A Morbid Little Update

But nothing too profound.

Well, I've been quite the irresponsible little blogger. More than five months since my last post. I'm not sure if that's a bad thing (shame on me for abandoning my online journal, for which so many countless eager people are on tenterhooks just dying to read) or a good thing (does this mean I actually have, like, a real life now?). But I had to pop in, at least for a moment, and update on Almost, Finally's (now Carbon Dating's) two-year anniversary. Who brought the cake?

Brief synopsis and catch-up with my life: still lame and boring, still lovin' it. Continuing to work, cranking along through school, shadowing more jobs…

That's a funny little anecdote, though not for the faint of heart. I saw my first leg amputation a few weeks ago. Golden retriever with cancer. I arrived just as they were slicing into the skin, the area prepped and shaved. Promised myself I wouldn't faint this time. Grimaced as the serrated bone wire sawed through the femur. Winced as the thin bone remnants snapped in two. Jumped back in shock as an artery was nicked and a geyser of blood shot three feet in the air, splattering the walls and landing at boots. Gripped my own legs as the dog's leg turned at an increasingly bizarre and grotesquely impossible angle from the rest of the body. But when the veterinarian, without thinking, severed the last flap of skin and unceremoniously handed me the heavy dripping stump, I was surprisingly rational about it, and not the least bit queasy. Mission Desensitization accomplished.

So, that's where I'm at right now. Transporting disembodied dog legs on the road to those eventual far-off-but-every-so-scarily-approaching goals, jumping through all of the appropriate hoops on the way. This semester is almost over (just two more papers to write and three finals to take), then a break, more school, then even more school, then, then, then….

But I'll remain in the present for now. It's plenty occupying as it is. Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

It’s late. After ten, anyway, maybe pushing eleven. The sky is as dark as it gets out here on a night like this. West, where the sun set long ago, a faint purple emanates only to be snuffed out by the oppressive night air. Far off to the south you can catch the distant glow of the Big City of Springfield; to the north above the black trees, it’s a dulled haze that must be Buffalo. I face this way. Behind me, if I crane my head, a bare bulb in the barn catches the heads of the sleepy horses as they poke out of the stalls to eye me with lazy curiosity. It’s past their bedtime, too—I’m keeping them up.

I squat on the grass; my legs tire and so I sit down, Indian style, in the dew. I look up. Stars everywhere, dizzying millions of stars. Didn’t I, once, in elementary school, make a mock planetarium, or did I dream that? I, or the I in my dream, took a piece of stiff black paper and pricked a hundred holes in it with the sharp point of a compass. And then I folded it round, and held it over my head, and looked through it at the long buzzing fluorescent bulbs. Behold, I am the LORD. Let there be light. And I have created the heavens and the firmament, go forth and multiply, be fruitful and prosper.

There’s Venus over there, hanging heavy in the sky, the brightest light of all. The compass must have slipped and punctured too far; too much light comes in.

“But here there is no light,” wrote Keats, “Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown / Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.”

And what are those green and yellow flickers? I reposition myself in the damp grass. My eyes have adjusted to the dimness by now. Fireflies. An eerie stillness. The only motion I can see are the flittings of the luminescent insects. They are different species, different shades, different patterns of glowing abdomens. It’s invertebrate Morse code. I’m here, and here, and fertile, and free. Let’s sanctify this dark night and consummate our union.

Beyond the lightning bugs there is real lighting on the horizon, out Buffalo way. Sometimes there are fireworks over the trees back there, and this has the same pinkish cast. There are no bolts, and no thunder, just silent flashes and brief illuminations. Static electricity. The power of heat. It’s humid and sticky; the clouds approach, pulsating with energy as they come. But there will be no rain tonight.

I would sit out here forever, now that I am entranced in the moment, but still, reluctantly, I rise and head back to the house, taking care not to disturb the now-slumbering horses. The lights outside the garage are on, and the driveway is littered with tiny black beetles. I can’t take a step without crunching a dozen obsidian carapaces. Meanwhile, the larger June bugs and big brown moths are dive-bombing my head and falling dumbly to the concrete. There’s even a huge dung beetle stuck on its back, clawing helplessly at the air above it. And there are a couple of wise fat old toads sitting there at the buffet.

I pick one up; he’s got a slight yellowish cast to him, and he’s medium in size. This one’s a talker. He starts chirping immediately, pushing against me with his powerful hind legs, glaring at me through beautiful gold-flecked eyes. I remember a favorite pastime of my childhood. Carefully scooping the toad up in one hand, I rush back out the pasture. I wait for my eyes to readjust to the dark, then I follow the seemingly random motion of one of the small green lights. I zero in on my target. I can’t see the firefly, but I move closer with each flash until I can reach out and swat with an open palm to knock the insect to the ground. Then, gently, I reach down with a soft thumb and forefinger to collect my prize as it climbs up a blade of grass. Now I retreat once again to the light.

I place the squirming toad on the ground and he stays put. Then I lightly toss the bug in front of him. He turns to face it. The bug spreads its wings, starts to walk off. Hop, hop, a lunge and gaping fast mouth, and it's over. The amphibian is quite the warty little lion. I snatch him up and hold him in the dark, hoping to catch the faint glow of the still-live firefly as it slides down his throat, but I am disappointed. Ten or more years ago, this used to work wonderfully, and provided many nights of diversion for the neighborhood children. Oh well.

And now I must snap out of the moment, of the trip down memory lane, of the perfect sticky dark night. There are things to do. I’m tired.

I leave toads and beetles and lightning behind and come inside, to the laptop and the TV and my parents and dogs and a cold shower and a warm bed.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music: - Do I wake or sleep?

--John Keats

Of Enchiladas and Encephalitis

A couple nights ago I met up with some old friends from high school. Our numbers are dwindling, and the groups get smaller with each successive reunion. We’ve scattered, dispersed, changed. It’s the inevitable fact of life that people leave—you yourself leave—you move on. When I was younger, this bothered me immensely. Now I’ve accepted it for what it is and instead look forward to new meetings and encounters, and cherish all the more strongly the relationships that really last.

Anyway, the six of us met downtown for some good Mexican food and chattered on with our requisite catching up on the past semester’s activities. We’re a science-heavy group, and all but one of us are Biology majors, so despite our differences in curriculum and locales we had a lot in common to compare and contrast our “shared” experiences.

Afterwards, we tromped off to a nearby park as twilight fell, passing on the way an odd production of Shakespeare. The play was A Comedy of Errors, but the set was clearly St. Louis, and the actors were all wearing Cardinals uniforms. I’m not sure how well Shakespeare translates to modern-day Missouri, and I’ll never know since I couldn’t hear their words through their overly-exaggerated but poorly enunciated hick-British accents and lack of microphones. We walked on.

If I thought up a list of the most dangerous things for children to play with, gigantic rocks might be up there, following piranhas and machetes. But apparently playground designers beg to differ, for in the middle of the park sat a giant fake rock. “Fake” in the sense that it was obviously not naturally occurring (unless a meteoroid had struck the center of Springfield, MO but forgotten to leave a crater), and if you tapped on it hard enough it sounded hollow, but you would also cut and bruise your hand for it looked and felt very rock-like. It was probably about eight feet tall at the highest point, and had crude “natural” steps coming up one side. All the other sides, however, were either vertical drops or actually slanted backwards, probably to discourage climbing but really having the exact opposite effect. There were, of course, no warning signs anywhere about parental supervision. A tiny plaque on the side of the rock said that it was recommended for children aged five to 12 and might cause death if installed over concrete. Luckily, the park directors had installed it over shredded tires. Safe! Painful on the feet! Enough to cushion a landing, but not enough to prevent a neck from being broken if someone tumbled down headfirst from the slippery precipice!

So, of course, we climbed it. Including the backwards-slanted side, which had neither handholds nor footholds, and which I completely failed to summit after nearly mooning everyone else in the party and destroying a day’s worth of upper body strength. There were also a handful of young children—no parents in sight—who fearlessly joined us strangers and catapulted themselves from the sides while I winced. The guys in our group attempted jumping and rolling from the top (success) and doing a back flip off the walls (repeated complete failure, accompanied by multiple pathetic sprays of tire shreds).

Afterwards, we sat and talked in the dark. A baseball game at the nearby stadium ended, and there was a pretty cool fireworks display. We ooh-ed and ah-ed appropriately.

Topics of discussion ranged from the extraordinarily efficient microflora in cattle stomachs (did you know that you can cut a hole in a cow’s side entering the digestive system, leaving it permanently open to the outside world, and everything will be hunky-dory?) to the ruthlessly cutthroat and competitive industry of apple farming and copyrighted fruits (those hybridization laws are intense) to whether or not you could kill someone with a Taser if you first dipped them in salt water and them positioned the probes far enough apart. Yeah, we’re nerds, I guess.

Eventually we parted, this time for at least another year. It had been a nice meeting, with good food and good old friends. Some of us were going off to summer classes, others to continuing research products, some to jobs.

We’ve all entered the real world.

We’re grown up.

I’m grown up.

When the hell did that happen?

That am a Proverbial Chicken

As sunsets go, the one Sunday evening wasn’t particularly impressive. There were no vibrant red hues and no striking purple clouds to sear fire-orange for a split second as the haloed orb sunk behind the leafy hills. Instead, the sun was a rather nondescript shade with dulled, hazy edges that crept lazily across the sky. But there were, however, rays of light emanating from the drowsy star that shot out across the paling blue. The rays were so numerous, and so defined, and so large and long and bright, that I found myself unconsciously reaching for them. I could have plucked them like the chords of a harp….and released sweet music. But I couldn’t reach, so instead I snapped a few quick pictures.

Later, I went on Facebook and noticed that one of my friends had also taken photos of the sunrays on his phone and uploaded them to his wall. He had different clouds that I—he’s in a different town, after all—and of course a different house and different hills. But it was the same sun, and the same majestic rays streaming from the center. Funny how we’d unwittingly shared a moment.

And I almost didn’t spare that moment to stop and gaze at the lyrical strings of the sun. Since school let out (and of course before), I’ve been running around like mad trying to tie up loose ends. Why? Now that’s a good question. First, I’ve got my two jobs. Those are legitimate concerns. Gotta go on call with the vet and do all the “fun” reproduction work—collect stallions, cool and package semen, clean and inseminate mares—in short, it’s a paycheck and good experience for the ol’ résumé. Then I’ve got the other job, where I ride and train the horses and help out with any odds and ends on the farm, assisting with marketing and such. It keeps me pretty occupied, that’s for sure.

[Side note: I’m typing this in MS Word, and the grammar check is insisting that “that’s” should be replaced with “that am.” I’s pretty sure that am wrong.]

Beyond my ~30 hours a week of jobs, however, I have few pressing commitments. Yes, there are the daily chore responsibilities around the farm. Stalls need to be picked, waters changed, horses fed. The latter need to be ridden, too, and exercised occasionally, tuned up, and practiced. If the gray mare stays sound I’d like to start back up barrel racing her again. I do miss it.

But in between important engagements, I frantically scramble to do….noting. Putz around on the Internet, for one, but also slightly more noble tasks like creating a big hardbound book/ photo album and beading some tack for sale or personal use. And reading. I’m so intimidated by my stack of To Read books that I hardly dare to pick one up. I started out strong, racing through An American Childhood. It was good, but not as great as I’d hoped. Since then, I’ve stalled. I’ve got a half-completed volume of Jack Kerouac novels—started a year ago and still not finished—but I’m procrastinating because, quite frankly, I don’t much care for Jack Kerouac. His road-ready bum and devil-may-care persona are so far removed from my own way of living that I can hardly relate. Still, I do enjoy his stream-of-conscious prose (and find myself imitating it after reading a bit too long), and there’s that whole “cultural exposure” deal, and that whole “can’t start something without finishing it deal,” so I forge ahead, making myself miserable with my own self-imposed agenda, as we are all wont to do.

The past two days it’s just been too damn hot. It went up to 87 degrees Fahrenheit today, with high humidity, and I was dying. Never mind that we’ve got at least another 10 degrees to go. And I thought this was the sublimation point. The heat bakes me into an unproductive lethargy. Alas.

The Endless Round

“Spring is when there are new babies in the meadow.” This was a line from a beloved childhood story, I think, perhaps told by an anthropomorphized animal. The circumstances are forgotten. The words surface out of context. New babies in the meadow….and new nests in the birdhouses. And in this particular nesting box, there were five speckled brown eggs, from which five wrinkled and pink aliens emerged—bulbous-headed, jerky, reptilian, blind, and hideous. I found the first one shortly after it hatched, before its siblings has chipped their way into the bright blue world, and held its tiny limp and wobbling form cradled in the palm of my hand. New babies…new life. Everywhere.

The birds are the most obvious examples, in their lively courtship rituals and rowdy fights and poorly concealed hidey holes (beneath the lid of the propane tank, for one, or along the back walls of the horse stalls, where I watched transfixed as a tiny few-day-old chick moved too close to the edge, faltered, frantically flapped its budding ineffectual wings, and tumbled haphazardly down the gap behind the wall; alas, rescue efforts were in vain and the mice—themselves teeming with offspring—must have feasted well that night). Trees and shrubs bud, the voles in the field build their endless network of dens and hide their litters safe below, and the music of the frogs at twilight is deafening. And everywhere, everywhere at night, beetles and moths and craneflies blanket the ground, crunch underfoot, slam stupidly into buildings and cars and ricochet down, cluster around light fixtures, get tangled in hair.

But this outstanding fecundity comes at a high price. Of the five chicks in the northern birdhouse, the first one jumped out of its own accord—free at last!—proceeded to hop and scuffle into the garage, and was quickly dispatched by my mother’s curious and brain-dead dachshund, who carried her prize triumphantly around, clamped tightly in her vise-like jaws. The last bird to remain in the nest seemed healthy enough when I checked a couple of days ago; this morning, it was a crumpled and ant-riddled sack of feathers. I fished it out with a long piece of pasture grass and dumped it unceremoniously in the field so that nature could continue to take its course. Its parent squawked angrily at me from the roof of the house. “Your child is dead,” I wanted to tell her. Instead, I retired inside. I don’t know what happened to the other three chicks.

An old professor saw me sitting vacantly in a campus computer lab the other day and decided it was the perfect opportunity to catch up on things. We discussed polite social subjects: my schedule for next semester, my summer plans. I asked him what he had been up to. Hadn’t he been on sabbatical? And then he got so excited to tell me his story that he glowed like a boy and stuttered and fumbled in his rush to get the words out fast enough.

Yes, he had been on sabbatical. He had gone to Africa. He had seen Tanzania, the Serengeti. He had been close enough to a bachelor band of giant elephants that he had heard the beating and whooshing of their ears as they lazily fanned themselves. He had seen a leopard crouched low in the tall grass, stalking an antelope. He had heard the noises of night life on the African plains, the fighting and dying and bleeding and breeding that went on under cover of darkness, that world into which tourists like American Chemistry professors were forbidden to enter, lest they become victims of the night.

But, he lamented, there was one thing he had not seen, and one thing that he wanted to go back so that he could experience: the great wildebeest and zebra migration. He told me, through his tripping tongue and brilliant eyes, that millions upon millions of the herbivores make the trek across the river annually, and here they calve and foal, millions upon millions of gangly-legged babies cavorting through the rich green grass of spring, before the oppressive summer heat burns it down to yellow desert. There are so many of the young wildebeests and zebras that the predators are sated. The lions have all they care to eat, and after gorging, they laze in the shade and watch, eyes complacent, tails idly flicking. The crocodiles eat their fill, and the hyenas, and the giant black African vultures—in turn fueling their own reproductive success. Yet, by sheer mass of numbers, the wildebeests and zebras preserve, nay, thrive. It’s a brilliant strategy.

Elton John had it right:

From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There's more to see than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done
There's far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the sun rolling high
Through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round

It's the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life

Let us all jump from the nest and ford the river—dare to do, or die. Take our chances. Stretch our legs and spread our wings—full of vivacity—let’s go!

An Empty Chair

I return from my little lapse in blogging, Semester-From-Hell ended, just in time for the commencement of graduates. It’s a funny occasion. All Pomp and Circumstance and a few long boring speeches and cheers and then waltz outside for a photo opportunity with parents and siblings, go party or whatever, and then move on, and forget the past four years. Another chapter completed. One door closes, one door opens. I myself am halfway there!

I wrote the following poem when I was 13 years old; I have seldom written poetry since. I’m no Whitman or Keats, let’s put it that way, but this one little piece, for some reason, sticks out as the highlight of my poetic literary achievements. I penned it to commemorate and lament the high school graduation of a friend of mine, and her subsequent departure from the concert band we both enjoyed. Now, as I prepare to watch some new(er) friends graduate from college, the words of my younger self rise and beg to be remembered:


We sat with horns to lips and eyes ahead
As the magical scene before us unfolded
And we watched, caught in the joy of the moment
A single day to be cherished for a lifetime
And yet with bittersweet regret
There was a silent lonely place
Amidst us all
Its hapless grace
Was all alone:
An empty chair

We could see him sitting in the ranks
Of all the young who met their future that day
Who thought, or joked, or cried, or prayed
All present there, waiting their turn
But as the bold, brassy music we played
There was a quiet spot
All but forlorn
Left there, forgot:
A vacant chair

And loudly Pomp and Circumstance we played
Our tapping feet and blissful smiles belied
That inside we laughed and cried
As we watched them step up to receive
An honor, yet
Our eyes wandered
To the left
That forgotten token:
That empty chair

We lost them that day, and they left us behind
They went forth, for futures must be made!
Their diplomas taken, and new levels reached
But remembered the band where memories were made!
Sorrowfully we watched them go
The five seniors
And five seats
Unoccupied there:
Five vacant chairs

One day the rest of us will follow them, away
We too shall proudly step up to take the honor
And go forth into our worldly conquest
Our destinies to find; our futures to mold
And leave behind us memories and friends
Who sadly gaze
At the lonely spots
We have forgot:
Our empty chairs

Classified Information

A few weeks ago, I received an email from a fellow I had gone to high school with, asking me if I would serve as a reference for him and give a good report of his character. Apparently he had been accepted to a highly prestigious government intelligence internship, pending security clearance. He needed people who still lived in southwest Missouri, he said, so of course I agreed to speak to the representative for the government agency. I did not realize until later that this would entail actually meeting with the guy, but by the time I learned that little fact, it was too late to say no and I couldn't leave my friend in the lurch.

That week, I wondered how the meeting would go. My imagination, I must say, ran wild. I secretly hoped that the super secret spy would be some version of James Bond. He would sneak up behind me unannounced while I looked blindly about in the other direction—then, before I could make a move, stifle my surprised scream with a gag and blindfold, stuff me into his spymobile, and whisk me away to some hidden location. There, I would be informed that I had been chosen to fulfill some Very Important Mission. The cover story about the internship reference was simply a ruse. I would be obligated and bound by duty and honor to serve my country…or die trying. And I would accept this Magnificent Task (would I have a choice?) and become a legendary secret agent / super sleuth / incognito spy. Etc. It was quite dramatic.

The evening before the appointed interview, I received a call from Mr. Bond. He asked me when and where we could meet, and I told him where I went to school. There was a pause on the other end, and then he replied that he did not know where that was, as he was not from this area. I named the streets and cross-streets and general direction, then added, "But I'm sure you can Mapquest it on the Internet and find it much easier." To which he replied, "But I'm traveling and don't have my computer with me."

Oh.

Hmmmmm.

So…so much for accosting an unsuspecting me in a crowd. He couldn't even find a big well-known college campus in the middle of town with a bunch of signs pointing to it.

We finally agreed to meet in the parking lot of a nearby credit union, so that he wouldn't have to worry about on-campus parking (you mean your car doesn't fold up to the size of a briefcase? can't fly to land on roofs? isn't equipped with anti-security measures and a pass-all parking permit?). The interview itself was a touch awkward. Mr. Bonds was aging, beer-bellied, and gold-toothed, but pleasant. He flashed his badge when I got out of my car without skipping a beat of his introduction. Then it was straight into grilling me about, my business at the college (sir, student, sir!), my major (is Biology satisfactory?), and so on. It was a bit intimidating. Then on to questions about the prospective intern (mentally stable? loyal to the US government? would he ever do anything to harm the US government or put it in jeopardy? good at keeping secrets?), followed by random chitchat. Seems he used to breed PMU horses in Canada. Sounds suspicious, Mr. Ulterior Motive.

Then we parted, me feeling as though I had just passed an examination. Egads. All I know is that the safety of our country is in semi-incompetent hands—the sort of hands who are just as likely to find a big ol' university as they are to find bin Laden.

…or maybe I'll be caught posting this, and suffer the consequences. If I disappear, kindly check the ditches for my remains, but whatever you do, don't notify the authorities unless you want to be next.

Back in the Saddle Again

I wish by golly I could spread my wings and fly
And let my grounded soul be free for just a little while
To be like eagles when they ride upon the wind
And taste the sweetest taste of freedom for my soul

To let my feelings lie where harm can not come by
And hurt this always hurtin' heart
That needs to rest awhile
I wish by golly I could spread my wings and fly
And taste the sweetest taste of freedom for my soul

Then I'd be free at last, free at last
Great God Almighty I'd be free at last
I'd be free at last, free at last
Great God Almighty I'd be free at last

--Spiritual

The recent tragic incident involving the death of a SeaWorld trainer at the flippers of a captive killer whale has inspired a flurry of debates about the ethics and practicality of confining dangerous wild animals. There are no easy answers, of course. On the one hand, the animal is probably happier and healthier out in its natural environment—and people are safer. On the other, perhaps science can benefit from studying these creatures, and we can preserve and protect threatened species, and we can find ways to mentally stimulate and entertain them so that they have perfectly content lives.

I think the whole overemphasis on a "natural" environment can get a bit silly. Who defines what is and is not "natural?" There are no corners of the globe which have not in some way been influenced or even "tamed" by human intervention, so it's a bit of a moot point if human tampering is supposed to be the deciding factor.

Most zoo animals take quite well to captivity. The majority of them aren't particularly intelligent. So long as their basic needs are met, they're thrilled with their safety and routine. It's a security blanket, and they settle into a happy complacency, although they might be cramped for space to roam.

It's a different story for the truly smart animals. Things like macaws and yes, orcas, require far more than iron bars or the concrete sides of an aquarium can provide. I don't think it's impossible to keep them humanely, but I think it's exceedingly difficult, requiring a lot of extra work on the part of their human caregivers. And it really bothers me to see the great apes, like gorillas and chimpanzees, on display for gawking crowds. To me, it might as well be a Down Syndrome child down there. Not much difference in principle. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Some people, like the rabid PETA activists, believe that domestic animals are inherently abused. True, many are maltreated, or kept in less than stellar living arrangements. Horses, for example, need plenty of room to roam, but sadly few receive this basic life requirement, leading to severe mental and physical implications. But at the same time, I can look at my spoiled and pampered half-dozen and know without a doubt that they are happy in their posh lives. Sure, they enjoy frolicking in the fields when the weather's nice, but the first hint of rain or cold and they're standing at the barn door, begging to come into warms stalls, to have their soft blankets put on, to sleep in the cushy shavings, to eat their sweet food mixed with their myriad of costly supplements. Yeah.

My good mare, Bones, was injured last May. I'm sure I blogged a few snippets about it in the past, but for a quick summary she turned up lame and unridable, and after months of waiting and failed diagnostics, I buckled down to have her taken to the big equine hospital in Oklahoma. The diagnosis was a badly torn tendon. Apparently the mare was even more steadfast than I realized, for the injury was severe although she hardly limped or seemed to care. Treatment was costly and cutting-edge, involving the cultivation and injections of stem cell-like proteins from the horse's own blood plasma and applications of shockwave therapy. It also included a strict stall rest regimen: first three months of 12-foot by 12-foot confinement, with little to no hand-walking a day, followed of two more months limited to a 30-foot round pen. Bones took in all in stride, which is surprising given her very high strung and reactive nature and her relatively young age. She would gaze longingly at her friends as they cavorted about the pasture or ate the grass she so desperately wanted but could not reach. Many a time I saw her leap in the air and pivot mid-buck to avoid slamming into the metal panels that hedged her in. Most of the day, however, she stood with her head lowered, her eyes half-closed, her hindquarters to the cold wind and snow, depressed and unmoving, perhaps resigned to her fate which she could not affect.

And then, on Tuesday, freedom. Time, according to the doctors' instructions, to turn the horse loose. And you've never seen a happier animal. She flexed her atrophied muscles (to look at her frail frame now, and compare it to her previous bulked-up Schwarzenegger appearance, is quite the juxtaposition) and bolted across the pasture, slid in the mud, leapt up, pivoted, charged another horse, spun around and dashed hell-bent the other way. She's the very picture of athleticism. I cringed to see her fly and slide, because the fibers of the tendon, even if they are healed, are still weak and prone to reinjury—but what can I do?

And so, with trepidation, I saddled her up for the first time in nearly 10 months. She watched me with a cautious eye. Everything fit differently. Her whole conformation has changed. She chomped the bit, perplexed. And I slid into the saddle, adjusting my weight, scared. She balanced beneath me. I asked her to move out. She responded, an easy walk. And then she remembered that she had a reputation to fulfill, that of Crazy, and she gladly reassumed her role, attempting to bolt, throwing her head, prancing sideways. This is the Bones I know!

I was only allowed a few minutes, as the leg and weak muscles can not be overstressed. And I thought she might have limped again, which would mean that all the time and money would have been for naught. But I can't say for sure, so I'll hold off on judgment and pessimism until later. For now, I'm just glad to have my horse back. And I'm sure the horse is glad for her freedom.

I'm back in the saddle again
Out where a friend is a friend
Where the longhorn cattle feed
On the lowly gypsum weed
Back in the saddle again

Ridin' the range once more
Totin' my old .44
Where you sleep out every night
And the only law is right
Back in the saddle again

Whoopi-ty-aye-oh
Rockin' to and fro
Back in the saddle again
Whoopi-ty-aye-yay
I go my way
Back in the saddle again

--Gene Autry

The Knack to Vivify

There's a swale ditch that runs through the pasture, and in times of heavy precipitation such as these, it fills with flowing runoff water and there's a veritable creek that cuts the field in half and trickles down through the muddy woods before joining up with other small tributaries and meeting the Pomme de Terre River. It's frozen now with a sludgy kind of snowy ice so that when you try to walk across it bends and moans and stretches down before giving way and setting your feet down gently on the muddy bottom. Stuck out there today, in the oppressively bitter cold with a few casual snow flurries carried on the whipping wind, once again shackled to a grazing horse, bundled up in Carhartt coveralls, earmuffs, and scarf, I entertained myself by trying to balance myself on the ice without breaking it. Good practice, I thought, in case I ever found myself stranded in the middle of a patch of slushy thin ice and had to safely maneuver to solid land. My efforts, unfortunately, were unsuccessful, as time and time again my thankfully waterproof boots splashed through and stirred up murky eddies. Having failed at this objective, I next diverted myself by picking up glassy shards and observed their clarity and ripples. In breaking the ice and peeling it back, I suddenly thought about the microcosm in the cold water below. Was I disturbing it in my thoughtless destruction? Would the cold kill the organisms that lived inside?

And so, in the mud of the woods in the pasture, while my horse nudged the frozen grass halfheartedly and gave me a look like I was crazy, I bent down on my knees and peered into the icy water.

Instant gratification.

For what did I see almost immediately, crawling and sliding among strands of filamentous algae, but a tiny turbellarian flatworm? Yes, less than a centimeter long and a millimeter wide, the tiny paper-thin form reared its head and searched along the bottom of the muddy still water. I leaned and stared and observed its life.

We studied these things in a Zoology course I took last year. They truly are fascinating creatures, if you're into that invertebrate sort of thing. Like many of the so-called "lower" animals, they possess remarkable capabilities of regeneration. We performed an experiment on them once—"surgery," the professor called it, but "butchery" would have been more appropriate. My partner and I cut off our worm's head with a fine razor blade, then split the body halfway down. The head should have grown a new stunted body, while the bisected remains should have sprouted two new heads. Alas, some contaminant killed our unfortunate fellow(s) within a week, just as they were starting to heal and regrow. Another one makes the ultimate sacrifice in the quest for scientific knowledge.

If I was a planarian, what would my world view be? I try to recall knowledge from the class. Turbellarians cannot "see" in our sense of the word, but they can detect light through ocelli which look like nothing but the eyes of a comical cartoon character. What else? They can feel touch, and they don't much like it. They feed through a "mouth" on their ventral surface which rather resembles a penis, yet they are hermaphroditic.

And what if someone lopped off my head and cleaved my neck? Would I split in three? What would my new heads say? Would they share my memory? Would they act and talk and think like the original "me?" Would I curse the person who cut me, or thank them for allowing me to grow to this new wonderful form?

So I sat and stared and pondered until the horse urged me on up the creek to another spot, where she contentedly stopped to graze. I peeled back the ice here, too, and got right to work just looking. And oh God, what have I been missing all these years when I didn't know to see?

There's a story about the Native Americans; whether it's true I don't know. As the tale goes, the Indians, when the first European ships sailed to the New World bearing White Man, could not see them. For days they gazed right through the slowly growing blots on the horizon. Without comprehension, without a point of reference for comparison, the ships simply did not exist. Only when a shaman stared down the clouds did he realize the truth, which he then shared with the people, and their eyes were opened.

Yes. And here, down in the murk, my newly-sighted eyes spied one, two, no, seven, eight planarians creeping and feeding in a five square inch plot of mud. But they've been there all along! And around them little tiny aquatic plants released little tiny bubbles to the surface—oxygen!—the product of their photosynthesis, light- and carbon-fixing. And that's been happening all this time!

I'm reduced to a simpleton, a child, finding fascination in the most mundane things. But they aren't mundane. They are remarkably complex, intricate, complicated, important, and even in the midst of this bitter winter—the worst I've ever known—they continue on.

There's hope there. As the flatworm regenerates its severed head, so too will the trees put forth new buds and leaves, and the ground will thaw, and the air will warm.

Spring is around the bend, bringing whispered promises and hope.

Another Depressing Death

Yep, poor Frosty. Didn’t stand a chance against six horses who gathered their collective courage and banded together to neutralize the threat. After losing his ears and eyebrows to a hungry Buddy, the beleaguered snowman was deprived of his arms by a smug Rebel. Bones and Mack knocked his head off while Brandy hung back apprehensively. Then Sawyer moved in and with a few powerful pawing kicks toppled the whole thing over. All the horses seemed a little too proud of themselves as they clustered together to sniff and lick the battered mound of snow.

I thoroughly enjoyed the snow (look how much!)—but the aftermath of mud is a different story. Today, while tromping through the pasture, horse in tow, I walked clear out of my sole. The rubber bottom of one of my nice boots simply stuck firm in the slop and pulled completely away. It was a pitiful one-legged hop back to the house to change footwear.

So—is it Spring yet? I’ve seen a few robins, those happy harbingers of the fairest season, but if Punxsutawney Phil’s predictions hold true, we’ve still got a lot of cold ahead of us. Which might explain the freezing fog this morning and the eerie frosty landscape. Oh well. I’ll crawl back under the covers for another six weeks of hibernation and bide my time ‘til rebirth and renewal.