Maggie and I walked to the gate early this morning to fetch the Sunday paper. Whoa. How did it get so beautiful again? The bright rising sun and a heavy dew combined to sparkle up the woods. Everywhere I turned there were soft cottony white webs, a spider's bed and breakfast. Wild blueberry branches are already turning reddish purple, their tip ends swelling.

The hurricane rearranged my own personal walking woods, and I've been damn put out about it. That's the blind, self-seeking, pride-filled truth of it. My meditation walks became distracted ramblings which I had begun to eschew for the bland indoor treadmill.

But this morning, it's as though some fog of depression or grief had lifted, bouyed by nature's insistence on reasserting itself.

I'm eager to get out there tomorrow morning and start pulling dead branches out of the stream to help restore the natural flow and eliminate the stagnant, mosquito-breeding pools that have developed.

The joy is back.

Beam me up!

10:45 PM in Longleaf Preserve | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Death With Dignity

An odd phrase, really. I understand what it has come to mean in our culture, kind of a code for pulling the plug. Life with dignity. A rich thought stew there, but for another day.

Walking this morning, I saw heavy drops of dew shimmering in the sunrise as they clung to the dead pine needle clusters. The last time I photographed this fallen giant, about a week after Hurricane Ivan took it down for the count, these needles were still bright green. They were laying on the ground, tragically askew.

But now, look for yourself and I think you'll agree that they are exquisite, burnished to a fine pecan color, providing food and shelter for a variety of woodland creatures, and beauty for my eyes. Truly, death with dignity.

 

10:16 PM in Longleaf Preserve | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Holding The Mirror

I've been continuing to read the many stories in personal mail and newspaper accounts of the impact of this summer's and fall's hurricanes and floods, and am working now on developing a story sharing experience with folks in our episcopal church parish. As bloggers, we are all accustomed to telling our stories, and sifting our experiences via the written word. Not so with most folks. As Tom Montag's (The Middlewesterner) life work reminds us, everyone has important, moving stories to share. More than 6,100 homes were destroyed in the Pensacola area alone. Displaced folks are living in travel trailers, motels, and tents, and with relatives, friends and near strangers. Endless stories. Sharing them reinforces our humanity and helps us to evolve beyond the bottomless pit issues where only the names change.

"There are heroes in the seaweed There are children in the morning They are leaning out for love And they will lean that way forever While suzanne holds the mirror". . . from Suzanne, by Mr. Leonard Cohen, bless his talented heart.

Maybe holding the mirror is something we can do, in our blogs and our off-line writing lives.

About a week ago, Denny Coates (author and former Book of Life blogmeister) and Kathleen Scott (fabulous photographer, writer and Denny's soulmate) added comments -- one to a post called "Full Circle" and the other to "Behold" in which they wrote poignant post-hurricane updates from their home base in Vero Beach, Florida. Comments often get lost in the flow, so I'm re-posting them here:

from Denny. . .

"I've been so busy that I haven't written much about what has happened here.
But I can clearly see the value of your journal-like posts about what has
happened in your part of Florida. The impressions need to be captured. We
need to keep writing, begin writing again.

 

After the second storm, when we were able to return to the island, we saw
everything blown over, blown down, broken and all the leaves on everything
had been blown away. It reminded me of winter up north. It was
disheartening. As Kathleen put it, "It hurt my feelings."

As soon as we could, we stood everything up again and reinforced the soil,
not knowing if this would do any good. A few weeks after Jeanne, nearly
every tree and bush has new leaves, at first tiny, then pushing up as young
branches. Even the bouganvillea, which was cut to a stump with a chainsaw,
has sprouted about a dozen new leafy branches, each about three feet long.
The habiscus bushes, bare only a couple weeks ago, are covered with leaves
and some flowers. I know these plants have well-established root systems,
but I'm amazed at the life-force asserting itself. Maybe some won't make
it...we'll see.

Each day, we do something else to move forward. Each day, nature reasserts
itself with more color. Before long, the last of the debris will be picked
up and the streets will be clean. Eventually, things will be even better
than they were before."

 

from Kathleen. . .

"Our plants are budding again. Most of
the natives and many of the tropicals and most of my heirloom roses will
make it, I think, a powerful testament to life. Makes me feel good
everyday to see life coming out of the destruction from the two hurricanes."

 

Kathleen is right. My three scraggly rose bushes are blooming. Many of the leaves were shredded, but by God the brilliant blooms make a statement. Same for the damaged magnolia trees, where spring green new leaves are profuse, here at the Halloween end of October.

Flood-borne suffering spawned by the hurricanes hit our friends in Canton, North Carolina hard, that beautiful smoky mountains place where we spent seven summers in the Rice Cove community of Beaverdam. Yesterday, I read an affecting moment by moment account of the Hurricane Frances' related flood there, written by Becky Johnson, staff writer for the Smoky Mountain News, a small weekly paper. It's called Remembering The Flood, and I highly commend it to you. This is not a bloodless recitation of facts.

And finally, for today, a friend from Beaverdam wrote me a few days ago with some updates on the community and the Beaverdam Methodist Church folk and our former neighbors. The author, Betty Driver, is a recently retired high school teacher and long-time choir director at the church. When the phrase "salt of the earth" was coined, Betty might have been one of the prototypes.

excerpts from Betty. . .

"We are fairing well here now for the most part. The road still has some dangerous washouts, but that is about all the damage left here on Beaverdam. Harold and Hilda have a temporary bridge and can get in and out if a bit precariously. The church ceiling is still patched with plastic. They will have to take the steeple off to repair it and then patch the roof which involves a crane. They are trying to get all the people together to do the job. . . The town of Canton is slowly recovering although it will never be the same. The businesses are cleaning out and many will not be reopening. There is still no dry cleaner open. The debris removal is almost complete, but in some cases only shells remain from the town hall on down to the stop light going up to the post office. People are still in the process of cleaning out homes and some rebuilding is going on, but it will be a slow process which you can imagine since you can see it first hand. I have been working at the recovery center a few days a week. I have heard some very sad stories especially from the poor and the old. One girl was about to loose her leg and had lost everything in the flood. Her story was enough to make it difficult to keep a professional face. I almost cried. Another old couple came to get cleaning supplies and food. The lady was distressed that she had to have some help. She said she had never had to ask for anything before. Both the Baptist and the Methodists have building teams working in the area, but there are 400 homes to repair of tear down. People are having trouble finding places to go. FEMA is here and will not let some people rebuild. They may be the lucky ones since their property may be bought by the government. . ."

I salute us all this morning, all over the planet, in our common living, loving, struggling noisy humanity. Even the seemingly mundane is precious, and all we sinners are saints, too.

10:19 AM in Day Book, Longleaf Preserve, Pensacola Scene | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

 

 

Hurricane Update From Denny and Kathleen

Here's an update from our friends Denny Coates and Kathleen Scott, who are working, writing and planning a new garden.

In Denny's own words. . .

"Well, our electricity is restored, and I've reconnected my computer,
so I can give you an update on how we're doing after Hurricane Jeanne.
As you may remember, this was our second direct hit in a couple weeks.
The first was Frances, a slow-moving Cat II that softened up the
ground and blew a lot of trees down. Jeanne was a stronger and faster
Cat III. It caused a lot more wind and flood damage. We didn't see the
images on TV because our power was out, but it's plain to see that it
was a destructive storm. The ocean-front residences and businesses
took a heavy hit. A number of hotels, homes, and roads were destroyed,
the direct hit with 120 mph winds and the surge were just too much. It
will take quite a while for those exposed structures to recover.

This time we rode out the storm in a home on the other side of the
Intracoastal Waterway, having promised to take care of a friend's
children in her absence. When Jeanne hit at midnight, it took six
hours for it to pass through. That was some experience. All of us,
including six cats, went to the safest room in the house. But the
house held up well, and we stayed there until we got power back here.

The bottom line is that our home is still OK. Our remaining oak tree
didn't fall, and water didn't get into the house, though it crested 2
inches from our doorstep. Nasty. We will need to reshingle the roof
and replace the gutters after this one. Amazingly, for the second
hurricane in a row, the DirecTV dish remained exactly on azimuth and
we had perfect reception when we finally turned on the set.

The work to remove blown-down limbs was much less this time. So for
several days we worked outside, righting and shoring up bushes. Once
again, I went through a lot of Gatorade. Only 20 bags of debris this
time, while Frances had 75. The property is not pretty anymore, with
all the bushes blasted, blown down and broken. Very few leaves remain
on any plant. But already new leaves are pushing up on several of the
bushes…the life force in them is strong.

Each day the restoration moves forward. Each day, something improves.
We will soon feel rested and energetic again. And I trust that in a
few months our property won't look quite so scarred by the storm. We
were a lot luckier than many of our friends and neighbors."

In Kathleen's own words. . .
"Denny and I are tired but power came back on a day ago so today we
feel like millionaires.

The authorities didn't let us back on the island for 3 days after the
storm. We were happy to finally find our home intact. The roof lost
a lot of surface but you can't see through it and it didn't let water
in. Flooding came up into the garage & sunroom, again, but damage was
not much worse than Frances. We'll get a new roof, rebuild where
needed & replace some things.

More trees lost and our gardens are skeletal; we'd just finished
shoring up & pruning from Frances. I felt sad to see everything
knocked down again but Denny reminded me of all the people who've lost
their homes...we're fortunate and feel grateful.

Frances & Jeanne gave me some new life-skills. I know how to tarp a
roof and pull up carpet. I can kick-roll large palm trunks a city
block and build refuse piles taller than I am. I can shore up
storm-ravaged plants. Life is short, live now."

07:10 AM in Longleaf Preserve, Pensacola Scene | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Goatfell Mountain

We're about to head out for a walk up Goatfell Mountain, camera in pocket.

Our kids in P'cola are okay despite a new "skylight" in their house where a tree fell in, so the remainder of my posts from Arran will be (I hope!) about this fabulous spot in the world.

For now, lets all try to keep it between the ditches!

05:33 AM in Isle of Arran 2004 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Message From Our Friends In Canton, NC

I just received this from Betty Driver, our friend and former neighbor in the Beaverdam Community of Canton, North Carolina. Most of the news has been about panhandle Florida and coastal Alabama, but clearly, Ivan's reach was far and wide.

"This is just to update you on our situation here. I am sending it to both addresses since I don’t know how your will be accessing your email. Pensacola was bad according to the news. I hope you home and family are OK.

The flooding here is unreal. I praise God to be alive and undamaged. Many of our neighbors are homeless. The roads are washed out and businesses are flooded. You have never seen anything like it. There are 8 confirmed dead so far and there will probably be more. They are searching a development which slid down the mountain in Franklin for bodies. A 13-year-old child from Canton wondered away from home and had not been found last time I heard. Beaverdam Creek was out over its banks and nearly flooded Shane Thompson’s trailer. It was more like a river. The roads and even the interstates are collapsing. The side of Beaverdam Road is collapsing. Trees are hanging from power lines. It is a real adventure to drive to town. We have our power back, but we are on a boil-water advisory. Our church steeple is still leaking and we have some damage to our sanctuary again and water in the fellowship hall. Hopefully it will dry out for Sunday. It is minor compared to the rest of the community. You might like to go to ashevillecitizen.com or wlos.com to see the pictures and read the news. Harold and Hilda Rice are stranded. Their bridge has washed away. The have the house just behind the trailer park at across from the end of Rice Cove. Linda and Harvey Worley have a tree down on their house. Carol Sorrell’s family lost all their vehicles when a tree fell on them. Blue Ridge Paper is flooded again. The water was up 14 inches higher than last time. I guess you are glad not to be here. I don’t know which sounds worse, Pensacola or Canton. Pray for all of us."

 

 

05:23 AM in Day Book | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)