Memorial Day with the Lansing Lugnuts

So many years ago, I cannot count them all, I used to go to the baseball game with my dad and brother.  In those days, Los Angeles only had minor league Triple A baseball teams.  I always rooted for the Los Angeles Angels (a farm team of the Chicago Cubs) and my brother rooted for the Hollywood Stars (a farm team of the Pittsburg Pirates).  My brother went on to play catcher on his High School baseball team and went out for baseball his freshman year at Cal.  So baseball is a family thing for me.  Today, we took the girls to minor league baseball game between the hometown Lansing Lugnuts and the Lake County Captains.  It was a beautiful sunny day in the 70’s and the Cooley Stadium stands were one third full.  Our 4th row seats behind 3rd base gave us a really good view of the action.   And there was action right away, the Lugnuts scored 2 runs in the 1st Inning.  Then slowly over the next 3 Innings, the Captains tied it and then went ahead 3-2.  The sun beat down, the game slowed down as baseball does and we strolled the deck where we bought popcorn and cotton candy.  The pitchers changed often, I counted 6 different pitchers for the Lugnuts.  Finally in the bottom of the 8th Inning, the Lugnuts surged and scored 2 runs.  They were ahead, 5-3.  We cheered!  In the top of the 9th, one batter struck out, then the next batter got on base with a walk and scored when the next batter hit a single.  It looked bad.  The runner on first base, stole a base and was on 2nd.  Then he stole another base and was on 3rd, right in front of us in a position to tie the game.  Oh no!  The drama was high!  Then the new pitcher struck out the last two batters and the Lugnuts won!  It was about as exciting as it gets in baseball.   But that’s not all:  walking out a tall craggy gentleman walking along fell in with our group and asked if the girls would like a baseball as a souvenir.  He’d caught it up on the upper deck.  They were pleased and then he told us, he’d been a baseball player, playing for the Yankees.  Bob chatted with him all the way to the car.  Oh, here in the Midwest, they really do Americana well.  Before the game started one singer sang “America the Beautiful,” then a lanky guitarist played the National Anthem.  And in the 7th Inning stretch before “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” another singer belted out “God Bless America.”  We all thought it was a great way to spend Memorial Day.

Ethics in Michigan

We’ve come to E. Lansing, Michigan to watch our growing granddaughters while their parents go to Ireland for a vacation/conference for 10 days.  It always good to be back here, comfortable after being here so many times over the years.  The walls of trees and carpets of grass are such vibrant intense green that I’m always surprised.  I like reading their local paper, “The Lansing Journal” to get a feel for what’s happening around here.  Thursday’s paper had an article that surprised and shocked me.  A friend used to teach a Ethics of Science class at the high school where I taught.  This front page article would be a good one to discuss.   The headlines are “Justices side with religious belief.”  The Michigan Supreme Court ruled it is not child neglect to withhold medical care if parents are doing so because of their legitimate religious beliefs.  It said, “ A Lansing couple is fighting to keep custody of their two oldest children after their 3-day old daughter died of conditions related to jaundice.”  The midwife recommended they take their gravely ill newborn  daughter to get medical treatment but the parents refused because they said “God makes no mistakes.”  Instead they put her in a sunny room, prayed over her as she suffered and died.  After she died they prayed for hours for her resurrection.  I am shocked that religious beliefs supersede the welfare of the child here in Michigan.  It seems wrong and inconsistent for Pro-Life conservatives to let a newborn die, isn’t the life of the child sacrosanct?  What kind of parent can watch a child suffer and die and seek no help?  What kind of sadistic God would do such a thing?  Certainly not one I could believe in!  These days Trump is stacking the courts across the country with conservative judges.  Maybe this is just the tip of the iceberg of what is to come.  I shudder to think of such a country, such a world, shaped by conservative courts.

Post-Trip Thoughts

Home again, the wonderful trip is like a dream.  As I think about why I loved it so much, Mark Pretti is a big part of it. His enthusiasm, skill is finding the birds and stories made the trip for me.  When we  were in a place where there weren’t many birds, it didn’t matter, he’d wax on about plants, insects or reptiles or whatever was in the place where we were.  He was curious.  He cared abut nature and interpreting it to us and that made me care about whatever we were seeing.  What I take away is his seemingly instatible curosity.  I think that is the key.  Being curious and open to learning new things. Our earth and all of its creatures, plants or animals, are amazing.  It is a privilege to learn about all the incredible adaptations of the creatures we saw to enable them to survive.  With such a mind set, anywhere one is, is truly amazing too.  That is the gift of Mark’s trip.  

Day 6 - Hunting and Miracles

This morning started with a quick visit to the garden at Mark’s house in Sierra Vista.  The purpose was to see the resident Western Screech Owl.  All of us were interested to see the owl and to see his garden.  It did not disappoint.  In the half hour or so we were in his native grassland and mesquite garden, we saw 20 different species of birds.  The owl didn’t show his face.  Disappointed, we went back to the van and after we’re all buckled in, Mark’s says, “Let’s have another go at it,” and we all piled out of the van.  This time we were very quiet as approached the juniper tree where the owl’s nesting box is.  The owl was out, peering out of its hole and looking at us.  We all got a kick out of seeing it.  Back in the van, we drove south to nearby Carr Canyon in the Huachuca Mountains.  We’ve been going up canyon after canyon  in these mountains.  We went 6 miles up the steep narrow dirt road to the campground at 7000 feet.  There was a very strong wind when we got out.  I learned in college, not to go birding on a windy day, so I was apprehensive about our prospects.  The wind blew in mighty gusts, but when it let up, we heard, then found birds.  I loved the smell of the pine trees and the crinkly sound as I walked over the pine needles.  We saw a Grace’s Warbler, named by naturalist Elliot Coues in the mid 1800’s for his 18 year old sister, Grace.  Its bright yellow throat stood out in the top of the pine trees as it hopped about.  Then. we drove further up the road to another campground where we set off down the Comfort Trail in single file to the bottom of the canyon.  Here, two miracles happened.  The first was watching the White-throated Swifts that zoomed by in the sky.  They fly very fast, 40 or 50 or even 60 miles an hour.  We came to a stop and were watching them as several flew by.  Mark heard chittering calls between two of them and then saw two of them come together, chest to chest (or really cloaca to cloaca) as they stopped flying and began to fall down, they mated, for just a second and then flew apart.  Mating of the wing at 60 mph seems like a miracle of adaptation to me.  The second miracle was the raptor nest Mark spotted on the wall across the canyon.  He scanned the walls and saw guano and zoomed in and saw a stick nest with two fluff ball chicks in it.  These chicks grow in just 6 weeks after hatching to adult size, never drinking a drop of water in this hot dry desert environment.  Another miracle of amazing adaptation.  Nature astounds me!  We walked down the trail to the bottom of the canyon where our target bird was a Red-faced Warbler.  Mark heard one (the call is “Sweet, sweet, I’m so sweet”) off to our left in the thick deciduous forest of maples, silver-leafed oak and mixed conifers.  There were lots of branches and leaves in the way.  Over time, we hunted and slowly the birds began to show themselves and we got good views!  We thought, they too were in courtship as there were two birds, calling and hopping back and forth close to each other. The female would put out her wings hanging down, a submissive posture and maybe a sign to the male that she was ready.

After we’d all seen enough, we walked back up the trail to the campground and ate a relaxed lunch.  We visited yet another canyon in the late afternoon, Ramsey Canyon, where I was very impressed with the very old sycamore trees - maybe 200-300 years old.  As I enjoyed the calm peaceful atmosphere in the canyon, I began to think about how the world has changed and all that has happened while these trees were standing in this canyon year in and year out.  We saw an Elf Owl nesting in a sycamore tree cavity and learned all about their amazing biology.  Mark is a wonderful naturalist.  When asked by several people how he learned all he knows, he answered:  “Be curious.  Everything has a story.  Everything is connected.”  I’d only add to that great advice, “Look for patterns.”

Day 5 - Fort Huachuca

We spent today exploring nature in two canyons inside Fort Huachuca in Sierra Vista.  First. we rode up a bumpy dirt road into Huachuca Canyon.  We heard the Elegant Trogans calling immediately when we got out of the van in the parking area which was under some big sycamore trees.  I think it was our “target bird” for today.  It is rare and only extends in the US in SE Arizona.  It nests in sycamore tree cavities. We saw both the male and the female with their big colorful bodies flashing red and green with a long square tail.  The pair was “house hunting.”  The males arrived a while ago to  claim their territory.  What makes a good territory from a trogan perspective is one with lots of potential nesting cavities.  The females arrived recently and chooses the male if she likes the cavities he shows her.  We actually saw the birds going in and out of cavities, like a prospective couple choosing their first house.  It is a critical part of their courtship and really neat to see.  We heard them calling to each other —singing their love song.  We saw a pair of sulphur-bellied flycatchers chasing each other around, wood peewees (a kind of flycatcher), Bridled titmice, warbling vireos, tanagers and brown crested flycatchers plus much more.  It was a riotous first hour of birding we spent right in the parking area.  As we walked up the rocky road, we had a good show watching a pair of Painted Redstarts, a very pretty black, white and red warbler.  We watched it spreading its tail and fanning the tree bark on which it was gleaning to flush out the insects.  Mark reads the landscape, telling us about the path of the stream over the last 100 years by where the sycamore trees are growing.  When someone brings him a tiny caterpillar found hanging in the air, he identifies it as a Tiger moth caterpillar then explains how it probably felt a bird jiggling the branch it was on and did a bungee jump escape.  After a while it will crawl back up the silken thread.  The stories endlessly fascinate me and it why I like to go on birding trips with Mark Pretti.  

We got our lunches at Subway in the PX and drove back up Garden Canyon, another nearby canyon in Fort Huachuca, where we ate our sandwiches.  After lunch,

we drove further up to the end of the dirt road into a pine-oak forest at about 6300 feet.  It was slim pickings in the heat of the day on our afternoon walk.  We returned to the hotel after getting our sandwiches for tomorrow’s picnic.  Dinner wasn’t noteworthy.  So it’s early to bed, early to rise for this chickadee.  

Day 4 Evening - Lucifer Hummingbird

Leaving the hotel at 4:20 pm, we drove South to Turkey Track Road, when we turned right and drove up the road into Ash Canyon.  At the end of the road was Ash Canyon Hummingbird Sanctuary our destination.  We left the van with our beers in our pockets and walked into the garden where we saw long lines of lawn chairs and multitudes of bird feeders and many people already there.  We were greeted in hush tones by Mary Jo, the portly owner of the place and Cookie, her parrot.  Since the prime chairs were already occupied, we were ushered to the back area, where we sat down and munched on our burritos and sipped our IPAs as we watched the many birds coming into to have their dinners too.  It was a gourmet cafeteria for the birds.  There were oranges cut in half, mounted on trees, tins of grape jelly, special homemade suet, feeders of Niger seed, feeders of sunflower seeds, a log with holes drilled out and filled with peanut butter, and many, many hummingbirds feeders.  The dinner birds were plentiful with especially beautiful Scott’s Oriole, Black Headed Grosbeaks, spotted towhees and even green tailed towhees making appearances.  Bob thought it was kind of weird, all of us sitting in chairs lined up, hushed and peering off at the feeders.  As the light dimmed we moved closer to where the Lucifer Hummingbird was supposed to make its appearance.  We’d seen Broad-billed, Annas, and even Rivoli’s Hummingbirds, but everyone was here for the the late dusk appearance of the Lucifer’s Hummingbird.  As we sat there, I wrote a poem:
      Waiting for Lucifer
      All the people lined up,
      Bins in hand.
      Feeders full of sugar water.
      We wait.  Everyone hushed and still.
      Here comes a noisy Ladderback Woodpecker,
      Shhhhsh!
      The light is growing dimmer.
      There is a broad-bill glowing a red beak, purple, blue and green.
      We wait...
      There is a settling into evening, all creatures growing still.
      Will Lucifer comes?
Well, they did.  I saw the female, but didn’t see the male.  There were three lines of people in front of me.  I was sorely disappointed.

   

Day 4 - Sierra Vista

We were on the road early on our way East to Sierra Vista driving through beautiful native grasslands on the edge of the Chihuahuan desert when Mark suddenly stopped the van. What had he seen?  This time, he spotted a desert pronghorn with its big black eyes and bent back horns. This ancient animal is truly a survivor.  Its kind survived the Pleistocene extinction and now it’s stuck with a body built to escape a saber-tooth tigers.  Its top speed is 60 mph, but it won’t cross the highway or jump a fence.  It is super rare and hangs out in open grasslands in Arizona.  What a treat to see this wonderful animal.  Not to long after that we pulled off the Highway into Las Cienagas Conservation Area where we got out of the van and looked about to see what was there in the beautiful grassland habitat.  There were occasional low mesquite trees for birds to perch in and soap tree yuccas where many birds make their nests and lots and lots of native bunchgrasses where many sparrows hide out.  We saw an E. Meadowlark with a great big caterpillar, heard, then saw a mockingbird and then a lark sparrow sitting in the middle of the road, as its preference and a grasshopper sparrow in the grass.  At our second stop, one of the young-uns on our trip spotted a Scaled Quail which has become quite rare in the last 10 years due to habitat loss.  Bob stalked the bird and got quite close to it with his long lens.  As we got into Sierra Vista, we saw our first traffic lights since Tucson.  After we did a variety of errands (getting our passes for Ft. Huachuca, buying food for our picnic lunch, putting our bags at the hotel) we did some interesting Urban Birding.  We saw nesting Say’s Phoebe under the awning of a restaurant.  At a failing strip mall, we watched cliff swallows fly in and out of an open covered staircase where they build their mud nests.  I loved seeing the swallows poking their heads out of the nests watching all the acrobatic activity and seeing them hang on the outside of the nests then pull themselves inside.  We had a lovely late picnic lunch at Garden Canyon in Ft. Huachuca.  It was an isolated site with beautiful forest with sycamore, oak and alligator juniper trees and many birds.  After lunch, of course, we had to see what was there.  The by-word among flycatchers must be”let no insect go uneaten” because we saw the little (and very rare) buff-breasted flycatcher building a nest, the medium sized W. Peewee and the big bold Olive-sided flycatcher.  It was exciting to see the Arizona Woodpecker, a milk chocolate brown bird with a beak full of beetle larvae.  THEN, we heard the Elegant Trogan call in the distance and we, of course, had to stalk the bird.  We caught a glimpse of a female but no more.  The consolation was seeing a magnificent Sulfur-bellied Flycatcher.  It looked greenish on the back to me, with a streaked breast and a big rusty tail.  This bird overwinters in the Amazon and comes up here to nest.  The sycamore forest is ideal with all of its many natural cavities.  As we drove out of Ft. Huachuca, Bob called out a sign he saw: “In God we trust, all others need to have 2 copies of risk assessment.”  And we went back to the hotel where we had 20 minutes to settle in and rest before we went out for our evening adventure.

Day 3 - Around Patagonia

Today we spent the day around Patagonia.  In the morning we drove 30 minutes out to Lake Patagonia (a very well vegetated reservoir).  On the way, Mark pulled over and we all piled out of the van and stood in a line with our bins up in the beautiful morning light.   We were looking for the Botteri sparrow, which according to our Sibley Guide is “uncommon and local in extensive dense grass with scattered shrubs.”  Its habitat, range and voice are used to identify the bird, not its field markings.  So, Mark played its call and as if on cue the bird popped up out of the grass and flew up to a mesquite near us.  It is truly a Plain Jane little sparrow.  We drove on to Lake Patagonia where lots of RV’s were camped and two Border Patrol vehicles were parked next to us.  Four agents set off with packs, making us wonder what was up.  We are probably less than 10 miles from the wall that divides Nogales, AZ from Nogales, Mexico.  We walked the shady path through mesquite to the willow forest by the edge of the water.  There were some fresh water birds -a great blue heron, nootropic cormorants, coots and so on.  The cattails were thick and there were signs of cattle everywhere.  As we came to a clearing, Mark pointed out the hundred or maybe thousands of tiny gnats flying around.  They were lit up by the sun and the air was thick with them.  They are all males, he told us, waiting around for some females to come by.  When the females appear, the males get very active swirling in fast moving vortices and the females choose the male they like.  It is an example of sexual selection.  Who knew?  We watched many tiny Blue Mariner butterflies sipping minerals from the wet mud.  We studied cow pies with all the flies and beetles on them.  And of course there were many birds.  We saw the Dusky Capped Flycatcher and learned that here in SE Arizona is the only place in the US to see it.  Even though it isn’t that rare, I’m always thrilled to see the Vermillion Flycatcher.  We heard bullfrogs that have wiped out all the fish and frogs in the reservoir.  I was asked by one of the participants if I’d kill the bullfrogs?  Of course I answered, “it depends,” but I’m still wondering what I’d do.

We stopped at a locally famous birding spot - The Patagonia Roadside Rest Area - where we were looking for the Thick billed Kingbird.  We found it perched on the very top of a high tree.  Mark said there are probably fewer than 20 of these birds in the whole US.  What was interesting is there is a phenomena among birders known as the Patagonia Rare Bird Effect.  What happened was that the word got out that a rare bird could be seen at this particular Roadside Rest Area and as birders came to see it, they also spotted other rare birds.  

Lunch was super delicious at the local bakery.  And after we did the bird list, we had a couple of hours free.  We strolled through a couple of local art shops and then Bob set out to find the local blacksmith whose work he admired at the B and B and at the Velvet Elvis Pizzeria last night.  I took a nap.

In the late afternoon, we headed out to Harshaw Canyon Road, a beautiful sycamore and oak canyon with red rock mountains towering over it and a stream running through it. It was a pleasure to walk along in the shade of the late afternoon.   The big excitement was spotting a Black Phoebe nest in a cave in the crumbling rocks.  We watched as the two babies flew in and out of the nest.  Mark was excited because it is very rare to find Black Phoebes nesting not attached to human habitation.  It was a lovely relaxing day.  And oh yes, Bob found the blacksmith and had a wonderful time chatting about metalworking and admiring the guy’s work.   

Day 2 - Madera Canyon and Beyond

The storm arrived in the night with lightning, thunder and lots of rain.  In the morning, the air smelled to me of animals.  I imagined wet javelinas in the wash.  Mark said it was the smell of the first summer rain on the dry dry grass.  It is very unusual, we are told, for it to rain in May in Arizona.  After a huge breakfast, served at 6 AM, we went back to the pond we’d seen the previous afternoon.  It began to pour, raining harder and harder until it was hailing.  We stayed in the van, marveling over the many swallows flying low over the pond and sitting on the wire but before too long we fled the rain, driving south to Tubac where we found lush habitat by the Santa Cruz River bed—willow, cottonwood, mesquite, elderberry and lots and lots of birds.  We spotted a flock of cedar waxwings feeding in a tall mulberry tree on the juicy ripe berries.  There were more than a dozen different kinds that came to the tree, delicious eye candy, that kept us peering into the tree for more than an hour.  As we left, we were serenaded by white winged doves calling “who, who, who” —the sound of summer in Arizona.

The sky became lighter to the north, so we headed to Madera Canyon in the Santa Rita Mountains.  We walked up a paved trail up the Canyon, with the sound of a burbling creek nearby. As desert scrub changed to sycamore, oak, juniper forest, we learned about many plants (always a treat for me).  We spotted a beautiful Bridled titmouse with a big fat caterpillar in his mouth and watched as he flitted here and there until he popped in his nest cavity in a tall tree.  Because he didn’t eat the bug himself right away, we knew he was feeding young in the nest.  There were many wildflowers which I had to photograph.  I very much appreciated that all the plants, including all the grasses, are native here.  The squirrel tail grass was golden glowing as it swayed in the breeze.  At the top of the trail was a picnic area where we ate our lunch.  As we finished, we could feel the air change, the breeze pick up and by the time we were all in the van, a torrential downpour began.  We drove to the next site, the Lodge, and sat in the van waiting for the rain to stop.  It didn’t.  It even began to snow, so we went on to our next adventure which was a drive across a dirt road over the crest of the Mountains.  Bumping along, Mark suddenly stopped and we all got out.  He’d heard a bird singing.  It was a 5-striped Sparrow, a very rare bird found only occasionally in S. Arizona.  Though the weather was dramatic, windy, cold, with spattering of rain, we all got many good views of this rare bird.  It was exciting.   Over the mountains, we drove along a valley to Patagonia, a town time seems to have forgotten.  The Main Street  is wide with no traffic.  There was a old building with an old old sign on it that said “Patagonia Lumber” but in the window was a sign that said “Pilates.”  We checked into our very quaint B and B.  It’s in an old adobe building and very brightly decorated in Mexican hand weaving and carvings with a beautiful big garden.  After settling in, we went for our late afternoon birding to a famous spot - the home of Wayne and Marion Paton.  In the 70’s they retired to Patagonia and began feeding the hummingbirds.  As they put out more and more feeders, flocks of hummingbirds began to frequent them and people began to come to see the birds.  Though the couple have since died, their work is continued by Tucson Audubon.  We spent a couple of hours sitting comfortably on benches, watching birds come to

the many many feeders.  Right at the end we saw  the iconic and very rare violet crowned hummingbird.  It was a good day made dramatic by the rain and wind.  We had a wonderful pizza dinner and now it’s time for me to throw the 12 pillows off the bed and get into it.

Day 1 - South of Tucson

We’re on the road again, with Mark Pretti exploring SE Arizona.  Hooray.  We met at the Tucson Airport at 11 am.  After we piled into the crowded van, we headed to Sweetwater Wetlands, a wastewater treatment facility north of Tucson.  In the van, we heard Mark’s introduction about the special areas we are going to visit.  It has a great diversity of plants and animals because of 4 factors:  the climate (4 distinct seasons with mainly summer rain); the basin and range terrain; the huge amount of open space with almost entirely native plants and animals and lastly the overlap of 4 different Bio regions that come together here (the Rocky Mountains to the north, the Sierra Madre mountains to the south, the Chihuahuan desert to the east and the Sonoran desert to the west).  Sweetwater is an environmentally friendly “marsh” created by the wastewater.  There were cottonwood and willow trees as well as large acacia trees providing sought after shade as welll as a huge cattail bordered marsh.  Interesting factoids from this first stop:  there are over 1000 species of bees within 40 miles of Tucson - it’s a bee hotspot; of the three special endemic lizards we saw two of them here—the Tiger Whiptail (a 7 inch long lizard with as you’d guess a long whip tail) and the Zebra Tail lizard with an orange splotch on the chest with green belly and white under the tail with black bars.  The most unusual bird we saw was the Abert’s Towhee - an endemic with a really narrow range.  The coolest bird we saw was a large Great Horned Owl with a nest.  The most unusual fact was about the poop of the Phainopepla (a cardinal size black bird with a black crest).  It eats mostly mistletoe berries and when it poops after eating the berries, the poop is very sticky and the bird has to rub it off on the branches which is a great way for mistletoe to make sure it’s seeds stay up in the trees.

We drove south on Highway 19 to another Waste Treatment Pond near Amado where we looked for birds.  The neatest bird, I thought, were the Black Winged Whistling Ducks we saw standing on a big aerator.  They didn’t look like ducks because their legs were so long.  We watched a Red-Tailed Hawk tear flesh off something it caught.  At the lovely B and B, the Amado Territory Inn, we got our rooms, then sat on a comfortable porch sipping a glass of wine watching birds at the many bird feeders.  When we got tired of that, we wandered around the place spotting some wonderful birds.  A few that stand out were Lucy’s Warbler, the only desert breeding warbler and a big

roadrunner.  What fun this is!!!  We had a most delicious dinner and now it’s time to go to bed early because we meet for breakfast tomorrow morning at 6 AM.  It’s been a very good day.

A Visit to Tucson

At least once a year, I come to Tucson to visit my sister.  We arrived a few days ago and have been enjoying ourselves very much here.  It’s so fun to just to hang out with her— to sit out on her porch, put my feet up and sip a glass of wine.  The desert here is totally in bloom.  The rocky hillsides and gullies are covered with yellow blossomed Palo Verde trees and the Prickly Pear cactus plants that have many beautiful yellow flowers too.  I can’t stop taking photos because everything is so beautiful.  Yesterday we went to Tohono Chul Park, a botanical garden filled with desert plants and art work.  After strolling along the beautiful paths ooohing and aaahing at all the plants but especially the Saguro cactus with crowns of white flowers, we went to the restaurant and had a lovely lunch.  For me, the lunch hit was Quesadillas filled with calabacitas (squash, onions and eggplant cooked together).  In the evening, we met Randy, Christie , Riley and Desiree at the Gregory School where the kids go.  There was “An Expo” of the students projects and we enjoyed seeing their schoolwork.  Then, we saw the Middle School play “James and the Giant Peach”, a funny play with amazing sets made by the creative students.  Today we journeyed out to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.  I first visited this amazing museum in 1961 on a Spring trip with a college class.  It’s one of the best zoos in the country and filled with marvelous cactuses, Palo Verdes, Ajaves, jojobas, wonderful exhibits, a great variety of habitats found in the Desert.  I still marvel at the wonderful adaptations the plants have to survive in the arid environment.  My favorite part was the Hummingbird Aviary where we saw nesting hummingbirds.  The birds were so adapted to

people that they would fly right up to us or allow us to come very close to where they were sitting.  The energy in this house was wonderful.  Tomorrow we begin our week long birding trip in SE Arizona.

Pre-Trip Thoughts

I have been extremely busy the last several weeks volunteering at the Botanical Garden and going to the gym where I enrolled in their once yearly Commit to Get Fit Program.  In this program, you get points for attending exercise classes, doing exercise in the pool, gym or even walking a nearby park as well as attending demonstrations of exercise equipment and attending seminars.  With these points you are awarded prizes.  I find each year it brings out something compulsive in me and I turn into a gym rat.  It all takes time.  I reached my goal of a free massage and now I’m finished with the gym for the month of May.  We leave tomorrow to visit my sister in Tucson and then to join a 6 day birding trip in Southeastern Arizona.  I’m finding it hard to slow down, to focus on what needs to be done before leaving.  I find my mind rushing to worries:  will it be too hot?  Will the birding group be compatible?  Will I forget something (inevitably)?  Will my new garden by ok while I’m gone?  Will Bob get a good enough seat on the airplane?   I know worrying is wasted energy, but my mind just races from one possible problem to another.  I take a few deep breaths.  I try to focus on what I’m looking forward to:  being with my sister, the joy of birding and being in beautiful nature, eating out every night, seeing beautiful places, the blue blue sky of Arizona.  All will be well and soon we’ll be off.

One Small Thing

This morning while washing out an icky plastic cream cheese container so I could recycle it, I wondered to myself if it really makes a difference whether I recycle this container or just throw it in the garbage?  Does one small act even make a little dent in the huge problem we have with waste, with global warming?  I read the other day that what we choose to eat makes a difference.  We should be eating less red meat (I’ve known that for decades) but we should also eat less cheese and dairy products because cows make so much methane and are to blame for deforestation of the rain forest.  It takes ten gallons of milk to make a pound of cheese.  I read that we shouldn’t have gas stoves in our kitchens because of the carbon monoxide they release.  I get discouraged.  Is there nothing I can do that doesn’t have an impact?  Then I remember the biological principle that everything is connected to everything else.  Any action has a consequence.  I try to live a simpler life.  Every little change I make, every cream cheese container I recycle does make a difference.  I believe that.

What Makes the Difference?

This morning and yesterday morning, I lead a tours at the Botanical Garden for 2nd graders.  Even though they were the same age students and the tour topic was the same, the tours couldn’t have been more different.  Yesterday, I had 5 2nd grade students from a Berkeley Public School.  They were super energetic and only wanted to run around and play in the sprinklers.  It was hard to get them all to pay attention at the same time.  Walking along between stops, I saw one girl carrying another piggy-back.  I had to ask them to calm down, to walk behind me, to not run or stand in the Garden beds.  They weren’t bad, they just weren’t interested in what I had to show them.  When I get a rambunctious group, my strategy is to keep them walking and exploring by going to out of the way corners of the Garden.  After the tour, I realized that not one student had asked me a question.  Today’s tour had the same tour topic and the same age students, but they were from a local Montessori School.  They were calm, focused, very curious and interested in whatever I showed them.  The tour was a great pleasure for me.  So I’ve been wondering what makes the difference?  Is it the students or the teacher or the culture of the school?  One might say,  it’s a little bit of all three, but in my experience, it is the teacher, as the leader of the classroom, that sets the behavior standards and expectations for the students.  Just like any leader does this for the company or organization or country she/he leads.  The leader is the one responsible, the one that sets the tone.  Like my old father used to say:  “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”  As I think about the two tours, I realize I really have no idea what the students thought about the tour or got from the experience at the Botanical Garden.  I hope all of them experienced joy being in the Garden and saw plants in a new way.