The old man and the woods (12/27/2018)

It was early in the morning, the old man and his dog decided to go out for a walk in the forest that was located behind his home. The air was crisp this particular morning in December. The soil was moist. Actually, it was very wet. It had been a very wet year, and all the rains this autumn had not helped. Sections of the trails were flooded and when you got off the trails, you could never see what was hiding under the dense layer of fallen leaves and pine needles. Not that this is all bad, this part of the world is known for its “bottom land forest” and these woods are definitely part of that ecosystem. The old man’s home should have never been built where it was, in a wetland ecosystem, but it was built before there were any laws that prevented or at least regulated that.

Jake the dog was easily bored and when he noticed that the old man took his regular trail, the old man’s canine companion hesitated. Like some other times he just stood there in protest ready to turn around and go home. While it is a requirement in these woods to leash dogs, the old man hardly ever leashes his. Jake does not stray far from his side, and the only real mischief he gets into is eating deer pellets or what the old man coins “doggie probiotics.” So, there is no way for the old man to force the dog to join him.

There are; however, two remedies to entice Jake in joining the old man on his walk in the woods. That is bribing the dog with cookies or going off the trail and bush whacking. So, off the trail it was this time. However, the return trip always involves the trail anyway. While simply walking down the trail is often meditative, having done it so many times, bush whacking is always fun. There may be a rotten out stump hidden under the leaves and then all the sudden he would sink ankle or even sometimes shin deep into the ground. Having the groundwater only an inch or two under the surface would mean shoes full of muddy water. In addition, the woods are littered with fallen trees and branches. Sections of the woods have a dense stand of low bush blueberry, the only plant that the deer in these woods do not seem to browse. While this does not slow down the old man, Jake has trouble with the blueberry plants the branches are touch and they hit him in the snout and eyes, and the old man tries to avoid the densest stands as much as possible. However, the lowbush blueberries grow in the driest parts of the woods, which is nice on these wet days. 

Nature is still very active in the woods observes the old guy. While most of the deciduous trees appear dormant, the pines may still have some activity during the warmest parts of the day. A close observation of one of his favorite beech trees in the woods the old man stood still to examine the bark. There he observed insects that where hiding in the crevasses of the bark. At first look they appeared to be dormant lightning bugs that had bedded down for the winter. Birds abound in these woods and little warblers appear to have an eyesight in a wavelength that allows them to pick out bugs like this from the crevasses in the bark from quite a distance away. Obviously, the birds had not discovered these guys yet. Maybe they’ll survive till spring.

A little further in the woods, the man discovered group of yellow coral mushrooms poking out through the leaf litter. A wet log was covered by tiny small paper-thin mushrooms and a little further down the trail he discovered a tree trunk that had the white hairy mass hanging from it. Hen-in-the-woods, an edible mushroom; but let it be. 

Coral Mushroom sticking its head out from in between the leaf litter.

These little (papery-thin) guys were growing on a rotting log

These hen-in-the-woods were growing on a dead trunk of a maple tree.
The trunk closest the camera was still alive.

It was an exhilarating morning, walking off the trail, just anywhere where there was no standing water. But now it was time to find the regular trail and return. For the man it was time to hit a familiar path and enter a somewhat meditative state and for Jake to linger behind once he noticed this was the road back home which was worse than taking a familiar path. It was a time to absorb what he had seen and experienced that morning, to be in the moment, and not to have his thoughts clouded by what was going on it the world around him. Clouded by the pressure that these types of lands will be under in other states thanks to the policy of this insane government of ours.  Or clouded by the thread of having to postpone retirement and an even  longer working career because of a bizarre stock market.

Thanks heaven these thoughts were interrupted by some other shit, or better by what appeared to be coyote scat (or shit) on the trail. It could be fox scat as well, but it was the size of what a dog would deposit.  The poop were full of hair; whatever deposited the turds there must have swallowed the poor animal skin and all. The last interesting find in these woods before returning home after a satisfactory walk.

Still not sure who laid that heap of scat.  It appeared to consist of mostly hair, so it was a predator (a fox or a coyote?). 

Nothing better for Jake than to explore one of the ephemeral ponds out in the woods.  While Jake is not a hunter he enjoys the shallow ponds and just drink some of the water and smell the banks.  He does not like to go too deep.  Being a male dog, his wee-wee is his depth gauge.

Is age really just a number? (12/13/2018)

I have been feeling my mortality lately. Not that I am sick or have been diagnosed with anything, but just because I am getting older. But then aren’t we all getting older? Every day we are getting a day older; a day closer to death. The newspaper obituaries are replete with folks younger than me. I brush them aside as accidents, suicides and unhealthy people. Having turned the magical six five or better 65 earlier this year, it feels different. We really downplayed the event, no big parties; my wife or family did not even throw me a surprise birthday party. The day passed like any other day; I even went to work on my birthday. However, eventually, the Friday evening after my birthday, my father-in-law treated me to a fancy dinner to our favorite restaurant where we had a great dinner for three. The day after my birthday I was 65 and 1 day; I did not even have a hangover. One of the problems always is that my birthday falls on or around Father’s Day weekend. It is more a family weekend, not conducive to big parties, I guess.

Oh well, enough belly aching. Why now? Coming out of a day-long workshop I gave this week I had a car crash. Yes, it was my fault; I pulled away from a stop sign (after a full stop), obviously did not see the car coming from the left (there was a snow bank that was obscuring my view and the lady that hit me was obviously speeding); however, I do not think that ten years ago when I started this gig I was this exhausted after a full day of teaching. I solo teach, and standing on my legs for six hours, being on all the time, thinking, talking and answering questions is a lot of work. It takes a lot out of me. I have noticed that I am more tired the older I get and that my recovery time is getting longer. I am often still tired the day after teaching a full day or often two days in a row. Also knowing that my parents did not make it much past their mid 70-s, makes you wonder if your days are numbered and what the hell you are doing still working and putting yourself out there on the road, after a full day of teaching, increasingly in danger of getting hurt in an accident.

A google search tells me the following about the age at which we humans peak at certain things:

• The ability to learn a second language: 7 to 8 
• Sexually: Men 17, Women 35 
• Brain processing: 18 
• Remembering names: 22 
• Life satisfaction: 23 and again at 69 
• Strength: 25 
• Metabolism and heart rate: Early adulthood 
• Fastest marathon: 28 
• Bone and bone structure: 30 to 35 
• Remembering faces: 32 
• Focus: 43 
• Arithmetic skills: 50 
• Understanding people’s emotions: 51 
• Vocabulary skills: 71 
• Happiness with your body: 74 
• Psychological wellbeing: 82 

Looking at the list, my ability to focus has been going down since I was 43; and let’s not talk about my sex life (peaked at 17? I wish I realized that back then and capitalized on it). Moreover, based on my genetics, I may never reach nirvana or psychological wellbeing. Although, maybe finally I’ll be happy with my body before I die. So be it! But age is only a number, and as you see, these are only numbers. 

This is what makes me happy: Forest bathing.  Being out in the woods, exploring, visiting some of my favorite trees.  This is where I find solace with life, with my age and the world.

My mortality was brought even more to the foreground by the accident. It all happened in a flash, I never saw the car coming, I did not even saw it when it hit me, maybe just a flash. Yes, she obviously drove very fast. But still, I get the blame and I will keep wondering if my age contributed to it; am I loosing my ability to focus? Maybe. The statistics tell me I am, but then I learned you can also lie with statistics (what was that about something peaking at 17?). 

I often wish there was a way to slow down the aging process. There are so many things I want to experience, explore and to see or do in this world. Many have tried to slow aging down, no one has succeeded. This blog post has no solutions, I am sorry. Accept aging gracefully? I’ve always thought: “Hell no!” Some folks say calorie deprivation will allow you to live to the biological predestined age of humans which is around 120. They even claim that living this way of eating very few calories and starving yourself can be fun and enjoyable. I am not sure what planet they come from, but torture is not my way of having fun. Others say slightly overweight is good. Now I like that!

On the other hand, the problem is that my skeleton is slowly starting to refuse to cooperate; my knees hurt, my back is stiff, I get tired quicker and my recovery time is longer. They call it the regular wear and tear on the body. I feel like I am becoming that middle-aged lump of coal on the couch. This is also torture and I know that my weight and lack of exercise will only make this worse in the long run. Folks around me have (early) Alzheimer or other forms of dementia. They are older than me, but I realize I have less of a focus, sometimes more difficulty remembering names. That makes me wonder and it bothers me too. 

I use this picture in my classes as an example that old guys can be strong, or old ideas can still be valid.

Sorry for bitching about my age young readers of mine. Hopefully you too will hit it one of these days. It will creep up and all the sudden it will hit you right smack in the face, as with me. You are getting old! Then you will try the excuse “age is just a number” while your colleagues at work announce: “you are older than my father” (or my mother/parents)!

Write your story (11/30/2018)

I am in the process of writing a book.  It is a professional non-fiction book, it deals with my life's experiences, my education and work.  I have used some of the materials I write about in workshops that I have given for work.  Moreover, the writing and research associated with it has made me a better teacher in my professional life.  It is a win-win situation.

The problem right now is two fold: discipline and the finale.  But let me explain. The discipline part. Having a full-time job it is difficult for me to allocate a set period each day for me to get my writing in.  Whatever or whoever I read, you always hear discipline is number one, and I agree. My writing time exists of lunch time half hours at Starbucks, afternoon and evenings when I am stuck in a motel room and not too tired from traveling or teaching, some evenings after work, and weekend afternoons when there are no “honey does.”  As you can see it has been a difficult to get a routine established.

Reading what people say about writing, it seems that having a routine is so darn important.  Some even have a ritual before they start writing. One person rights a Buddha statue every morning when he starts in the morning and lays it down when done writing that day.  It seemed that Hemingway never ended a thought at the end of the day, so that he had something he could pick up where he left off the next day and thus never have writer’s block.  Well writing for 20 miniature or so at Starbucks worked for me. I first worked for 10 minutes editing what I wrote the day or days before and than added to it for 10 more minutes.

I took this picture three years ago at my favorite Starbucks, downtown Richmond.  At least three of the gals behind the counter know me so well, that the just ask me if I want the "regular."

This picture was taken this past week.  I often enjoy sitting here, especially when the legislation is in session.   You can sit and watch Senators and Congress men  (and women) sit there and discuss things with each other and with lobbyists.  There are tourists, business folks, government employees and often medical students from VCU who are studying. 

Currently I do have writer’s block it seems. This is partially due to being close to the end and not being sure what all to include or to exclude.  I have written about the things I know most about and I am now at that point of writing about the things that I know, but I haven't dealt with for a couple of years.  It feels like pulling teeth. It is like having put off the inevitable. I had my dessert or the food I like most first and now it's time for the Brussel sprouts (I actually like them, especially with a little mustard, but you get the idea).

But enough complaining.  One thing I learned is that practice makes perfect, or at least less imperfect.  A friend of mine gave me a book (and for the heck I can't remember the name or the author) which told me that every morning when you wake up, you need to have a stream of conscious and sit down and write down words or things that come to mind, regardless whether it makes any sense.  Well, I simply don't have the time for that. During our sermon writing exercise earlier this year at our church, we actually did this at the start of each meeting. We sat down and wrote whatever came to mind for ten minutes. Some made sense, some absolutely not! However, it cleared the mind and helped with the writing process for me.

But even with this blog, I have the occasional writer’s block.  It takes a while for something to hit me. You can see that. As I write this part of my blog post on Sunday afternoon, I think back on this morning's service at our UU church, where our guest minister encouraged us to tell our story.  The more I write my blog over the years, I find that I have more personal stories waiting to be told. These stories are often pulled out of me by things that happen in real time. Like my recent post where I talk about the wildfires, and some of my albeit minor experiences.  That post had gotten long, but there was so much I left out, even my first experience as a firefighter while serving in the Dutch army and we were mobilized to fight a forest fire in Holland. Conversely, I could have told you about the time that we fought savannah fires in Uganda that threatened to burn all the forage on our farm and could starve our cattle.  I need to do that, because that was actually crazy.

You get the message.  I agree with our minister, whether it is a book, blog, or a story you tell your friends or family.  Share it! This week, I shared the "lurid" story of my family with our daughter; the ins and outs, about how screwed up they are. I hinted a bit at it in a previous post. Those stories, writing the current post, the many other posts that I write and the manuscript to my book, they are all therapeutic to me. I am sure something like that can benefit you as well when you try it.  

Come on baby, light my fire (11/21/2018)

On January 8, 2015 Donald Trump, the man soon to be our president tweeted the following:

“Who is paying for that tedious Smokey Bear commercial that is on all the time - enough already!”

The latest count (Sunday, November 18) of the ”Camp fire” is 77 people dead and 993 missing. During a visit, the president seemed to have claimed that more raking would have helped, because that is what they do in a forest rich Finland. Moreover, the president did mention that he did not think it was climate change that caused it, but that he wanted great climate, which left many who attended the meeting baffled at what he meant. I wonder if he got a whiff of some nearby pot plantations going up in smoke.

Well, as we all can imagine, the internet has been having fun with all this, but on a serious side, this is a terrible situation. I am not writing this blog post to complain about or have fun with our president; well I admit, maybe a little.

Forest fires are a serious business; as we can see they can cause the loss of life and extensive property damage. I am in no way trying to downplay the severity of what happened with the title of my blog.  The pictures and the videos on YouTube are horrific.  The problem is that wildfire is a natural element of nature and actually a vital part of nature in many cases, depending of course on the ecosystem. Forest fires are needed to open up the system, the decrease the litter or dead materials that have accumulated on the soil surface.  Our problem is that fire suppression has caused the accumulation of too much fuel which results in these destructive fires.

The accumulating material also causes other problems.  It chokes out the seedlings and small plants trying to germinate, and areas that are burned show a tremendous greening up after a fire.  In addition, fire kills some of the smaller weedy species, sick and damaged trees; it opens up the canopy, allowing the sunlight to reach the floor of the forest giving the herbaceous plants an additional  chance to proliferate.

Some forest dwelling species are actually dependent on forest fires. My favorite example is the red cockaded woodpecker in the southeastern part of the U.S. This bird needs to nest in big old pine trees in a forest. However, these forest need to be open with often a grassy understory and no small trees. The way to maintain this was through fires. In the old days, this was not a problem, but with increased habitation, folks started controlling forest fires and oaks to the detriment of the woodpecker invaded the woods. Wildfires killed the oaks seedlings and the control of fire have a region-wide negative impact on the woodpecker population.

The woodpeckers were able to thrive in one particular area. That was on the life-firing ranges of military bases in the southeast. The life artillery often would set these areas ablaze with wildfires and this was just what the birds needed. While they were not bothered a lot by the artillery (except by a direct or a nearby hit), the resulting fires would keep the ecosystem open. Nowadays, managers use fire or control burns to manage remaining habitat of or restore habitat for the red cockaded woodpecker.

When we moved into our home some 18 years ago and walked in the woods behind our home, we noticed that the area had recently burned. There were black burn marks on the bases of the trees and actually, there were two areas that it obviously was replanted in the past 5 to 10 years, which I always assumed was the result of some kind of disturbance, which could have been a very intense crown fire.

Walking through the area with the burn marks now, I cannot find them anymore. The trees have grown and new bark has covered all the burn scars. It reminds me of some of the dendrochronology (tree aging) work I did in New Mexico in the late 1980. There, on 150 year-old or even older trees we could still see exactly what year there was a fire in these woods. In addition, we could see what direction the fire came from that year. It is pretty darn cool to be able to see that, but I digress. What it shows was that even in New Mexico where it is dry, the high elevation forests (at 7 to 9000 feet or so) did have a regular fire regime, as do most ecosystems in the U.S. Albeit, the fire frequency there was much longer.

Behind my home, like most in most of the ecosystems, fire suppression reigns supreme. What is happening is that there is a tremendous amount fuel building up in these areas. This include years of leaf litter, fallen branches, twigs and whole trees that were brought down by storms. The result is that herbs have a difficult time growing, seeds cannot germinate, and if a fire happens to get started, it may get so hot and high that it could get all the way into the canopy of the trees instead of being just a ground fire. Once it hits the tree canopy, the fire can spread fast and easily. It then can jump to roofs of homes and even create its own weather. Now it is difficult to contain. This is what we are seeing in California. 

This picture shows an area with some old fallen trees.  While a fire may burn some of this, these trees will most likely not create much of an issue during a wildfire.  They are wet and rotting.  They are likely to smolder; moreover, they are important habitat for the salamanders and other creatures living in the woods behind our home.

This area on the other hand has a lot of wood laying over each other like "pick up sticks."  This is already set up as a nice camp fire.  If we ever get a wildfire through here, I am afraid it is off to the races.  You can see the homes in the background.

 Sections of the woods behind our home have a huge accumulation of debris. We have had a number of hurricanes that threw trees, folks from our neighborhood have used it as dump for their yard waste, and we have had more than 25 years of accumulation of litter. I am not sure, but I estimate that the fire frequency of our woods is somewhere between 10 and 20 years, if not more frequent. Yes, our woods are very wet, so a fire would be spotty and a burn would look like the spots on a Dalmatian, or better the areas not burned would look like the black spots on a Dalmatian. However, that is ok, it contributes to the diversity of the woods behind our home. 

One thing is for sure, we need to stop being afraid of fire, because if we do, fuel will build up and we might end up with a catastrophic fire instead. While smoky is correct, control burns are good, and forest management is important. While control burns may not have prevented the “Camp fire”, together with well-funded forest management it might have been less severe and less catastrophic. The same could be the case behind our home. The woods are divided in two sections, and the part managed by Newport News is better managed and in better shape than the part managed by the National Park Service, which is underfunded. They simply do not have enough money to do forest management. 

People on Twitter were having fun with this picture after the president's visit to the disaster area in California over the weekend.  It is what has happened and what we are also seen in our National Park; a severe lack of funding.

Therefore, my call to action is to:

1. Insist on fully funding forest and wildland management, whether that is by way of the Forest Service, the BLM, the National Park Service, or even your local state or county land/park management agency, and
2. Make fire (read: control burns) your friend!

Forgiveness anyone? (11/10/2018)

Having to drive for four hours in the afternoon you eventually hit that spot when the news on NPR starts repeating itself. I forgot to download a podcast, so there was nothing better to do than to hit the browse button on the car radio. Not being interested in sport, and music putting you to sleep, I end up listening to talk radio stations as I mention before in this blog. At time I hit an AM Religious Station that are so plentiful of in the western part of our state. I often linger at these stations and as a Unitarian Universalist, but somehow raised in a religious community by non-religious parents, I love to listen to what dogma they are spouting this time. This is mostly for entertainment purposes and partially for education. However, this time, the discussion got my interest. The part about God lost my interest; but thank God that came at the end. 

The talk was about forgiveness. There were no Bible parables or whatever, but just a fairly good and frank discussion. I am not sure if I remember all of it, but it came down to the concept that we need to be able to forgive for society to function at its best. Even better, on a personal level, that forgiveness is good for your own mental and even physical health.

Clinical research seems to support that forgiveness is good for your mental and physical health. It seems that forgiveness is good for your coronary (hearth or vascular) health, the immune system and overall stress. Amazing isn’t it?

This discussion on forgiveness hit home on so many levels. After the past weeks where we have been through a mid-term election; all the racially charged crap about caravans that were ready to invade us, but all the sudden evaporated after the elections; a bomber being arrested; a number of murderous shooters: one of two African Americans in Louisville, regretfully somewhat ignored, the killing at the synagogue in Pittsburgh, and most recently at a western bar in California. We desperately need a lot of empathy and maybe even some forgiveness. Empathy for the victims and their family. Forgiveness of some of those anti-Semites and gun tooters who saw the national reaction after what happened and saw light. Forgiveness for those who gave lip service to the demagogue leader of our country who told us after what happened in Charlottesville that neo-Nazi anit-Semites were nice people too, or maybe that some of the people who opposed the Nazis were evil. Forgiveness for others who have hate in their hearts and now understand that this is going to threaten humanity as we know it.

The radio program hit me on a personal level, as well. The inability to forgive seems to be a genetic affliction that plagues my family; both on my mother’s and my father’s side. It goes back for generations and it is not only in my direct family and siblings, but it also plagues the brothers of my father and my mother and their direct family. It is absolutely amazing. On a personal level, I have tried to make my siblings aware of this fact and proposed to them to bury the ax; I made my overtures, but to no avail (an interesting side note, none of the siblings talk with each other). I have told them we are repeating the mistakes of our parents (but then, history repeats itself); that we have a chance to break with family “tradition.” I have been laughed at, ridiculed, belittled, gotten angry responses, and been blamed. It was affecting my physical and mental health, and my marriage. So, I have decided that they don’t exist any longer; I no longer have siblings in my mind. It does not mean that I have not forgiven them in my heart, but as I’ll explain later forgiving does not mean forgetting or reconciling. I am not saying that the relation can never be “born again,” but it for right now it would need to come from them; I am done from my side.

So yes, as you can see, the talk got me thinking. What exactly is forgiveness? Doing some research, I found that it is very easy to confuse forgiveness with terms or words like: condoning, excusing, forgetting, pardoning, and reconciling. Forgiving is when you let go of the negative emotion, feelings or attitude, including vengefulness, combined with your ability to wish your offender well, regardless the offense or the emotions it brings up in you. The person that was offended might be justifiably offended but he or she has evolved and grown past it. So, forgiving does not mean reconciling and being friends again, it just means no longer being bothered by what ever happened and going on in life. As the saying in my mother language says: “you are trying not make your heart a killing zone (or a murder pit).”

Being close to a Buddhist, I looked in to what they said about forgiveness or the lack of it. In Buddhism the lack of forgiveness causes havoc in one’s mental well-being. Feelings of ill-will seem to have lasting effect on one’s karma. It seems that resentment and hatred or the lack of forgiveness forces us to be reborn around this issue of pain and we will never be able to move on in generations (lives) to come. Doesn’t that sound familiar, history repeating itself? At least in both branches of my family it does.

Try to forgive in your life and see the end of the trail of hate, resentment and vengefulness.  It is bad for your health and general well-being!  

It is just interesting to see how a religious program on an AM radio station got me thinking and my relationship with my siblings; the relationship of my parents with their siblings; my uncles with each other and with my parent; and my cousins with their siblings (from different branches of the family and different uncles). I have forgiven them all, but again, reconciliation is a different thing. However, at least I am trying my best to maintain a relationship with my cousins, nephews and nieces, regardless of what my brother and sister think or say about me; and that is heartfelt. Hopefully we can do that as a society as well, stay civil and talk, regardless what and who we are as a society, what our political or social believes are, and how desperately our political leaders are trying to divide us.

Living purposefully (10/20/2018)

Recently I shared the following quote on my Facebook page:

“Life is short. Make sure you spend as much time as possible on the Internet arguing with strangers about politics.” 

I can subtitle this as follows “how to live a life without a purpose.”

While I am personally very upset by the current stage of our politics, I am also at times a casual observer. Being a “first generation” US citizen, of late I could (and have) personally felt offended by the immigration policy of the Trump administration (see this post). Moreover, I have always wondered about the ethics of certain politicians especially their environmental, social and moral ethics. I don’t even want to go into questioning financial ethics. In other words, I am a progressive liberal and proud of it. But then, I often find it much more fun to be a casual outside observer and still have that foreign (“wow, this is fascinating/only in America”) streak. I can assure you that it sometimes frustrates my wife that I can just sit back and be amused by it all, instead of being angered by it.

One of the reasons of course is that some of the arguing is so artificial. We have learned that it was and is being stoked by the Russians, maybe the Chinese and probably other folks who have a stake in influencing what is going on around here. Recently we were told that the mid-term elections are not immune to meddling and the Russians are busy again. On top of that I heard the other day that even during our famous Kavanaugh hearings certain slang words for a favorite party girl of a football team were quickly altered in Wikipedia by his allies after the judge denied that the word really meant what it meant, but that it meant something else. All the sudden Wikipedia showed it also meant something endearing (the poster … a U.S. Republican Congress man … did not know that you actually leave a digital finger print on the site when you change something, with an email address and the date it was changed). In other words, while the Internet is great for certain things, we should take it with a healthy dose of skepticism, in particular when it is used to provoke or rile up the masses.

Why am I going here with this post? I somehow feel there must be some purpose to my life, other than this senseless, empty arguing over the internet about politicians and their chosen vocation. We only have a finite lifespan of give or take 75 years and why spend it on this crap? I am confronted daily by my mortality when I read the obituaries and see that a lot of the dead people are younger than me, and I really wonder: don’t we have anything better to do, like actually improving this world or at least our lives? The purpose of life may remain elusive, but we might as well make the best of it. Some philosophers think we are part of a giant computer simulation built by an alien race. As someone put it, we might be a surrealistic punchline in a cosmic joke. Who knows, but we might as well enjoy it and let it play out (instead of fighting each other on Facebook or Twitter).

So, what is the purpose of my life, or what do I think it is or would hope it is? Oh, so many philosophers have thought and argued about that one and it this is not my place to do this with you. Neither is it to argue with folks over the Internet about who is wrong or right about politics, nor is it my task to tell people how to live their lives, unless it is unethical. The easy way out would be to assume that I am part of that computer simulation, then it does not matter would it? Think about it, we could start over again (or they could start the program over again), if it failed.

Personally, I have always hoped to leave the world intellectually a little richer place when I depart it, hopefully a little longer than three quarters of a century after I came from almost nothing (just two cells that my parents contributed) but I will definitely disappear into nothing. Political arguments over Facebook do not contribute to intellectual enrichment. But like everyone else I stumble so now and then. However, this is the philosophy that has guided my life and career path. Somehow, I felt that I cannot do this by being stuck in an area the size of a few square miles for the rest of my life and fight with a group of ignorant brainwashed folks who believe that a charlatan billionaire who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth is actually looking out for them. I want to absorb life to the fullest and then share these experiences with the people around me, my friends, loved ones and the students I teach; folks that matter. It seems that many of my students appreciate it, which is exactly one of the things that gives purpose to my life. I realize that these things I share are experiences that directly relate to the classes that I teach. The ugly stories such as being held at gunpoint in Uganda can only be shared with friends and loved ones. But still they contribute to who I have become and what I believe in; it has given me a more worldly view and a purpose to fulfill, as opposed escape into opioids, other pain killers such as alcohol, mindless television sit-comes, sport shows, or screaming at the TV while watching news shows on Fox news or even CNN and MSNBC; a life unlived, purposeless.

I paint a picture of a grim life. Boy, I paint with broad brush strokes today my friends, and I sincerely hope you have something that floats your boat. Whether it is politics or another hobby, make sure it gives your life a purpose. Most important to me are my family, my bonsai trees, my sailboat, my ability to bike and nature. As you can see the overriding factor in my life that brings me peace and quiet is being outside, being one with the natural world. 

My escape into the woods and away from all the crap around me.  It was cold this week and the ponds behind our home were giving of a faint mist. Serenely at last!

Remember; however, even for me there are political causes important enough to get excited about. I have participated in the Women’s March on Washington, the March for Science, and the March for our Kids (for gun control). I have canvassed for Obama and for Hillary and will canvass for the mid-terms as well. I have however, mostly given up arguing with strangers or with friends (acquaintances) on the Internet (read Facebook). I even checked out of Facebook for 3 months right after the presidential elections. I still try to overtly preach my love for the natural world, evolution and climate change in my classes even though some roll their eyes. All causes I believe in and will do my utmost for. In the hope to educate and change a mind or two and leave this world a little richer after spending my short little time on it.

"Zeeee" said the woman (9/24/2018)

“Zeeee, zeeee, zeeee” spoke the woman in a low, somewhat low husky but hushed voice to me. The owner of the restaurant asked me: “Can I buy it from you?” What the heck was going on? Well, let’s start at the beginning.

I was in Blacksburg this week; home of Virginia Tech. I was teaching two different inspector classes and as usual consulted Yelp for a place to go out for dinner. I have found Yelp to be a fairly reliable travel companion when it comes to finding good to sometimes even funky places to eat. Well, when Yelp told me there was a Tibetan restaurant nearby called Himalayan Curry Café that has four and a half stars, this former dweller of the Himalayan Mountains had to go and try it out.

As my regular readers know, my wife and I lived in Nepal for about a year and a half. My job took me up on the Tibetan Plateau of the Mustang district at regular intervals. I have written about my wonderful encounter with a Tibetan scholar/Lama and about my experience getting dehydrated in a snowstorm at 12,000 feet elevation. There are many more stories I can tell from being up there. I sometimes feel that his blog is turning out to become somewhat of my personal memoire, combined with observations of current events and some of the more natural things around us.

Getting back to the story. When I got to the restaurant, it was obvious a place for a university crowd. A cut above one of those take-out Chinese restaurants that your see in every strip mall, but less than a regular Indian restaurant. You either get takeout, or they end up serving your food on styrofoam plates and you eat it with plastic utensils. To me, the menu looked very Indian; however, in fine-print on the side were some Tibetan dishes which immediately caught my attention. I ordered momos, a dish of Tibetan steamed dumplings; lentil soup; and a samosa (yes that was Indian). While paying, I asked the proprietor if he was from Nepal. “No” he answered, “we are from Tibet.” We made a little additional small talk and that was it. 

With the lentil soup finished it was time to attack the momos.  The black sauce is a hot chili sauce which is very good.

All dishes were out-of-this-world delish (later, I rated the restaurant a five star on Yelp). The momos were filled with beef, in Mustang mine were filled with Yak meat or mutton, but boy did I recognize the taste. Tibetans are Buddhist and they will eat beef (or cows) unlike the Hindus, for whom the cows are considered holy. I remember so well being with the Buddhist population and Tibetan ethnic groups in Nepal; they are so very different than the Hindu population of the lowlands. One of the more interesting memories is that of sleeping with an entire family unit in their home during a very cold evening. I was taking a visiting scientist around the districts I was working in. Everyone on mats on the floor, of course, with their head towards a central fire. In the beginning I was somewhat distrustful, but that was completely baseless. When we woke up in the morning, the first thing that happened was the passing around of a cup of warmed up peach brandy. This brandy was distilled at an agricultural experiment station nearby. After that the lady house started making the famous butter tea, made from tea leaves, yak butter, boiling water and salt (an acquired taste for sure). Memories of a night and early morning I will always carry with me. 

The one time we visited the area we landed smack in the middle of a Buddhist ceremony.  Here monks are tooting their long horns in a procession.

Another picture of the ceremony male and female monks in the ceremony while the villagers are looking on.

But I digress again. After finishing my dinner, it was time to leave and I walked over to the trash bins to deposit my dirty plates and dinnerware. In the meantime, a Tibetan couple had come in and sat down in the far corner and the owner of the restaurant had joined them and they were talking. I waved at them and the owner asked me if I enjoyed my food. I told him I did and decided to walk over and show them the ring I bought from a Tibetan gentleman when I was in Nepal some 35 years ago and that I wear on my right hand. The instance the lady of the couple saw my ring she hissed those words to me: “Zeeee, zeeee, zeeee.” We knew the stone in the ring was a Z-stone, but her reaction was amazing, and it was the first time I had an independent confirmation. 

Here it is, the ring I wear every day with the Z-stone.

The lady continued: “That is a precious stone.” This was where the restaurant owner asked me if he could buy the ring from me. The lady’s husband chimed in telling me that a Z-stone gives the wearer power and the bigger the stone the more power it has. According to the owner, the power flows from the shoulder to the hand and goes “pow.” It seemed none of them had a Z-stone and it is very desirable in their culture, because it gives you power and fends off evil. We talked a bit more about things. It seems that I met all the Tibetans in Blacksburg that evening; a fun, interesting and delicious evening indeed. A wonderful throw back to a time 35 years ago, but still fresh in my memory.

Some of the things you can only remember when you travel.  To quote Mohammed: "Don't tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you traveled."

Meditation and frogs (9/16/2018)

Living next to a nature preserve, a natural area, woods, or whatever you want to call it, has its positive points and negatives. For one, we will never have any development behind our home. Secondly, I have a place to practice my forest bathing; if not just by standing in our yard and meditatively stare into the woods, I can just disappear into it. I also have a lot of material for my classes; especially the wetland class I teach. In addition, I take a lot of pictures in those woods and my Instagram page is replete with them. Finally, they are a rich source for some of my blog posts.

Here it sounds that I am using the woods for selfish reasons; but that is far from the truth. While I am still debating whether to allow advertising on my blog, for right now I don't make a penny by writing it. My objective was and still is educational and sharing some of my photographs, my thoughts, life experience, philosophy and love for the natural world. Isn’t that what the internet was intended to be, a free exchange of ideas? But then, who could not use some extra money.

But I digress. To me there is almost nothing better than to step out of our back door on a Saturday morning after my morning coffee and reading the newspaper, to walk to the edge of our very small plot of land and just stand there for maybe five minutes and take it all in; to absorb it all. I may even walk 30 or 50 steps into the woods to this small hill, most likely a remnant of a redoubt that was constructed by Washington’s troops during the Revolutionary War. It is at this point where everything I experienced the past week starts making sense. I look up at the top of the trees and watch the warblers hunting among the leaves in the top of the canopies. I listen to the calls of the blue jays which sometimes sound like a hawk; the calls from cat birds which, you guessed it, sounds like the meowing of a cat; the towhees that invite me to “drink your tea”; red-bellied woodpeckers; and chickadees.

“Oh”, you might say, “isn't that a selfish reason, dumping all the weeks thoughts, worries and troubles in the woods and on to those poor birds?” I promise you they can handle it. Nature is much more resilient than us human beings. They are not faced by me standing there and taking it all in. Actually, the chickadees sometimes get pretty annoyed with my presence and they are the first ones to let me know that, in particular when I bring my dog Jake with me to just take it all in. They’ll come to a branch close to us and sound their nasal alarm, as in “we see you; now go away.” Jake knows the weekend routine. He gets up and walks to the back door the second I am done reading the newspaper and get up; it is time “to walk the grounds” or “explore the out-back” as I call it.

This past Sunday the “out-back” was amazing. But I must take a step back. In a previous post, I mentioned that the weather Gods have it out for me. Well, they must have known that we were at a concert in Williamsburg on Saturday night and that I was driving back. The skies opened up on the way home. I could not see a thing while driving. The way I drove was from dashed line on the highway to dashed line, saying out loud: “there is the next line” and keeping those lines under my left tire. A neighbor with a rain gauge told me later that we got 5 inches of rain that evening. All that rain must have fallen in maybe an hour or so; our neighborhood was partially flooded. 

This is what the woods looked like in the morning.  Part of the yard were flooded.  In the far left you can see the bee-hive we have in our yard

We walk our dogs in the evening before going to bed. We could already hear what was going on. Frogs had come out of hibernation immediately! It was amazingly loud. Later, even with the windows closed you could hear them inside our home. The next morning, we saw why. Our back yard was still under water. The noise was amazing (I made a recording and will try to imbed it <here>). This was one of the few times that it was so loud in the 18 years we have lived in our home. The interesting part is that the next day it was quiet again behind our home. The frogs had either gone back to bed or done their thing and were exhausted after a night and morning of debauchery. They are so opportunistic.

Nature is wonderful, the wetlands or Grafton ponds behind our home are a unique ecosystem. This is why the area was designated as a nature preserve. It protects the endangered Mabee salamander and a sedge. Obviously, the frogs do not mind this arrangement. At night we have them on our windows and sliding door, waiting for unsuspecting insects to fly by, attracted to the bright interior.

But let me also come full circle and get back to the start of this post. As I mentioned there are positives and negatives of living next to these woods. The possible negatives of living where we live include deer, ticks and mosquitoes. At times we have enough of them, but for right now the positives still outweigh the negatives, especially those evenings and mornings when there is a cacophony of frogs, or when I can go and explore the out-back.

Travelers and moonshine (9/4/2018)

So now and then the motel chain I frequent sends me a survey asking me what my impression was of the latest motel I stayed in during my travels throughout the state. While I am generally fairly satisfied with the Holiday Inn chain, their Express motels can be all over the map. My latest review reads: “Convenient Mediocrity.” Based on my latest stay, I really need to try to find a better motel chain in those areas where I can only find some hotels where I have that specific experience as my latest one. Maybe I should be more like Edward Abbey, and find a cabin in a mountain village as he describes in his book “Appalachian Wilderness: The Great Smoky Mountains.” He wrote:

In the restaurants blue gas fires burning under stacks of ceramic logs that look almost real until you get close. Omni present in the background that bland tapioca-like sound my wife calls ”department-store music.” Décor by Holiday Inn – all the motel lobby furnishings, all the restaurant tables and chairs and lighting fixtures, look as though they came from the same factory somewhere in Sothern California. Everything designed by a neurotic suffering from a severe case of social irrelevance.

What’s the alternative to this comfortable mediocrity? A grand European-style luxury that most of us would not be able to afford? Or a return to the mode of a century ago, coming into a mountain village on horseback, having a cold supper by lamplight in the cabin-kitchen of some morose mountaineer, while savage coon dogs howl, slaver and snarl on the other side of the door, and going to sleep in the early dark on a cornhusk matrass, prey to a host of bloodsucking vermin?

Which would you prefer? Which would I really prefer?

You won’t believe me but I’ll tell you: I fancy the latter, i.e., the horse, cabin, dogs and bugs. 

It would fit, sometimes. During my latest visit to the western part of the state (Appalachia) last week, one of my students handed me a McDonalds paper take out sack and told me to be careful with it. On further inspection it contained a mason jar filled with moonshine; a different kind of happy meal! Now that would fit right in with that mountain village cabin, the howling dogs and cornhusk matrass. He described it as moonshine (95 proof he told me) made from corn. I can just imagine the corn kernels making the libation and the husk making the place to sleep off the hangover, the after effects of drinking the results of the fermentation and distillation process of those ground up yellow seeds. I tasted it when I got home, it was somewhat syrupy and did not taste half bad! 

Moonshine anyone?  Chilled and ready to go.  I discarded the packaging.

The motel I stayed in in Fairfax is a sentimental favorite, although every time I end my visit it feels like I need to stay at the Hilton, which cost more-or-less the same and is a heck of a lot cleaner and more luxurious. Believe it or not, but I used the description "Convenient Mediocrity " before I read Abbey's words.

I have been coming to this motel for ten years. I have even been stuck in there during two snow storms. We had to cancel classes and I was imprisoned in a room at that place for more than 36 hours. Entertainment existed of either some panicking individuals on television discussing the current weather conditions in and around DC; another TV station with some superficial garbage masquerading as news or a show; a book or magazine I had brought with me; or some form of digital entertainment. At times I may actually have done some work. I eventually ended up trudging through 12 inches deep snow across the street to a Hooters restaurant for lunch. Honest to God, one of the few times in my life I have eaten at Hooters. I am a real testament that the Hooters chicken wings are not half bad. My waitress was Russian, and she was wearing some very skimpy revealing outfit while it was snowing outside. I somehow thought that to her it must have felt just like Moscow or Siberia in winter at that moment; it did not seem to faze her at all. My nightly dinner was at Red Lobster next to the motel. That was how far I ventured from the motel, I waited out the storm and extended my stay a day or two, so I could finish my class: a dedicated instructor, indeed. 

These snowstorms always seem to start around four in the morning and wind down around eight in the evening, to have reasonably clear roads by the next morning. One exception was what is still known as “snowmageddon” in the Washington DC area. I was stuck in that one as well in northern Virginia but not in that motel. That one struck at 3 pm and was so bad that by the time rush hour started everybody was stuck. I made it to my hotel and we ended up making snow men in the hotel parking lot.

Traveling can be fun and interesting. In previous posts I wrote about noisy neighbors and about some of my naughtier thoughts about the furnishings in motel and hotel rooms. I try to make the best of it. It can be lonely, that’s for sure. In the past, I was able to meet up with a good friend, break bread and have a pint with him. That has gotten a bit more difficult since he changed jobs. But I still don’t want to live like a hermit when traveling. It would be too easy to buy a TV dinner, order a pizza for delivery, or get Chinese take-out and mope in my room. For one, I hate to sleep in a room filled with the smell of stale food. Moreover, I hate to walk through a motel and see dirty dishes piled up in the halls. That’s not my style either. So off I go to a restaurant.

I generally do not eat in my motel or hotel. The places I stay are not of the highest class and the food is only average and predictable. I also like to people watch. Nothing better (or sad) than seeing a couple come in with their two kids. Sitting down at the table; hubby and wify grab their cell phone and start staring at it, not communicating with each other, nor their kids. Kids of course don’t have a phone or anything else; they just stare in front of themselves, they may talk to each other, but that is rare. They just sit there as logs, waiting for dinner to arrive, contemplating how best to become the best next mass murderer or high school shooter. Just some of the interesting and sad things one sees when traveling around. It aggravates and upsets me. However, as I mentioned before, traveling can have its good points too, especially when you get to enjoy nature, the sounds of nature next door, the sights or just the (fermented) results and tastes of nature. Cheers!

I actually had a chance to take a picture of this scene in the restaurant.  Father and mother are staring at their phones and had been doing that for a while.  The kids are bored and just staring ahead, not knowing what to do with themselves, waiting to be fed. 

The Weather Gods are angry (8/21/2018)

At one point in my my life I must have angered the weather Gods. I am not sure when I did this, but from what it looks like, it must have been some time ago. They have been on my case for some time!  Of late, the weather Gods seems to try to sabotage whatever (family) plans I (or we) have. Take for instance this past weekend.

Our daughter is in town and so were friends. What better opportunity to go for a bike ride on the Capital Trail in Jamestown and end this at the Billsburg Microbrewery, followed by a dinner. Oh well, ominous clouds gathered and halfway driving to the starting point of our bike ride we were surprised by a downpour. When we arrived at the designated starting spot to meet our friends Val and Dave, thunder was cracking and rain was starting again. We decided to go to the microbrewery instead and wait out the rain. We got a little wet running in from the parking lot to the taproom, but so be it. In the microbrewery we sampled some delicious beers, experienced some great company, watched a magnificent lightning show, and a tropical downpour. From the looks on the radar, it was not going to stop so eventually we decided to go out to dinner. Suffice it to say, the weather Gods prevented us from exercise and our biking a thing we usually enjoy very much. Although we did try to make the best of it. But then, we beat the crowd to the restaurant; maybe the weather gods were actually looking out for us.

It always seems to go like this though. This summer, it seems to have rain on the weekends and and it is nice during the week. I have not been out sailing yet this year! I can blame the weather Gods for that, or maybe the (hurt) knee Gods, the college graduation Gods and all kinds of other scapegoat Gods. 

Take for instance the other evening, I was peacefully waking the dog (we do that every evening) and the clouds break open literally when we reach the furthest point removed from our home. I did not carry an umbrella or raincoat and the only thing I could do was walk home through what felt like a tropical downpour. The only thing missing was a good electrical storm; I guess I have not yet angered the Gods that much. By the time Jake the dog and I arrive home, 10 minutes later, nothing on my body was dry. We usually dry the dogs off before we let them in the house; this time I was also handed a towel to dry myself off outside, so I would not get the inside of our home wet. My wife took a rain check that evening and let me go walk alone. Her knee hurt she said. Funny how people’s joints can predict the weather. I now know what it means when people take rain checks. 

Earlier this week, I took a day off to enjoy some time with the family. Maybe some outing, beach time? Well, by two o’clock that afternoon we almost had 3 inches (7.5 cm) of rain that fell in about two to three hours time. On top of that we lost electricity. But it was a nice family bonding experience sitting in our gazebo watching the yard getting flooded.

This photo was taken during the height of the storm this past Monday.  The path in our back yard that leads to the woods behind our home was literally a flowing creek.

At points that day the water in our yard was ankle deep.  I was really wondering when the snakes were going to float by.

Weather has always played a large part in our lives. Two of my posts deal with some of the weather we experienced while living in Nepal. We went through one monsoon season and it was so bad, the one night we got almost swept away by floods. Two days later, we were crossing a stream and the wife of the same friends lost her footing and was swept away by a raging stream towards an even larger raging stream. If she would have entered that one it would have been the end of her. Somehow I was able to run after her and put my walking stick out which she was able to grab a hold of and I was able to pull her out of the stream. I really hate to think what would have happened if I (or she) would not have been able to do that. We crossed that stream all the time, it was less than 3 feet wide with stepping stones, but during the monsoon it had turned into this wild torrent of at least 30 feet wide and more than knee deep. It swept her off her feet. During that same monsoon we witnessed whole mountain sides collapsing around us and landslides everywhere. So we decided that the next monsoon we were going on vacation. But then I also wrote about getting dehydrated in a snowstorm in the mountains of Nepal. Those weather Gods are amazing!

Living in coastal Virginia for the past 18 years I have seen my share of tropical storms and other weather phenomena. I am just so concerned that with global warming or what some euphemistically call "climate change," things will get even more extreme. I think we are seeing that already; many old timers in my classes mention this, but as soon as I mention those words “Global warming”, they try to take it back and “oh no, the storms are really not getting more severe, they are just outliers.” The weather Gods are not getting angrier in their eyes; while we all know that they actually are, and that it is the result of all the stuff we do, the stuff we emit but try to deny and ignore!

Wetland delineations (8/14/2018)

One of the classes that I teach introduces my students to wetlands, their value and how to recognize them.  Wetland regulations have been a contentious issue for quite some time here in the U.S.A., and I suspect it will not go away soon, although under the current administration things could change on a dime.  Wetlands always seems to cause a confrontation between the environmental community and sometimes the government on one side and landowners and developers on the opposite side: “Who are you to tell me what I can or cannot do on my property?”  This is partially because there are periods in the year that some wetlands can be bone dry.  Let me explain:  Here in the U.S. a site is usually considered a wetland when the soil is continuously inundated or saturated for more than 5% during the growing season (or when there are leaves on the deciduous plants).  In my neck of the woods of eastern Virginia that is as short as somewhere between 9 to 12 days.  You can see how this can piss off a property owner who claims that his property is usually mostly dry.

While this may not be one of the most photogenic pictures I have ever taken, it illustrates the point I write about above.  This is a wetland and in the winter and parts of spring and fall, you walk through water here.  However, on a warm summer day this is dry as a bone as you see here.  A property owner could easily say: "What wetland?"

I teach my students this and what some of the additional red flags are in recognizing a wetland, just in case a landowner forgets to report a wetland when they are about to develop their property.  I mostly teach folks who deal with projects that are at that (early) stage of development; it is therefore important for them to recognize them, so they can let us know before it gets impacted by the construction of a new building, a subdivision or parking lot.  I tell them that I can absolutely not turn them into wetland scientists or wetland delineators; I just want them to be able to recognize some of the "red flags."

I often start out with telling my students how wetland delineators do their jobs and the way I started out in this business back in the early 1990s.  I was a part-time assistant professor at the Gallup branch campus of the University of New Mexico, when the Chair (and only full-time staff member) of the biology department got a call from an owner of an old sawmill just across the border in Arizona.  The sawmill had shut down, but in the past, they had treated their lumber with arsenic to make treated lumber.  My understanding was that the soil was contaminated, and they were going to be required to clean things up, but the site drained into a wetland, and they were either supposed to stay out of a wetland that was below the site, or only supposed to clean up the wetland since that was the place where all the arsenic had ended up.  Either way, they needed to know the extent of the wetland and were wondering if there was anyone at the university that could help them.  I was hungry and wanted to start my own consulting business, so I went for it (the chair was a human biologist and could not distinguish one plant from another, let alone identify a wetland).  Truthfully, I had never done it either, did not know what the heck I was doing or what it was about.  All I knew was that I was an ecologist, so, I thought, it must not be very difficult to figure out.

Being at a university I was able to get a hold of the Corps of Engineers “Wetland Delineation Manual” and I set out to work.  It was a very isolated site on the Navajo Reservation, not too far from Gallup, kind of interesting an abandoned sawmill, eerie but still neat.  I figured that it would not be very difficult, here we were in the Four Corners, in the Sagebrush Steppe which can be considered part of the Great Basin Desert or if you are a splitter it technically can be called the Colorado Plateau (Desert).  Whatever you call it, the area is dry, and a wetland should be darn obvious.  Boy was it ever!  That is the nice thing about working in the desert.

A few years later, after moving to the mid-west and gaining more experience I became quite the expert wetland delineator.  I first lived in Cincinnati and ended up traveling throughout the U.S. to do delineations.  While living in Virginia I traveled all over the eastern U.S.  In my blog post that contains my sermon I discuss some of the perils of field work, including being hit by a cottonmouth.  

What I had learned during my career as a wetland scientist was that desert ecology and wetland ecology was not that different.  Plants were under stress.  In wetlands plants had oxygen stress in their roots because of flooded soils, and because of that could often not take up water unless they had very specific adaptations.  Being an arid land physiologist by training (who could not find a job and thus ended up in consulting), I found that this was not very different from desert plants who were also often under (drought) stress and had very specific adaptations to survive.  The issue is that plants only have four major hormones and only one of those four hormones, ethylene, mediates stress.  I spent a lot of time studying this hormone; in the past it was thought that is was released as an adaptation to flooding and it helped with fruit ripening (that’s how we get evenly ripened fruit like bananas on the shelves in our grocery stores); however, we were able to show in the lab that it also made plants more tolerant to drought stress.  Oh well, I will leave it at that.

When I started my career as a wetland scientist I learned that I had to look for three main characteristics in the field: certain plants that are known to grow in flooded conditions, while other plants absolutely could not; soils that showed signs of flooding; and landscape features indicating flooding.  We also call this the three mandatory wetland criteria: vegetation, soils and hydrology.  This is what we look for when we examine a site, we look if it is a wetland or has pockets of wetlands.  Over time wetland delineations got easier and easier to a trained eye, although it was always exciting when you got to a new area in the country, where you had never delineated before.  You got to see new plant species and new soil types.  I was always a bit nervous to start out in such an area.  I usually studied the soil survey of the county to see what kind of soils I may encounter, while in the field I often collected plants to take back with me to my motel room or to my office so I could take my time to identify them.

We sometimes joke that we delineate with our feet; actually, it is a combination of feet and eyes.  With a bit of experience, you start noticing subtle changes in vegetation composition, and the consistency of the soil under your feet.  The ground might just get a little softer and at the same time it feels like you just stepped one or two inches lower in elevation.  This may be important, for as I described in the beginning of this post, wetlands can be bone dry, especially in the middle of the summer.  But, together with a minor vegetation change like the entrance or disappearance of one specific plant species may be enough to make you stop and wonder.  Now it is time to examine the soil.  Has the soil also changed when you crossed that subtle boundary you think you perceived in the field.  At first, I would take several soil samples with a probe or an auger on both sides of the boundary to compare.  Once I determine that I may have a soil that is representative of a wetland soil I may use a shovel to dig a decent soil pit to get a representative soil description.  Subsequently, I determine the boundary of the entire wetland, flag it and describe it, after which it is ready to be surveyed.  I often survey it with GPS, although that is not as accurate as a survey done by a licensed survey crew.  After that it is often up to the engineers, the owner and the developer to decide what to do with or to the wetland.

One of these days I may write more about wetland plants, wetland soils or the more illusive hydrology.  Stay tuned.

A wide-angle photo of one of the ponds behind our home.  There is still a little water visible in the center of the pond which is 6 feet (1.8 meters) deep in the middle.  In winter and early spring the water comes all the way to where I am standing.  As you can see, at that time and in early summer these trees stand submerged in water.  Species include: black gum, red maple, tupelo and overcup oak. They are what we call wetland species. 

Gaslighting (8/3/2018)

Wow, one of those verbs I never thought I would write a blog post about. But is seems to become a more commonly used word. So common that my wife told me the other day: “You are trying to gaslight me.” Thanks goodness she was using it more tongue in cheek, but boy we have come a long way, that we use this in our common intercourse between people.  (Warning for those of you expecting one of my regular blog posts, this one is a bit more political than others, so be forewarned! )

Where does the term come from? Gaslighting comes from a play “Gas Light” which was made into the 1944 movie “Gaslight.” In this movie a husband tries to convince his wife that she is insane by trying to change little things around her and trying to convince her she is just imagining it. He did this trying to save his ass after murdering the lady in the upstairs apartment. Not that I am that old, but I remember watching it. It seems that “gaslighting” came into vogue as a term in the 1960s to describe efforts to manipulate someone's perception of reality. 

From the movie "Gaslight"

And here we are today. The term gaslighting is so commonplace now, it is scary. But let’s look at it in more detail. This is what an online article in Psychology Today that was posted on January 22, 2017, says about people who gaslight:

1. They tell blatant lies,
2. They deny they ever said something, although you have proof,
3. They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition,
4. They wear you down over time,
5. Their actions do not match their words,
6. They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you,
7. They know confusion weakens people,
8. They project,
9. They try to align people against you,
10. They tell others that you are crazy, and
11. They tell you everyone else is a liar.

That is a lot to digest isn’t it?  It is usually something one person does to another, but I have a feeling we have reached a point where one person can do this to a nation.  Scary, in particular since we just witnessed the use of the majority of these bullets after the meeting of our president with the president of Russia. Truthfully, it is not the first time I have felt gaslighted in the current political climate. For example, terms like fake news and fake press fit in bullets 4, 7, 8, 9 10, and 11.

Some additional observation about gaslighting, (I borrowed the bullets and some of the discussion from this article):

1. Gaslighting does not necessarily has to be deliberate. We see this all the time. For example, when an African American person (read male) was killed by a police man. In the past nobody seemed to care, except his family of course. He was either armed, on drugs, had a record, was deranged, reached for a gun; and society blindly accepted it. We were gaslighted by stereotype. It was the killing of Trayvon Martin and the Black Lives Matter Movement that changed this or at least is trying to change it. It is about time that we are wondering and fighting this apathy when it comes to all those police killing (yes some might have been justified, but a lot of them were not).  The problem is that we are now experiencing push back from people who have been thoroughly gaslighted.  However, remember, as we saw in the Psychology Today list; gaslighting is most often done deliberately. 
2. Gaslighting aims to changes a person character, the trust in them self and experience of reality; while simple manipulation just only changes self-esteem. Scary isn’t it? I am sorry, but you have to look at some of the most recent political rallies and the vicious attacks on what they call the “fake press” or the killing in Charlottesville to see how the character of a group of people has been changed by a gaslighter. 
3. Gaslighting does not always involve anger or intimidation; it can be and often is much subtler. It seems that some gaslighters will shower their victims with special attention but never give them all the attention they need. In bullet 6 of the Psychology Today article the describe it as keeping the victim off-kilter. Other gaslighters will act like they are the victim. Whatever is their modus operando, gaslighters are able to change their victim’s memory, perception of reality and truth (bullets 2, 4, 5 and 7 from above). 
4. It is normal to forget things and gaslighters can easily manipulate your memory. This is what I teach in my classes; I tell my students to “document, document, document.” I tell them I don’t remember what I had for dinner two or three days ago. 
5. There may be three (3) stages to the gaslighting process: 
• You know they are ridiculous, 
• You consider their view, and then 
• You consider their view as normal and lose your ability to make your own judgement.
• Boy, this gets interesting these politically charged days. There was a tweet from our President the other day, telling the attorney general to stop the Russia investigation. This is a direct order and any jury would consider this obstruction of justice. In the past we all thought his tweets were ridiculous, his allies then considered his views, and now his allies don’t even question what he tweeted or even defend him. This is a pure case of gaslighting in my eyes.
• Now I just learned that he told a rally that Putin did not want him to win, while during the press conference Putin said he did (bullets 1 and 2; the first two steps in the process of gaslighting us on a new item or lie isn't it?).
6. Concluding, gaslighters do not give a crap about you, they do not see you. Gaslighters are pure narcissists. 

So what do we do about being gaslighted on a personal level or as a nation?  On a personal level it seems that you don’t win by confrontation; however, you win by ignoring a gaslighter.  Naturally, you need to be strong enough not to be influenced by that person, or not allow him or her to influence you.  

I enjoy watching Morning Joe in MSNBC in the morning  (that is when I have the time).  However, I wonder if Joe and Mika have the right approach.   Naturally they partially sell entertainment, but they desperately try to get under the president's skin.  I wonder what would happen of they completely ignore him for a week and not mention him?  I wonder what would happen if we would do that as a country?  If all the reporters and news networks would not cover him for a week, would he self-destruct?  That would be one way of allowing him not to gaslight us, even only for a week.