The Furious Spinner

Years ago I started writing about what I experienced when I went out into the woods. I called these short missives "Notes of a Natural Woman." After several years I stopped. Lately it's been difficult to write about anything. Just putting one foot in front of the other seems difficult, so I thought I would try to start writing about my sojourns into nature again. We'll see how it goes.

Tuesday, November 16, 2004: I worked all day on a letter and a packet to send to the school to try and convince them to stop using pesticides. When night came and I realized I had missed the day, I danced around the living room for a while, then got into the car and drove to Hood River where I intended to meet with a group of people to Spirit Dance. I wasn’t certain what Spirit Dance was, but it sounded like fun. I drove in the dark on narrow roads that curved around fruit orchards. My headlights illuminated the skeletal branches of the trees every time I went around a corner, making me feel as though I were driving through a strange sort of graveyard. Wooden arms reached for me. I knew I would probably not come here again, at least not in the spring or summer when these orchards would be fogged with pesticides. A crescent moon hung in the sky, like a crooked smile, draped in gauzy black clouds.

Either I got to the wrong house or no one was home, so I drove back home and went to The Gathering. This is what we call our monthly meeting of a group of mostly like-minded women. We eat, drink, and do whatever the hostess for the month has planned. This night, I got out of my car into the cold night and hurried up the stairs to the house. On the door was a large metal art piece of a raven. I glanced to my right and saw two ravens in the windows—art pieces. I went inside. Old friends greeted me. I felt tired and awkward, but I put my quinoa and peas with the rest of the dishes, then scooped up some onto a plate for myself. I knew I should try to be social, even though I wanted to slink out of the house. I had been shy as a child but had talked myself out of it—there was absolutely no percentage in being shy, especially in a big family. As I’ve gotten older, however, shyness has reasserted itself, so I often have to consciously make myself talk to other people, otherwise I could disappear from the map of the world.

Before I finished dinner, I got the letter to the school and took it around the room and asked the women to sign it. I could tell some didn’t want to sign it, but they also didn’t want to say no. Everyone knew how strongly I felt about the subject, and apparently no one wanted to argue with me about it.

The hostess put on the movie Winged Migration. It’s an incredible documentary of mostly large water birds migrating. For much of the film, the viewer is right up with the birds flying. I sat in one of the two rooms where the movie was playing and watched with my friends. Linda said, “This is just incredible!” I said, “Yes, I heard the hardest part of doing this film was teaching the geese how to hold the camera.” Groans and laughter. Someone pointed out a fat cat out on the porch. It was rolling onto its back. “Oh look,” I said, “it’s rolling over. It must be a Democrat.” Another round of laughter, although the woman sitting next to me who didn’t know me well looked at me as if she wanted to say something. Maybe she thought I was a Republican. I didn’t try to explain; she would figure out soon enough who and what I was. One of the women mentioned the swans had returned to Franz Lake. I was surprised. They usually didn’t come until December—just about the time the bald eagles left. The swans stayed through the winter and left in February, when the bald eagles returned. In any case, I knew where I would be tomorrow.

Wednesday, November 17, 2004: Drove out to the Turtle Pond. It was cold but sunny and I bundled up in shirt, sweater, winter coat, gloves, hat, and scarf. I hadn’t been here in a while. When I lived on the Landing, which was just over the bridge next to the pond, I walked to the pond daily. We moved away when they began spraying for mosquitoes, and now I rarely visited.

When I first saw this pond about a decade ago, I couldn’t imagine anything lived there. It was muddy, and it was right next to the railroad tracks and a road, both of which were frequently sprayed with pesticides—even though it is unlawful to spray near water I saw it happen on many occasions. The railroad herbicide truck went by on the tracks spraying, and the county truck went by on the road spewing its toxins. When I mentioned to a resident on the Landing that the pond looked a little decrepit and muddy, she said, “That muddiness is just fine. It’s good for the turtles.” Turtles? “Yes, turtles love that pond. There might even be some endangered western pond turtles in the pond.”

After that conversation, I couldn’t stay away from the pond. When we first moved to the Landing, I was too sick to walk out to my front porch, let alone out to the Turtle Pond, but eventually I made it off the porch, then down the road, then across the bridge. Then to the pond. The park rented the land to a rancher and he began driving over the area where the turtles traditionally laid their eggs. I worked with the Department of Fish and Wildlife to try and establish a different “incubator” area with dirt the department brought in, but it didn’t work. I kept counting the turtles and became known locally as the turtle lady. As far as we could tell, the turtle population did not go down after the cattle (and rancher’s truck) came in.

The Turtle Pond, which isn’t officially called the Turtle Pond, sits about two football fields north of and about twenty feet above the Columbia River. Coincidentally, it is also about the size and shape of two football fields, put end to end—probably smaller. I’m not good with dimensions.

In the summer, you can easily spot turtles sunning on logs half in and half out of the water on the north side of the pond which abuts the bank with the railroad tracks above it. There are also an abundance of red-winged blackbirds, swallows, juncos and the occasional woodpecker. A great blue heron often stands on the north side of the pond. A red-tailed hawk may circle above. Osprey and bald eagles fish in the pond. Wood ducks, teals, mallards, and other water fowl swim in the muddy pond. Kingfishers fly in a straight line from one side of the pond to the other. In the winter, take away the osprey, eagles, blackbirds, turtles, and swallows and add an occasional swan.

This property, which is owned by the state, is divided into four fenced and gated segments. The first segment is the west part of the pond. The cows are not supposed to be able to get into this part of the park, but I’ve had to call the ranger on more than one occasion when I lived here after the cows got out. The second fenced-in area is a small pasture, although it’s used more as a holding area when they are bringing in and taking away cattle. A tall old beautiful cottonwood stands alone in this pasture. The next pasture is much bigger. This is where the old homestead used to be. A stand of evergreens provide shade on the north end of the property. Before the state rented out the land to the rancher (and the cows came), chickweed and violets covered the ground beneath these trees like a gorgeous green edible blanket. Beyond this pasture was another one, about the same size, with a copse of evergreens in the middle of it.

Today a dozen or so mallard ducks floated in the pond—along with three swans: two adults and one juvenile. The juvenile was as big as the parents but is dusky colored with a pink bill instead of a black one. As I started toward the pond, a great blue heron—the big cranky—flew up and away. I stopped where I was. I didn’t want to frighten the swans into flying, so I walked only a little bit past the first gate. Something about swans is so attractive. I don’t really know what it is. They’re beautiful, of course, elegant, yet I’ve heard they’re not very good natured and could and would attack if provoked. (I understand this behavior.) They mate for life and if their mate dies, they usually spend the rest of their life alone. They are considered sacred in many cultures. Every time I see a swan in the wild, I feel as though beauty, happy endings, and magic are all possible—not only possible but probable.

I turned away for a minute and when I looked back to the pond, the swans were gone. I looked up in the sky but saw nothing. I got in the car and drove down the road a bit to Franz Lake. I scanned the huge lake for swans but didn’t see any. Several varieties of ducks were feeding in the lake. Suddenly several dozen ducks took to the air. I glanced around to find what had bothered them and saw a bald eagle above the lake. I never tired of seeing these magnificent predators. The bald eagle rode the thermals looking for prey amongst the remaining ducks. The thought of birds eating birds makes me queasy; it seems too much like cannibalism. So although I admired the bald eagle as I watched her through my binoculars, I was hoping the eagle wouldn’t decide to snatch up one of the ducks. “Go find yourself a fish, sister,” I thought, as the eagle dipped toward the cowering birds. But in the end, she flew away, perhaps deciding on fish over fowl after all.

Thursday, November 18, 2004: Watched the opening of the Clinton library. Seeing all the former (and present) presidents on stage talking with one another was quite moving. I sat on my living room floor watching and crying. I listened to W’s speech—the first one I had been able to stomach all the way through to the end—and I thought if he truly is this man who is being gracious and kind to Clinton (who is hated beyond reason by the religious right-wingers who elected Bush in the first place) perhaps it’s not as bad as I thought it was. But then I remembered someone wrote his speech.

I drove out to the Turtle Pond. The swan family was there again. The afternoon sun slanted over the pond, covering the area in sweet light. Autumn is so dimensional. I don’t know if it’s the multitude of colors or the light. But the world seems bigger, more beautiful, with more hiding places (and therefore more finding places) for mystery. Across the river, golden yellow trees grew amongst the evergreen, like tree-shaped lanterns. Nearer to me, golden oval-shaped leaves floated from the nearly bare branches of cottonwoods, like last messages from the trees before they went bare-naked into the winter. I was tempted to pick one up, see if I could detect the message in the veins: “How do you do it?” I wanted to know. “How do you survive?”

I watched the swans. The light made the pond into a mirror. Every time the swans dipped into the water, it was as if they were reaching for their twin swan on the other side of the mirror. The curve of their necks curving with their nearby doppleganger created a heart made of feathers covering sinew.

I looked around at the gorge and the autumn-colored trees, the golden light and mirror pond, the ducks, swans, and great blue heron and thought this had to be paradise.

Sunday, November 21, 2004: Beautiful cold sunny day. Mario made eggs scrambled with shitakes mushrooms and boiled potatoes squashed into hash browns and mixed with garlic. All organic. Mario told me the lawn was white when he woke up. Our first frost of the year? Didn’t kill the poppies.

We drove out to the Turtle Pond. My driving made Mario sick. Those windy roads. I went ahead on the path so Mario could get his bearings and not have me fussing over him. The swan family was in the east part of the pond, in the second pasture. I stopped in the middle of the first pasture and turned my binoculars toward the river. Near the shore of the river on both sides are these metal structures with orange signs and lights on them—for warning boats about the shore, I suppose. Ospreys often build nests on the flat top of these structures. Today, a great blue heron stood hunched up on the top, Beneath the heron, nineteen cormorants perched.

When we lived in the coastal town of Bandon, Oregon, we often saw these large black shore birds. During mating season, the male cormorants built nests along what looked like the sheer face of rocks just off shore. When they were finished, they perched next to their nests with their wings outstretched, their feathers becoming blue-black in the sunlight, trying to lure a mate with their good looks and their home building skills.

The cormorants on the metal structure did not appear to be flaunting anything or trying to lure anyone anywhere. Perhaps they were followers of the great blue heron and were just awaiting instructions.

We watched a small woodpecker in one of the bare trees for a while, then walked closer to the swans. A flock of geese lay near the lone cottonwood. They didn’t seem bothered by us. Mario and I positioned ourselves in different spots, trying not to alarm the swans. Today it was quiet at the pond. The geese barely murmured, and the big cranky did not fly away when we neared.

We watched the swans through our binoculars for a while. They didn’t eat at all. One of the adult swans had a patch of red on its chest. We wondered if it was wounded.

We stayed for a long time. Later, the three swans flew away. We watched as they flew over the river like three curved pieces of white cake icing suddenly set free. The white moon hung in the sky, a pale astral rider, barely hidden behind thin clouds. Perhaps the swans were pieces of moon and were now on their way back home.

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All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.