Robin and I took our kayaks to the Grand Mesa for a paddle one morning this week. We were running from the promised 97 degrees down in the valley and toward the 77 degrees predicted for the Mesa. It turned out to be an excellent idea. The lake we chose was Island Lake, which is a short drive from the visitor center. It is long and ovoid and beautiful. Also deep and cold. Plus there is a small island at one end.
I trolled a Panther Martin spinner behind my boat and caught:
- One 15 inch brown trout.
- One strand of lakeweed which did a wonderful imitation of a fish.
- One strand of lakeweed which gave up without a whimper.
- The bottom of the lake which fought me to a standstill, finally spitting my lure back at me in contempt.
At this point a wind came up which was stiff enough to produce whitecaps. Now my reading of the Sit-on-top Kayak Owner’s Manual is that such a situation is not the perfect environment for this type of boat. They are much happier with calmer water surfaces so we called it a day. We’d been paddling for a couple of hours so were ready to do that anyway.
On the way home we saw a good-sized weasel which dashed across the road in front of us, and a red-tailed hawk which flew across that stretch of road just six feet off the ground and a couple of yards in front of the car. It was a rare and closeup look at this dramatic bird, in flight.
******
******
While it is true that at one time in my life I was the Prince of Pediatricians, the road to this esteemed position was not a straight line, by any means. There were fits and starts and other career choices that had to be tried and then scrapped. For instance, there was a period when I was in training to become the Voldemort of Veterinarians.
I graduated high school at the tender age of 16 due to loopholes in our educational system, without a clear idea in my head as to what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. At one point I decided that since I liked animals very much, and loved the life that I thought a farmer lived, it was almost a given that I should study veterinary medicine. So off the the “farm campus” of the University of Minnesota I went, enrolled in the pre-vet curriculum.
As far as I could determine, all of the other members of my freshman class were the offspring of farmers and had spent their entire lives in that milieu. That difference began to show immediately in my grade slips. After a lifetime of getting A’s and B’s, other letters of the alphabet began to appear. The very first one went something like this:
- A in English
- A in Math
- F in Poultry husbandry
I had never had a D in my life, much less an F, and after one more quarter with similar results I switched majors and left the farm campus behind forever.
That “F” still smarts even after nearly seventy years, but I positively deserved it. It happened this way. Along the course of the quarter we students were given copies of a booklet from the US Department of Agriculture entitled Ventilation of Chicken Houses (or something to that effect). It was an exceedingly boring and detailed description of the need for proper ventilation and the mechanics of making sure that when large numbers of chickens were being kept enclosed that they had fresh air to breathe. There were calculations of cubic feet and air flows and the like and after scanning several pages I chose to store the pamphlet in the trash can where it was ultimately tossed out.
At final examination time, one of the questions made me regret my storage decision. We were given the dimensions of a large building destined to become a chicken dwelling and asked to describe how we would ventilate it. Our answer would represent 40% of the grade on our test. Since I had not a single ventilatory idea in my head beyond leaving the windows open, that is what I put down. The professor probably didn’t pause for a moment when he failed me. And there was no possibility of appeal since not only had my work been … shall we say … lacking a certain luster, but the professor had the bad taste to die of a heart attack the day before we took the test.
Pre-med and medical school proved more suited to what nature and experience had given me to work with. Turns out that I did well whenever there was not a single question about exhaust fans or hens.
******
From The New Yorker
******
On a morning that was otherwise unremarkable it occurred to me that we hear very little about swooning anymore. Personally, I have never known someone who swooned, nor have I ever done so myself. And yet the practice was evidently once common enough that there was a piece of furniture designed for and devoted to it, the fainting couch.
“Popular speculation explains the predominance of what are now called “fainting couches” in the 19th century as a result of women fainting because their corsets were too tight, restricting blood flow. This does not have historic support; it has been proposed instead that these “day beds” (as they were referred to at the time) were in imitation of Roman and Grecian daybed designs.“
It does strike me that the possibility of swooning re-emerging into modern life is unlikely, due to the fact that women are understandably suspicious of any word or phrases suggesting yet another quaint weakness of the “fairer sex.” Apparently they’ve had quite enough of that sort of thing.
No, I thought, if we were ever to regain our national swoon it would have to be men who led the way. Ladies, before you make up your minds forever on the subject, think about your lover reclining langourously on the couch in the photo.
Could you imagine a time when it might be swell if your swain swooned?
******
From The New Yorker
******
Late Friday afternoon we had a strong thunderstorm for the first time in months. Delightful. I was standing at the front door watching the rain falling as if it were a major sports event. Then slowly and gracefully a deer began walking across the yard of the neighbor directly across the street from us. Lovely. She was grazing in a dignified manner, taking her sweet time and possible enjoying the rain as much as Robin and I did.
Then out of that blue-black sky came small hail. Size of a pea. And that deer did exactly what I would have done if I were standing naked in the street in a hailstorm – she shifted into high gear and ran like blazes to get something between her and those painful little pebbles. From 1 mph to 30 mph in three steps.
******
Robin and I set out to hike up the Black Bear Pass on Saturday morning. The day was beautiful, and we found that most of the snow that had turned me around a couple of weeks ago was now gone. However, at about 2 1/2 miles up the trail, we found another snow collection which was blocking the path in a way that suggested that trying to cross it would be clumsy at best and unpleasant to a high degree at worst.
At this point, we turned around and went back down. There was no sense of failure because hadn’t gained the pass. We had enjoyed the walk and had met several very nice people with whom we chatted briefly along the way.
Wildlife seen: one elk, two marmots.
******
Little Home In The Valley 