A Morning Person's Observations #2

In Defense of Spiders

If you don't like them, don't come and visit me.  They are everywhere.  Under the sink in the bathroom, by the trash can in the kitchen, over the doorway to the back patio.  Some of them have spindly little legs and look as gentle as Daddy Long Legs.  Some of them are stocky, striped, and remind me of the Wolf Spiders at Fraser we would trap in buckets, equally harmless in my opinion, but ferociously designed.

My love for living creatures is based heavily on their ability to deplete the environment of mosquitoes.  The more mosquitoes something eats, the more I love it.  Which is why I don't get a creepy feeling around spiders anymore.  I have boundaries with them.  They are allowed in my room, but not in my bed, so anytime they are over or next to my bed they are caught in a cup and removed outside.  They also are allowed in the bathroom, but not in the shower, and go through the same removal process when found there.  I usually do this with grace, but I must admit I can think of at least three times when the spider I have removed seemed big and fierce enough to me that the cup and paper were dropped in the lawn and I ran back inside and closed the door between me and the Aragog (the cup and paper were retrieved the next morning).

For the most part though, spiders are friends.  The trickiest boundary I have had to navigate with them recently has been related to the hammock.  While walking up the steps to the clearing where the hammock lays, both hands full with my tea and cereal, I usually feel a bit of web on my face or hands.  One day, it goes too far.  I walk directly into a spider web and see the culprit scuttling on the belly of my T-shirt.  A lot of tea was sacrificed to the earth, and the spider was flung unceremoniously, but I am hoping harmlessly, as well.

I would like a clear shot to the hammock from the back door, but I always feel wrong messing with spiders outside, since that's their home and I should be the one to adjust the boundaries.  For now, I have gotten better about double checking and maneuvering around the webs, and the spiders have gotten a bit better at building up higher, out of head reach, at least for someone who is 5'2.

Little dreamcatchers

So we figure out how to co-exist, and I take my place in the hammock for a morning sit spot.  Spiders are magical to me, the way the longer you sit in one spot, the more webs start popping into view, seeming to materialize from nothing.  I remember talking to my childhood friend, Mariam, about her Islamic faith.  She told me a story about Muhammad (peace be upon him) being persecuted by a group of angry people.  He hid inside a cave, and a spider spun a web over the entrance, protecting him.  I think about this story as I lay in the hammock and count more and more spider webs surrounding me.  The spider webs are dreamcatchers, trapping all the negative energy in the world, keeping bad thoughts and feelings at bay.

Listening to the Chickadees, I find an additional surprise for the sit spots: slugs mating on the first step up to the clearing with the hammock!

A Morning Person's Observations #1

6/12/2012 - First naturalizing in Queen Anne

I heard them this morning, the chickadees!  I'm glad they live on this side of Lake Union too.

slug trail, look close!

As I sip my tea, I look between my feet and see a slug trail that went all over a plant by the back stoop, but the slug was nowhere to be seen.  I hope to find it one day.

There is a gentle coolness in the air, temperature is the low 60s.  It's dry, but feels fresh.  There are partial clouds in the sky.  Basically, Seattle before the Fourth of July.  If I was in D.C. I would swear it was fall and not summer.  My new sit spot is on the back step, below Raffaela's (upstairs roommate) porch, so it's shaded and tucked away in the forest of our backyard.

The chickadees make their namesake noise for me again.  I can hear them and many others, but I can't see any of them yet.  I'm the new kid on the block, and they're not sure if they're ok with me coming out to play.

6/13/2012 - Familiarizing with the neighbors

I was lucky enough to look between my feet, and see the slug this morning!  Somehow it is the ugliest and cutest slug I've ever seen, all at once.

Some of the birds emerged this morning, just for a moment.  I vainly assumed they had come to see me, that after two days I had become a consistent, reliable, and safe presence.  Then I heard Raffaela by the side stairs to her flat.  They had come over because they had been disrupted elsewhere.  Still, once they saw me they seemed curious.  They were probably a type of sparrow.  What one of my college professors, Jay Roberts, would call LBJs (Little Brown Jabbers).  Their brown feathers were a dark, rich brown.  The tail feathers were long and royal looking.

I notice some of the flora characters this morning.  A few Bracken ferns, a Maple tree, Big Leaf I believe.  A few other species I'll need to identify later.  And the familiar morning glory with its beautiful white flowers, crawling all over the horsetail fern with a King Midas touch, choking the life out of anything it comes across.

In the coming weeks, my roommates and I all leave for two weeks, and we return to find Raffaela's bike under the outside stairs, covered in Morning Glory!

6/14/2012 - Nesting Ninja

One of the LBJs made an appearance today, third day in a row and it seemed willing to tolerate me.  The bird looked like a wren to me.  Tiny body with a long, elegant tail sticking straight up.  A white headband cuts across the eyes, making me think of a ninja.

Ninja wren nest

Ninja wren picked up some fluff that looked like dandelion bits.  It shook them against the ground, dusting them with dirt.  I still find it funny the way birds move, such twitchy little creatures.  Ninja wren went to deposit its nest materials in a hole between the house and Raffaela's porch.

I notice today that one of the ferns is bracken, but the other one looks more like Spiney Wood Fern.

6/20/2012 - Naturalizing at Green Lake

I've been staying at Chris' all week, dog-sitting Denali while Chris and everyone are in the backcountry for staff training.  We sat on the front steps this morning, Denali in front of me, just in case the couple across the street walking their toddler tried to attack me (he has some neurotic wolf guarding tendencies).

I've heard naturalists say don't try to do a sit spot with a dog.  This advice makes sense, but I do also like the different dynamics you observe sitting outside with a dog.  The flies were swarming because of a present Denali had dropped in the front yard yesterday that I hadn't cleaned up yet.  The bees also swung by, particularly interested in the purple flowers Ally (Chris' roommate) had planted.  They had giant pouches of pollen hanging off of either side of their abdomen!

E.J. found a dead honeybee once, with a honey bubble still attached to its leg.  She put it in a tiny, clear box, in her car, and I could stare at that bee for hours and the bubble that still hasn't popped.

I try to make my morning sits only about observing, leave the stresses of the world for later, but I can't help but think about all the bees that are dying, and wonder what a world without honey, or pollinated flowers, would be like.

A robin perches on a telephone wire and sends out a call twice.  The robin's ears must be better than mine, because after the second call, the robin flies over George's (the landlord who lives next door) house, presumably to find someone who had answered the call.

Denali and I are done sitting, so we head out on our walk.  We see the rabbits he chased once when I let him off leash in a field before noticing them.  That experience must not have left a lasting impression for the rabbits, or maybe they recognize that he's on a leash, but either way, they barely scooch away as he lunges for them and tries desperately to break my hold.

I head back to my house to get ready for work.  As I sit on the corner of Dexter and Westlake waiting for the 30 to take me to the Seattle Center, the top grass and hay layer beside the bus bench starts throbbing, like a vampire digging through a grave (I watched an episode of Buffy last night), or a critter trying to break the surface (more likely).  The bus comes before I can see what comes out of there.