David Gorsline – Page 45 – A Honey of an Anklet

Pafko at the wall

Gerald Howard says that Don DeLillo should receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. I agree.

By every metric that we use to measure literary greatness—including overall achievement, scope and variety of subject matter, striking and fully realized style, duration of career, originality and formal innovation, widespread influence here and abroad, production of masterpieces, consistency of excellence, pertinence of themes, density of critical commentary, and dignity in the conduct of a literary career—Don DeLillo, now eighty-three, scores in the highest possible percentile.

Sky Meadows State Park

Virginia state parks are still open for day use! A staffer directed me to a spot in the overflow parking area at 10:30 on a pleasant, gusty Saturday morning.

I made a loop with the North and South Ridge Trails, about 3 miles in 3:15. That 700-foot (or so) climb just gets harder every year, but I can still do it, a few minutes at a time. Not too busy on the trails, mostly couples and small groups.

Among the butterflies, Eastern Tailed-blues were out, along with a few Zebra Swallowtails. A quick glimpse of an anglewing. Trees had not leafed out, so there were some spring ephemerals: Spring Beauty on the warmer, lower slopes; Bloodroot at higher elevations; a bit of Early Saxifrage; Cut-leaved Toothwort was fairly common; Rue Anemone always confuses me the first time I see it for the year.

Field Sparrows and Eastern Meadowlarks singing in the pastures.

I may have missed it the last time I was in the park: the American Chestnut Foundation has a baby orchard planted along the Boston Mill Road.

Long day

A portrait of Pullman porter Alfred MacMillan on the Capitol Limited by Jack Delano (at Shorpy).

At the park (not): 109

This week’s message to my team:

I believe that all the team has received word from Halley that volunteer activities at the Park remain suspended. Quite disappointing, but necessary.

I hope, but don’t expect, that the siege will be lifted and that we can get at least one work day in at the end of the season, maybe mid-May or later.

’til then, as a thin compensation, I’ll offer a couple of YouTubes: Wood Ducks hanging out and 23 (!) ducklings exiting a box.

Stay safe, thanks for your patience, and wash your hands!

Some ink: 11

Beautiful decapods: I was part of a team that reviewed and edited a white paper on crayfish, published by the commonwealth’s cooperative extension. Most of the work consisted of chasing down dead web links and finding replacements.

Troubling

Just how many days would it take to fill USS Enterprise with tribbles? Hodnett et al. have the answer.

We estimated the volume of a tribble to be 3.23⨉10^-3 m³. We did this by measuring a replica tribble, and assuming that a tribble is roughly cylindrical.

(via Jennifer Ouellette.)

Phytomining

Ian Morse reports on plants that are hyper-accumulators of metals like nickel, cobalt, zinc. Malaysia and Indonesia are hotspots.

Weir-doo

Exquisite loss: “March 3,” by Eileen Myles.

…in the day
and the
night
before. It snowed
but it was
supposed
to be larger…

At the park: 108

From this week’s report:

No new nests started this week. We’re watching box #5, which has a full clutch of eggs but no evidence of incubation. Chris rescued my stick, which went for an extended swim in the new pool by the observation tower.

We plan to work again next week, 22 March. We will keep an ear out for guidance from the Park.

Real Good

TIL that Maryland’s Carroll County and Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens are named for the same guy. C. J. Hughes looks into the backstory of some of the names of neighborhoods in the outer boroughs.

At the park: 107

First week of nest box monitoring. From my report:

Earlier and earlier! We have eggs in three of our boxes already: 12 Hooded Merganser eggs in #5 (on the remains of last year’s songbird nest), 13 Hooded Merganser eggs in #7, and 4 Wood Duck eggs in #1 — all subject to recheck and confirmation.

We did not fill boxes #68, #60, and #13 with chips, in anticipation of their replacement. Box #13 is the priority for replacement: the term of art applied was “hot mess.”

Bonus bird sighting was a flock of 500+ Common Grackles (Quiscalus quiscula) moving across lower Barnyard Run.

Protip: your walking stick serves double duty as an icebreaker.

A mystery: 20

The ball opened with a country-dance, in which Mr Rivenhall, in honour bound, stood up with his cousin. He performed his part with propriety, she hers with grace; and Miss Wraxton, watching from a route-chair at one side of the room, smiled graciously upon them both.

—Georgette Heyer, The Grand Sophy, chap. 9

Hey, internet! Any idea what makes it specifically a route-chair? Foldability/portability? Does it look like a ballroom chair? A director’s chair? A campaign chair?

Heyer decoded

‘You won’t mind if I shake the fidgets out of his legs!’ Sophy called. ‘He is itching for a gallop!’

With that, she wheeled Salamanca about, and let him have his head down the stretch of tan that lay beside the carriage-road.

—Georgette Heyer, The Grand Sophy, chap. 5

My old print Oxford doesn’t have anything for tan in this context, but Webster II has

6. A path or track covered with tanbark, as a circus ring.

And for tanbark,

1. Any bark rich in tannin, bruised or cut into small pieces, and used in tanning. Spent tanbark is used for circus rings, race tracks, etc.

the tannin-depleted bark still holding onto some of its chemistry, and thus slow to degrade.

Which perhaps explains why so many parks feature a Tanbark Trail.

Chin up

‘I don’t suppose,’ said Sophy honestly, ‘that I should ever advise anyone to despair, for I can’t bear such poor-spirited conduct!’

—Georgette Heyer, The Grand Sophy (1950)

Great Backyard Bird Count 2020

Rather pleasant weather for February, and a typical species count of 19. I found a nest for the RSHAs that hang out in this stream valley. HAWO was perhaps the surprise species. 3 AMCRs were giving a FICR what for. No ducks on the lake.