Saying Goodbye

It's never easy letting those we love go.

Last week Toby starting going into decline quite rapidly.  Stairs had become his nemesis, and there are stairs everywhere at our house.  His nether regions had become extremely weak, and going up and down stairs was a recipe for a tumble, head- or tail-first.  Even during our twice-daily walks he was stumbling and falling, and getting back up on all fours was a challenge.  Hearing was going, and I believe sight was going, too. Friday night he turned his nose up at his cheese snacks...and normally he would do ANYTHING for cheese!

So, on Saturday we took our final trip to the vet.  Tears galore.  But his passing was peaceful, and he is now reposing near the sugar maple out behind the house.  Come spring, I will plant a little native plant garden above him.

On Sunday I realized just how much he filled my life, for the house, even with two cats, now seems SO empty.  And quiet.  I had kept up a constant chatter with Toby - he was my roomie.  Now there are no conversations.  No one to share meals or to help clean the dishes.  And evenings (all three so far) I find myself preparing in my mind the schedule (let T out, fix and eat dinner, go for walk) only to remember that that is no longer the routine.  Taking off shoes, changing clothes...all those little things we don't think about are no longer important.

Sunday afternoon I couldn't take being in the quiet house any longer, so I went "shopping" - had to get some caulk for windows and doors.  I was browsing through the patio furniture at the store, thinking how nice it would be to have a table and chairs on the back deck, or a fire ring in the back yard...and then I realized I have no one to share these things with.  It's no fun to sit by a "campfire" on a summer evening if there is no one to sit there with you.  Ditto eating a meal on the back deck - although with T we usually just sat on the back steps.

I actually found myself at the animal shelter in Ann Arbor yesterday - desperate for a dog to fill the silence.  Lots of sweet pooches - many pit bull mixes - but the only one who "spoke to me" was a little mix-breed called Biscuit, who does not like cats apparently.  That wouldn't have worked out.  Sat with an enormous German shepherd called Panzer for a while, but he ignored me entirely and piddled on the floor.  I don't think he would've been a good fit - just too too big and apparently really has issues with other dogs (although cats are fine) - and the neighborhood is full of dogs running loose.

So, I find myself enduring the silence of the house.  The cats are, well, cats.  They interact on their own terms.  I have the bed mostly to myself now, too.  It means I get better sleep (three animals tend to push one to cling to one side of the mattress), but I miss the presence of so many warm bodies.

Toby was about 14 years old.  In three weeks we would've celebrated 11 years together.  He came home with me completely unplanned that warm April day in 2002.  I was at a commissioner's meeting at the APA headquarters in Ray Brook (NY), and on the way back to work I stopped at the animal shelter on a whim.  No intention of getting a dog - just window-shopping for our seasonal.  And there he was:  the only quiet dog in the kennels, lying there with his head on his paws looking so sad.

I asked the staff what his story was.  A woman had gotten him as a puppy.  She had some young kids.  After about three months he was tied out back and there he was for the next three years.  At least once he broke loose and had been hit by a truck.  The current boyfriend had brought him to the shelter to be put down because he was "dangerous" - claimed he had bitten him.  So, he was put into quarantine and the day I was there he had just come out.  He was due to be put down the next day.

I took him out for a walk.  He was in sad sad shape.  Fur greasy, and he had diarrhea, so he was a mess.  He cowered as we walked and cringed, tail tucked, when I went to pet him.  Afterwards, we went into the meet-n-greet room.  I filled my hands with water at the sink to give him a drink (it was unseasonably warm out), and when I turned to offer it to him, he hit the floor in complete fear.  He had been punished with water.

This dog needed help.

I took him home.

I remember taking him in for his first vet appointment (to be neutered) and the vet recognized him.  "Oh, God," she said.  "He's back."  A year later she told me it was hard to believe this was the same dog - a little TLC, good food and training had turned him into one of her favorite patients.

And that's what it was - months of training and working with him, making sure he had good food and exercise, and lots and lots of love.  The latter went both ways.

Toby was my best friend, and I miss him terribly.  But it was time - his quality of life was gone and as difficult as it was to say goodbye, it was the right thing to do.

Will I get another dog?  I don't know.  Not having to rush back home to let the dog out will free up my time...will certainly make my employers happier.  But I find that already I miss the companionship.  I don't have my hiking buddy any more.  On the other hand, MI is not as friendly to dogs as the Adirondacks are - too many natural areas say "no dogs allowed."

Only time will tell.  If another dog comes along who desperately needs love, I just might say, "C'mon - let's go home."

Sharonville Game Area

Sunday was bright and sunny...but boy was the wind blowin' cold!  Brrrr.  Still, it was too nice to stay indoors, so I hooked Toby up to his skijoring harness and we headed down the road to the Sharonville State Game Area.

Michigan has these game areas around the state (several in my neck of the woods).  They are set up primarily for hunters, so for a naturalist they aren't necessarily great places, primarily because they are not managed for natural features.  In other words, there are LOTS of invasive species.

 It also explains why there are so many deer.

  

The landscape was really quite barren.  With all the brush and tangles (mostly honeysuckle), one would expect to see a lot of nests and hear a lot of birds.  Nada.  The only thing that was interesting for the longest time was this bit of snow stuck to the stem of a leaf.

 Some enterprising soul built a three-walled fort.  Dollars to donuts it's a deer blind.

 

Now if you are like me and have a thing for trees with fabulous shapes, then Michigan is the place to be.  This is the land of the oak tree and in the fall, winter and early spring, the bare branches and contorted forms are incredible to see.

 
Being a state game area, this chunk of land is not laid out with a trail system per se.  There are lots of herd paths, although I couldn't tell you if they were formed by the hunters or the hunted.  Some of these have been in use for so long that they have eroded some serious ruts in the ground.
 

 After walking along what I would've sworn was at one time a road, we found ourselves back on a herd path that finally branched in three different directions.  The winding path that headed down this slope seemed the most intriguing - it went to the lake/pond.

 

 In the summer I hear cranes calling from this direction most evenings.  There are two small lakes (or large ponds) here.  This one, I discovered is posted.  Must be one of the neighbors owns it.  That little dark spot just left of center is a muskrat lodge.  Since it was posted, I didn't go down to explore further (darn!).

 

Why is it that hunters don't take their spent cartridges with them?  I could understand if they couldn't find them, but the bright red and yellow shells do stick out on the brown landscape.

Toby and I ended up spending about an hour and half wandering around.  He got lots of sniffing in - probably deer, rabbits and the markings of other dogs (wild or domestic).  The time we get to spend out in the fields and forests here is so limited:  late spring into fall is tick seas

Evening Wander

How was Sunday in your neck of the woods?  It was balmy and sunny here.  I opened all the windows in the house and oh that fresh air smelled fine.  Laundry hung on the line was nearly dry within an hour!  It's good to have some warmth.

I knew that the latter part of the day, before the sun set, would be spent wandering with Toby in the nearby game area, so the rest of the day was spent getting chores done.  At 4:30 we headed out.

It's amazing to me, every year, just how quickly the trees respond to a little warm sunlight.  Admittedly, the lengthening daily photoperiod is also having its affect, but the warmth often seems to trigger things.  Even at a distance one can easily see the swollen buds on trees.

Upon closer inspection as we walked beneath this silver maple, I saw that not only were the buds swollen, but the flowers were blooming! 

Highway crews have also been out, with their branch-rending equipment.  Around here, instead of sending out crews to cut back the tangled roadside growth, they send out a single guy with a machine that just rips the living daylights out of trees, shrubs and saplings, leaving twisted, splintered, shredded devastation in its wake.  What an unsightly mess!

Spring is also a time of increased roadkill.  We found this pudgy skunk napping permanently along the roadside.  I am constantly amazed at the variety in the coloration of skunks.  While we all know that individuals (of any species) have their own traits, overall the species looks the same.  With skunks, however, the variation seems much more pronounced, perhaps because their coloration is so simple:  black and white.  And when you see an individual, like this one, where the white is extensive, it stands out, as would an individual whose white strips were very thin!  (Photographing a roadkilled skunk is not easily done with a dog in tow.)

I'm quite fond of skunks, which always seem to get a bad rap.  They are sweet animals, though.  Having cared for a baby skunk once, and meeting the pet skunk of a college friend, I've gotten to see them beyond their reputation.  They are nice animals, if aromatic.

About 3/4 mile from the house we reached our destination:  one of the gated entries into the Sharonville Game Area.

Here we are - a map of the whole area.  The Sharonville Game Area is essentially a state-maintained hunting area.  It's quite extensive.  I haven't spent much time exploring here for a couple reasons.  One, in the fall and winter there's a lot of hunting going on in there.  Two, in the summer, it's tick city!  And three, there are no trails (to speak of) for just walking.  But a couple weeks ago Toby and I did a very short wander in the section we revisited this evening, and I wanted to go back.

Here's an enlargement of the section we did - more or less in the middle of the map above.  The tan line marks the general direction of our wander this trip.  The red dot is our house.

I was glad to find this map because it confirmed what I suspected:  there are two ponds/lakes back in there, not just one!

So, off we went, across the field.  There was lots to see, like this old coyote scat.  Many nights we have heard the coyotes yipping and howling in the fields around us.  It's a wonderful sound...as long as it's in the distance.  I confess I get a little nervous when I think the sounds are getting close.

Looking north(-ish) across the field, there is a robust stand of brambles right before the tree line (which borders the first pond/lake).   It really is quite extensive.  I asked Gary if these brambles were considered "native" or "invasive," and he sort of implied they were a welcome part of the landscape because it is within these brambles that indigo buntings build their nests.  So, are they native?  I think so.

And in case you were wondering which brambly plant they are, they are blackberries.  Blackberries are easily identified by their square stems.  They also have palmately compound leaves, typically with five leaflets.  It's a bit early to see leaves, but the square stems were obvious.

It was quite warm in the sun.  Even though he blew his winter coat back in November/December, Toby was panting away to keep cool.

The first (and last) time we were here, a pair of sandhill cranes had staked out the rise of a small hill.  Today they were down on the other side.  Toby of course sounded the alarm, letting them know we were there.  Fortunately, I was able to quiet him down and we sat and watched the birds for a while.  Once silence fell, the birds calmed back down.

Pardon the bounciness in the video below.  I had the camera braced against my knees, but with the big lens, holding it still was impossible.  Another case made for schlepping a tripod around.

But, we couldn't sit around all evening, so eventually we stood.  The cranes, which by now were hidden in some tall grasses, finally decided that we were just too much for them, and they took off.

I'm sure they'll be back.  I think these ponds/lakes are roosting areas for cranes.  Last year we heard cranes in this direction every evening, and we would see them all flying in this direction as the sun set.

So, onward we went.  This is, I believe, the second body of water, labeled Tucker Lake on the map. 

Although the land is managed for wildlife (game animals), they don't really do much, or so it seems, to control invasive species.  There is a LOT of honeysuckle in these areas, and here we see it getting ready to leaf out.  These Asian honeysuckles were once touted as wonderful additions to the landscape because it was thought they were terrific sources of wildlife food.  Unfortunately, it isn't the best quality food for our native wildlife!  That would be native plants.  So, here we are, fifty years later, over-run with non-native shrubs that are pushing out the really beneficial plants.  I think getting these under control is going to require much more time and manpower than the state has available to commit.  Pity.  Maybe some day.

We were following a well-worn trail.  I don't know if it was a deer trail or a hunter trail, but it was very well-established.

Soon we were leaving the fields and entering a scrubby, brushy area, where we encountered a mess of "something" under some trees.  Was this a bait station?  It certainly didn't look like anything natural that I was familiar with.

A hole in the ground deserved a thorough sniffing. 

A pile of scat on the sand nearby suggested that coyotes were here, too.  The hole was too small to be a coyote den, but it could be an area the coyotes hunt. 

Suddenly the trial we were following split.  HM.  We were already heading further east than I really wanted to go (again, this was all new territory to me, and I didn't want to end up miles from home after dark).  So, we took the branch that headed downslope and northward.  I had a rough idea (hope) that this would come out (eventually) at the far side of Tucker Lake, which I had visited last spring in search of whip-poor-wills. 

Well, we walked.  And walked.  Thru tangled shrubs, across fields (field dog training sites, apparently), into a soggy bit of ground, and up two very steep slopes.  At the crest of the final big slope my hope proved sound:  here was the trail we had walked last spring.  Heading back down it, we soon came to the parking lot - hooray!  Now I knew where we were.

We came out on a dirt road - most of the roads here are dirt roads.  Thanks to the recent lack of rain it was in pretty good condition. 

I confess I was a little surprised to see this pool of water still covered in ice.  It is difficult to recall on sunny warm days when the chorus frogs are singing that a mere three to four days previously the snow was flying and it barely got above 20 degrees.

The back roads of this part of Michigan are dotted with all these lovely old farms.  The old barns are beautiful, even though most of them are in various stages of decay.  How I'd love to have one of these beauties on my land!

The old equipment is slowly being reclaimed by Mother Nature. 

But can't you just picture a bunch of chicken walking around, pecking the ground, in front of these buildings?

We still had about a mile and a half to go before reaching home, so there wasn't a lot of time to dally.  While I really enjoyed our wander across acreage new to us, I was nervously watching the sun set.  At this intersection I knew we had 0.7 miles to go - a short jaunt.

When we got home, I discovered we'd been out about two and a half hours.  Not too bad.  We must've covered over three miles, thanks to our aimless wandering.  Somehow, though, it seemed more like five!  Both of us were ready for a good long drink of water.

On the way home we listened to a killdeer calling as it flew over the fields, and after dark, the woodcocks started peenting.  Spring is poised to spring.

Happy Holidays!

Here's hoping everyone had a wonderful holiday!

 

 Thank you, Uncle Tom - they are my favorites!

Exploring the 'hood

Sunday, on my way home from Ann Arbor, I finally decided to stop by this small county park that I've passed several times since moving here.  It's only a few short miles from my home, and the day was beautiful - it just called to me.  

Sharon Mills used to be a little hamlet, consisting of several homes and even a bit of industry.  Today, what remains is the actual mill, the old store (now a private home across the street), and two other houses that are now rental units.  The Washtenaw County Park System owns the mill, and they've done a lovely job preserving and interpreting it.

Come with me for a short tour.

Now, like all good and proper mills of the late 1800s, this one was water-powered.  The water in question  here is the River Raisin (don't you love that name?).  The River flows eastward here, and the builders promptly diverted a portion of it and used its power to operate a mill.  On this site there was once a sawmill (they have an old movie clip inside that they acquired from the Library of Congress, which shows the elderly sawmill operator sawing a log here in the early 1900s), and a grist mill. 

 But ultimately Sharon Mills' claim to fame came down to this man:  Henry Ford (who, apparently has quite a bit of history here in Michigan).  Henry believed that every village could have a small factory that produced some useful product (namely for his automobiles).  Several were set up in Michigan, and Sharon Mills was one of the first (in fact, I think it was #13).

And what did the Sharon Mills factory crank out?  Cigar lighters!

Inside the mill today, all polished and shiny, is the water-powered generator.  When a crowd of visitors gathers round, the interpreter on duty turns the wheel, lets the water in, and the generator starts generating.  The two silver balls on top go round and round, and the lights in the ceiling suddenly begin to glow.  It's a beautiful thing.

Downstairs the building is mostly empty.  There are often weddings held on the grounds here, and I imagine this space is put to good use on such occasions, especially when the weather is inclement.

There were quite a number of folks out this Sunday.  Two or three trails begin at the mill and take off for the woods and fields out back.  I asked the proprietor if dogs were allowed (I'd say that in 99% of the parks and open spaces I've encountered so far, dogs are not allowed), and she said that yes, indeed, they were!  She specifically recommended a trail across the road that went along the river.

 Hooray!  I drove home thinking that maybe tomorrow we'd come back for a walk.  I put the groceries away, and washed the dog (he was starting to get rather ripe).  And after a couple hours I decided not to wait - it was too nice today - we were going to check out the park.  I rigged Toby up in his ski-jor harness and off we went.

It took a little scouting, but we finally found the trail, thanks to a woman named Mary who is renting the house across the street.  The path runs up along the side of the property and into the field behind, where it takes a turn southward toward the river.

And there it is, the River Raisin.  Looks like it'd be good for paddling.

I must say that over all the trail was unremarkable.  One side was field, one side was river, 

and the trail itself ran through the buffer strip of trees in between.

After maybe a quarter mile, the trail turned back north, and we left the river.

We zig-zagged up a small switchback, where I snapped a couple pics of the late-blooming flowers (some asters, 

 some yellow sweet clover,

and some goldenrod).

I could see the legs of the switchbacks weren't that far apart, so I decided to jaywalk across the field instead.

On the surface, this wasn't a bad plan, 

until I felt something poking my leg.  Sand burs!!!  I hate these things.  First discovered them a year or two ago in Johnsburg, where they had the kids from the school in tears and made our fingers bleed when we tried to remove them from our clothes.  Luckily for me, these ones weren't completely stiff and hard yet, so they were painless to remove.

Now we were walking on the uphill side of the field, still in a buffer zone of trees.  Lots of walnuts - poor Toby kept losing his balance as they rolled beneath his feet.

Overall, I'd guess this trail was less than a mile in length - a nice enough little loop.  Although I imagine that it was just as tick-riddled this summer as the fields and roadsides around my house.  Now that summer is gone, so are the ticks.  Life is much improved.

The next set of sunny days we have when I am off, we'll be back at Sharon Mills to check out the trails behind the mill - I am looking forward to it.