Candlelight

For most of us, candles are reserved for romantic dinners, aromatherapy, or as part of an emergency supply. But for my cousin Peter, this is standard lighting, other than whatever sunrays shine through the windows at his home in Eugene, Oregon. Long before anyone even thought of the term "carbon footprint," Peter chose to reduce his electrical use to a bare minimum, using homemade beeswax candles for light, cooking on an open fire in a Weber grill, and eschewing all plug-in appliances except for a corded rotary phone. He also prefers to remain car free, walking wherever necessary, which means his lifestyle is concentrated in a five-mile radius of downtown Eugene.

We stayed with him one night on our way north this summer, ate grapes and enjoyed conversation in the flickering light. There are no LED lights blinking on the periphery of the room, no computer screen or TV begging for attention. Without all the plug-ins, the background hum that normally permeates modern buildings is absent. The house is distinctively quiet.

Peter is quite happy with candlelight, reading and writing prodigiously each day as he researches genealogy, translates foreign texts, and studies oncological reports, obsessions that eclipse even his Luddite eccentricities. Beeswax candles, he says, are preferable to paraffin, spewing fewer toxic chemicals into the air he breathes, and certainly more benign than kerosene lanterns. Even though he is still influenced by the lights of the city, he feels more attuned to natural diurnal and seasonal cycles, which he feels is important to overall health.

Writing in the blare and hum of digital light at my computer screen, I contemplate whether I could do without electric lights. What if I chose to abandon this machine, light a candle, use a pad of paper and a pen instead? Get up at sunrise and go to sleep at nightfall, abandon my insomniac bouts of reading and writing? I could even hone my own quills from goose feathers I've collected, make ink from mesquite sap, revive my cursive skills and burn some of the lamp oil still on reserve under my kitchen sink from Y2K. (True!)

Although I doubt I could sustain those practices by choice for very long, even when camping-for that I have a battery-powered headlamp-we do choose to light candles each night at the dinner table. The flames remind me of what is essential in life, to slow down, enjoy the meal, and share with family and friends. What more do we really need?

(S)he who has the most signs.....

Today is primary day, that special day in the voting cycle when we can vote for who we want to vote for. Why we have created this system was a mystery to me until I went to deposit my early voter ballot into a box at the polling place this morning. Clearly, we have promoted primaries in order to support the prodigious political advertising industry. Primaries vastly increase the number of signs necessary to let the public know who has the gumption to play the political game. They also fuel robo-call businesses that have planted several dozen messages on my answering machine, adding points in favor of my inclination to get rid of the land line.

Of course, the signs and robo-calls have been a significant factor in my voting decisions. From now on, I vote for any candidate who has wisely chosen NOT to litter the roadsides with signs or propagate automated messages!

White-winged Doves

Back in the early 1980's when Stevie Nicks' "Edge of Seventeen" hit the Top 40 charts (11th to be exact), I always imagined a White-winged Dove to be a mythical creature akin to unicorns and dragons. In some ways it was, since she interpreted the bird to be a symbol of spirit leaving the body of someone who had died. The lyrics were written in remembrance of a beloved uncle who had recently passed away, as well as John Lennon, who was killed the same week in December of 1980.

Now that I live in Phoenix, Arizona, which also happens to be Stevie Nicks' home town, I've learned that the White-winged Dove sounds just like she croons in the song: "Whoo....whoo....whoo," and is as common as its close cousins, the rock dove (a polite term for pigeons) and mourning doves. They flock in our neighborhood, perch on roof tops and along fences, forage seed in the parks. The white wing is really just the edge of their wings at rest, a shoulder patch in flight, but makes them easy to identify with the naked eye from a distance. Whenever I see one, I still hear that bass note playing in the background from the song.

Most importantly, they migrate north during the summer as far as the saguaros grow to feed on their flower nectar and later, the fruit. Saguaros begin blooming here in mid-April and last through early June. In a few weeks we'll start seeing the ripe fruit burst open to reveal magenta flesh and black seeds that are the sustenance for so many Sonoran desert creatures during our hottest months, including, at least historically, humans. White-winged doves head south to Mexico and Central America during the winter months.

Photos by Richard Halliburton

Just like the white winged dove...
sings a song ...
Sounds like she's singing...
whoo...whoo...whoo
Just like the white winged dove...
sings a song...
Sounds like she's singing...
ooo...baby...ooo...said ooo

Home on the Range

What could be a more American way to spend the afternoon on Mother's Day, especially in the wild, wild west of Arizona, than to do a little target practice at the local shooting range? Here in Phoenix, we have the USA's largest publicly operated shooting range, courtesy of the Arizona Game and Fish Department. The Ben Avery Shooting Facility has been a destination for gun enthusiasts since 1960. The range is also listed as one of the city's 33 "Points of Pride," along with the subject of a previous blog post, and perhaps its very antithesis, the Japanese Friendship Garden.


Ben Avery was busy on Mother's Day this year. The only spot available at the 67 gallery target practice area was #46, right between two portly young men shooting semi-automatic assault rifles and a husband-wife team practicing with their revolvers. We had asked for a "quieter" area. Our team provided the quiet pocket with our 22 rifle, which created a comparatively peaceful interlude between the two neighbors. But rest assured, we all had ear protection, a must for target practice! Brooke's was nicely accented with her signature flower hair clip.


Being a vegetarian and left leaning peacenik type, my personal purpose in shooting is entirely related to sharing good times with my son, who, like most young boys i've met, has a hard-wired fascination with weapons along with an amazing talent for making gun sounds. We purchased a pack of targets, your standard bullseye format, from a collection of alternatives that included bunny shapes, squirrel shapes, bird shapes, and of course, human torso shapes. Brooke proved to be the most skilled among us, shooting tight clusters at each of her five targets.


What interested me most at the range, though, other than the sub-culture(s) of folks gathered there, was the significantly altered vegetation (oh, that botanist in me!) on the lower slopes of the range. After fifty years of target practice, has the soil been altered due to the decimation of squirrels back there? Does this cause a change in hydrology, making it more difficult for shrubs and cacti to grow? What shrubs and annuals DO persist on that part of the hillside? (Yes, I am a hopeless nerd.) One day, I'd love to walk out there with one of the Game and Fish biologists and take a closer look. The fifteen minute cease fires aren't long enough!

Oasis

Looking at this picture, with cool water flowing over granite boulders surrounded by lush vegetation, where do you guess it might be? Here are a couple of other clues:

A koi pond:


Lotus flowers:

Somewhere in Japan maybe? Thailand? China? Actually, these photos are from Ro Ho En, the Japanese Friendship Garden in Phoenix, built right on top of the Highway 202 tunnel at Roosevelt and 3rd Avenue. This little oasis includes a traditional Japanese tea house, over 70 species of plants, including a small bamboo forest, and numerous traditional sculptures from the sister city of Himeji.

The most remarkable thing about this garden are that you can wander through the place and have no idea that you are in Phoenix Arizona. It really is as if someone lifted a chunk of Japan and transplanted it here in the Sonoran Desert. Every square inch of the place is landscaped. Each boulder in the waterfall was carefully selected and shipped to downtown Phoenix from elsewhere. The water is piped in from the Salt River. Fish, lilies and bamboo were imported from Asia. River polished rocks gathered from an unknown distant shore are carefully arranged in patterns around the pond and garden borders. The tea house was hand built by Japanese artisans. Not a single saguaro or any other cactus in sight.

Yet just below, heavy traffic rumbles through a mile long six lane tunnel between 7th Avenue and 7th Street.
I am awed at what we can create, both tunnel and garden.
Tea anyone?

Interpretive Display

Compared to the sign highlighted on my April 20th post, this one communicates a wealth of information. If viewed as an interpretive display about what a visitor to this place might encounter on a walk in the desert, it is definitely more helpful than this, which is what the same sign looked like before February this year:


The empty frame at least tells us that beyond the trail head, a hiker will find a natural area full of lush desert vegetation, including palo verdes, saguaro cacti, brittle bush and creosote. We can expect distant views under a brilliant clear blue sky. Cumulus clouds on the horizon suggest stormy weather coming or going. This is hilly country, with a geology of desert varnished boulders. The soils are rocky. Where soils are disturbed, brittle bush rapidly restores the landscape with seedlings. From here the visitor should not expect any well groomed trails. A sense of calm, if one is comfortable with this prospect, may be expected when walking in this open desert country.

Perhaps this rustic frame is best left in this condition, where the picture of the desert all we need to be welcomed, go forth and discover!

"Other Species"

This newly installed sign caught my eye today on my ride around a chunk of desert open space near my home. Two thoughts immediately came to mind. First is the fact that rattlesnakes are definitely not limited to "natural habitat" here in the Sonoran Desert. Just yesterday, I got a call from a friend down the street inviting me to come see a rattler that was resting in her front yard in the cool comfort of an aloe plant. Aloe is native to Africa. Rattlesnakes are indigenous to the western hemisphere. This cozy relationship is not natural to either the aloe or the snake.


Fortunately for the snake, my friend called a professional herpetologist for advice. He removed it from her yard and released it in a more remote piece of real estate where it was less likely to be discovered by someone who would prefer to chop its innocent head off.

Second, is the confusing line about "other species." What exactly did the author of this informational masterpiece have in mind? My guess is that they meant "dangerous species," or perhaps, "snake species." But "other species" is really wide open for interpretation. That other species "may be present" is quite obvious. You don't even have to open your eyes to hear dozens of bird species, for instance. If you care to note all of the other thousands of species that happen to live in this particular natural area, from the multitudes of soil bacteria to the noble saguaros, there is no "may be" about it!

Then there is the whole notion of "caution" implied by the presence of rattlesnakes. Was this sign installed here for liability purposes? Should we also warn of the numerous other hazards that may be present to anyone who chooses to walk here, including bees, excessive heat, air pollution, cactus spines, unleashed dogs and humans carrying concealed weapons?

This leads me to also wonder how much such a sign cost our city government to create and install. Clearly another well planned and brilliant use of our tax dollars!