Birthdays, Migraines, and Wildlife

The last weekend was both busy and slow.  Saturday we collected The Child and visited my folks to celebrate my Dad's birthday.  He'll be 90 next year; when that happens, we'll have to plan a large celebration with fancy food and champagne and maybe a Mozart Quartet... Or something.   This time around was a modest affair with immediate family.  

Sunday started out typically. Mark and I had talked about getting up before dawn and going to Delta Ponds to try an spot some more beavers.  I woke up around 6 AM, peered between the blinds at what I thought was an overcast morning, groaned, and burrowed further under the covers.  

Around 7 AM I did toddle out of bed and found Mark in the living room.  The sun painted high clouds magenta, and the waning full moon hid behind the two pines to the west.  I realized I was a Bad Husband for keeping Mark from his early morning nature walk, and said that we should go—but Mark said we could go in the evening.  

After breakfast, I thought I'd join a Zoom writing session of folks I know, but then I got a blind spot in my vision as I was trying to catch up on social media on my phone and the next thing I knew, there was a vibrating spiral of blue lightning in the middle of everything, which put the kibosh on reading or doing anything requiring sight.  

I ended up napping outside all morning on our deck furniture.  In the sunlight. It got up to 65F.  This is two weeks after the snow and ice storm and about a week of temperatures in the mid-20s.  I think I might have gotten a mild tan.  

Luckily, my aural-migraines aren't too bad; although my eyes didn't feel like they were focusing properly until the mid-afternoon.  I convinced Mark to go to Delta Ponds a little early, and we headed out around 4PM.  Mark thought we were there a little early, but as we were walking along the place where we'd seen a beaver the week before, I heard a nibbling sound, and there was a great big beaver sitting on the bank just below the walkway stripping the bark off of a twig.  Mark saw a smaller beaver near-by. 

January Wildlife

The Willamette Valley is slowly recovering from last week’s ice and snow. Several friends and acquaintances have had scary encounters with trees falling on or near their houses and cars; the most famous victim of weather is the Cascades Raptor Center, which lost an aviary to falling trees and is currently a deathtrap due to partially fallen tree limbs.

The other evening, Mark and I took a walk along the Willamette River and the inlet into Delta Ponds before shopping at the local mall. Rain fell, and I was glad for an umbrella.

A gang of kids sat on cardboard in a circle out of the rain under the Valley River bridge. Mark initially wanted to see logs, debris , and other flotsam as it came barreling down stream, but all we really saw were small twigs awash in the gallons of water rushing along the downed trees along the river banks and bridge pylons. I peered into the glooming grey, hoping to see an osprey or maybe one of the Skinner Butte eagles, but all of the birds must have been hunkered down elsewhere.

We left the bridge and walked along the bike path along the river toward Delta Ponds. Through the leaning trees and fallen branches, Mark pointed out a white heron in the shallows. Water washed over trees growing from slender eyots near the river’s bank. We saw some ducks between the river and the path, and when we rounded a corner where the inlet flowed into Delta Ponds, there was a tree stretching up bare branches laden with cormorants. On rainy winter late afternoons, the looming cormorants take on a gallows aspect, as if they were awaiting some watery menace to surface and dispense nacreous bounty.

A sign along the path listed likely animal residents of the waterways and I was surprised that river otters were on the list. We walked farther, not quite to the sluice gate near a car dealership, and then Mark saw a large animal swimming in the current. I thought it might be an otter because it was swimming more quickly than the nutria we usually see, but when it hopped out of the water and onto a bank below us, we saw the wide flat tail of a beaver. Mark was elated. We followed the beaver back toward the Willamette. I’m not sure if it was looking for downed branches to drag off somewhere or roots to eat or what, but during most the time we saw it, it made an almost dog-like whining, as if it were muttering to itself that “no, this branch isn’t right.”

The last time we saw a beaver up this close was around February 1, 2020, also during a flood, when the beaver in question was gnawing on an oak growing next to the bike path. I had forgotten how big they are. 

When Your Husband's a Writer

Scene:  The living room. Mark is using a swifter.

Mark:  "There. I've finished sweeping and the floors feel less gritty."

John:  "Isn't that a metaphor for life." (Notices his shoes on the floor by the couch and goes to put them on the entry shoe rack.)

Mark (aghast):  "John!" (Steps in front of John and clasps him by the shoulders) "Look into my eyes."

John (trying to step around him): "But I need to pick up my ..."

Mark (holding him fast):  "Honey. Honey. Look at me: Sweeping and cleaning is an actual job we have to do to maintain the house. It's not a metaphor."

John:  "It's not a metaphor? Why can't it be both a metaphor and—"

Mark: "Oh my God, this explains so much."

First Snow and Ice of 2024

The January winter storms have hit and covered much of the Willamette Valley with snow and a crust of ice.  Power lines are down, and it seems like half of my friends up and down the valley are without power, or their wells have stopped, or trees have come crashing down near or onto their houses.  The city has closed public parks and bike paths.

We’re lucky to be in a part of Eugene that seems to have robust power transmission.  I believe the last time we were without power was due to someone speeding down Willamette Street at something like fifty miles per hour and smacking into a power pole (Willamette Street is straight, so they would have had to work a little bit to hit a pole at the side of the road).  

The time before that was a strange occurrence: lightning overhead caused a mechanical switch (maybe a line arrester) at the top of a pole near our house to trip.  I’m guessing that the lightning caused an induction surge in the transmission line.  Only houses on our side of the block were without power, but some linemen came and used a very long (and insulated) cherry-picker type tool to flip the switch closed.  

Luckily, the temperature has only gotten into the mid twenties, so the animals can go outside when they need to.  Aoife doesn’t appreciate the snow on her paws—although one of her plush toys, a fox, has turned into an icicle that she likes to chew. The cats only want to be outside for a short period of time, mostly so they can stalk songbirds attracted by the suet we’ve put out .  The snow is covered with a crust of ice; walking is not too bad as the ice is bumpy and dry.  

Today it’s supposed to be sunny—it’s currently sunny in Corvallis—but at the moment it is still overcast with diffuse light bouncing between the white ground and the grey clouds.   But there’s a Winter Storm Warning issued for today through tomorrow morning, so maybe all we’ll get is deeper grey.  

I think an expedition for chocolate may be in order.