Month: September 2010

Uplifting Passages

28 Sep 2010
Journal
Uplifting Passages

Pessimism is awfully popular these days. Everyone seems gloomy about politics, the environment, their own personal future, etc. (Or am I just projecting my own feelings onto others?) Either way, when I come across an uplifting passage, something that makes me feel good, I feel I should share it. The following are three passages reminding me that humans are magnificent creatures, worthy of praise and awe, as long as we are always striving and moving forward, and remaining devoted to the pursuit of understanding. All three passages refer to “man.” Just ignore that and accept that they apply to all people. The first is from Goethe:

“Whosoever unceasingly strives upward… him we can save.”

The next is from Hamlet:

“What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable, in action, how like an angel, in apprehension, how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals…”

And of course Hamlet then rejects all this. But ignore that, it’s fine. The next is my favorite, the one that really refreshed my spirit, even though it is by far the most ancient passage of the three. It is from Sophocles’ Antigone:

“Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man; the power that crosses the white sea, driven by the stormy south-wind, making a path under surges that threaten to engulf him; and Earth, the eldest of the gods, the immortal, un-wearied, doth he wear, turning the soil with the offspring of horses, as the ploughs go to and fro from year to year.

And the light-hearted race of birds, and the tribes of savage beasts, and the sea-brood of the deep, he snares in the meshes of his woven toils, he leads captive, man excellent in wit. And he masters by his arts the beast whose lair is in the wilds, who roams the hills; he tames the horse of shaggy mane, he puts the yoke upon its neck, he tames the tireless mountain bull.

And speech, and wind-swift thought, and all the moods that mould a state, hath he taught himself; and how to flee the arrows of the frost, when it is hard lodging under the clear sky, and the arrows of the rushing rain; yea, he hath resource for all; without resource he meets nothing that must come; only against Death shall he call for aid in vain; but from baffling maladies he hath devised escapes.”

Recent pests and parasites I have encountered

5 Sep 10

Journal

Recent pests and parasites I have encountered

As much as I appreciate insects and other invertebrates as objects of study, I have had far too much personal experience with small pests and parasites of their ilk recently. I will describe each encounter presently, in order of their offensiveness. The first came when I left work at about ten at night a few days ago. Numerous toads hopped about on the path to my car as they usually do at this time of year. One juvenile, however, did not flee as I walked near it. I bent down to look at it and discovered it was injured in some way. Worse, even: on its back was a group of tiny, writhing larvae. There were eight to ten of them in a nasty little bundle on its back, lodged deeply into a lesion that no doubt extended into the poor toad’s thorax. The toad was moribund. I wanted to put it out of its misery and prevent the parasites from infecting other amphibians, so I brought the toad home in my lunchbox and put it in the freezer, larvae and all.

The next, second most offensive pest or parasite came to my attention when I picked up my sister’s new dog’s poop the other day. I had noticed little white specks around his anus that I assumed were bits of paper. When I picked up the poop, though, I saw little worms, fluke-shaped, squirming about in it. They extended like leeches from a third of an inch to an inch and a half as they tried to flee their first-ever exposure to sunlight. The white specks on the dog’s butt hairs were in fact dead, dried worms. And the worms appeared in greatest profusion in the dog’s morning poop. One can hardly be surprised at the parasites that come in a dog adopted from a state like Oklahoma.

The final and most offensive pest or parasite was a bug I found in my own apartment. After an absence of several days I returned to find that water had leaked through my roof and saturated some wood in the closet. Hours after cleaning up the immediate mess I turned a corner to find a roach fleeing the light! Was it really a roach? Do roaches even live in Minnesota? I would find out during the post-mortem! I swatted at it with a Swiffer broom, spilling its yellow innards across the floor. The roach still twitching, I put it under a petri dish for observation. Two days later it died, and an internet search confirmed the insect was an Oriental cockroach (Blatta orientalis), “considered the filthiest of cockroaches because it loves moisture and emits a foul odor.” Its forebears were called “stink mothes” before it was named systematically. Sure enough, it smelled terrible, and my rat Kurt was crazed to get at it. I wouldn’t let him eat it though, of course. That would be gross.

In sum I like bugs only insofar as I can maintain a critical distance from them, so to speak. I enjoy learning about them, observing them, capturing them, and releasing them. But to have to pick them off my own pet, to see a nice young toad fall victim to them, and to kill “stink mothes” in the place where I sleep and eat… That is just too close for comfort. My feelings might be likened to those of a gynecologist who is up to his elbows in diseased vaginas all day, but who when he goes home to his beautiful healthy wife, wants nothing more than to sit down and do a crossword puzzle with no thought of sex.

My trip to Hawk Ridge

13 Sep 2010

My trip to Hawk Ridge

I drove up north on Saturday. My destination: Jay Cooke State Park, where I would hike into the same secluded campsite I had occupied for four consecutive nights the year before at around the same time in September. When I arrived there I found that my lack of planning would assign me this time to a drive-in site (car camping) instead of the more rugged backpacking experience. Oh well. Fewer beer-miles on my poor back.

I set up my rugged campsite a solid 15 feet from my car and then set out on what I hoped would be a long hike into the park‘s trails. I looked the part of a hiker: binoculars across my chest, a jacket, a can of bug spray poking out of my back pocket, and reliable shoes. In addition, concealed, I carried a pen, a notebook, a flashlight, a headlamp, warm gloves, a cell phone, a folded paper towel, a small knife, a set of keys attached to a carabiner with another small knife and can opener, and a map of the trails.

I walked and walked, stopping to peer into the dense aspen stands in search of a bird here and there. I didn’t exactly see any birds besides downy woodpeckers, but I sure did observe a lot of trees. And I caught a leopard frog. After miles and miles of walking, with an occasional stop to take it all in, I headed back, following the map in a nice loop.

Arriving at my noble campsite I set up my rations to replenish my energy: I ate peanuts, a lot of them. And I had three hearty beers. I sat and communed with nature, using my headlamp to read the first volume of “The Walking Dead” by Robert Kirkman (a fucking sweet comic). I made a fire as my remotest ancestors had, and threw lots of shit in there to watch it burn, which was neat.

The next day I woke up early in the morning, perhaps ten or ten-thirty, and packed up my tent and set off for Hawk Ridge (by car, of course). After stopping for necessities such as coffee and two Subway sandwiches and some soda, I arrived there and watched the raptors pass overhead in profusion. I was so adept with my hands, and so keen of observation, that I was able to identify them with binoculars in one hand while feeding myself an Italian BMT with the other hand. Truly humans are fantastic creatures.

After a full afternoon of intense wildlife watching, I headed home to Minneapolis, secure in my kinship with wildlife and mastery of the outdoors. And next weekend I will set out into to the wilderness again.