November 2009 Archives

This is Herman:



He's a young Hermit Thrush. He and his friends and family live in our shrubbery during the winter, so I'm used to catching glimpses of them from time to time, but yesterday I got a very good look at him indeed because he was sitting in the driveway behind our Subaru.

The driveway is not a typical thrush habitat, and Herman's failure to quickly skulk off into deep cover led me to believe that he wasn't feeling his best. Having had experience with birds flying into car windows before (see: The Verb 'To Bird,' Chapter 1), I speculated that Herman had encountered the rear window of the Subaru in mid-flight and was taking a few moments to compose himself.

Since Dixon and I needed to head out to Richmond to pick up Ian, however, the driveway was not going to be a safe habitat for long, so I delicately encouraged Herman to find a new location. When encouragement didn't work, nudging him into our snow shovel with a toy lacrosse stick seemed to do the job. (I don't like to handle young birds, as I worry about the effect my scent may have on them. Herman's an adult, though on the smallish side, but my gut response is always to use tools if I can.) I then deposited him on the grass beside the driveway, where he sprawled in a rather uncomfortable-looking fashion. I tried to move him to a more comfortable position, at which point he finally seemed to wake up: he spread his wings and fluttered into the branches of the nearby maple tree, safe (I hoped) from the local Cooper's hawks as well as the tires of the Forester.



He was gone when we got back from Richmond, so I hope he's out there today having a prodigious meal of grubs, slugs, and worms, feeling grateful about his narrow escape. As for the four of us, we're grateful for each other, for our extended family, our friends, and of course the wonders of the natural world, even when they turn up in the most mundane places.


8:55 AM

Sometimes, you've got to go to the photographic evidence :

I believe I already mentioned the incredible profusion of berries in our backyard dogwood, but over the past few weeks, I was seeing less and less red in its branches. At first I thought this was just due to the oncoming winter, not to mention our lengthy periods of wind and rain (for the rain it raineth every day), but the other morning, with a few minutes of time to observe and my camera close at hand, I was able to capture the cause of the berries' disappearance right in the act. His accomplice is not visible in this shot, but those of you who've spent time watching gray squirrels going to town on a bird feeder can easily imagine how much damage TWO of these guys can do to a single dogwood.

The good news: next spring, there will be little dogwoods sprouting from every bit of squirrel poop in central Virginia.


11:57 AM

When you take a week off from grading papers in order to put on a play, it means that you spend the next week grading all the papers you should have been grading last week.

It also means that all the papers you should be grading THIS week aren't getting graded until next week.

Of course, if you're as close to exams as we are--they start on Thursday the 19th--there is basically no next week in which to do this week's grading.

In short, I'm in the hole and I'm not getting out anytime soon.

But hey, I'm done with the fall play, which means I'll have afternoons after classes off for the rest of the year. I'll still be giving up a weekend or six in order to put out the next issues of the newspaper, but those are a little easier to take when I've got afternoons to spend, say, grading papers. Or maybe even going for long walks, so long as we're not getting hit by another load of leftover tropical storm or something.

And though I can't quite do anything about it yet, I can also take some satisfaction in having gotten some feedback from a trusted reader concerning the manuscript of A Raven for Doves. After a couple of months without looking at it, I was happy to discover that the draft I sent her was actually pretty good.

Now all I have to do is get out of this hole so I can polish it up and find a reader that will offer me money. Yay!

Oh, and there's one other thing: Saturday is the Woodberry Forest Varsity Football Network's final internet broadcast for 2009. If you want to hear the excitement as the 7-1 WFS Tigers take on their archrivals, the 4-4 Episcopal High School Maroon, tune in at www.woodberry.org at 2:00 this Saturday to hear me and my partner, analyst/physics teacher Greg Jacobs, bring you the 109th playing of The Game live from the Hummel Bowl in Alexandria!


6:45 PM

Gunpowder, treason, and plot
I know no reason the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot

Well,another reason to remember it: it's opening night for the Woodberry Forest School production of Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, starring Dixon Cashwell as Yossarian and featuring Kelly Dalton as Nately's Mother, directed by Peter Cashwell.

Here's hoping the theater doesn't explode.


2:35 PM