Reincarnating the Pond--Part 1

 

Surrounding our lovely 30 acres of forested land is some 500 acres, possessed either by absentee owners or by aging folks who stay at home. It’s a blessing, because, not only do we have no close neighbors, but also we have all that land we can wander through. On an adjacent 40-acre parcel is a lovely little pond that was created by the owners building a dam across a holler, years before we settled here.

One of my regular paths through the woods wanders by that pond—where I love to pause and observe the wildlife that draws sustenance from the water: amphibians, birds, deer, raccoons, insects, and myriad other critters I’ve yet to spot. The pond is a beautiful mini ecosystem that provides important habitat for all these creatures. In the winter, I can ice skate on its frozen surface and in warmer times, I enjoy tossing sticks in the water for the dogs to chase.

We also very much appreciate the dam holding back runoff from the holler. We are downstream from it all and the pond stores a lot of water in the wake of summer downpours, rather than let it roar threateningly by us.

Some 15 years ago, the overflow drainpipe for the pond rusted and broke off. This pipe was originally installed to allow extra water to drain from the pond, rather than let it build up to a level that might top the dam. With the pipe broken, the pond quickly drained dry—stealing its nourishing waters from all the wildlife. For the next few years, I continued to visit the (now dry) pond, lamenting its loss. The owner lives somewhere out near the West Coast and rarely visits his little Shenandoah Valley acreage. I have no way to contact him and I guessed that he was not only unaware of the empty pond, but most likely would be reluctant to pay for its repair, if he did know.

After a couple of years of hiking past the pondless pond and longing for the good old days when it teemed with life, I secretly laid plans to raise the pond, phoenix like, from the dry dust of the empty hole it had become. The broken drainpipe that lay beneath the dam had to be stoppered. It seemed to me that if I plugged the upper end of that pipe, maybe the pond would rise again!

Laboriously, I carried several buckets of cement and water overland, mixed them with some rocks from the dry pond bottom, and corked the end of the pipe. I committed my clandestine act in broad daylight, glancing guiltily over my shoulder more than once. Did I have any right to take this action?

Skulking back home, I turned the project over to Mother Nature. Sure enough, over the next year or so, the pond slowly refilled and then I delighted when once again I heard frogs and saw newts swimming along. The dragonflies returned and I occasionally saw deer hoof prints at pondside. It felt great to see all the wildlife return, even though my conscience occasionally gnawed at me. How would the owner respond to my reincarnation work? Would he even know (especially if I kept my dirty little secret)?

Continued next time…

An interesting block rock

Closeup of crystally top

Hunt'n Seaz'n

My partner and I are in the midst of our 27^th deer-hunting season out here in the Valley. I don’t own a gun and do not hunt. In our first few years out here, my misgivings about guns (all the harm they create in urban environments) and my disinclination to hunt (killing an animal with a gun seems to be beyond my capability) caused the yearly arrival of hunt’n seaz’n to be something we dreaded. We were startled by the blasts of rifles resounding from the woods and were quite intimidated by the sight of macho dudes patrolling the back roads in their large, gun-racked pickup trucks, looking to spot deer.

Thankfully, we have found that our anxiety about the season has gradually dissipated over the years—for several reasons I’ll go into below. I still have no interest in hunting or owning a gun, but we wince much less now when a rifle goes off and worry far less about a stray bullet coming our way. Part of our being more at ease is some kind of “proof of the pudding”: we’ve had no close calls over the years. (However, as soon as I write these words I recall the teenage son of a visiting hunter who once accidently discharged his loaded rifle in our driveway, just a few feet from me. Would that be considered a close call? Closer than I cared for.)

As we have gotten used to the hunt, and have come to know neighbors who are serious hunters, we’ve relaxed quite a bit. We know these folks respect the land and its critters. They have lived close to the land all their lives, and have their diets importantly supplemented with venison, turkey, squirrel, raccoon, woodchuck, and other wild creatures. We still would rather not have armed people wandering through the woods around us, but recognize that the knowledgeable hunters are the primary thing that controls the burgeoning deer population (unless you want to count the automobile). 

Yet we remain cautious, while no longer fearful. We stay out of the woods on Saturdays, when the number of hunters soars. We wear blaze orange when we stray beyond our immediate clearing. We also remain concerned about our dogs, since we allow them the freedom to run; we’ve never tied or penned them. We highly value their patrols that have so far kept deer from the garden (unlike many of our neighbors, who have had their veggies repeatedly decimated). The dogs do not roam the woods—they stay pretty close to home—but they might look a little too much like a deer to the careless hunter.

Over time, I have come to understand that not all deer hunters are to be feared, and, in fact now am able to discern three types of hunters that come round:

1.    The local, experienced folks, who hunt for food: They are careful, plan their shots, and hunt in sensible places at sensible times of day. They call us to ask permission to walk our land and let us know when they will be out there. We’ve come to appreciate their skills, the need for them to keep the deer population in check, and the fact that their presence discourages that of the other two (less desirable) types of hunters.

2.    The lazy, local hunter: He drives the back roads and is not at all averse to shooting from the window of his truck. He knows these remote backwoods and the fact that the game warden is unlikely to intercept him. He tosses his beer cans and other trash along the road. When he bags a deer, he rarely butchers it, but is more likely to cut off a tasty shoulder and dump the rest of the remains along the road.

3.    The city boy: He heads for the hills with a few buddies, for the thrill of firing their guns at most anything that moves, sometimes after downing a few beers. He knows someone who has a piece of land on which he can hunt, but often lacks a sense of where the boundaries to that land lie. He roams the woods, unfamiliar with the proximity of houses. He tends to reveal his presence at dusk, when the light level falls, but has not yet bagged his deer. How? He has come all the way out here to shoot, dammit, and shoot he will. We wince at all the repeated rifle discharges, as daylight fades, knowing they really can’t see any prey.

In our first few years out here we worried about encountering the second two types of hunter. Fortunately, our overwhelming experiences have been with the first type—the local guys who really need the food and respect Mother Nature.

Our dogs, however, feel quite differently about deer-hunting season than we do. They may cower a bit when a nearby rifle blasts off, but they relish the feast of deer parts that get scattered through the woods after the hunters leave. They love legs and innards. They’d much prefer to gnaw on a weeks’-old, moldering deer part than eat the dry dog food that comes from a bag the rest of the year.

Just when we were beginning to relax a little during hunt’n seaz’n, the state extended it a few years back, from a couple of weeks in late November to six weeks that end in early January. Now we must be wary for much longer and curtail our walks in the woods for much longer. Oh well… life can get boring when it becomes too comfortable.

Tufted Titmouse at Window Feeder

Long Recovery

Life forms on planet Earth have experienced some half dozen mass extinctions in the last 500 million years or so, during which up to 95% of species disappeared. Prior to each extinction event, the mixture of species had slowly settled into a stable balance, wherein each life form had found a niche that saw it interacting in cooperative ways with surrounding species—in ways that tended to perpetuate the blend. Evolution had slowed to a crawl, because the environment had stabilized and life forms had little reason to change.

Then some huge environmental upheaval occurred. An asteroid or comet crashed down, many large volcanoes erupted, noxious gases were burped up from the bowels of the seas, or the climate dramatically warmed or chilled. Many of those species that had been enjoying a long-term stable equilibrium suddenly found themselves with life’s comfortable rug yanked abruptly from under them. They had become a little too relaxed and vulnerable in their comfortable world. They couldn’t cope with the new harsh conditions and soon became extinct. Other species—some of whom had previously been scrambling for survival on the edges—found themselves better able to cope with the new environment. They adapted, survived, and thrived.

In the eons following each mass extinction, life on Earth slowly settled into a new mix of species. In fact, novel varieties of life came into existence in this aftermath, as evolution entered the fast track. Over time, life once again entered a stable period… until the next environmental catastrophe.

And the next mass extinction is currently underway. What is unique about this one is that it is not being triggered by a comet, asteroid, or volcano, but by one of Earth’s own life forms: Homo sapiens. This new dying off—designated the Holocene extinction—is being driven by human overabundance and overconsumption. We are now the force altering the biosphere.

Earth is still in the early throes of the Holocene extinction. Where it will lead and how many species will disappear is anybody’s guess. Society seems to be unable yet even to wake up and admit it is happening, so we continue to aggravate the process.

What humans understand even less is the rate at which these changes are occurring. To Mother Earth, this is the fastest mass extinction ever to transpire. While previous extinctions took thousands of years to pass, this one is speeding by increasingly faster—spanning just a few hundred years. To Homo sapiens that’s a fair passage of time. To the 3-4 billion year period of life on Earth, however, it’s an instant.

What we understand even less yet is that the recovery from the Holocene extinction will seem endless to us. In the aftermath of previous extinctions, life required millions—even tens of millions—of years recover. In contrast, we humans have been around just a few hundred thousand years. No one can begin to imagine what continued evolution will bring to Homo sapiens in a million years’ time. Once the recovery is over, it’ll be a very different planet. I wonder what the dominant species will be like then. Hopefully, one that’s smarter than humans today.

First Ice of Fall