Resillence (3/2/2026

The other day, at our UU church we had a program on the resilience of nature or may be on how nature helped us with our resilience. This brought me back to my Ph.D. study, and particularly my research project. We moved to Las Cruces, NM in 1986 for my studies. Nine years married and yes, we had our occasional marriage spats. I think the issues were mostly my doing and most likely caused by my insecurity concerning my qualifications even to pursue a Ph.D. (imposter syndrome) and the decision we had made to finally settle in the U.S.A. (being a Dutchman who had traveled most of his life, that was an alien concept).

My research plots were in the Jornada del Muerto. It was at the southern end of the of an area in New Mexico made famous by the Trinity site, where Oppenheimer and his compadres detonated the first nuclear bomb. My site was far enough away from that area for any remaining radioactivity to ever have gotten that far south and have any effect on me. This was a good thing, since we (my wife) became pregnant in 1988, midway through my studies.

One of the things that stayed with me from that time were the weekly trips to my research plots. We had to travel about an hour into the desert away from all civilization. I was taking physiological measurements on broom snakeweed (Gutierrezia sarothrae); a common weed in this area of the country. I had to get there before daylight to take what are called pre-dawn plant measurements and compare them to changes that occurred during the day, when it got brighter and warmer. We got to the site when it was just getting light and stayed until two or three in the afternoon and took measurements on the hour. We hid in the shade under a shelter that we set up between measurement times. On some really hot days I would take a quick dip in a nearby stock tank if the water looked clean. Remember, the temperatures in southern New Mexico would easily soar over 100 degrees (38 Celsius) in summer.

At sunrise, exactly when the sun hit the site, the coyotes in the area started howling, just for a minute or so. It was absolutely amazing and, in a way, very moving. It sounded so wild and primitive. To think that there were all these eyes watching us and we hardly ever saw them. And then all the snakes (rattlesnakes) that were also observing us, the birds and other critters.

Recently I wrote a couple of posts about the more bashful coyotes in the woods behind our home. They excite our dogs, especially when they start howling at two in the morning. Hearing the howl or even seeing them brings me back to my studies in the Jornada desert and those early mornings when the coyotes graced me with their concert.

Coyotes are amazing animals. Persecuted and killed, they seem to survive, even in our urban areas. These are resilient species and fit into the discussions we had that Sunday morning. Resilience, we biologists sometimes used the word plasticity in place of resilience. At times this seems more appropriate, nature is resilient by being adaptable or what we would call plastic. An interesting concept to ponder.

The Coyotes behind our home (left and center)

Coyotes and skinny dipping (12/22/2025)

Walking in the woods behind our home is one of the most pleasurable things I (we) do.  As you know, I am a huge fan of what is called “forest bathing.” No, this has nothing to do with getting naked in the woods during a rainstorm or in a river, pond or lake.  Although that does sounds like fun (at least when the weather is warm).  We have done some skinny dipping in the past, but I am not sure I want to embarrass myself anymore with this old body. 

My favorite skinny-dipping memory was the time we did it in the mountains above Logan, Utah.  We had been hiking with our friends; we were hot and happened upon a pool in a creek.  It was so inviting.  The four of us stripped and jumped in.  After sitting in the refreshingly cool water for approximately ten minutes some hikers approached and when they walked by, we recognized the male in the group as the dean of our college at Utah State University.  Both Jeff and I knew him well and the only thing we were able to do was wave and say “hi.”  The next day we were both somewhat on pins and needles, wondering if the dean would say something.  But we never heard from him about the incident.

Enough about that and back to my more recent experience.

We have coyotes in the woods behind our home.  While we already knew that, and saw one a few years ago, our sighting of them has become increasingly frequent.  Wildlife watching has become our sport, ranging from fornicating deer to coyotes.  We have been told there are at least bobcats back there and now we have been told that there was a bear sighting nearby.

Well, don’t go wildlife watching with two dogs on the leash.  The dogs go absolutely ballistic the minute they even sense a wild animal.  While the hound howled and the other barked incessantly at the screwing deer or any other deer they see, but coyotes eat the cake.  They go nuts.  On top of that, the coyotes don’t give a damn.  They just stay where they are and look at you with this attitude of “bring it on.”  I had to walk by them one day while they were approximately 60 feet (20 meters) away from me, with two insane dogs that I hardly was able to control.  The coyotes just stood there and watched me struggling (walk) by with two absolutely bonkers dogs.

By rough estimate we have approximately 17 square miles (11,000 acres) of forest behind our home.  For our metric folks that is around 44 square kilometers (4.400 hectares).  That is large enough for coyotes, bears, and bobcats to hide.

I am still working on an inventory of all the beech trees directly behind our home.  Yesterday, I set out into the woods on my own, at the advice from my wife.  She knows my love for nature and for forest bathing.  My goal was to go to one of my favorite beeches and just sit at its roots, meditate and inhale nature.

It was somewhat quiet out there; however, it was frequently interrupted by the sounds of civilization.  An airplane was landing at the airport nearby and you could hear the incessant noise of traffic on the highway.  Finally, I heard the call of the pileated woodpecker.

It felt good to be out in the woods, although it was difficult to relax and meditate with all the crap going on in the world around us.  Despite all that, I definitely need to do it again.

 

We call the Blondy and Yote

Crazy, just relaxing in clear sight 

At my favorite beech

Don't feed the wild animals (12/23/20224)

Again, we were traveling across the country and back.  As our way back we opted to take a more southern route in the hope to avoid cold nights.  These colder nights just do not work well in our small camper van.  While the van was converted from a passenger van into a camper, I do not think it was properly insulated as a regular camper conversion.  Moreover, it does not have a heater or air conditioner.  We invested in a backup battery bank from Anker.  This battery is 1800 watts and powers our coffee maker, microwave, lights and a heating pad for Radar who sleeps on the floor.  We can asl briefly run a space heart on the battery.  We used the battery three times during our trip across and it is a game changer.

After visiting Death Valley, we headed for the Big Bend National Park, via Sedona.  Camping in both spots was good.  However, I may write a little more about this in future posts.  We also enjoyed our very brief visit to Guadelupe National Park.

We were amazed and disturbed by what transpired in the Big Bend NP.  Going towards our camp spot at the Rio Grande Village we finally saw some of the park wildlife.  A coyote crossed between our van and a vehicle in front of us.  We slowed down to take a look at the animal, which we assumed would run off into the desert.  But no, it turned around and just looked at us from the side of the road.  Our first thought was rabis.  In our area that is what you suspect when you see a coyote or racoon in broad daylight.  Something wrong!  We went on our way after taking a few pictures of the animal. 

After a wonderful night of camping in the village (more about that in a subsequent post, hopefully), we set out to explore the park a bit and then go on our way to our next stop (Del Rio, TX).  Again, at the same location a coyote crossed the road to slow us down and here again stood by the road staring at us.  Then it dawned on us, the animal was begging!  We drove on to the visitor’s center and I asked one of the park officials about our encounter.  They acknowledged that the coyote was actually begging and was considered a nuisance.  They tried to move it to another part of the park, but it had returned to the same spot within a few days.

I guess we all know why this is happening.  Folks feed the wildlife and have conditioned this poor animal to live on handouts instead of hunting.   Why can’t people get it in their dense heads not to do that.  You read about folks getting killed by bison in Yellowstone; bears ransacking cars looking for food.  It is unnatural, probably a poor, but tasty diet.  We are doing a disservice to these animals and nature.  We know (or should know) how bad processed food is for us humans and that this is one of the reasons for our obesity epidemic.  Folks that feed the wild animals are doing the same to them.

This issue is not only occurring in National and State parks.  Our neighbor feeds stale bread to the dear in the woods behind our home.  Every evening a herd of 6 to 8 deer move into the yard next door and they wait for their handout.  In addition to the health issues for the deer, these animals carry ticks (Lyme disease), flees (tape worm), and you do not know what else to impact humans. 

People don’t feed wildlife.

The beggar in Big Bend National Park

 

The Colorado Plateau (5/2/2024)

If you are somewhat of a regular, you know I always have a few books open, and yes I need to update my reading list on this blog. Currently, I am reading Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey. While this is a required reading as I describe <here>, I am getting a lot of enjoyment out of it. Abbey is a radical; he was on the FBI watch list, and I just read that he wanted to grind up all the domestic dogs into hamburger and feed it to the coyotes. He was hoping that this might change the tune of coyotes and make them more pleasurable to listen to. I have heard many coyotes in the Chihuahua of southern New Mexico during the field work that I was doing for my Ph.D. On top of that we have seen and heard them in the woods behind our home here in suburban Virginia. I dare to differ with Abbey in that I actually enjoy their shenanigans and howling.

Abbey's description of the landscape in the Moab area hits me in the guts. I spent time in the area in 1980 and 1981 to do field work for my Masters. His description of the landscape is amazing: the Henry Mountains, Dead Horse Mesa, the La Sal mountains, the towns of Hanksville, Blanding and Moab, the Bear’s Ears, and of course Arches National Park. My research plots of the time were in the Henry Mountains, near Fry Canyon, in the mountains near Monticello (between Blanding and Moab), and near Green River. 

I realize now that I might as well have spent time on some of the mines Abbey wrote about but were abandoned when I spent time there in 1980. Abbey wrote about uranium prospecting in his book, and I was working on the results of all that work.  As I am sure, a lot of you are aware of, uranium was used to generate energy and for more sinister reasons such as blowing up things and killing millions with one small bomb.  Southeastern Utah and the Moab area is littered with mine shafts dug into the cliff sides and piles of waste materials that were dumped below those holes. These dump sites were bare, and we were doing research on the revegetation of these piles. 

 My research involved the revegetation of uranium mine-spoils. Uranium and its mining features heavily in Desert Solitaire. In the 1940s, 50s and 60s uranium was in huge demand; areas in Ontario Canada and in the Canyon lands had some the largest deposits of that mineral in North America.  At the time Blanding had a uranium enrichment plant.  I also worked on a site of another uranium enrichment plant in the Red Desert of Wyoming, just north of Green River, UT and Rawlings, WY.  That plant had a large herd of wild horses nearby and it was always fun watching them gallop through the area.   

One of my favorite experiences was my work near Fry Canyon. The canyon was aptly named, it was scorching hot in July. My thermometer read 110 degrees. It had the typical desert vegetation of juniper, salt bush, galleta grass, Indian rice grass and I remember seeing mallows, sunflowers and cacti. We had our two dogs with us and during the day they slept under the truck I was driving. We had to drive up a dirt road in the canyon and arrived at my plot after maybe a half hour to forty-five minutes off-road driving. Camping there was fun as well. Just nice to be out so remote in the desert with no extraneous sounds or lights. It is something that the folks I follow on YouTube (my guilty pleasure) that live in vans out West often do. I remember wondering about cougars, poisonous snakes, scorpions and coyotes.

In 1980 we showed my parents around the Four Corners Region when they visited from the Netherlands, and we took them to Moab, Arches and Dead Horse Mesa. What still amazes me was that during our visit to Dead Horse Point, we were standing and looking at the Colorado River, when a car drove up and two Dutch ladies stepped out, speaking Dutch. At that point there were five citizens of the Netherlands and only one American on the point. Quite a coincidence. One of my favorite memories is that after the meeting we decided to drive down a dirt road to the Colorado River. My wife Donna walked in front of the car (an old AMC Pacer) to move all the big rocks out of the way, make sure we would not bottom out or slide down the ravine.

As I mentioned before, we returned to the area in 1992 and it was great to see it again. I was more of desert rat by then, after getting my Ph.D. and subsequently having lived on the Colorado Plateau in Gallup. Abbey's description of the Navajo, the people, the nation and the treatment of the people was very familiar as well; I spent 3 years working with and around the Navajos. I describe our recent visit to Gallup and the region <here>.

Anyway, these are some of the things that I am reminded of when I read Abbeys book. While he is an interesting writer with great observations, his book can be tedious at times because of the run-on sentences and the difficult words. This is something I try to avoid in my lousy writing, but Abbey is a master. I found one sentence that is an entire paragraph long and in print was something like ten printed lines in the book. Moreover, I had to use a dictionary to look up some of the words he uses. But he was radical; while most of the time I agree with him, I would not dare to put some of it in print. He had guts and called it out.

I hope it was somewhat interesting and motivates you to pick up this interesting book.

September 24, 2024, my return to the desert of the Colorado Plateau.

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.

Newport News Park (1/4/2015)

Wow, 2015.  Happy New Year to all my readers.

Today's blog is a multipurpose posting first of course it is a wish to all to make the best of it all and enjoy 2015.  I am sure that some readers may think something like: "this guy had 11 days vacation, and all the time to take the perfect picture, and now see what he shows as his first of 2015."  I'll explain this below.  Remember, one of my favorite sayings is: "It is what it is", and there is not much we can do about certain situations, but to enjoy it (or maybe grin and bare it?).

So why this picture.  It is about unintended consequences.  Lets start: I believe in the inherent goodness in all and everything, and that we as humans are capable in screwing it up (or sometimes misinterpreting it).  I am often reminded of Aldo Leopold who made a 180 degree turn after he shot a wolf (in the early 20th century) and later on came to the conclusion that exterminating wolves was not going to save the sheep ranchers, but that it was actually going to hurt them since the deer no longer had any predators.  The loss of predators resulted in the explosion of the deer populations and overgrazing by the deer, which in turn resulted in the loss of food for the sheep and actually crashing sheep populations.  In other words exterminating wolves actually hurt the sheep farmers.

A lot of human interference in nature has unforeseen consequences, but wolves are great examples.  After their reintroduction in Yellowstone National Park, the ecology of the riverbanks and wetlands improved.  When the wolves were exterminated from the parks, elk became bolder and started grazing in these areas and greatly impacting the vegetation.  The reintroduction of wolves really helped in the restoration of these areas.  This link provides some great information on that.

So why this picture?  During our walks out behind our home, a sight such as this is very common.  The bark is stripped from the small pine tree, and I can guarantee that the tree will most likely not survive.  This is not necessarily bad in this case, you can see in the background that the the tree density is very high and killing some trees would be very good.  But there is a deeper issue here.  What is this stripping of the bark all about?  Well, bucks (male deer) shed their horns in the late fall, and they start growing out around this time of year.  You can imagine that horns that try to poke out of your skin hurt or at least are a little itchy.  That is where these small trees come in.  A buck can not ask one of the girls in his harem to give him a scratch on the head, and so he has to do this himself.  In that process they scratch so hard that the bark comes off the tree.

But briefly coming back to those deer.  We have no (or very few) predators in the woods out back.  We have sighted a few coyotes, but that's it.  Moreover, no hunting is allowed in the park.  As a result the deer have proliferated. eating everything in sight.  The woods very impoverished; seedlings are eaten as soon as they germinate.  (It is actually so bad that the deer are running out of food, and they have invaded our neighborhood.  The other night we almost witnessed a crash between a deer and a car).  So now, the woods out back have very little understory and they are not very diverse.  The only plants that grow there are the ones deer do not eat.  Although I understand we cannot reintroduce the wolf in our back yard, or allow hunting, I wish we could somehow keep the deer population under control, thus keeping the biodiversity in the woods behind us (and allowing me to grow nice plants in my yard).  As you can see, our actions have all these unforeseen consequences in nature that may show up much later and sometimes too late for us to do something about.

Yorktown (12/31/2013)

Walking through the woods behind our home on New Year’s Eve, our beagle got spooked by something in the woods.  This is an area where she often gets spooked and we speculate that there are coyotes in that area (http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/wildlife/habitat_partners/infosheets/coyote.pdf).  We have seen two coyotes once while sipping our morning coffee in our gazebo.  Our beagle is always suspicious of any movement or sound in the woods.  Here she is staring across one of the ephemeral ponds also known as Grafton ponds.  The ponds are wet in winter and dry in summer.  This means they cannot contain fish and are great for amphibian species including the Mabee’s salamander (http://www.virginiaherpetologicalsociety.com/amphibians/salamanders/mabees-salamander/mabee's_salamander.htm) which is a state endangered species in our area.  Soon in February they start breeding and there will be a cacophony out there.  These woods were logged in the late 1990’s just before we moved into our home.  It has been fun watching grow up from a plantation where we could literally look over the top of the trees to what it is now.