Endings have beginnings...

Carolina became a kindergarten graduate on Wednesday. She's ready for first grade. She's ready to open those books and start as an emergent reader. When she was two years old, she sat in her great-grandmother's lap and so plaintively asked: "When will I be able to read like Chelsea?" (her older sister). Carolina loves books. She loves stories, her favorite being "Three Little Pigs." You know how we all have that one fairy tale that excites our imagination in secret, mystical ways? That's Carolina's--three little pigs. What is her connection? Being thrown out? Having a wolf/monster at the door? Cooking/Defeating that wolf? For now, Carolina is set for summer and looks forward to first grade. First grade!

The wolves are back!

I've been in love with wolves for as long as I can remember, perhaps from childhood when I read Jack London. When I read a recent review of "Never Cry Wolf," by an Amazon friend, I had to respond with this newly acquired book in the school library where I work, "The Wolves Are Back," by another long-time wolf-lover, Jean Craighead George and illustrator, Wendell Minor. As a lovely touch, Minor declared his dedication to "All the people who made it possible for the wolves to return to Yellowstone."

On each page of script, the final sentence is: "The wolves are back!" On that first page the reader learns that the wolf pack has killed an elk. On the second page we learn that others also eat from that kill: ravens, a golden eagle, a grizzly bear, magpies, mice,and sexton beetles. "The valley was sharing food again. The wolves were back."

On the third page of script is the horrid back story. By 1926 there were no more wolves in the forty-eight states. Directors of the national parks had given the go-ahead for hunters and ranchers to kill every single wolf they saw. Reader, did you know that? (I'm assuming this is true.) Only gentle animals were allowed to roam in national parks: deer, elk, antelope.

By request from park visitors who wanted to hear the wolves howl, ten adult wolves were returned to Yellowstone in 1995. With them they caused the return of the Vesper sparrow. How? The elk herds had eaten all the grasses the bird needed for food and nesting. The wolves frightened the elk into the mountains, the grasses grew back, and the birds returned.

A similar occurrence with bison and flycatchers. When erosion stopped because grasses grew back, the beaver found willows to use to create dams and ponds and waterbirds and fish and frogs and dragonflies. The wolves thinned out the coyotes (do wolves eat coyotes?!), squirrels returned, badgers returned.

With grasses and ponds came flowers and bees and butterflies, hummingbirds.

"The wilderness is in balance again." Please ask why. Why? "The wolves are back."

If all this seems simplistic, please remember this is a children's story with information made approachable for children. Pleasing story and breathtaking artwork combined, children will love this book. I know because the classes I read to absolutely loved it, proving that romance with wolves extends beyond age barriers!

The illustrations are just as heart-inspiring and poetic as the script. I wish I could tell you what artistic technique Minor used, but I don't know what he used or how. Close examination shows individual hair strokes on the wolves and all the other animals. The variety of greens on the rolling hills and fields is simply breathtaking. Amazing!

Don't miss this beautiful book! It's not just for children!

Cypress knees advantage

Early morning on the bayou, algae and all!








Now a close-up of cypress knees!
This morning I found a mysterious, single duck egg just pretty much laying around. No ducks, male or female, in attendance, just one abandoned duck egg!

 

Addendum 3: Oh happy day! Success!

The saga continues--oh happy day, Mallard Number Three was allowed to join the close-knit group!! Frankly, I was delighted and relieved to see that Mallard Three was back in the covey, swimming guard over his future eggs, his future children. It was his right! First in, then out. Then demanding back in!

I went down below to work again in my garden yesterday. I heard them chatting away, swimming parallel along the bank toward my yard and landing. I couldn't see them because of the stand of trees, but when they swam past those and into the open--oh I almost whooped for joy. All four males and Mama-Duck-to-be! Three mallards and the White Duck. I wonder how the situation was resolved. The BLue Heron? A quiet agreement among gentlemen? Justice prevailed, nevertheless--or what seems like justice to me.

On Saturday, Third Mallard was part of the group, then not part of the group on Sunday. On Monday, he tried and tried and was rejected and rejected from rejoining the group. On Tuesday, he LOUDLY demaded his justice! If not with men, then with ducks! Oh happy day! On Thursday, he's back in!

Addendum 2: Try, try again, screeching and hollering!

Third mallard is still trying to reclaim his post as third/second/first mater with Mama-Duck-to-be. Yesterday, he made an effort to rejoin his group, but was chased away. Today (Tuesday), oh my goodness. That mallard was screaming and quacking and pitching a furor over his loss, his line of progeny. He rasied a ruckus today!!! He let everyone, both up and down the bayou, both animal and human, know that he was VERY upset with the chain of command. Still, the two mallards and Cheater White Duck adamantly deflected all his claims, his efforts, his ruckus. "Go on," they told him. "You Lose!" Even the Blue Heron got into the screaming match, in support of the third mallard. No matter. Third Mallard still did not get into the Circle of Life--the four. 

Know what Mama-Duck-to-be said about it all: "Whatever." What more could she say? She's just a female in a long line of females. That's the way of life for females in the wild and some in the tame.

Addendum: White duck has been accepted!!

I went down below late yesterday to work a bit more in my garden and there was the crew: Mama Duck and her three suitors/maters/fathers-to-be, including the white duck. They were nestled in the grass at the top of the low bank adjoining the bayou, snoozing.

I sat in the grass to watch them awhile, when out of my perepheal vision, I saw a third mallard swimming determinedly across the bayou. At water's edge he dipped out onto land and waddled and hopped onto the ledge to join the others. Oh no, one of the settled mallards said. Who are you and what do you think you're doing? Out, out, out!

That poor mallard tried and tried to join them, but no, the others were not having him. My question is: Was he one of the original three mallards who escorted Ms Duck on Saturday? How did White Duck displace him? Was he one of the fathers? Or an interloper?

I'm not a duck, privy to duck talk and maybe will never know. Oh how devastating to be rejected! Ducks! Interesting creatures!