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April 14, 1998
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Todays' starting pitcher: Butch Henry
Today's reading: The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity by Jill Lepore
Today's coffee encounters: none - it was just me and the baristas
Today's weather: clear and cool - the essence of spring -remarkably similar to yesterday
After therapy and lunch from the Earthfood Store consumed at Starbucks with a caffe latte, I dashed home for my scope and headed to the beach partly in search of birds and partly because I could not imagine working on anything on a day like this. The other night, Mark and I were talking about how errands consume so much time and wondering how we ever got all the errands and chores done when we had demanding jobs (actually Mark is back in high tech, but he was out of it for awhile to pursue pottery). I guess I just didn't do a lot of stuff like vacuuming the car, which I now do twice a week sometimes more. Mark laughed at that and said he vacuums his car twice a year. But he doesn't drive nieces who spill things and doesn't have a sand-intensive occupation. I sometimes have to vacuum before and after niece driving. Before to clean up the beach sand and after to clean up the leavings of the kids. Not that my entire life is consumed by car-vacuuming. There is also the aforementioned driving of children to and from piano, endless trips to the post office, trips to the laundromat, trips to Staples for all the office supplies I forgot the last time I went to Staples, grocery shopping, cleaning, I don't' know. It seemed like yesterday was taken up completely with errands except for arguing with Right Wing Anne about vegetarianism and explaining the separation of church and state as a significant issue in American history. Yet I never get the basement cleaned or the tub re grouted or the furniture moved or the much needed bookcases ordered. Nor do I get the immense stack of reading done. Nevertheless, I had to go to the beach today even though I was not working there. It would have been a sin against the weather gods had I not. So I drove north and east and arrived at Salisbury beach at high tide. I sat on a rock on the end of the jetty - the land end, not the end that juts out into the ocean ; I have no desire to end up like that guy who has been washing up a bone at a time since Labor Day. I just sat there and watched flock after flock of double crested cormorants arrive from wherever they are arriving from. I watched a seal swim slowly out the channel toward the open water. I could only see its gray face peering over the top of the waves periodically. It was odd to see a lone seal since there are usually dozens of dozens of them around the jetty in spring. They haul themselves out onto the rocks at low tide to sun themselves. Of course since the tide was just starting to go out, maybe this loner seal was the advance man for the group. When I'd had enough of watching the seal, I headed into Newburyport to use a restroom and pick up some more books to add to the alarmingly large pile of the unread. I got The Sea is All About Us: A guidebook to the marine environments of northern New England waters, by Sarah Fraser Robbins and Clarice Yentsch , and Until I Have No Country by Michael J. Tougias (it's, surprise surprise, a novel about King Philip's War). Then I headed out to Plum Island for a long bird browse. The highlights were a snowy egret that was on the edge of the Salt Pans close to the road so I got a good look at it, and a great blue heron with his gorgeous plume ruffling in the wind. I watched the great blue for a long time, first in flight, then as it danced around stirring the waters looking for prey. I felt spiritually transported watching it. I drove all the way to Sandy Point, stopping along the way to look at birds, walked for a bit on the beach (the part that is not closed for piping plovers), and drove back the same way again stopping for birds. As I was watching a group of ducks dabbling in one of the pools, I saw two deer grazing in the middle distance. They looked like a pastoral painting. After I left the refuge, I stopped at Joppa Flats just to see if anything had turned up since I drove past it on the way in. Indeed, now that the tide was out a little ways, a flock of 58 greater yellowlegs had arrived to forage in the shallows. At one point they all took off en masse to fly a few feet further south and it took my breath away. Birds, in the order in which I encountered them: double crested cormorants by the dozens Mammals: 1 seal |
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