Sat, 1 Jul 2023, 10:10 AM (-06:00)
US-51 north out of Minocqua, WI. There’s a line of traffic strung out behind me waiting for a chance to pass. With each minute, the line gets longer, and almost certainly to the chagrin of most of them the truck right behind me seems to be equally happy with 55 mph, making passing both of us a chore.
A blue sign announces WAYSIDE 1/2 MILE. I slow down and turn left off the highway. The traffic behind me continues on northward. The wayside road winds left and then right, descending into to a shady grove.
There’s are picnic table here across a green lawn under large Oaks and Pines. And there’s a trail beyond that goes thru a woods, dropping further down to a small lake with gentle waves reflecting the afternoon sunlight. A cool breeze blows off the water.
A Red Pine root makes a perfect seat. It’s peaceful here. A good place to spend a few minutes and let more yearning traffic drive north. But the sun will go down behind the treetops before long, and there’s a campsite to set up before dark. It’s time to go.
I walk back up the trail thru the woods, climbing the gnarled tree root stairway. Then, after just a few steps, a loon calls loudly once. Then twice. Then again a third time.
Fri, 30 Jun 2023, 04:20 PM (-06:00)
The door was heavy and resisted pushing. There was a step down just inside, and after the bright sun outside it was hard to see. The floor was wooden and worn, and there were bundles of firewood stacked for sale just inside.
There was a long bar with a few people sitting at it. This was a bit of a surprise, since the place looked like a store to a non-attentive observer, although as for that the Hamm’s sign outside should have been a hint.
There was a second room to the left that lit by the afternoon sun reflected off the river. A sliver of it flickered down the bar of the otherwise dark room and lit the face of a woman serving a couple seated at the right end of the bar. She looked up and smiled as I walked toward her.
“Is it ok if I park in the lot for a few minutes and sit down by the water?” I asked.
“Sure.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I have a gray teardrop trailer. I didn’t want you to think I was setting up camp.”
She smiled again. “That’s fine. I saw you drive in.”
“Thanks,” I said again from the door and went down to the river.
Fri, 30 Jun 2023, 04:51 AM (-06:00)
“You want to take me away?” she asked me from her wheelchair.
“You want to go away?” I asked her.
“Yes. You wanna take me?”
I looked down at the cat who had jumped into the chair with me.
“I would but I have a kitty on my lap.”
“I’m talking about me,” she said.
She rolled her chair past me and then stopped after a few feet and sat still staring at the wall.
—
A conversation from a few years ago.
Fri, 26 May 2023, 09:23 AM (-06:00)
After the students had walked out onto the field… After the band stopped playing Pomp and Circumstance… After the sun went down behind the bleachers… After the students had walked across the stage… After the tossing of mortar boards… After the fireworks… After all that, I saw Jon amid the blue.
“I’ll be right back,” I said to Mr. Edgar.
Jon saw me coming.
“Mr. Hasan!” he shouted.
“Jon!” I said, returning his broader than usual smile.
He was standing with Isabel. She and he and a group of rascals were in my fifth period class a year ago. She did well. He did not. And he made a point to remind me that I had failed him whenever the two of them passed my classroom this year, although he would do it with a smile on his face as we bumped fists and they continued walking down the hall.
“Mr. Hasan,” he said. “I did it!”
“You did it,” I said and held my fist up for a bump.
“I need to give you a hug,” he said.
So we hugged each other. And Isabel and I hugged, too.
“You did it!” I said to him again, pointing a finger right at him. “You did it.”
Isabel smiled.
Tue, 23 May 2023, 08:52 PM (-06:00)
There used to be Pyracanthas against that wall. Winding branches. Dark green oval leaves. Orange berries. And pokey thorns that burned like fire. But they didn’t make it. Years ago, one withered and died. Soon after the other.
When we planted Coral Honeysuckle on a trellis against the wall, the curse remained. The vines struggled and put out only a blossom or two in a season. But the curse turned out not to be a curse after all but rather a simple matter of not enough water. The wall, you see, is under an overhanging eave.
It seems that water is somehow a vital ingredient in the life cycle of plants. Who knew!?
…which brings me to the bucket.
We have a little metal bucket that we use to water plants in the yard. It’s a fine bucket. Been around for a long time. But there’s a hole in the bottom, and when you fill it up, the water trickles out. As such, the bucket isn’t good for much — except the Coral Honeysuckle. Fill the bucket up. Set the bucket down. The water runs slowly out. Do it once; do it twice. Do it today; do it tomorrow. The water gently soaks the base of the honeysuckle. The honeysuckle is happier.
Tonight as I stepped over the Salvia to set down the holey bucket, a Dwarf Salamander slithered away from the base of the trellis and into the leaves under the Dwarf Yaupon Holly.
It seems that water is somehow a vital ingredient in the life cycle of amphibians. Who knew!?
Sun, 21 May 2023, 08:31 PM (-06:00)
The front yard is… well… Is it time to mow? How to do?
Sun, 21 May 2023, 07:22 AM (-06:00)
It was a Cardinal that woke me up. Singing in the canopy in the distance. No wait, that’s not it. You can’t hear the outside with the patio door is closed. So why on earth was I out of bed so early?
Highly nonstandard.
The bedroom was dark when I threw off the sheet. I fumbled for glasses and slipped into shorts and pulled a maple leaf teeshirt over the dishevel. Thusly configured, I opened the patio door to let in the early morning air.
It was at this point that birdsong surrounded me. There was a Cardinal singing in the distance. And there was a noisy Wren somewhere nearby. And before long there were Chickadees chattering in the dawning light.
“Morning, baby,” Trudy said as she wandered into the kitchen.
Despite my best efforts, I had not been sufficiently quiet in the making of the coffee.
Sat, 20 May 2023, 11:11 AM (-06:00)
You would have enjoyed this morning. It wouldn’t have made any difference, front yard or back. You would have enjoyed it. Enjoyed the birdsong. Enjoyed the greenery. Enjoyed the wildflowers. Enjoyed the breeze.
You would have sung back to the Wrens in the Cedar Elms. You would have thanked the overcast sky holding the heat of summer at bay. And although our definition of the 70+-degree morning and the oncoming 80+-degree temperatures would have hardly qualified for you as a cool spring day, you would have been outside from morning until the sun went down.
It’s hard to know where you might have chosen to sit. In front, you might have basked in the glory of the wildflowers making our once-conventional suburban lawn a miniature wilderness. In the back, you might have listened to the Wren and the Cardinal and the Titmouse in the distance. You might have commented on the various varieties of Salvia blossoming in purple. And you might have spoken to the squirrel drinking from the birdbath on the stump where the Ash tree used to grow.
Over the years that you came down from the north, our springtimes didn’t cooperate much. One year it was too hot, another too cold. One year it was too dry, another too wet. Although there was that spring in 1991 when you came with Nani and Bunka and we all wandered in the Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrush. That was a good spring. This one is too.
You would have loved it.
Wed, 21 Jul 2021, 09:13 PM (-06:00)
The benches under the trees in the woods on the hill by the lake are empty.
Bye mom.
Wed, 21 Jul 2021, 09:34 AM (-06:00)
It was night. It was late. The forest was dark.
The ground was marvelously soft from the rains the week before. Yet even though the man knew the path well, whenever he took his eyes (and his headlamp) off the ground at his feet, he found himself wandering into the softer softness of leaves and pine needles to either side, sinking sometimes well above his ankles. Often when he did this, his bare feet would step on a concealed bough fallen long ago and buried under the litter but still pokey enough to make him hobble. In this way he made his way to the outhouse.
When he reached his destination, he went around the corner and stepped inside. The small space exploded in the brightness of his headlamp. Then he heard footsteps in the dark outside.
He turned quickly. His headlamp shined out the open door, lighting the forest floor and tree trunks standing in the dark and other trunks fallen rotting on the ground. Three feet away from him was a porcupine. It stood next to a log and had just turned its back. Its black and white spines stood erect.
The man stomped his feet. He slapped his hand on the outhouse wall. The porcupine held its ground and shifted defensively. The man began to reach toward a stick to poke the porcupine so to scare it away. But at the last moment, he decided otherwise. There is no visit to an outhouse worth that risk.
Instead, he tucked his head, stepped back out onto the soft, leaf-strewn path and walked back whence he had come. He would take his business elsewhere.