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Return to-and-from Morgan Meadow
“Isn’t this nice?” I breathed cool misty fog
Just like my mother would say on an island,
But I was talking to my curvy hot dog dog,
A pointer-dachshund, who isn’t that reliable
When I let her run off-leash; the meadow
Seemed deserted, a 500-acre preserve,
No one else parked in the lot so I got risky,
Let the dog romp loose; lessons learned:
Once, she bounded unleashed into the woods
During our tour with the Inland Fisheries
Wildlife Biologist, and his great dane, Gus, rescued
Sophie-Bea. She trotted beneath his elegant body
As he galloped; it’s fleeting, the love lives
Of dogs, or so I have observed.
We tromped through unpredictable snow,
Followed deer tracks, boot holes and paths
Of snow-machines, a sort of broken treadmill
With trap doors for every third or fourth
Footfall, suddenly ankle-and-shin deep,
Crust-cutting and gator-bruising (I should
Have worn knee-pads). We trekked
A mile or more, then turned back, a hard
Walk (The dog snorted cold air and I panted
“Wait for me,” not a command she obeys.)
I felt somehow dismayed not to have
Seen wildlife, though there were signs:
Scat and smells the dog investigated.
At home, we guzzled water and cracked
Open some windows to let 40 degree
Fresh air fill the house; after that,
The dog tore through the upstairs
Screen, over the bulkhead, diving
Head-first, paws out, as if to jump!
There, by the lilac, where I’d tossed
Soft apples for squirrel and deer,
A small grey opossum rummaged
Around, not showing any fear
While my dog bashed herself
Against the window panes.
Oh, the pointless hysterics,
As I searched, half-naked,
Mid-dressing, for the camera
To take its picture.
I went out in mismatched PJ pieces
Breakfast slippers like an old man
Inching toward this bizarre species
That really belongs in Arkansas—
Just look at the headlines: “Recipe
Time: Eat Possum,” “Opossum
Found at Courthouse,” “Officials
Say ‘unlikely culprit’ raided Scout
Troups’ snack tray,” “Possum Tails:
How to Care for Your Pet.”
Leah Stetson photo
Seeing this nonnative creature waddle
Through my little Maine wooded seep
Makes me wonder about the weirdos
Who save orphaned opossums, keep
Them as pets and make home videos
Of their marsupials doing pig-tricks.
Now bobcats and red foxes, moose
And coyotes, hell, local legends
Of wild dogs (they’re suspicious)
Run ‘round Morgan Meadow’s
Marshland and forested wetlands,
But the possum is a new-comer.
Its population won’t sky-rocket;
The possum’s plight is pathetic.
It doesn’t survive under pressure
(Tires, mainly, the kill’s automatic)
On my drive up the Hill of Doom,
I swerved to avoid a dead one,
Quite possibly the same possum
That drove my dog nuts.
She’s from Arkansas, too.
Little Rebel at White’s Island
At night the moonlight masked the hedges
On Tucker’s Hill, a private thrill to walk
From our Victorian home to White’s Island.
I’d cross the causeway, both footbridges,
Historic railroad tracks and inhale a secret air
That only I felt could fill my strange, weak lungs
Without a jerk of hyperventilation, my Ondine’s curse.
As if I’d held my breath the swift sprint to the island,
I caught the scents of saltgrass, the mudflats and lush
Odors of the Sheepscot River and damp trees, all seven
That grew in a circle, leaning like a coven of witches.
I stood by their cauldron, a natural cavity in the earth,
Brimming and brewing some magical potion that might
Transform my old soul pre-teen self into maturity.
Poems, not spells, I cast into the water. Smooth stones, not sorcery,
Slid back and forth in my hands. I traded love letters with a boy,
Who stole down to the island to smoke cloves by the stone wall;
Cracks in the mortar of the old bathhouse facilitated delivery.
Flats crackled as the tides shifted; its ebb awakened the eel grass
And all its inhabitants in the water bed.
I played a daring barefoot game along a line of rocks, jagged
And round on the less-popular side, a pebbled beach strewn
With sea glass, not always “ready” (I returned the sharp pieces)
Broken bits of brick, cast-offs from the mason station, dead crabs.
Gramma called the big slate boulder, “Leah’s rock,”
I liked to sit there dripping in my wet bathing suit,
Let my long hair dry in the sun. Salt flaked on my skin
In glistening specks; the white of the salt clung to my ankles
Invisible socks (when I wouldn’t wear my jellies).
Water marks rimmed the rock’s edge in uneven, parallel
Stripes; they measured the tides like waistlines
On a full-figured woman. At high tide, I perched
Curved-postured, as if to dive, and dipped my fins
Into cold dark green saltwater up to my shins.
Those summer nights when I snuck down to the island
In my ripped-seated jeans and tennis sneakers,
Sitting on the rock, my little rebellion.
(a work in progress) ~Leah
Sweet fern, not a true fern
Last week in the midst of meetings and deadlines, I slowed down long enough to learn how to identify northeastern wetland ferns. I participated in a Swamp School webinar and after the training, I earned a certificate. Since I’ve written about ferns a few times for my Strange Wetlands series, I thought I better check myself, before I made a fern faux pas. And as it happens, I was wrong about one plant: sweet fern (Comptonia peregrina) is a member of the heath family, not a true fern.
The “Swamp Seminar” on wetland ferns started with the parts of a fern. Prior to this class, I knew to refer to the fern frond, which is the whole fern leaf, and I knew that rhizomes are the roots, but the rest of a fern’s morphology–well, that was new to me. It was fascinating to learn that a fern might be identified based on whether it is once, twice or thrice pinnate–meaning, the number of cuts on the pinna, or leaflet. Lady Fern, a common fern that grows in my “Fern Gully” at Nixie’s Vale, is three-times pinnate with a rough-edged leaflet, making it look lacy – the Victoria’s Secret brand of ferns. Other ferns have similarly feminine names like Venus Hair Fern (Adiantum capillus‐veneris) and Northern Maiden-Hair Fern (Adiantum pedatum), or Maiden-Hair Spleenwort (Asplenium trichomanes), which grows near waterfalls. How lovely.
Northern Maiden-Hair Fern
For wetland professionals, the training also addressed whether each fern is an Obligate Wetland species, meaning that it always occurs in a wetland, also known as a hydrophyte (loves water); a Facultative Wetland species, which means that the fern usually shows up in a wetland, but can also be found in upland areas; or, thirdly, it may be a Facultative species, commonly occuring in both wetland and upland areas. Ferns that fit this last category–facultative, are still important to know because they may help someone identify the edge of a wetland. Identifying wetland plants is fairly complex. See this USDA page on wetland indicator information, if you are curious. If by any chance, you’re a real wetland plant enthusiast, I encourage you to check out this presentation on the newly revised national wetland plant list, which is run by the Army Corps of Engineers.
National Wetland Plant List
Among the many types covered in the training, I learned how to identify Sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis), Fragile fern (Cystopteris fragilis) and Interrupted fern (Osmunda claytoniana), which I’m pretty sure I’ve spotted in Fern Gully. I have my notes to take into the field this spring when the fronds unfurl like fiddleheads and I can go on a fern ID scavenger hunt. The Swamp School webinar included access to an online tool kit, which allows me to reference handouts–and to get my certificate. I found the website and webinar training well-organized and jam-packed with knowledge and inspiration. I really enjoyed this class.
For those who are interested, Swamp School also offers classes on wetland delineation–in both classroom, field and webinar formats with live, interactive training. Marc Seelinger is the founder–and he’s a terrific instructor, too. Right now he’s got a series of wetland delineation classes posted on the SwampSchool.org website, but there are also webinars and workshops on occasion. After all, inspiring minds want to know.
Is it a lake or a pond or a wetland?
My mother recently asked me about the difference between a lake and pond. She had just watched a neat presentation on Maine PBS about the Belgrade Lakes (See “Saving Our Lakes” on MPBN) – a program about the Belgrade Lakes Watershed Sustainability Project. Prior to that conversation, friends have asked me about the body of water beyond my backyard—if it was a lake or a pond and what’s the difference? My first answer was that it is a pond by name. A pond or lake may be named as such the way “street,” “lane,” or “road” are often interchangeable. Secondly, a lake and a pond have differences at the ecological level—in terms of aquatic life, and in terms of limnology. I also explained that the differences had to do with acreage and depth of the water body. Sometimes a “pond” can be bigger and deeper by comparison to a nearby lake, as in the case of Long Pond (113’ deep) and Echo Lake (66’ deep) in Acadia National Park. In that case, Echo Lake is technically considered a “great pond” under Maine state law because it’s a natural pond greater than 10 acres. But usually lakes are bigger and deeper than ponds. By state definitions, both lakes and ponds fall under similar regulations for “waters of the state” and related water quality and other environmental protection laws in Maine, and in many other states. Under the Cowardin classification system, ponds are wetlands.
What I did not explain very well was the natural grade of lakes into ponds into wetlands, and their evolution as waters. What made sense to me as an ecologist, that one type would naturally grade into another water type, was harder to explain to my friend. What’s even harder to illustrate is the concept of an ecotone—the transition area between two ecological communities adjacent to one another. As usual, I thought of movies.
The phenomenon of distinct communities existing side by side can be observed in film. For example, the liminal space between cultures—a cultural transition area—can be viewed as bordercrossings, illustrated effectively in films like “Night on Earth” (1991). Jim Jarmusch’s film took place entirely in taxi cabs in five different time zones throughout the world. The concept is that no matter where you go, at one point in time, there are eerily similar transactions and interactions taking place in taxi cabs—a kind of cultural habitat, if you will—for humans migrating from one place to another. Some water bodies, like taxi cabs, are mobile; some are stationary, like an ‘off-duty’ cab. And that’s where the changes from lake to pond to wetland, or the line between adjacent ecological communities, can get a little fuzzy to someone standing on the curb, er, the edge of the water.
Over what period of time do lakes become ponds? How long does it take for ponds to become wetlands? For wetlands to become meadows? The short answer is several thousand years, if nothing has interrupted (or accelerated) the natural evolution of these waters. This is called succession. Biology students learning about wetland succession in a classroom can experiment with an aquarium—starting with a mini pond or wetland habitat. For a biology teaching guide written by BioMedia (Russell) that outlines the key ingredients to such an experiment for a year-long study, click here. Limnologists say, “lakes are destined to die,” whereas ponds are the “death of a lake” and the “birth of a marsh.” For an explanation on pond succession, click here.
So how does a pond become a wetland? The first stage, called the ‘pioneer’ stage of wetland succession, starts with the pond without plant life at the bottom. Plankton, which inhabit the pond, and carry miniscule plant and animal life, arrive on the winds or wings of insects. Over time, plankton die on the pond bottom and create a mucky layer, which is rich enough for water emergent plants to grow, such as water lilies, ancient wetland plants. As water lilies form a blanket over the surface of the water, they cut off the sunlight to the bottom, killing off the submergent plants. These processes can take a variety of timeframes from a matter of years to a matter of millennia. Trees, shrubs and grasses move into the space that was once the pond and a wetland takes shape. This is a dynamic process with many variables. Some wetland ecologists have argued against the idea of wetland succession because of these variables.
Succession is not a sure thing. It does not occur with all lakes in the U.S.. (For instance, there is no scientific concern that the Great Lakes will eventually turn into ponds, or meadows.) There are many factors that can interrupt a “natural” succession process such as a changing climate, soils, drainage, land development, introduction of invasive plants or other aquatic species, phosphorus run-off (causing dissolved oxygen) or other factors.
In addition to the possible succession pattern of pond to wetland, some wetlands can be turned into ponds. In the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Status & Trends of Wetlands in the Conterminous United States 2004-2009, ponds are recognized as a type of freshwater wetland. The report indicates a net increase of 207,200 acres of freshwater ponds between 2004-2009, an increase of 3.2% in freshwater ponds nationally (FWS). The trouble with ponds, for example, farm ponds, being created in place of another type of freshwater wetland, is that there is a difference between constructed ponds and freshwater (or natural) ponds in their ecological functions. According to the Status & Trends Report, the majority of ponds in the U.S. are constructed farm ponds with only 31% being natural ponds.
In a way, it’s an uncertain destiny for our lakes, ponds, streams, rivers and wetlands. For those working to protect wetlands, and to harness the power of wetlands to sequester carbon and provide unique and solvent ways to fight climate change’s impact on our planet, that may be part of wetlands’ destiny, too. Save wetlands? Save ourselves. That’s next in line.
In the trend of the Eat-Pray-Love readers’ take on “what’s your word” for the new year, I’ve been thinking of my word. At first, I thought of “regeneration.” But I shortened it.
2013 is the Year of the Black Water Snake. When looking for images of the Water Snake Year, my favorite is on Mystic Medusa’s blog, depicting a snake with blue scales (at left, Lena Sokol illustration). In Chinese astrology, the color black is sometimes expressed in blues (usually dark or deep hues), which is sometimes missed by graphic designers working on tee shirt ideas. That’s why wearing black or blue clothing in 2013 is considered favorable for some of the animal signs, including those of us born in snake years. Just as 2012 was marked as both “black,” the color that symbolizes unpredictability and mystery, and the element of water, we are entering a new year of deep transformation. Water snake years have historically been associated with revolutions and uprisings, such as the 9/11 attacks, during a water snake year (2001). The unpredictability of a “black” year and the changes associated with water snake years also include accidents, oil spills, plane and train crashes/accidents and tragedies. Geomancer Paul Ng breaks down predictions for different regions of the world, the economy, health and industries/business, as well as individual horoscopes for everyone’s Chinese animal sign, in his predictions for the Year of the Black Water Snake. Ng predicts it will be a year of conservation. And of course, there will be an emphasis on water.
Ever since the 6th grade, I’ve looked forward to my 36th year. As an adolescent, I got attached to the idea of all of the wonderful things I imagined myself doing at the age of 36. I’m not sure why I picked 36. A child of the ‘70s Star Wars generation, I was born during the Year of the Fire Snake. Over the past few years, I’ve learned a few things about Chinese astrology. For instance, I’ve learned that Snake was a goddess and a healer, who had the ability to transform into a beautiful woman. This Snake goddess icon in ancient Chinese mythology was charming, well-loved and popular, not at all demonized as serpents have been depicted in western folklore. Snake, in the form of a woman, fell in love with a scholar, and married him. Apparently, the snake’s natural element is fire, but it also contains the element of earth. Water snake years are yin female years, which gives them a gentle quality. Fire snake years are more confrontational, and those born in fire snake years, more argumentative. (I can’t argue with that.)
My step-dad, Michael, would have turned 60 this year. Like me, he was a Snake in the Chinese zodiac, but he was a water snake. (My mother is a water dragon. They say that people fall in love with another whose element blends well with one’s own.) In reading about the water snake years, the law and legal profession come into the mix, and my step-dad was a regulatory lawyer. He was also a gentle person, a musician, gardener and athletic swimmer. He passed away in 2011. I miss him. He and I shared an interest in astrology, feng shui, mysticism and poetry, and of course, a shared love for swimming in lakes, rivers, the ocean. He was born under the water sign of Scorpio; I’m a Pisces. Transformation is a favorite theme among Scorpios. One year in college, after taking (and bombing) a class on Goddesses, for which I wrote a paper on the role of poetry in goddess worship (and apparently did not make a compelling argument), I remember talking with Michael about transcendentalists and transformation. I think I passed along my text book to him…a book on enlightenment. (He was also a Buddhist.)
2013 is not only the Year of the Snake, but also contains the “wooden tiger,” which sets up some tension because there is usually conflict between Snake and Tiger. However, from what I’ve gleaned in reading about it, those with Tiger as one of their Four Pillars of Destiny may see some extraordinary events this year. In my case, I was born in a tiger month. You can get your Four Pillars of Destiny chart (for free) at this website easily. There are plenty of alternatives, such as Astrology.com, that also provide this information for free, and some of them offer more of an explanation than others. Once you know those four animal signs, it’s more fun (and helpful) to read predictions for the coming year. Another fun website I found defines the all-important “Day Master,” part of the Four Pillars chart. In my case, my “Day Master” is the metal pig. Oddly enough, when I was a child, I had a collection of small pig and cat figurines. (The Rabbit in the Chinese zodiac is alternatively called the Cat.)
Pillars of Destiny Sample
There’s a lot more to it, if you’re interested. For example, if you’re curious about your financial fortunes for 2013, you’d have to learn your “money star,” which is determined based on the element conquered by your “Day Master.” (Is it just me, or does this sound like convoluted video game rules?) Metal overcomes wood, as in the image of an axe chopping through a tree branch. So the element of wood ties to my so-called money star. Those interested in feng shui may already be familiar with this notion. If I wanted to improve my money luck, I’d strengthen the wood elements within my home. Good feng shui: I have hardwood floors and a healthy flow of chi. Bad feng shui: rotten wood on my porch and two dying houseplants. See more on feng shui and improving money luck in the home.
Among the predictions for the Year of the Black Water Snake, most of the astrologers recommend going at a “snake’s pace,” and given the water influence, adopting a “go with the flow” attitude. Water snake years are associated with long-distance travel, especially by train and sea. Any industry that deals with water resources or earth (think environmental sciences, wetlands management) should do well, especially in areas that deal with science, research, scholars/study and technology. Seeking wisdom, introspection and delving into serious study, or any type of education, are characteristic of snake years. (See a typical overview for the Year of the Water Snake.) Those working in the entertainment industry should do well, too, since the Snake is an entertainer. Unfortunately, “black water” presents us again with possible disasters, akin to what we saw in 2012, also a black water year. Hopefully the female yin nature of the Snake will be gentle, and the disasters will be on a much smaller scale, and fewer! In the Chinese zodiac, the Snake is also known as “Little Dragon,” so the effects of a snake year tend to be smaller than those experienced during a dragon year. That’s a relief! At a deeper level, for those born in the year of the Snake, transformation will be a strong theme. It’s time to shed one’s skin.
Thus, my word for 2013 is regenerate.
The Chinese New Year is in early February. Technically speaking, the Chinese calendar begins on February 4th but the celebrations won’t be until later. February always marks the start of a new year for me because it’s my birthday month. I expect those born in other months may feel similarly about their birthday months signaling a new beginning. Now off to do something about those sad plants in the kitchen…
Playing Swamp Maiden by the Sheepscot. Margaret Stewart photo.
My love for the water spawned at the mouth of the Sheepscot River in midcoast Maine. But like the eels and salmon, I swam upstream and came of age in not one, but two watersheds. One, an estuary in Wiscasset Harbor, nourished by the Sheepscot, swallowed incoming tides from the Gulf of Maine. My family owned a half-acre island, White’s Island, at the center of this estuary, where I waded and swam through eel grass, sharp as steak knives turned on their edges. I wore petticoats of rockweed and floated in hot black inner tubes. The current raced beneath the first footbridge to the island threatening to take a swimmer under the trestle bridge of the railroad, where young swimmers weren’t supposed to go. The undertow was strong and there was always a risk of drowning. My paternal grandmother taught me how to save someone from drowning in that fast-moving current. She pretended to drown herself, sinking heavily to the muddy bottom. I dove down deep to rescue her. When I had done this successfully a few times, we crawled to the riverbank and she cackled with delight. Treading against that current took all my energy in frigid saltwater, even in summer. It required a combination of kicking and letting go—as I floated backward in fast-forward motion—then paddled again.
At White’s Island, 1987
Further inland, I learned to swim out deep in Little Sebago Lake. As a young girl, I swam with the eels at night and seduced them with my flashlight. My brother and I perched at the end of the dock, shining our lights down into the water, luring the eels to our beams. Their sinuous profiles cast shadows on the rippled sandy bottom like slithering heads of Medusa. Our maternal grandmother, whom we called Nana, let us swim at night. Sometimes we asked our grandfather to splash around and make the eels go away, but they came back. These American freshwater eels, which live in the ocean at the beginning and end—their silver stage of development—migrate to lakes, where they live for much of their lives. For my Strange Wetlands post about eels, see this post, in which I review James Prosek’s book, Eels–An Exploration from New Zealand to the Sargasso, the World’s Most Amazing & Mysterious Fish. 
Several towns surround this three-basin freshwater lake, including Windham, Gray and Raymond, Maine. The “Lakes Region” here refers to the Sebago Lake watershed, consisting of 360 square miles of lakes, ponds, rivers and wetlands. Streams and tributaries, like the Crooked River, flow into Sebago Lake, an inflow of 450 million gallons per day. Sebago Lake is twelve miles long and over 300 feet deep, holding 995 billion gallons of water, providing the #1 source of clean drinking water for much of southern Maine, including the city of Portland. Sebago is the deepest lake in New England—and glacially speaking, the bottom of the 14,000-year-old lake basin is 450 feet below the lake’s surface. The Portland Water District chronicled the origins of Sebago Lake in their summer 2012 newsletter. According to geological analysis of sediment samples, Sebago Lake has been a “clean and healthy lake for the past 400 years.” It’s one of the few water bodies in the U.S. that does not require filtration. It’s also home to salmon and trout fisheries.
I live in the land of “landlocked salmon,” or so says the welcome sign on Route 302, the main road through the Lakes Region. This land is a water world. Before you start picturing a post-apocalyptic movie with pirate ships, hold your breath: this is a freshwater-focused community. The economy, culture, traditions and values lay anchor in this watershed. Recently I started coordinating a new coalition of town conservation planners and those interested in the common goal of protecting the waters of the Lakes Region with special interest on the Sebago Lake watershed. I named it the Healthy Waters Coalition well aware of the dozens of other collaborative groups throughout the country engaged in water resources protection and outreach education by the same name. With so many land trusts, conservation groups and town conservation commissions and local nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations active in southern and western Maine, and throughout the Lakes Region, I wanted a name that was authentic to the common interest and shared goals, without alienating any one type of group. It’s a grassroots effort to inform and educate citizens in the region on issues pertinent to water resources protection and management in the Sebago Lake watershed. So far there are 30 members and a general consensus of our goals and mission going ahead. I’m happy to be involved in the spirit of collaboration ~ and will be sure to bring the role of wetlands into the conversation quite often.
Most people throughout New England, New York and New Jersey will forever associate the full moon of October 29th, 2012 with Hurricane Sandy, a powerful hybrid storm. I will also remember it as the date my family lost my grandmother. My Nana, as my brothers and I called her, and I had a special relationship. As the eldest grandchild, I enjoyed the most time with her out of her seven grandchildren, and we were most alike. Nana and I celebrated our birthdays together, since they were just a day apart. I remember spending lots of February school vacations with my grandparents and that usually fell on the week of our birthdays. Nana and I both shared a love of greasy hot pink lip gloss, hot pink roses and the color turquoise. She loved Liza Minnelli and the soundtrack to New York, New York. “There goes the ball game….” 
My Nana was born Mary Martha Knights in Maine, February 1924, the daughter of a firefighter, though she was much closer to her mother, Martha. She grew up near Lake Auburn in western Maine, where she met my grandfather on a double-date. Their mutual friend, Olive, who was to become her sister-in-law, was dating Robert Chaplin’s brother, and the four of them had a group date. I loved hearing the story of my grandparents’ early courtship. About ten years ago, I met Olive, and she gave me a pretty turquoise ring that I wear with a heart-shaped powa shell pendant around my neck. Olive’s ring symbolizes fateful love to me, since my grandparents were so obviously soulmates.
Grampa, a tall good-looking Scorpio, was a machinist in the U.S. Navy and a musician. He led his band, the Bob Chaplin Orchestra, which played all of the colleges throughout Massachusetts in the 1940s, on lead clarinet. He played other instruments as well, and taught music for many years in Portland, Maine. My Nana, a rebellious Pisces, lacked that musical talent and like me, once faked it during a school band concert. Even though they attended the same high school, Grampa was four years older, so they didn’t meet until she was in her late 20s and he in is early 30s. By that point, she was working as a secretary for an insurance company, and as an only child, was very independent. My Grampa had 6 brothers–no sisters–including a brother named Charlie. Yes, we are distantly related to that Charlie Chaplin, too. 
When my grandparents first met, neither of them wanted to get married. Despite their differences, that was one thing they had in common. As it turned out, they shared a love for the natural world, a love for gardening (they grew several large vegetable gardens for decades), a love for the water and wildlife, for animals (they always had dogs and cats) and for their three children and 7 grandchildren. They left the city of Portland for a beautiful farmhouse in rural New Gloucester, Maine, and had one of the first houses on their road. Nana and Grampa preferred the pastoral lands strung together with streams, a few ponds and wetlands. They enjoyed sports together, too, and belonged to a bowling club not far from Little Sebago Lake, where they bought and fixed up a 1920s camp in Sunset Cove near Fish Rock. Grampa set up his office at camp one summer while he was writing his book on metal removal technology, which was later adopted as a text in the engineering program at University of Maine-Orono. Nana and I floated around on rubber rafts summer-after-summer, peering down at the sun-sparkled lake bottom for a silver ring she’d lost 25 years before, which we never found, but never lost interest in searching, swimming and floating.
Nana spoke of a summer she spent with her cousin, Ruth, and their friends at Old Orchard Beach when they were teen-agers. Stories sounded very much like the Betty & Veronica comics I read at camp. Boys, bathing suits and bonfires on the beach!
Around 3 a.m. Sunday morning, I finally shut off the tablet and the light to go to sleep, when –as if on cue, an otherworldly howl shuddered through the woods. It was a lonely howl, unanswered. Usually the dogs of the neighborhood call to one another late at night. I worry about them since it’s getting colder and I wonder why their owners let (or make) their dogs stay outside all night. But this particular howl wasn’t dog-like, or wolf-like, or like any coyote I’d ever heard either. It was a mix of canine and human-like cries. Logically, I told myself it could be an animal in the throes of death, in the clutches of another animal, and those encounters can bring about strangely horrific sounds. Deer also make strange noises during rutting season – but it’s not the right time of year and it was only one howl, not likely a deer. I ruled out fisher, too, since it didn’t sound like a woman being murdered.
MTV’s Teen Wolf
My mind was full of inventive possibilities since I’d just finished watching the first season of MTV’s “Teen Wolf,” which is excellent. Season 2 is terrific, too, and I look forward to the third installment of the series, which is supposed to have 24 episodes. I liked the mix of settings from the woods to the lacrosse field to the classroom. It picks up on the same premise as the 1980s classic with Michael J. Fox, a movie I adored as a kid, but MTV put a slick modern spin on the story line: hunters, ancient mythology, werewolf packs. As much as I respect a girl who knows how to use a cross-bow, I had to hand it to Holland Roden, the actress who plays Lydia Martin, a redheaded popular girl, who is highly intelligent (perfect grades, leadership skills, on the path to winning a Fields Medal someday) teen-ager who plays dumb strategically. Roden’s portrayal of that complex character is refreshingly original. She’s sort of like a “Mean Girl” who gets a supernatural makeover and reveals herself to be much deeper than anyone guessed.
Holland Roden as Lydia
I think what I like best about Lydia’s character is that she reminds me of my friend, Jodie, in appearance and creative style. Jodie and I have the same birthday, and as Pisceans, we’re idealists. Lydia seems like an idealist, too, and romanticizes her relationship with her beau, Jackson, who goes through a bit of a monstrous metamorphosis, with many, many manifestations. Good thing Lydia knows archaic Latin and sees his true colors (even though he is a snake at times, quite literally!) The show is great -but if you can’t handle suspense or supernatural horror/violence, then pass on this one. This show beats the Twilight series in a number of categories, one being werewolf fights. Well choreographed! The plot is 10x more compelling in “Teen Wolf” than in many other supernatural series on screen today. Two thumbs up!
Then this morning around 6 a.m., a large dark animal crept over the stone wall in my backyard. It moved stealthily. It was bigger than a dog, even the German Shepherds on either side of my house, and stayed low to the stone wall, creeping like a cat. My dog went bananas, throwing herself at the door. My cats peered out the window. Everyone seemed to buzz with excitement. I guessed it to be the bobcat that shows up in my backyard every winter–only this year she/he is early. My cats seemed to run from window to window, taunting my dog: “the bobcat’s back and you’re gonna be in trouble, hey now, hey now, the bobcat’s back!” I waited a while before I took my dog out on her leash so she could sniff around. I could tell by my dog’s tail that the bobcat was long gone.
Tonight on my way home, after dark, the headlights of the Subaru flashed a pair of glowing eyes in a dark shape moving across the road. It looked like a very big black dog. It didn’t have a collar – at least not one that was visible – and it walked in an awkward way, its shoulders pronounced and protruding above and behind its head. It stopped on the side of the road and turned to face my car, as I slowly drove past, thinking it was a neighbor’s dog out too late, unattended. No houses or people walking nearby, no driveways around. I hope–if it was someone’s dog–that it got home alright. On the other hand, a part of me wondered if it was a stray, a lost dog or a wild dog. This area has been known for wild dogs for over 60 years, though there hasn’t been a large pack since the 1950s, according to the Inland Fisheries & Wildlife guys I asked two years ago. Around here, there is an unspoken understanding among hunters, too, that if they see an animal they believe is a “wild dog,” they’re allowed to shoot it, even if it turns out to be someone’s pet. That’s the part of the culture and deeply-embedded mythology of this place that’s real, not fiction. It’s what people believe, and what their fathers and grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers, told them as children to believe. There may not be werewolves around here, but the hunters believe in wild dogs. And they walk right through my woods at Nixie’s Vale.
My workout today:
After a couple of hours spent stacking wood, I had barely made a dent in the pile. My trusty pointer-dachshund hunted for chipmunks, which have been hiding in the woodpile for the past month. Stacking a cord of wood by myself is a labor of love. I say that because I love the warmth of a fire in my woodstove, which is very efficient–and brings my upstairs rooms to a toasty 80 degrees on a cold wintry night. Sophie-Bea and I took a lunch break and then got back to work on the pile. I’m stacking some of it inside my garage but most of it goes under the shed roof. An aggressive army of wasps had constructed a formidable paper nest with six levels–about the diameter of half a tennis racket but overall, slightly smaller than a football. I had to wait until a chilly night to move the nest to another location on my land, far away from the wood pile, after getting stung a few times.
Progress…
Yesterday we followed the sound of a loud buzz saw down to the pond. I figured someone was cutting firewood only to find it was not a chainsaw but a remote control speed boat racing around like something out of “The Rescuers.” My first thought: “Evinrude,” the dragonfly that transported the mice, Bernard and Bianca, through the swamp; it’s also the brand of outboard motor on my grandfather’s boat at the lake. I could see the red toy speedboat zipping around the otherwise quiet pond. Its battery-operated motor emitted an annoying high pitch noise like a swarm of insects. I like dragonflies…but not mosquitoes.
On the causeway
Before I could visually match the buzz to the little boat, I was nervous about what I was walking into–locusts? Usually the pond is a scene of serenity, not fecundity. I walked with the dog, who looked bothered by the buzzing boat, and finally spotted a grown man standing on his dock, operating a remote-control device. Not a kid. An adult. I walked down to the causeway that connects a tiny two-acre island to the mainland and sat down on the edge, where I had a clear view of the toy speedboat. It did laps. It circled around at warp speed. Fish jumped. I half expected to see a bass take it down–a comical reverse “Jaws” scene, or again, something out of “The Rescuers,” maybe an alligator.
When my brother and I were little, we had “The Rescuers” board game (1977). Players moved around the board, decorated like a swamp, and faced off the villains: two alligators, a hip-swiveling southern woman named Medusa, and her nerdy spectacled-sidekick Mr. Spooks. Tad and I turned over cards to see which villain crossed our path as we embarked on an imaginary adventure as two heroic mice. I LOVED this game. Of course, we had the books, the game, the record. Long before we had movies on VHS, we listened to stories on the record player.
The battery on the toy speedboat died suddenly, lurching the little boat to a stop in the middle of the pond. My dog watched with concern. A slow-moving paddleboat turned toward the direction of the now-sinking red remote-control boat. Its operator paddled over in a kayak and met up with the people on the paddleboat–and the three of them talked about their collections of toy speedboats, ideal rechargeable batteries and other dilemmas. I thought, “this is a thing?” I guess this is a thing.
Today the pond, serene as usual, smelled of crisp fall leaves. Orange, red and yellow leaves floated as if on a current, racing under the causeway bridge. Yesterday I watched dozens of little fish swimming and jumping–but today I saw none. Evinrude and the Rescue Aid Society must have been charging through the marshgrass somewhere. No sign of them today.
Living next a pond–even though I don’t have direct water access–feels rejuvenating. I really feel blessed getting to drink all of this in, metaphorically speaking.
The pond beyond my backyard
Mist rolls off the pond like tumbleweed. Over Columbus Day weekend, I swam in the lake with a juvenile loon, listening to its creaky voice. A flock of geese flew in a V across a sunset hazy sky. They squawked. Alone in the water, I pushed through hydrilla and slippery reeds, coiled ‘round my wrists like odd bracelets. Back home, thumps and thuds clamor through the woods. It’s just deer and moose. A murmuration of starlings explodes suddenly from trees and even the woodpeckers pause their pecking on a rotten birch. My black ash seep, Fern Gully, smells of sweet fern and wild grapes, a strange brew of grape and goldenrod. A perennial stream trickles through the woods and flows into the pond.
Woodpecker in the V branch of a birch
A neighbor told me something eerie about the land—that’s mostly forested wetlands and uplands. We live next to a pond previously called Little Rattlesnake Lake. It was known as a sacred place. A legend told of a healing energy and spiritual protection over all who lived there. I’ve noticed that a number of healers, and others who work in the health profession, live in the neighborhood. My neighbor retold stories about ghosts and spirits, which she had believed to have seen in the woods between our houses. She thought the land was haunted. A hydromancer came with a dowsing rod and he identified several places where water was hidden underground, matching my neighbor’s maps showing the location of pipes and springs. He also confirmed her suspicion—but clarified that the area was charged with a kind of water force and spirits, and they held positive sway over the land. I listened to all of this with great curiosity because I, too, had felt good vibes. When I first moved here, I named my new home “Nixie’s Vale,” with a nod to Tennyson and to water spirits.
Growing up in haunted houses in coastal Maine, I was no stranger to ghost hunters. My family lived in a home that was featured on the TV show, “Unsolved Mysteries,” for one thing, and tourists wandered in through the parlors when I was a teen-ager. We lived on top of Tucker’s Hill, beside the famed Castle Tucker, overlooking the Sheepscot River estuary. I loved to sneak down there in the moonlight and pad over the two footbridges to my family’s little one-acre island, named after my grandmother’s family – White’s Island. A circle of seven trees, which I thought of as a coven of witches, stood around a sunken hole, where the tree roots of one tree flipped backward underground, causing an abnormally large rounded dent. There was something spooky about it. Upon approaching it from afar, a person couldn’t tell there was a hole, since tall grass grew all around it. The result was a sort of concave grassy knoll that tripped runners and captured them like an island-sized Venus flytrap. As far as I knew, the island was haunted only by the family’s dogs, buried on the island. Gramma’s dogs, Brownie and Freda, loved the island, so we always pictured their spirited tails wagging in the eel grass as they hunted for things that moved in the rockweed. I like to think that they continue to guard the end of the second footbridge. I can never go back there, this much is true.
Islands and wetlands, especially bogs, moors, swamps, meadows and seashores, set the scene for a good ghost story. In classic literature, wetlands represented something dark and mysterious. In modern fiction, wetlands are still a preferred setting. Read a short story called, “Phantom Lovers of Dismal Swamp,” by S.E. Schlosser or the famed Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris, set in a rural swampy Louisiana parish with quirky stories of the undead.
If you prefer to curl up with a book of wetland ghost stories, try Ghosthunting North Carolina by Kate Ambrose. Most of the book is set in coastal wetlands. For more wetland “ghost stories,” see my other post.
The Adventures of Fen Fatale ~ Ecoheroine 