Taking Time

Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher

A tiny bird sings incessantly from the highest branch of the tree beyond my window—a blue-gray gnatcatcher…that seemingly miniature mockingbird, with his wispy, whistle-y song. Oh, how he teased me to watch him weeks ago, playing his tiny kazoo, as I fussed with preparations for my trip to New River—a week of nature camp for grown-ups, as I’ve come to think of it.
He’s still at it today, though I’ve taken the time as he’s warned I should.
I’ve taken the time to watch nature.

blue-gray gnatcatcher's nest

Last year, afternoons were spent there watching a wee bird as she repeatedly brought small flakes of lichen to shingle her nest just feet from the Meadow House door. By mid-week, early morning wake-ups had left me with a sleep debt, but how can one nap while such business is going on?





I watched her each day, my choice only to sleep or engage with nature.
I chose wisely, and slept wonderfully upon my return.

Pennywort gentian, Obolaria virginica

This year, I spent afternoons in search of wee wildflowers—pennywort gentians just inches tall growing in the shade of mighty trees above them. And as I stooped low to marvel at the sweet, white blooms dotting the brown, leafy bank behind the Meadow House, I found an even tinier spider stepping from flower to flower, dragging his silken cord.
From one to the next he rappelled, his entire world smaller than my palm.

Again, I think I chose wisely.
For how can one sleep while such business is going on?

tiny spider
(for scale, the flowers are only 1/2 an inch long!)

Pennywort gentian with tiny spider

Pennywort gentian, Obolaria virginica, is a small flowering plant native to southeastern North America. The only member of the genus Obolaria, it is so named from the Greek “obolos,” meaning small coin, in reference to its thick, rounded, coin-like leaves.
Varying from shades of brownish-green to dark purple, the leaves of Pennywort gentian contain little of the chlorophyll that many plants use to produce energy from sunlight through photosynthesis. Yet, these small plants are able to thrive in the shade beneath a densely leaved canopy. How?
Pennywort gentian is a mycotroph ( Gr., myco=fungus + troph=feed or grow)—a plant which gains nutrients needed for growth from the fungi in the soil layer beneath it. The fungi, in turn, have derived their nutrients from the roots of a host —a woody, photosynthetic plant (tree) towering above. In essence, the mycorrhizal (Gr., myco=fungus + rhiz=root) fungi in the soil act as the intermediary, passing carbohydrates from the tree roots to the small pennyworts covering the hillside. The woody plants gain, as well. Soil inhabited by mycorrhizal fungi is able to hold more water and minerals needed by the trees for healthy growth.

The Field of Dreams

Reflection

I have retired.
Not in the social security sense—
that age-determined status that promises perpetual care,
the reward for life’s contributions already made.
But in the sense of taking a changed path—
to determine each day the direction for myself,
to discover that contribution yet within me.

Damsel in the grass

From a car parked beside mine, a man left the gravel lot and walked off into the woods on a narrow trail barely visible through the eagerly reaching, green spring grass. On his back, lashed to a large pack that I suspected of hiding a camera, long-legged photographic paraphernalia swung with each step, as he disappeared into the undergrowth. It is a lovely spot where a broad lake attracts folks of all sorts for fishing and birding and thought. Yet, his determined stride had taken him away from all that. The object of his pursuit, uncertain to me.

painted turtle

I had come there to walk the trail as I had always walked it.
A wide, raised bank adjacent to the water ran a straight course north. On one side, sycamore trees bent low over the still surface, their gnarled fingers pointing to newly emerging lily pads, while on the other, turtles flopped, one after another, from the sunlit spot on a log into the safety of the steadily thickening green swill. Times before, I had watched from this edge as swans approached and posed for my camera to create a picture framed by the sycamore’s reflective arching arms. On this day, however, the geese commanded the lake. In the distance, the faded ring of cattails rimming the marsh drew the barest line between two oceans of blue.
For a moment, a fancily clad crane fly drew me several feet off course, as she bumbled about on long, striped legs before finally coming to rest clumsily on a thorny cane at my feet. Above me, a pair of blue-gray gnatcatchers flitted in and out of the branches, their wheezy call the only sound along the trail.

Mute Swans on Spring Valley Lake

Canada Goose

Phantom Crane Fly

Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher

teneral damselfly

Returning to my car, I was reminded again of the man who had turned from the lot and set off with such purpose into the nearby woods. He had come, conquered and gone, all in the time that I had wandered the water’s edge.

So, I ducked past the brushy boughs hiding its course into the woods and followed the path he had taken, slowly and quietly, to its very end in a farmer’s field. The dirt was freshly plowed, dark and warm under the afternoon sun and it rose to a point on the horizon where earth brown met sky blue.


Some wait for fields of roses.
Days filled with dandelions will be good enough for me.

Dandelion seedheads