When it's all gone, what do you do?

Last month, a grim and deadly parade of tornadoes blew away homes across Oklahoma. I always feel something for the people caught in the path of one of nature's most powerful forces.
I remember the panic and feeling of utter helplessness of being a breakable human as a tornado has roared nearby. I've been close to tornadoes twice in my life, and that is twice too many for my comfort.
When updates started popping up on Facebook from Tim and Julie regarding their friend Debby Kaspari, who was right at tornado Ground Zero I waited with trepidation.
When it was all over, Debby, her husband Mike and their cat Gizmo had survived the F4 tornado inside a shelter built into their garage floor. But they could see light shining in the gaps around the shelter. That wasn't right. They emerged from the shelter, and this is what they saw:

(Photo by Debby Kaspari)

Their house, their cars, their stately oak trees. Smashed or gone.
Take a moment to live in their shoes. Your house is now a pile of rubble. Your cars have large trees on top of them. Your clothes have blown away. Precious photos are shredded.
And if you are an artist like Debby, the paintings that have poured from your heart...are they still in one piece?


As the days wore on, Debby and Mike were able to collect some of their belongings, but the task is ongoing. Since they are in an unincorporated section of Little Ax, the rubble has to be removed by the homeowners. They even found some things that didn't belong to them:

This is a pickup truck that was carried from the gas station down the road...a MILE down the road. And the gas pump nozzle was laying next to it.
(Photo by Debby Kaspari)

It sounds like an insurmountable task, picking your life from the destruction. Both physically and mentally.
We build our lives cocooned in our homes, and when that home is gone, how does that feel?

The blogging community, a gathering I am proud to be a part of, is sending Debby's story out into the world and asking our readers to go to the link at the top of my blog on the right and donate to the cause through PayPal.

My Jersey Girl

I began this blog way back in 2005, and I don't even remember the reasons.
For the longest time, only a few family members and a friend or two would read it and comment.

I was pleasantly surprised when, in February 2006, a STRANGER left a comment! Just out of the blue!
She had a blog too. I went to her blog, started reading her stuff, and also clicking through to other blogs on her blog roll. And away we went. From that initial interaction of two blog owners, came the beginning of the Flock.
(Thanks to Laura and her urging to come to Cape May's Autumn Weekend, we began to migrate together as a pack.)

Since tomorrow is the anniversary of her arrival on the planet, (The Birthday-That-Must-Not-Be-Named!) I decided to make a list.


Laura, this one's for you!

A List of Laura:
Her confidence (seriously, just watch her walk across a room to see what I mean).
Making me laugh so hard and so long I wonder if I will die from it.

Generosity of soul.
Thinking that she secretly likes my weird choices of nail polish.
The fact that she is never on time for anything.

Her poet's heart.
The squeak of that porch swing.

(Photo by Steve Mattan)

When she rolls her eyes at my nonsense but sticks around to hear more.

Her camera in one hand and a beer dangling in the other.

A facade that seems reserved, but will crumble into silly fun at any time.
Erasing the stereotype I had in my head of "Jersey Girls".

That soft focus she rings her photos with.

The secrets we whisper.
The trust we forge with those whispers.

Knowing each other long enough to have a repertoire of stories.

Feeling so blessed to have her as my friend.

Happy birthday, Jersey! Love you!

(Photo by Steve Mattan)

Just good people

I like people. Most of 'em, anyway.

There have been plenty of situations in my life, when I lay eyes on someone, and just know that we are going to work out just fine.
(This never really worked with any of my past boyfriends. Lust is blind, I guess.)


Most of my relationships of late (five years, since my blog reared its ugly head) have begun in cyberspace and then bloomed into an all-encompassing bouquet of friends that honestly, I don't know what I would do without. It's a rare thing to meet people the old-fashioned way.

Thank goodness I still know how to do it.

This Spring, at the New River Birding and Nature Festival I got to meet and spend time with a couple that I didn't actually know through this tiny computer monitor. Imagine.



Meet Larry and Diana:


This is exactly where I met them, while Diana was holding a just-banded titmouse and said titmouse was biting the hell out of her finger.




I set my camera to "Burst" mode and got a series of the titmouse bursting from Diana's hand. The best one, however, was the one that shows the titmouse flying right in front of Larry's face:

I laughed out loud when I previewed the photos, and went over to Larry and Diana to show the best one.
Just look how happy Larry is!

This was the first birding festival they had attended, and I assured them that they picked THE BEST ONE to start with.

Over the course of the week, I got to know them better and it was interesting how many things we had in common:
They live in my home state (Indiana), Larry is a Mason (so were most of the men in my family), they are both in Eastern Star (like my mother), and Larry's been known to hunt a deer or two
(I was raised on venison!).
And they're just good people.
It was like being with family members.
(I'm trying to put together a video of some of the participants' Life Bird dances, and there's a super cute one of Larry after he got...ummm...a Cerulean I think?)

I sort of adopted them, and as the festival ended, we exchanged email addresses and heartfelt wishes that we will see each other again next year.
I hope they return...we have more Life Bird Wiggles to do!

So sweet, you'll need a root canal

We interrupt my albeit lackadaisical New River posting to bring you the newest star in the Cute Universe.
Kathi caught the Puppy Fever recently, after saying goodbye to wonderful and special Grace.
Seven weeks ago, Kathi found and claimed a Boston Terrier puppy. And just met her yesterday.

The result is just a great big pile of Adorable wrapped in white and black fur named Panda.
Very few words in this post. I mean, really...the photos say enough.
Don't forget to brush your teeth after seeing them.





The need to lick faces, whether they are within reach or not, seems to be a genetic trait among Boston Terriers:


"I'm nowhere near your face, but...I...must...lick..."








So yeah, we're swimming in cute puppiness, but that doesn't mean Mama won't chastise you if you try to eat the carpet:





"Must shake and kill this hippo...."




"I did it! Hippo no more!"



She has a perfect bottom. As Julie puts it, a tail like "a chocolate chip".


And she runs like a bunny:


Not to exclude Holly, Kathi's older and larger dog....She had a good romp with Isabelle around the pond:


Puppies wear out quickly...




Can you see her?

Zip it....zip it good!

Even while having the time of your life at the New River Birding and Nature Festival, it can happen. Bird-Burn-Out (or BBO).

Bird songs, birdjams, (Hi, Jay!) bird photos, birds birds birds. There is a point that I think many people reach at this festival, where they just have sensory overload and can't handle any more birds.

The promoters realize this, and one of the ways they have chosen to deal with BBO is to offer some unconventional trips that aren't really about the birds, like Birding by Boat, a gentle float trip down the New River (that's for another post).

Another way, and frankly a zippy way, to deal with it is the Canopy Tour, aka "the Zipline".
This was offered on two different days of the festival at two separate companies.
(Ours was Ace Adventure Resort)


I was digging the idea of flying through the trees yelling like a kamikaze, so I signed up.
Nina also signed up, but was on another trip. Here's our adorable Nina, getting suited up and ready to zip:


(Photo by Geoff Heeter)

I was pleasantly surprised that only four women, including me, had signed up for this day of zipping. I was the youngest of the four...that rocks.
We did some low-impact birding before suiting up.
Jeff Gordon acted like a very sexy female turkey and called in not only a male turkey, but a red-shouldered hawk:




Yes. That's JEFF making that sexy turkey noise.




Devo makes a comeback.
(Photo by Geoff Heeter)



Why we look like we don't want to touch each other, I don't know.
I'm usually all over Jeff like a bad suit.
(Photo by Geoff Heeter)



The very competent young woman who was our leader made me feel quite safe.
And she reminded the men, as they geared up in their harnesses, "Make sure all of the furniture is in the same room."
Ahem~


"Jeff and Geoff, is all of your furniture in the same room?"


I am usually happy to not be a man, but this day, I was especially thankful.
Even without "furniture", that harness really should have bought me dinner first.

My bra did end up around my neck.


It was so fun, zipping from platform to platform, and platform up to tree, across ravines...
Since this was a free-style zip, your momentum usually makes you spin around a few times.


Here's a quick video of one of my zips, when I don't quite take off hard enough to reach the platform, necessitating pulling myself hand over hand on the safety line, hence the silly cackling at the end of the video.

(This video achieved by turning the camera on right before I zip,
and balancing said camera on my right boob):


The women were great...and the one that I will remember for the rest of my life was Dot.
Dot is a 70-something grandmother who, as she did the last and most terrifying zip (where instead of running off a platform, you scooted off on your rear end and basically did a free fall) went flying through the air yelling "Whoop! WHOOP! WHOOP!".

She had a plan for the photos that were taking of her zips.
"I'm giving them to my grandbabies, so when their friends show off pictures of their grandmas in a rocking chair on the porch, my grandbabies can show a picture of their grandma ziplining."
That's just awesome.


Here's Dot, on her Blackberry, no less:






And in conclusion, Jeff Gordon: KAMAKAZE:

Keeping up with the Peterson's

At a point right before the New River Birding and Nature Festival, I realized that of the seven other people staying at the Farmhouse, I had never met ANY of them in person.
This wasn't a totally new concept for me...jetting around the country meeting strangers is old hat.
A few of the people sleeping under the same roof, I hadn't even spoken to over email. And one of them was a MAN.

Murr: "Hey! Can my friend Linda come along?"
Me: "Sure! The more the merrier!"
Molly: "Hey! Can my friends Lee and Courtney come along?"
Me: "Sure! The more the merrier!"
Everyone seemed to be coming in on a different day, and even that changed daily.

As they drifted in, I did my best to be a good host (since I was the nut who implored them to attend this festival in the first place).
I had no preconceived notions of anyone, so it was nice to meet each new face.

Some of us liked each other so completely and so quickly, we began to use each others mannerisms:

(Photo by Mary Ferracci)

Lee and Courtney Peterson arrived, and I adored them immediately.

(I'm going to let you click on their links so you can appreciate the shock I had when I found out who they were. )



Famous surnames didn't matter around the kitchen table and we found other things to discuss.
We didn't make a big deal out of them, they were just another couple of birders who found themselves staying in a house on a hillside in West Virginia.

Though they were only able to stay for a few days of the festival, it was a pleasure to extend that famous Flock hospitality to such nice people. I think they had a fine time, and I'm sure they were happy to attend a festival just for the birds.

Lee and Courtney, we were thrilled to have you...and hope to see you again soon!

We put the "ha" in Kanawha

"What trip are you going on today?"
"Kanhaw....Kanawawa...Kan...awww, dammit, the Falls trip."

I was never sure how to pronounce it (I heard someone call it "Kanaw" so I'm sticking with that) but Kanawha Falls is a trip to take if you decide to take the plunge and go to the New River Birding and Nature Festival.

If we rewind to last year's festival: The "Birding by Boat" trip was called off because of some sissy thunderstorm warning, so at the last minute the guides threw together a trip right off the cuff.
To Kanawha Falls. And I hear it was glorious.


I missed this trip last year because Laura kept me up until 1 am, jawing on the front porch, and then I was too wired to sleep until about 4, so when Nina gently said at 5 a.m., "Susan? Are you getting up?" I whispered, "I got an hour's sleep. And I'm hungover. And I can't move. Leave me behind."

And they ended up having a great time and I was jealous.

It went so well last year, the promoters added it as a real trip this time around.
Kanawha Falls is located at the town of Gauley Bridge and is a tributary of the Ohio River. And it really reminded me of the Ohio...wide and flat. Well, until you get to the waterfall.



It's a constant roar in the background that you can't ignore, no matter how hard you strain to hear the birds overhead.

This was my best day of the trip. Very close to being a "verklempt" sort of day.
Long-time readers of this blog might remember how enamored I was of the Dream Team from last year. Well, they are still just great, but Wil and Paul are my new favorites. Sorry, Paco. You've been replaced. My birding heart is a fickle thing.



It was fine that we got to experience the fiery orange of a Hoary Puccoon*:


*That is my new swear word. "Dat beotch ain't nuthin' but a hoary puccoon."

It was nice to finally get a decent, albeit backlit look at a warbling vireo.

Shot with my mad digi-scoping skills. Yeah.


And the hooded warbler was fun to watch, right out in the open.


We've decided that "Hooded" isn't a good enough name for this warbler. We are going to petition to change the name to "Balaclava Warbler". And of course they will listen to us.


The immature bald eagle was cool, even if it was a mile up.




The tiny town surrounding the falls was quiet except for a barooing hound dog.
The post office doesn't look like it gets much mail anymore.



There was a bus. On a rock. In the river.




I laughed out loud as Larry (more about him in another post) helped the bus driver fix the bus.



My breath was swept away by Cathedral Falls.

I hear we are lucky that it had rained the day before, because the water isn't usually a big deal.

So all these things were nice. And I'm laying the credit at the feet of Wil Hershberger and Paul Shaw. (Paul doesn't have a blog, that I know of. I don't think he's even on Facebook. Dude is really UN-connected. And since he doesn't have a blog, that makes him yet another poor dope.)
;)


They worked really well together. Wil always with a smile when one of us (me) asked a stupid question. In fact, I came to Wil whenever I had a question about anything, just to watch him be oh-so-polite and charming.


And Paul worked hard to show us a good time.



Can't see the bird? Well, Paul will get up behind you and make sure to get you on the bird.



And they were such good sports, even with Vickie and me on the trip. I was a bit of a pest, and some of my behavior started to rub off on Vickie. I'm so sorry, Vickie.

The two climaxes of the day:
1. Finally, a GOOD look at a Cerulean Warbler.

The darling little guy bounced right down the tree just as Wil said he would, as if Wil had him on a string. Not a life bird, but definitely a life LOOK.

Climax number 2:
On a hillside lush with rhododendrons, a SWAINSON'S Warbler sat out in the open. For five minutes.

Usually an extremely difficult bird to see, this one was maybe dazed from migration, because it. Just. Sat. There.

Both Wil and Paul got big squeezy hugs for those two birds. Ossum.


And birding aside, I got to enjoy a little silliness with Paul.
The bus was loaded and waiting for us.
We looked at the swing set with longing, then looked at each other.

"Let's SWING!"
And so we did.


Thanks, guys. A great day with a couple of great guides.