Journal of a Sabbatical

December 30, 1998

the temperature drops

We had just enough snow last night to create that winter wonderland look this morning: all the trees and shrubs frosted with white, snow hiding the piles of leaves and dormant grasses, looking just like a frosted cake. I thought about taking some pictures before I went to the cat shelter but I was already running late.

The heat situation at the cat shelter has stabilized so everybody is comfy cozy again.

Trevor has ringworm. Man, we just cannot get rid of it! Arrrrggghhhh! Bob handed me Trevor's litter box and said "You may want to use chlorine." "Hunh? I already am using chlorine. Oh, you meant chlorhexidine."

Jaguar is not feeling well. He's got to be about 14 years old or more now. I noticed last week he was limping a little, like his back right leg might be arthritic. Now he seems to maybe be having kidney problems or something. Not eating and getting a little dehydrated. He was not in a mood to be petted when I first came in , but at the end of the shift he was all lovey, well as lovey as Jaguar gets. He let me pet him and he started kneading the pillow he was on while I did it.

Mr. H, the feral feeder from Salisbury beach brought in a longhaired black kitten, about 6 weeks old, that he captured this morning. Poor thing is terrified and has round worms. Bonnie held him while the other Bonnie took his picture for the adoption bulletin board. Then he's off to a foster home to get civilized, I mean socialized. He's adorable with his little fierce wild animal face. It's a good thing he got captured today because the temperature is supposed to drop rapidly tonight to single digits with a wind chill around -10. Not a good night to be a feral kitten.

The weather forecasters were predicting all morning that the temperature would start to drop at noon and decline rapidly to the low teens, with a wind-chill in the -15 range. For once, they were right on target. I left the shelter a little after 11:30 and stopped for lunch at Angie's Diner in Newburyport. By the time I finished lunch, the wind had picked up and the weather had gone from sort of nice to downright nasty. I was in a mood to spend time outdoors no matter what, so I drove over to the refuge to look for birds. Of course, I stopped at the ornithologically famous boat ramp on the way and as soon as I looked out of the car I spotted a common black-headed gull in with a flock of ring-billed gulls and herring gulls. It was close enough that I could identify it with the naked eye but I got out the binoculars and studied it for awhile anyway. A car load of women with binoculars were parked right on the boat ramp gazing at it too.

On the beach, I was not the only idiot out and about. I saw at least 5 other people as I walked along near the southern boundary of the refuge. The wind was blowing so fiercely the waves had plumes of spray coming off their tops that seemed nearly as big as the waves themselves. The sand was blowing around my feet in little purple swirls. As soon as a shell would wash up, it would get filled with sand - almost buried. The sky kept changing color all the time. It would start to clear, then get very gray, then purple, then white and silver. Just as I was leaving, a northern harrier swooped down right in front of me. Whatever it was after, it missed. It came away with talons full of marsh peat, which it dropped shortly. I had one exposure left on the roll of film so I just pointed the camera at him and clicked without thinking. The lone harrier against the dramatic sky just seemed to sum up the day.

I treated myself to a cappuccino at Fowle's and a long, long, long browse at Olde Port Book Shop from which I came away with a 1961 first edition of Yoshimara Yamashina's Birds in Japan: A Field Guide. It's really the only field guide to Japan's birds in English and is long out of print have Mark Brazil's The Birds of Japan, which is wonderful and more ornithologically detailed but is way too big to carry as a field guide. Not that I have an specific plans to go back, but you never know. Besides, the Yamashina book has a painting of the hototogisu, a popular theme in Japanese poetry. Ever since reading Basho's poem

Even in Kyoto/ I long for Kyoto/ when I hear the hototogisu

I've wanted to know what one looks like. Many English translations translate it as nightingale and many fail to translate it, like the Basho poem above. But it's a species of cuckoo! I guess cuckoo has too many connotations in English. I can't wait 'til tomorrow when I can show it to Nancy, who has been even more curious about it than I have.

Oh good, a moving van has just backed into my fence. I guess the new neighbors are moving in. When I came home tonight a Sears carpet cleaning truck was blocking my parking space and I had to step over a huge orange hose to get to my gate. The movers must've had to wait for the carpet to dry. Oh and these people close the door with the same level of force as the Beans of Egypt Maine did. I guess the quiet enjoyment of my premises is once again over.