Canned 'Possum

When I arrived at work yesterday morning, I saw one of the trash barrels in front of the nature center laying on its side. When I was standing it upright again, I noticed a very large opossum at the bottom staring back up at me. With its scratched and bloody snout, beady eyes, frost-bitten ear and tail tips, and copious drooling from a mouth agape and packed with a ridiculous amount of sharp teeth, this poor creature was a victim of its own omnivorous eating habits (that include dumpster-diving from time to time).

Despite its notoriously unattractive visage (except to other opossum, I expect), it made me smile and my heart went out to it. After all, I have at times in my life innocently miscalculated my abilities and ended up looking foolish and feeling exceedingly vulnerable. This opossum was really at my mercy, since there was no way it was climbing out of that barrel. It would have died of dehydration long before starvation could claim it's life.

I moved the barrel away from pedestrian activity and carefully turned the barrel on its side, expecting the critter to sheepishly walk away. Instead, he simply gave me a pitiful look, curled up in the back (bottom) of the barrel and resumed drooling at me, refusing to leave. I left it some sunflower seeds in case it was hungry from spending probably 3 days in the can. Possibly it was dislodged from a tree cavity or flooded out of an underground den by the severe Nor'easter that hit the region.

The Virginia Opossum (Didelphis virginiana) is North America's only marsupial. With more teeth than any other land mammal in North America (50), it tries to warn off predators by hissing and opening its mouth VERY wide to display such formidable choppers. It feeds primarily on dead animals like road kill – which is one reason so many become flattened themselves.

Female opossum bear up to 14 young, called "kits". This sounds like a huge effort, but the babies are no bigger than a honeybee. The blind and totally helpless babies must immediately crawl their way up and into the mother's marsupial pouch for their first meal of milk. If they can't find the pouch, or are too weak to make the journey, they perish. I think that alone is worthy of our respect for these animals. I mean, imagine if human babies had to go crawl around for food immediately after birth? 

This opossum was not "playing possum" with me, as it was still responsive to me and I was (relatively) non-threatening. The phrase relates to the behavior of unconsciousness (or perhaps a temporary state of paralysis or trance) and is actually not a strategic choice but rather a physiological response to severe threat. It's an extreme fear response where the animal appears dead and smells foul (and theoretically unappetizing for a would-be predator). It secrets nasty musk from "special" glands near the anus and will not respond while in this trance even when poked and prodded or carried away by an animal. It can be minutes or hours before they come out of the trance state and, with any luck, be on their merry way again. My particular opossum was gone the next morning, having munched on some of the sunflower seeds before leaving the trash barrel.

One more interesting note concerns the prehensile or gripping tail, which is mostly hairless. Contrary to popular notion, Opossum do not really hang by their tails or swing from branch to branch. They instead use their tail for balance, gripping tree limbs as they move about the treetops, and sometimes to "grab" a bit of dry leaves for use in insulating their living quarters. Opossum don't excavate new burrows or make cozy tree cavity homes. While they'll use such existing places if they encounter them, just about any place will do so long as it is dark and secure (like inside your garage or under your porch).

These animals are very successful despite their apparent shortcomings. Fossil records show ancestors to the Virginia Opossum dating back a hundred million years or so. I imagine some were probably scurrying beneath the feet of the great dinosaurs (they were probably road kill back then, too).

Well, there is so much more to say about the opossum, so I offer you this link which has very cute photos throughout (don't forget to scroll all the way down to see the young kits) and interesting, readable research on this fascinating animal.

Nature: Giver and Taker

Today, my first day back to work at the nature sanctuary after surgery, was a beautiful pre-spring day. I got a chance to wander slowly to survey damage from the weekend Nor'easter. See photos below.

Whenever I witness the humbling power of natural forces it becomes crystal clear that we are as frail as a flower and as insignificant as a flea. We humans have an unconscious, arrogant ignorance about our status in the web of life on this planet. We play a game of dodging the laws of nature. We seem to like to delay and manipulate natural forces wherever possible and see what we can get away with. This is not to criticize genuine interest in harmonious living and survival of the species. But so  much of our troubles in this world are born of this arrogant game-playing. Perhaps humans are natural-born gamblers. Some populations have no choice because of the country or island on which they live: They must build homes and farmland on slopes of volcanoes, or on seismic fault lines, in Tornado Alley, or along coastal areas of the world. Sooner or later, nature wins the roll of the dice and in short order, nature waves her hand and alters landscapes and lives.

Sand dunes completely erased from length of shoreline. Pale roots of reeds seem to wriggle up from the sand. They once supported plants that grew atop several feet of dune sand.So this last storm simply wiped away many thousands of tons of sand dune, trees, grasses, reeds, rocks, and other debris. In the aftermath, I saw the telltale signs of such alterations as being effortless – so effortless. It is hard to comprehend the energy contained in a storm. Trees of sizable girth and age were snapped and uprooted. True masters of survival for hundreds of years, some have finally lost in this particular contest with wind and rain and tide. A reminder that we too can just as easily be taken out of the game. 

Trees uprooted across trail. Photo by Lorraine KenneryNature offers us immense beauty, places to play and laugh, and find peace or excitement; nature provides sustenance for our body, mind, spirit, and emotions. Nature may be calm or violent in her expression of power, but she is never cruel, unfair, mean, spiteful, wanton, or angry. These are human traits we apply to nature because we've lost our primal understanding of our relationship with her. If you haven't already noticed, pay attention to the vocabulary used by nearly all weather forecasters and TV personalities reporting on natural events such as heat waves, blizzards, allergy forecasts, etc. The choice is not accidental – they want to make you feel a particular way. It is a manipulation of your sensibility and emotions. They're telling you how to feel and think rather than have you do it for yourself. Rainy days are NOT miserable – they're just rainy days! If we are miserable then it is our mental attitude towards the weather of the moment. Sure, we may prefer a perfect sunny day or whatever, but can we not also see the wonder (and vitality and importance) of a rainy day or a sweltering, August afternoon? Nature is honest and real, and in a man-made world of lies, manipulation, and inequality, that is important to remember.

Beneath the Snows of Late Winter

What a treat it is to see Spring Beauties blooming in delicate patches amidst the subdued brown of the forest floor! This plant sign in the wildflower garden at the Trailside Nature Museum caught my attention. I paused a moment to envision the tiny bulb of this plant beneath the snow, deep in the dark and frozen earth, somehow sensing its time was near. A time to swell and split, sending a tender shoot upward, pressing on past rocks and torpid insects overwintering nearby in the soil until ultimately it pierced the surface to feel the warm touch of the first light of spring.

Well, I guess this plant and I have to wait a bit longer. Still, hope and anticipation of the approaching spring lingered in my mind. (Check back here in a few weeks to see Spring Beauties in bloom!)

Moving at the Speed of Life

Well I have been busy with the healing and recovery process so have not had much energy to devote to actually typing up new posts. Lots of ideas in my head for the future though, so stay tuned. As for the moment,  I'm  posting this brief one and including some photos I had taken this past February. They do not necessarily have anything to do with one another. Sorry.

Observing the pace of the world as I await my strength to return,  I find I am moving at the speed of life that favors healing. That means SLOWLY. The crazy pace of modern life that has many of us scurrying like rats in a maze is so detrimental to true health. Many find it exhilarating, but many just try to keep pace and keep from being trampled.  Lily Tomlin has a quote that brings this issue home in her characteristically comic and observant style: "The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat."

Just a thought. Enjoy the wintery photos! (click thumbnail to enlarge)

A Slight Detour

Post-surgical update:
This surgery is my first time under the knife. Not a bad track record, really, having made it without sustaining major damage through my 50 years of life on earth!

The actual surgery went very well, and I was cared for with genuine attention by the people at the Surgery Center. In at 10 AM and home by 3:30 PM. Anesthesia was still flowing through my veins so I felt remarkably good, but very tired. I went to bed. Got up later in the evening knowing I had to eat something (having fasted since midnight) and that's when I blacked out unconscious. My wife could not get any response from me so dialed 911. The EMTs arrived and my vital signs checked out okay, but as a precaution, I was strapped into a chair and carried down to the ambulance. Again, another first for me! ER was efficient and they tested me for everything, but the saline drip seemed to be the thing that improved my condition. Several hours later I was back in bed again at home, more exhausted than before.

The last several days I was mostly flat in bed trying to sleep. Pain meds don't seem to do much for pain, but induce a weird non-sleep relaxation which unleashed a parade of bizarre and exceedingly random images that I get to stare at until it is replaced by another cruelly boring thing. I'm talking paper clips folks! Yup, staring at a paper clip.. . or a pile of paper to recycle; or people I don't know repeatedly saying things like, " Wow, carnelian simple must have pushed that plant to crackers. But it's really a good sky. Couldn't have meant to hurt the rust spot on the squid. . ." I mean, what the heck are drugs good for if they aren't making you feel better? My iPod helps to keep the bizarre circus at bay. . .

Anyway, the four inch long incision in my lower abdomen is a reminder of why I feel like I've been cut in half. Simplest movements seem to rely on muscles traversing the region. Full recovery and return to full strength will apparently be many weeks away. Just because the terms "common" and "routine" are often applied to a hernia repair surgery, it is still having parts of my internal anatomy opened to the light of day for a bit. In the course of this process I have been looking at the devastation and suffering of people I know and of the global catastrophes that have recently transpired. I am blessed to have good health, insurance coverage, a warm home, friends and loved ones who care, and a million other blessings. I really have nothing to complain about and that is something to be most grateful for.

Still, I'd have preferred two weeks in Hawaii instead.