To Separate a Bear from Its Breakfast

We have had several unusual encounters with what I might be forced to describe as "God's Way." We are witnessing bears snapping up and carrying off and...we have to assume... EATING" newborn fawns, supposedly a great delicacy with the bears. I have not seen this myself, but those who have are greatly affected by the sights...and the sounds...of it all.

Deer seem to have come to know that the grounds of the Village itself offer a relatively safe place to be...to come to nibble away at some nice vegetation and as a birthing place. We have witnessed a number of does giving birth close by, even inside the outer perimeter of village structures...this year and in previous years. As soon as the fawns are up and mobile enough to get about quickly on their own, the doe and her offspring will move on.

Bears, which are always around Out There seem to have discovered Holden as a birthing place and a potential meal ticket to what I am told they consider to be their greatest delicacy, a baby fawn. Such a meal beats out berries and leaves by a long shot.

For those of us who sit atop the "Chain of Being," these encounters are not easy to consider, and certainly not easy to witness. The fawns are so "cute." The bear cubs needing food are so "cute." And some of us are having to witness "cute" gone to wildness. Wildness is at our very doorsteps. It is so easy to forget that because we are so civilized here.

A visit to a slaughterhouse or a poultry processing plant or a pig farm might offer us the perspective we need.


Wilderness A la Carte


Wilderness mothers
Do not have the option
Of sustaining the life of an offspring
With a cellophane-wrapped
Boneless and skinless
Eyeless and hoof less
Hunk of bloodless meat
In a Styrofoam tray.

Wilderness mothers
Are subject to do-it-or-die necessity.
They must sustain their young
By first stealing a new-born offspring
From another mother.
The whole of it.
Bones, skin, eyes, hooves.
And it screaming all the while.

The cute bear cubs
Watch from on high in a tree,
While their mother returns with dinner,
A cute newborn fawn
Hanging from her teeth.

The bears,
Sated and sustained
And without a trace of triumph,
Sleep well through the night.

The doe,
With no notion of grief,
Roams the night woods
With swollen milk sacs.

A Spring Rain

This is it.

This is the cold clear rain
That falls from its own weight
Out of a soft gray sky.

There is no storm.
There is no wind
To drive it hither and yon.
This rain falls straight to earth from the sky.

But gently.
Quietly.

Outside my window
The drops tick down
On gravel and stone.

There is gurgling
In the water spout
At the roof's edge.

Birds
Chirp their approval.

Worms
Turn in the loosened soil.

Flowers
Bend over in gratitude.

And high atop the mountain,
Into and out of the crevices,
God assumes the various forms
Of the ever-changing mist.

Rising.
Spreading.
Drifting.
Descending.

Looking on.
Approving.

A Run for the Money and Three for the Show

I may have inadvertently found my way to an addiction that is going to take a 12-Step Program to cure. It is riding my bicycle down to Lake Chelan.

Gail Johnson (bookkeeper) and Debi Gustafson (assistant to the registrar) and I took off yesterday morning on our bikes and headed down the big hill to the lake. Now I must admit from the outset that we did not ride the dreaded switchbacks. Prior to leaving, we had heard some (many) graphic horror stories of bicycle accidents on the switchbacks and we elected to ride our bikes down to the top of the switchbacks and wait for the bus to pick us up and take us the rest of the way down. For those of you unfamiliar with Holden the steepest part of the ascent to the Village comes at the beginning of the journey up from the lake. A series of switchbacks allows the traveler to gain a fair amount of altitude in a short distance. From there, the incline is more gradual but always up, up, up until you reach Holden. If you are headed in the opposite direction, you are always going down, down, down...and if you can control yourself and your need for speed, control the inherent danger or going TOO fast and applying brakes too quickly, and if you can keep yourself focused on the exact path of your front tire, watching every rock and stone and soft spot and loose gravel...then you will arrive exhilarated at the top of the switchbacks about 8 miles down the road. It was quite a ride.

We had packed a sandwich and once at the bottom rode our bikes on over to Refrigerator Harbor and ate our lunch. We then investigated a cave that years ago had been blasted out of the rocks and was used for the mining company to store their explosives. We visited with the llamas at the Forest Service headquarters...the llamas are being used to haul equipment and supplies into the forest for trail clearing and clean-up. They did not seem to be too fond of having visitors. We came back to the Lucerne dock to await the arrival of the afternoon boat and our ride back up the mountain.

While waiting, I had removed my backpack and bike helmet and left them by my bicycle. When it was time to go, I picked up my backpack and was about to put it on when there issued from within it a whole lot of movement. A chipmunk, smelling the remains of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich had made himself at home in the pack.

It was a great ride down. It was especially interesting to get down to the level of the fire zones of last year and see everything destroyed and the colors all brown, and black, and gray...but on the floor of the forest, green shooting up everywhere. I was also amazed at the dogwood blooms at lower elevations...the flowers were huge...about the size of a standard saucer. Quite beautiful. There are major differences in the vegetation you see at the level of the lake as compared with the vegetation you find at Holden. There were many wildflowers blooming and they were beautiful as well.

A great day.

Bits and Pieces

I know that I have not been as faithful about creating new posts on this blog as I had originally intended. And so much time has elapsed now that it is virtually impossible to go back and bring you up-to-date, but here are a few things that have been happening since my last post.

First and foremost, Holden Village has been an incredibly busy place for the month of May. Each of the weekends thus far has seen an influx of young people from various Lutheran churches in the Washington, Idaho, Oregon area. The weekends are called Holden Youth Weekends and varying numbers of young people arrive, generally over 100 to our largest group this past weekend of 240. And on the same day that 240 arrived, 119 sixth graders arrived from the Chelan School District for a week of environmental studies. They leave on Friday and on Monday another 100 or so elementary school kids arrive from Manson, Washington for a 4-day visit. I actually don't have much to do until the day of departure for these students and it is then that the laundry piles get as high as the ceiling...I am not exaggerating here...and I have as my goal the task of getting all the sheets and all the towels ready before the next group comes in. It is a challenge.

Meantime, the Holden never-a-dull-moment agenda keeps cranking out things to do. Up on the agenda for this weekend is the high school Prom (I use the word with some trepidation). the theme for this year's gala is "Escapees from the Circus at a Rave". I am not sure that I really know what that means, but I do know that everyone in the village will be there...in costume... for a fine time. I have not been to Holden's famous "costume shop" so I do not know yet which form of escapee I will be. I have some mental pictures and titles, but none of them appropriate for the occasion.

And yes, I have seen my first bear of the season. I was out on a hike yesterday afternoon and there was a small bear...from the size I would judge that it was born last year...off to the side of the trail seeking what it might devour. It was not particularly interested in human flesh. I think it was a vegetarian bear.

Virtually all of our snow has melted and spring is popping up everywhere. There are many unusual varieties of daffodils and they are nearing the end of their blooming season and will soon be replaced by the iris which are already about 6 inches above ground. The days have been beautiful of late and temperatures during the day are warm and pleasant. The nights are chilly and require sleeping under blankets...with the windows open a bit for the fresh air and the night time sounds. Very nice.

I am very excited that Ben and Kim, Andrew and Rosa will be here next week. They are flying from Hawaii on a military space available flight and are a bit anxious that they will make the flight within a reasonable period of days. Air fares have doubled since they flew from Seattle to Hawaii and with 4 of them making the trip, flying on a commercial flight makes for a very expensive trip.

And for those of you who know Ione Erickson, she arrives for a 3-week volunteer stint on June 7. Her cancer seems to be in remission...no traces of it can be found and she has been going to physical therapy and rehab to get strong enough to make the trip from Willmar, MN. She is going to work half-time in the laundry. The entire village is looking forward to her return.

The new area head for the laundry arrived a few days ago so I have been busy training her...with all the laundry we have had, training has been no problem...and she gives no indication of packing up and leaving because the job is beyond her expectations. This means that I will go into the post office on Monday and begin my own training there. The current "postei" leaves on June 22 and I am hoping that will be enough time to learn the ropes.

We learned last night at a staff meeting that the lead guitarist for Jimmy Buffet will be here as the village musician for 2 weeks. I believe he arrives in mid-June. Now that will be interesting!
Never called such, Holden Villagers may actually be the prototype for the now-famous "Parrot Heads"! So this guitarist may find himself in good company.

Time is getting away from me and I had planned to finish up the afternoon by riding my bicycle for a bit. It is a great day for it.

I hope that all is well with all of you. Stay tuned. I think I am about settled in and will try to do a better job of keeping you informed.

Tender Mercies

We are having our first warm days here at Holden. For the past two days, temperatures have risen into the high 80's and the change from the chilly temperatures of recent days has been sudden. Railroad Creek, which runs through the village, is absolutely rushing by and the water level is very high. There are avalanche warnings out with expectations of large numbers of avalanches and they are expected to be massive ones. Let me reassure you that there are no threats of avalanches here within the village, but hikers are warned daily to be wary.

With the increasingly high temperatures and the ability now to run all the dryers, the air temperatures in the laundry have risen as well. Those of us working there one morning this past week were feeling the accumulated morning heat but nevertheless prepared to take the morning coffee break at 10:30.

We went down the hill to the dining hall and instead of coffee, we found freshly made (and made out of of fresh fruit) mango-blueberry milkshakes. Such a treat.

Early Robins and Rhubarb

Red breast
Bumped against
Red breast
And claws curled,
The robins rise
From the earth
To meet for a mid-air conference.

Then just as suddenly,
And in tandem,
They flit away.
Return alone
To hop
Across the bank
Of heaped-up snow.

Meanwhile,
To assist
In our anticipation
Of coffeecakes,
Sauces,
And pies,
The gardener has cleared the snow
From the rhubarb beds.

In response to that uncovering,
Ruby red and
Rusty purple
Bulges
Of a mysterious living entity,
Not yet plant-like, really,
Has begun to manifest itself.

Insistent on seeking the sun,
The whole mass
Pushes relentlessly up
Through the black dirt.
Once free,
These primitive forms
Will straighten into stalks.
Each stalk
Will crown itself with a leaf.

And all the while
The stalks will fill themselves
With a wild juice
So tangy and so tart
That only sugar
Or a marriage
With a sweeter fruit
Can tame it.

Alongside the rhubarb beds,
The robins
Hop about
On the left-over snow.
They are oblivious
To the miracles
Of rhubarb growth and renewal.

They have their own spring chores to attend to.

Mother's Day at Holden Village

Some of the daffodils have bloomed.

They are busy this morning collecting snowflakes in their yellow cups.