I Think That I Shall Never See . . .

I showed you this dead pecan tree last week. I said that owls once used it as their look-out perch. Another bird is currently using it. Starlings have made a nest in a hollow branch, the lowest one on the left, above. I learned this while sitting under the tree the other evening, minding my own business. Above me was a male starling with something in its mouth. It expressed its impatience as "CHIRP, CHIRP, CHIRP!"  I was getting no peace, so I moved away, and the bird hopped right into the hole in the branch. A moment later, it flew out and a female flew in with more food. The babies, which I could not see, were amazingly smart. They cheeped only when they knew their parent was outside the nest. 

Our tree reminded me of an unusual memorial that I saw in Gettysburg. Take a look. 

Kind of crazy, right? It's a sculpture of a dead, limbless tree trunk, ringed by ivy and symbols of war, including a rucksack, rifle, cannonball, and escutcheon. The trunk itself is supposed to be a symbol of life cut short. But did you notice at the very top? There's a nest with a bird--possibly an eagle--feeding its baby just inches away from the cannonball. Here's a close-up.

I'm sure there's a book somewhere that will explain in great detail the specific symbolism of the bird and the tree. It's an old story, though: life persists in spite of death. It was true at Gettysburg, and it's true at Dog Park. 

PS: Erica (Joey and Coco) told me of another Gettysburg connection to Dog Park. Her great- grandfather was the artist commissioned to design the half-dollar coin stamped in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. His name was Frank Vittor. Here is what the coin looked like. 

You can read more about Erica's great-grandfather, the coin, and the Battle of Gettysburg at this address: www.usrarecoininvestments.com/collecting/battleofgettysburg-halfdollar.htm,

which is where I found the image. 

--z

Wildflower of the Day

A tree, actually, but a flowering one. For years I thought this tree was a Huisache—because of its yellow flowers. Also, someone told me. But now  I think it is Paloverde, also called Ratama or Horsebean. Can anyone confirm or deny? It, too, is on the east side of the park, along the trail as it descends. 

Below, a pecan next to the south parking lot. It's a goner. This was one of my favorite trees. When I used to live across from the Park, I would bring Roma for a last walk very late at night. I loved the way the lights from the parking lot would throw the tree's craggy angles into silhouette. One year, too, an owl regularly used it as his (or her) perch. I am sorry that it did not survive. It always provided us with nice shade on hot summer evenings. 

--z

Comings and Goings, Part 1

When the weather is good, I leave open the big patio door that leads from my bedroom to my desiccated backyard, and the dogs flow in and out as they want. Muzzy, my young one, has until recently been a bit of a clinger, sitting right behind  my desk chair, lifting her head to check every time she hears the keyboard stop clicking or my desk chair squeak. With our new open-door policy, she can widen her range of watchfulness. She goes outside to check on Roma, the Old One, who is usually dead asleep in the sun, or to chase the few squirrels that are brazen enough to walk along the tops of the privacy fence. Everyone is happy with this situation, and it will last until the weather gets hot and buggy, and we have to close the doors and the blinds against the raging Texas summer heat. Our house, sunny and open and breezy in the late winter and spring, with almost permeable boundaries, becomes a dark bunker during the summer. We go out only when we have to. 

Dog park is also a place with permeable boundaries. The fluidity I mentioned yesterday also applies to the population. Months can go by before someone says, "Whatever happened to so-and-so—and her owner?" And then we all scratch  our heads. As in any community, people and their dogs come and go. One dog was lucky enough to move to London. (Lucky Monkey!) A bunch have migrated to Seattle--a place where a dog can enjoy summer for a change. Of course, dogs get old and die. So do their owners. Dog Park is full of little memorials for those who have left us. 

I'd  heard tales of the memorial to a woman who died before I discovered Dog Park. She'd died of cancer, I think. I don't know what kind of dog she had. In her last months, she'd hobbled around the park with a cane. After she died, one man told me, as a memorial, her friends had tossed her cane up into the trees. Surely I had seen it. For years, I looked for it. I assumed it had fallen down or been removed by the tree trimmers who occasionally come through and decimate the live oaks, pecans, and wild plum trees that line the trails. Then one day, for no particular reason, I looked up into the trees, live oaks that form a canopy over a steep and rocky part of the trail, and there it was—a thick wooden cane with a rubber stop on the bottom, stuck like a fish hook in the thicket of branches. I actually felt a  little zing as  unwanted thoughts of mortality injected themselves into the place I go to chill out and socialize. It was like seeing a tombstone sitting on a stool at your favorite bar, or a death notice in the middle of the comics page of the newspaper. Then, of course, I forgot all about it. I went back to looking down, watching my own feet on the rocks, because I'm a bit of a clutz, and it seems safer somehow.  But I'll look again to if it is still there, having survived yet another season or two or three hanging silently above us.