Restore the College Spring!

The College Spring has suffered from neglect for many years, but recent events have endangered its existence. If you care about the spring, let the folks in Montgomery Hall know why it is important to you.
In the years before the founding of New Concord, when the area was nothing more than a small gathering of farms known as the Findlay settlement, the natural spring served as a source of fresh water for residents. It continued to be used that way for much of the 19th century.
The Muskingum College Class of 1914 paid for the construction of the plaza and walls, including a high-spraying fountain at the center of the plaza. In the many years before the development of the quad, the College Spring was an important meeting place for the campus community. Poetry and dramatic readings were regularly scheduled there.

In the early 1920s, when the College recent a visit from President Warren G. Harding, the College Spring was the site of the ceremony in which the college bestowed upon him an honorary doctorate.

After the development of the Quad, the Spring was no longer a focal point for the College, but remained a place where faculty could teach a class on a nice day, and in the evening a quiet place to which young couples might go to escape the campus hub-bub.
In recent decades, the Spring has been neglected and forgotten. Some geologic forces shifting in the hillside have slowed stream of water. The old walls of the plaza began to press inward and crack under the weight of the slowly shifting hill. The fountain was dismantled and filled in with muck and mud years ago. The concrete floor of the plaza is cracked and uneven, and the overflow trickle from the spring pond runs across the concrete. It has been dying a slow, creeping death.

The Spring remains, however, one of the best places in town to catch frogs and tadpoles.

In recent years, many students have been unaware of the College Spring's existence. But those who have discovered it appreciate its space, and want to restore it. In the last five or six years, students groups have gone down to the spring periodically to clean it up and to plant flowers.
Recent events--which I confess I don't completely understand--have put the Spring in jeopardy. Some kind of underground obstruction has blocked the flow of water, creating a sinkhole on the hill above, and causing te ground to shift even more, pressing down on the already compromised brick walls.

The College Physical plant has taken some emergency actions to stop the collapse. They have torn up the hedges that lined the wall, and filled in the sinkholes (and the original fountain pool) with large rocks. But the Spring, as you can see, looks absolutely horrible. And it is unclear as to whether these stopgap measures will succeed in keeping the hillside from collapsing into the Spring.

What appears to be needed is a plan for stabilizing the hillside, and then a complete reconstruction of the plaza and walls. Hopefully, the "Class of 1914" keystone can be saved and placed in the new walls.

The challenge of course, is how to find money to do this when the College has many other important and expensive building projects going on. If you care about the Spring, and have some consructive ideas about how to save it, let me know. It would be ashame to see this quiet retreat--and important part of the College's history--disappear.

Mushrooms

It's August, and Mushrooms are popping out all over!

May Apples

It is late July at the Reservoir, and with it comes a cycle of hot humid days, occassionally punctuated with thunderstorms. The rain has come frequently enough to green the grass which had browned during two months of drought. The dryness had done nothing to slow the growth of grasses, berry canes, multiflora rose, which were beginning to reclaim the trail, so in lieu of a band of enthusiastic volunteers, I loaded the mower into the back of the Subaru, and pushed it one lap around the pond. The mowing was not without excitement. I managed to disturb a nest of yellow jackets who swarmed about me and chased me for fifty yards down the path. I somehow managed to escape with only two stings, so after giving the bees some time to calm down, I reclaimed the mower and continue around the pond.

Later that day I returned with my dogs and my pruners, to walk another lap around, cutting back any stray cane and rose that had invaded the path. The dogs were excited to run and explore, and did their best to make sure they collected as many burrs as possible. Just as we got to the north bridge, the sky began to rumble and the rain came down--fast and fierce. I picked up our pace to a jog, then a run, with all three dogs right underfoot, seeming to think that if they kept right up against me they might get some shelter from the rain. The lightning flashes and thunderbolts made the trip back quite un-nerving, and with each clap I was reminded that people DO in fact get struck by lightning--as my father did just two weeks ago. By the time we got back to the car, we were all soaked to the bone, and the smell of wet dog still permeates the car days later.

Yesterday before venturing out I checked the radar, and took just one companion, our Cairn Terrier Chris. As we circled the reservoir we could hear the regular slap of the beaver's tail. He is getting bolder and does not seem to be making much of an effort to hide his presence these days. Chris was in a particularly adventurous mood, and decided to take a walk out on a narrow tree where turtles frequently perch. He managed to execute this balancing act with great dexterity, having no trouble turning around at the far end. Proud of himself, he set out for a second trip, and over-confidence got the better of him. He slipped off the log and disappeared completely underwater briefly. When his head reappeared, dog-paddling frantically, he looked a bit like a wet rat. With some coaxing and encouragement, he managed to make it back to dry land.

On the eastern side of the Reservoir we came across a field of may apples. The two umbrella-like leaves of each plant, which float about a foot above the forest floor, were withered and yellowing, but below them the single may apples were growing and ripening. The may apple is a plant frequently commented upon by early European explorers, who were obsessed with identifying the fruits of the new lands they explored. The English word "fruitful" has multiple meanings: abundant, plentiful, productive, and healthy being just a few. For Europeans, the presence of fruit implied the promise of easy and Eden-like living. The absence of fruit produced doubts about the land's potential to create wealth and sustain populations. So as the explorers moved into lands unknown to them, in their journals they constantly commented on the exploitable natural resources of the land, but were especially interested in the presence of fruit. Grains, vegetables and meat might be the foundations of sustainable life, at its meanest level; fruit represented life a step above mere survival. Fruit brought sweetness and joy to living. Fruit that was abundant and could be plucked straight from the plant and consumed--with almost no labor involved--was a decadent luxury. So the discovery of wild fruits in the new land was embraced as a sign of its promise. Beyond berries, however, the New World suffered a deficit, in comparison to the Old, in the realm of luxuriant, natural sweets. The American crab apple was a poor cousin to the endless varieties of cultivated old world apples; pears and peaches were old world fruit; the new world had a few varieties of small wild plums.

The May apple was abundant, so European explorers often commented on it. About the size of a lime, the fruit is greenish yellow. Some explorers called it a citron or a wild lemon. One rather optimistic English explorer declared that it tasted "like apricocks." In fact all parts of the plant except the fruit are poisonous, and even the fruit has been known to cause diarrhea. Although some whites called it the "indian apple" it doesn't appear that Indians found it too desirable. Another common name is "hog apple," and botanist Asa Gray described it as "slightly acid, mawkish, eaten by pigs and boys." Indeed, there is not too much of the may apple worth eating. Inside its glossy rind is mostly air, some stringy pulp, and some seeds.

I was nonetheless surprised after searching Thoreau's writings that I could not find a single passage on the May Apple. Certainly Thoreau would have encounted this plant, and could not have passed it by without close inspection. And for Thoreau, a botanical study was never complete until you had not simply viewed, touched and smelled the item, but tasted it too. I suspect that somewhere in his writings he does comment on the May Apple, perhaps using an alternative name for the fruit.

If you'd like to follow in the footsteps of the early European explorers, and see if the may apple does indeed taste "like apricocks," now is your chance. Head to your local forest, and seek out the may apple. They will generally be found in large colonies, rather than as solitary plants, so they should not be hard to spot.

Catching up

As many folks have reminded me, there was much silence on the blog for the last month. That is not the result of lack of interest or lack of time spent at the Reservoir, but just plain old busy-ness. Add to that a broken digital camera, and several weeks spent away from New Concord, and what you get is a missing month. I did managed to get a few pictures from the late May nature walk hosted by Biologists Dr. Danny Ingold and Robin Densmore. Above is a picture of a water snake we found sunning itself on the old east bridge. Below is a more remarkable sight--an Eastern Painted Turtle discovered in the middle of egg-laying. The turtes come ten yards or so up from the water , dig a hole, and lay their eggs. If you see disturbed mounds of earth not far from the water in mid- to late spring, be careful not to tromp on them. Many of these eggs are uncovered by raccoon and other varmints before they ever hatch. But given the explosion in the population of Eastern Painted Turtles in the Reservoir in the last few years, many are managing to hatch and make it safely back to the water.

Have the Beaver Returned?

Last night Liam and I took the kayaks to the Reservoir for an evening paddle. We arrived about 8 PM and it was still quite light. A father and a little boy floated lazily in an inflatabe boat, fishing line extended into the water. Two skinny shirtless pre-teens were casting lines from the dock. It is rare these days that I arrive at the reservoir and find it empty of people. We launched our boats and paddled toward the quieter north end. Small bass and bluegill were visible in the shallows along the shoreline. It hasn't rained in quite awhile, so the visibility was high. I scooped up a few old beer bottles resting in the mud in the shallows. We heard a fairly loud splash, and I thought it must be one of the large grass carp who idle around the north end. Still, it seemed a sound too energetic for these slothful ones, who generally only demonstrate any energy when startled by a floating kayak overhead. A young couple arrived, holding hands and laughing, and headed out around the trail. Just as they appeared on the west bridge, another loud splash sound occurred. The startled young woman asked her boyfriend "What was that!" "Someone threw a rock." Was his reply. "No, I think it was a grass carp," I replied from the water, "there are some big ones out here." But I was having my doubts. Liam was across the lake, nearer to the splash. "That wasn't a beaver tail slap, was it?" I asked him. "Yeah Dad, I think it was. I was following his head across the water, and then he splashed and disappeared.

Could the beaver really be back? And was this a good thing or a bad thing? Seven years ago, a family of very industrious beavers appeared at the reservoir and in short order began down taking down some sizeable hardwoods. The village finally decided to hire someone to trap them. The signs of their presence are still visible. The gnaw marks around girdled dead trees. The numerous deadfalls extending from shore into the water, the distinctive beaver-chewed stumps that appear along the trailside, and a large pile of smaller sticks and branches that guarded the mouth of their lodge. Their presence was not entirely destructive. The trees they felled into the water have provided protection of fish and easily accessible sunning spots for the turtle population, which has exploded in recent years.

Liam and I paddled past the old beaver lodge, which had dwindled away over the years. But it appeared to be more substantial again, and amidst the many branches were the beavers' marks had long since blackened, there appeared to be several freshly cut or gnawed branches. Were these simply discards cut and torn with my rusty old loppers and tossed toward the water by someone on the trail clearing team, or were they the work of a beaver? We paddled to the north end, turned our boats around, and floated silently, watching the surface of the water, as twilight approached. A three-quarters-full moon kept it light well past 9 oclock. As we watched and waited the chorus of birds and frogs grew louder, and the distant sounds of the interstate were drowned out. It was such a great experience waiting, listening and watching, that I wasn't really sure I WANTED to spot a beaver. I liked the idea of the possibility of a beaver--the unconfirmed rumor of a beaver--more than the certainty of one. Just as surely as the POSSIBILITY of an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in the swamps of eastern Arkansas has more allure than irrefutable photographic evidence of one would ever have, the idea that MAYBE the beaver had returned to the Reservoir had great appeal. Plus, there was the problem. If I KNEW there was a beaver, would I have to tell Village manager John Huey, so that they might hire someone to trap this one? There have been so many other signs of increasing wildlife diversity at the reservoir in the last seven years--the arrival of Kingfishers and Green Heron, the explosion in the number and variety of turtle species--it was nice to see the return of the beaver, perhaps the only creature besides man who consciously works to alter its environment to suit its needs.

Forty five minutes of watching, waiting and listening produced no new sightings, and no more loud splashes. Liam paddled south toward the docks, and I lingered a little longer, thinking his movement might startle a beaver we just couldn't see. Half way back to the dock, I spotted him. I followed silently until the alarmed beaver let go with the tell-tale slap of the tale before diving under water. From the size of his head and tail, it appears to be a very young one. Perhaps a male who recently arrived cross-country from a too-crowded beaver pond nearby, ready to start a new home and family. Liam had indeed spotted the first returning beaver in seven years! We paddled back to the dock and loaded up the boats. The skinny boys playing on the dock were eager to show us the tiny snapping turtle they caught on their line.

I returned for an early morning paddle to see if I could spot him again, and did. I brought the digital camera, but it is acting up, and I need to get a new one. I think I'll keep the beaver's presence quiet for awhile. The turtles could use a few more perching logs.

May at the Reservoir

I've been so busy lately that I have had only a few occassions to go out to the Reservoir, and even fewer to write about it. An alternating pattern of sunny and rainy days has created an explosion of greenery. Unfortunately, this has made me a slave to my yard--mowing, weeding, mulching, planting and pruning, not driven by hopes of having a prie-winning yard, but rather by fear of offending my neighbors by having the most unkempt one. Yard work is tyranny, and I get little satisfaction out of three or four hours spent doing it. Any sense of accomplishment is overwhelmed by the realization of how many big, impossible yard projects are not yet begun. My neighbors, mostly retirees, are fastidious yard keepers. They approach the task with religious discipline, devoting the nicest part of every day to the tasks at hand. I, on the other hand, would rather be out on a run, a bike ride, or woods walk, or a paddle around the reservoir. I can find endless enjoyment in a half day spent trail benching or cutting back multiflora rose, but walking in straight lines behind a mower drives me batty, and pulling the tap root of a dandelion just reminds me how many more of these devils are in my yard than in my neighbors. I suppose it is the social expectations of yard work that make it so unenjoyable. Clearing trail is USEFUL and anonymous work. Strangers will appreciate your efforts without knowing who you are, and will not judge you for missing a raspberry cane or failing to clear a deadfall. They will simply duck under or step over it. No one is keeping score.

The Reservoir these days is busy and beautiful. The trees are leafing out and wildflowers are in abundance. White and pink trillium adorn the landscape in some areas. A dozen other wildflowers I cannot name, in yellows, whites, lavenders, blues, and reds, are making their appearance. Painted turtles adorn every log along the shoreline. Snakes sunning along the trail or on the bridges quickly slither away as they hear you approach. The trees and sky are filled with birds: red-wing blackbirds, kingfishers, green heron, woodpeckers, and high up above red-tailed hawks and turkey vultures.

People are abundant, too. In my ten years in New Concord, I have never seen so many people using the reservoir. Today when Liam and I took the dogs out for a walk, a family was fishing along the south end. Two college students--a young couple--arrived with fishing poles and took up a position along the grassy east bank. Bluegill were abundant and visible in the shallows. Further up the east side, a mother and a toddler walked along the trail at the water's edge. On the north end, we came across another couple wading in ankle deep water. They were looking for turtles. I didn't know them, but they had the "look" of seasoned naturalists, so I stopped briefly to ask them what they were finding. They had found a few spiny softshell turtles--a species I regularly see while kayaking local rivers, but did not know was present in the Reservoir. I asked them if there were any snappers in the pond, and they replied yes, there was indeed a fairly large one who lived at the north end. A few days ago while I was out at the reservoir, I saw a very large turtle disappear beneath the surface and wondered if it were a snapper. After describing the turtle and the place I saw it, the young naturalist told me it was almost certainly a snapper.

When we returned to the car, there were six cars in the lot. A mother and a toddler were lying on their bellies, heads hanging over the edge of the dock, peering into the water. A younger toddler sat nearby in a baby stroller, holding a long stick, pretending to fish with it. It was great to see so many people enjoy this place. Tomorrow morning I leave with twelve students and another professor on a twelve day Civil War tour of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. By the time I get back, I expect the trail will need some tending to, as greenery rises up and tries to reclaim it. I'll gather a few people for a quick trail clearing session, to get ready for a scheduled nature walk being led by a College biology professor on my birthday.

Afternoon on the Water

After work today I loaded the kayak on the car and headed out to the reservoir to get some time on the water. I had not had a chance to paddle the boat since I installed a new seat and some knee braces. I was eager to see how these additions affected the boat's handling, but also just to get out on the water on only the second nice day in a few weeks. After a quick sprint to the north end, I doubled back at a more leisurely pace, keeping an eye out for wildlife along the shoreline. The first thing I spied was a Canada goose sitting on her nest in the grass along the shore. She was not happy to see me, and kept her head low to the ground, but her eyes firmly on me, and I floated by and snapped a few pictures.

At the north end dozens of turtles were soaking in the sun from log perches. Typically the turtles scatter quickly as my boat approaches, but this brave soul decided that the sun felt too good and his perch was just too nice to be abandoned by the approach of me. Even after the bow of my boat bumped his log, he held his ground. After soaking in the scenery for awhile, I headed back to the car. As I pulled my boat ashore, a few members of the track team headed out on the trail, and gave a thumbs up review of the new bridges when they completed their lap.

Stags, Phi Taus, Ulster, MACE, and Football players

It has been a hectic few weeks, with lots of crummy weather getting in the way of completing the bridge building around the reservoir. Last Thursday the Phi Taus came through with ten volunteers, but the bridges weren't ready, so instead we did some trail benching in the rain. Last Friday the Village crew told me that they had completed two of the small bridges and wanted me to go with them to drop them as close to their final resting places as possible. I had a two hour window between a meeting with the Ohio Humanities Council and our annual scholarship day ceremony, dashed home, threw on some muddy jeans, a t-shirt and my muddy boots, and met the crew out at Carol Emerson's house. We dropped the smaller of the two bridges in her backyard, then drove across McCall's farm fields and left the larger one on the edge of his field about 100 yards up hill from its final resting place. Then it was back to the house, back into respectable clothes, an on with the doctoral robe to line up for the scholarship ceremony. Scholarship day is one of my favorite Muskingum College traditions, because every year after we process in, we sing the "God of" song. The song's real title is "God of Wisdom, Truth and Beauty," sung to Beethoven's Ode to Joy, but we like to call it the "God of" song because those words are repeated so many times throughout the song:

God of wisdom, truth, and beauty, God of spirit, fire, and soul,
God of order, love, and duty, God of purpose, plan, and goal:
Grant us visions ever growing, breath of life, eternal strength,
Mystic spirit, moving, fl owing, fi lling height and depth and length.

God of drama, music, dancing, God of story, sculpture, art,
God of wit, all life enhancing, God of every yearning heart:
Challenge us with quests of spirit, truth revealed in myriad ways,
Word or song for hearts that hear it, sketch and model – forms of praise.

God of atom’s smallest feature, God of galaxies in space,
God of every living creature, God of all the human race:
May our knowledge be extended, for the whole creation’s good,
Hunger banished, warfare ended, all the earth a neighborhood.

God of science, history, teaching, God of futures yet unknown,
God of holding, God of reaching, God of power beyond each throne:
Take the fragments of our living, fi t us to your finest scheme,
Now forgiven and forgiving, make us free to dare and dream.

It is little traditions like this one that make me feel connected to this place.

We had miserable weather all weekend, but on Monday eight members of the Stag club came through and carried the bridges and put them in place. It was indeed a chore, but the Stags embraced the challenge. Tuesdy morning six football players arrived at the reservoir promptly at 8 AM, and hauled lumber, tools, and a generator out to the last bridge build site. Corey and Matt worked all day on the bridge, and at the end of the day the heavy generator needed to be hauled out of the woods. I managed to recruit two strapping members of the MACE club, who took turns pretending they were in a strong man contest, hauling it about a 100 yards a turn until we got it to their jeep. On the way back to town, we passed the track team out for their afternoon run, and told them the bridges were done. They added a lap around the trail to their run. This project has consumed most of my free time for the last month, required the help of village workers, football players and four different fraternities, but it is done at last. Katie and I celebrated later that evening by taking a walk around the reservoir with the dogs, coming home and popping open a beer.

Getting ready for the Second Bridge Build

It is Easter weekend, and we seem to have taken a momentary diversion from Spring. After temperatures reached into the low 80s on last Tuesday's bridge building day, a cold front plunged through the area, bringing nightime temps into the teens or twenties. We should begin a slow stead warmup this week. Our next bridge building day is scheduled for Tuesday. This west side bridge will span a deep swampy gully. Our make-do solution has been to throw a number of dead trees across it. Hikers need to carefully tread across these at the risk of twisting an ankle or slipping into the mud. Once we get this one built, trail access will be dramatically improved. The last two small bridges span creeks that are fairly easily crossed on makeshift board and log bridges. The biggest challenge once again will be getting the lumber to the site. I think we can get it most of the way there on a Gator or 4-wheeler, but it will have to be carried the last 250 yards. I borrowed a chainsaw this weekend in order to clear a few deadfalls that came down across the path this winter. Liam and I headed out this morning to get this task done before next Tuesday's bridge build. We encountered our friends and new neighbors, Phil and Amy, who came out for a morning walk to check out the bridge. They were excited to see it in place. Phil has been working with me on the trail since the beginning, and he was the one who came up with the design for the bridges, and put together the estimates of the lumber needed. But he's a little busy these days--he and amy just bought a house in our neighborhood and moved in last weekend. They are expecting their first child in a few weeks, and Phil is graduating from College in less than a month. All of this meant that Phil was unable to come out for the first bridge build day. We nonethless couldn't have done it without him. The village crew followed his plans and they worked perfectly.

It was a cold and gray morning, but after getting the chainsaw started it began to snow. The snow fell steadily for about a half an hour, and then as quickly as it came on, the sky cleared, the sun came out, and the snow event was over. Snow covered the green leaves emerging on spring's early bloomers, and weighted down the many spider's webs that had gone up in the last week. It was a beautiful spring day.

Here's a picture of the next bridge building site:

Here I am clearing deadfalls from the path:

A view of the lake decorated in April snow:

A view of the east side trail from the west side. The white line of snow marks the trail: A spider's web covered in snow:

The east side grove of pines in the snow:

New Concord's New North Bridge

Last week I was hit hard by the flu. I'm still suffering the aftermath, sleeping in my easy chair because lying flat on my back brings on coughing fits. And I get winded easily. All week long as I fretted about all the things I needed to get done but couldn't get done. Even on Sunday night, while I was clearly on the mend, I could't get more than two or three hours of uninterrupted hours of sleep before another coughing fit came on. Monday morning I awoke early and headed into the office to begin to play catch up. The short walk to campus left me sweating and out of breath. The phone rang as soon as I sat down. It was Village manager, John Huey. "Good Morning, Bil, are you ready to build a bridge tomorrow? The Village crews are at the lumber yard getting supplies and will be ready to go. How about 8 AM?" What spun through my head was this "No. It would be insane to do it tomorrow. You are in no shape to be lugging lumber through the woods. The army of student volunteers you've worked to recruit seems to have gone AWOL. They haven't returned your calls or emails. This is a disaster in the making. If you build this tomorrow, they might as well call it the Bil Kerrigan Memorial Bridge, because it will kill you." This was immediately followed by another thought: "You've been working toward this bridge build for two years. You've spent endless hours navigating the various interest groups and bureacracies, planning, lining up volunteers and materials. It is going to be sunny and in the seventies on Tuesday. On Wednesday the forecast was for thunderstorms, plunging temperatures, and the return of snow. If not tomorrow, then never." The words that came out of my mouth were "You betcha, John! We'll be there, ready to go!"

I was now committed, and had less that 24 hours to pull things together. But things looked bleak. And before I could do anything, there was that little problem of my paying job. I actually had to run off and teach some actual classes before I could start tackling this one. All the signs the rest of the day told me that my leap of faith would be rewarded. When I returned from class I had a message from the football team. They would have a half doen volunteers there. An hour later, a message from the Ulster fraternity--they'd have guys there, too.

Last night I slept for six straight hours, and awoke not fully refreshed, but a little bit stronger. The volunteers and village crew workers Corey and Steve arrived on time. They were pulling a trailer with what appeared to be enough lumber on it to build a modest-sized home. Thankfully, this was the material needed for all three bridges, and today we were just building the first of those. We met at the home of a friend and fellow kayaker. The bridge site was at the far north end of the reservoir loop trail, and we decided bush whacking through the woods and down the hollow behind her house would shorten our haul. Still, it would take many trips up and down a fairly steep hill, through woods without a trail, rapidly filling with this spring's edition of thorny multiflora rose. From the labored breathing of he football players, I'd say it rivalled or exceeded their typical practice workout. As we hauled lumber and materials, Korey and Steve and a few skilled students set to the work of planting posts and framing out the bridge. It went up remarkably quickly. I managed to put a tear in my jeans that ran from my fly to my knee. That crazy professor kept on working with his underwear exposed to the crowd! By noon it was finished, and our only problem was that we had in fact carried TOO MUCH lumber to the site, and would have to haul some back, plus the generator, tools, and other village materials.

I had to run off to shower for an important meeting with the College President. And all but two of my student volunteers had gone home. I turned to Eby, a student who is a member of the Ulsters, and had come through with volunteers this morning. Could he get some more guys out here, and finish this off without me? He whipped out his cell phone and started making calls. The Ulsters have fallen on some hard times recently. In fact they have been expelled from their fraternity house, banned from participating in group activities, and from wearing their orange and black Ulster colors. I don't exactly know what misdeeds they have been charged with to bring on these sanctions, and didn't really want to know. I just needed volunteers, and if helping me get bridges built could help the Ulsters redeem themselves with College authorities, it seemed like a win-win opportunity to me. I managed to get special dispensation from the Student Life authorities to allow the Ulsters to participate in the bridge build, "unofficially and not as Ulsters." If that's what we need to call it, fine. I plan to write a letter to the Dean and President praising the Ulsters for coming through on this project, and urging them to consider their volunteer spirit when determining their ultimate fate. And in the end, Eby and the Ulsters DID come though for me. After an afternoon of non-stop meetings, I headed back to the site to make sure everything had been cleaned up. The Ulsters were gone, but had done a remarkable job!

The first of four bridges is now complete! Next Tuesday we'll do the next long bridge, the village crew will construct two smaller bridges in the shop, and I'll get volunteers to carry the small bridges to their locations and set them in place. If weather and everything else cooperates, folks will be able to complete the loop walk around the reservoir without having to leap across or step into any of the creeks that feed it!

It seemed appropriate to dub it New Concord's North Bridge. Not so elegant as it's Concord namesake, but functional nonetheless.

Skunk Cabbage

It was a gorgeous day today. Blue skies and temperatures about 50 degrees. After work I slipped on a shirt, shorts and running shoes and went out to soak it in. Sunday's seven mile run with Peter, the Religion professor, and Jim, another History professor was hard. Both are quite a bit faster than me, and we took a new route with some monster-sized hills. I finished that run sore and demoralized, with rising doubts about whether I'll be ready for the half-marathon in one month.

But today I felt great, and headed down to the National Road, and ran west for a mile or so before turning back and heading to the reservoir. It seemed as if everyone was heading out to the reservoir on a day like this, and there was much to see. Young calves and lambs were in abundance. Turkey Vultures soared on rising thermals. Canada geese splashed down into farm ponds. Barn cats stretched out in the sun, near the shelter of a tractor. As I ran past the White farm, I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned and there I saw a small black lamb racing me along the tops of a long line of hay rolls. As I watched him leap rather gracefully from the top of one to the next it reminded me of Billy Elliot leaping across the rooftops of Birmingham, England. As he reached the end of the line of hay rolls it became clear to me that Billy was not so much racing me as he was runing toward the safety and security of his mother grazing at the other end. It was nonetheless one of those magical running moments.

When I got to the reservoir I took a cool down walk along the earthen dam, then turned around to discover my departmental colleague Jim stretching on a picnic bench. He had been following me down Shadyside road, and had not quite caught up to me on the hill up to the reservoir. We ran back to town together, chatting about the beauty of the day, problem students and great students, office politics, and the upcoming half-marathon. Once we got back into town he headed home and I ran down to the Jitterbug, for my favorite warm weather drink--a Gilligan--iced coffee with a dash of coconut syrup.

It was such a glorious day that when I got home I couldn't stand to remain indoors as long as there was some sunlight left, so I loaded the dogs into the car and we drove them out to the reservoir. The ground was wet and muddy from a week's worth of rain, but it was great day for going off trail and exploring the woods and marshes, as the shrubs and multiflora had not yet had time to take off and fill in the understory. While the dogs busied themselves with getting thoroughly wet and muddy I explored the edges of the marsh, looking for early signs of spring.

Not surprisingly, I found it in the spathes of skunk cabbage. Some were green, some were wine red, and some a mottled mix of both. The largest were already rising about six inches from the floor. The skunk cabbage is usually the first of the spring flowers. The plant actually generates a substantial amount of heat as it emerges from the earth, and can melt the snow when the snow decides to hang around that long. Their pungent smell was not yet noticeable--though I confess I didn't stick my nose right up to it to see if it was there. The skunk cabbage's flowerhead remains sheltered in the "spathe" leaf for most of the plant's annual growth cycle. It was probably the fact that the flowerhead resembled a hooded head that inspired Thoreau to call the skunk cabbage "the hermit of the bog." By May the oldest plants will be three or four feet wide and almost as tall. By July, the leaves dissolve into a slimy mold, and the dried out fruit/flowerhead is left behind as a woody-looking sphere. In this picture, you can see the new flowerhead sheltered inside the spathe, and last year's nut-like dried-out sphere in the foreground.

The environs of the skunk cabbage are where spring really starts. The remarkable amount of heat they generate draws the season's first insects. The skunk cabbage's smell resembles the decaying meat, and attracts the same kinds of insects that are attracted to carrion. Spiders understand the attraction of heat, and often spin webs across the spathe opening, hoping to get their first meal of the season. Beyond its attraction to insects, there are few creatures interested in eating the bitter fruit of the skunk-cabbage. Some early settlers called it "bear-weed" because they noticed that bears seem to like it. About the only other creature willing to try the skunk weed fruit was Henry David Thoreau, whose passion for botanical observation nearly always incorporated not just the use of his senses of sight, touch and smell, but also taste. In his posthumously published calendar "Wild Fruits," Thoreau writes of the skunk cabbage fruit:

When I carry it home my friends can scarcely guess what fruit it is, but think of pine-apples and the like. After being in the house a week, and becoming wilted and softened, it emits, upon being broken open, an agreeable, sweetish scent, perchance like a banana, which suggests that it may be edible. But a good while after I have tasted it, it bites my tongue.

After an hour or so of mucking about in bogs, examining young skunk cabbage plants, it was time to gather my three muddy mutts, load them in the back of the car, and head home. I look forward to many more of these spring days.

Visiting Reed Larrick

Pauli Cornish called me yesterday to tell me she had acquired a copy of the Salt Fork State Park book, and really liked it. I was glad she called, because I had been meaning to call her and had misplaced her number. Pauli is an 80 something year-old dynamo who restored a an old sandstone house sat above the waters at Salt Fork State Park. The Kennedy Stone House is now a museum documenting mid 19th century farm life in the Salt Fork region, and preserving the stories of the many families who once made the parklands their home. Pauli and the Friends of the Stone House museum provided many of the pictures for the Salt Fork book, and we decided to contribute the book royalties to the Kennedy Stone House museum. I wanted to get her a signed copy of the book and take the opportunity to deliver copies to a few other families who shared so many stories and pictures with us.

I was most excited to visit Reed Larrick, a 94 year old bachelor who grew up in the region, and lives alone in a small house just south of the park. We visited Reed several times this summer to hear his stories and view his pictures. And Reed is a great story teller. Unfortunately, some of his stories were so candid that we dare not publish them, for fear of offending other people. Reed's favorite activity in his younger days was raising coonhounds and going coon hunting, and his house is filled with pictures and trophies related to this activity. I snapped this picture of him this summer while he was showing off his gun--a gun he bought at J.C. Penney 75 years ago and has kept in working order ever since. He still ocassionally uses it to shoot groundhogs from his kitchen window.

It had been months since I had visited Reed. I wasn't sure he'd remember me, but he did. In fact, he let me know that he had been waiting for the book for a long time, and it was about he had about given up on it. He had told all his friends and family about it, and they were constantly asking him when it was coming out. I gave him a signed copy, and he was delighted with it. We chatted for about an hour, I took out his trash and brought in his mail. It had been a long winter for Reed, and he had not been outside in months. He told me he had to get about fifteen copies of the book to give to all the friends and family who had been asking about it. At twenty bucks a pop, that was going to cost him a sizeable sum. So when I took the trash out, I got into my trunk and gathered the few extra copies I had and left them on his kitchen table.

I had to get back to campus for some meetings, so I said goodbye, and promised to stop in soon. When I return, I'll bring him a case of his favorite beverage--Mountain Dew. If I'm lucky enough to live into my eighties or nineties, I hope I have the health and energy of Pauli Cornish and Reed Larrick.