Jack Burns Lives!

A thrilling moment for me this morning….

As I walked out to the garden, I quickly noticed an Eastern Cottontail rabbit under my patio table. While seeing a single rabbit may not seem like a big deal or may be an almost everyday occurrence for some folks, it’s rare in my community. At least outside of the few wooded areas that remain.

I live in an older part of town with lots of trees, but it’s also plagued by lawn worshipers, blithely spraying their poisons, largely apathetic about any life forms other than their own. The more they spray and cut, the more damage they cause.

Fewer amphibians and fewer rabbits.

So, seeing this single example of Sylvilagus floridanus was, as my son stated, a small triumph.

I watched the rabbit for about a half hour, as it sat very, still under the table. Eventually, it moved to the grass and started munching away. Then, in a sudden and unexpected movement, its ears fully alerted and pulsing, its nose twitching, it darted back to the patio and cowered behind a large planter with a drooping cherry tomato plant.

I had missed the signs, because I was too busy watching the rabbit, but the birds were growing loud and a squirrel was belting out an alarm call. Within a flash, a Coopers hawk swooped down and left empty handed.

Good thing, too, because I haven’t seen any others. They’re obviously there somewhere, but probably not at normal levels of population. The Eastern Cottontail is a prolific producer, but this species also has a high mortality rate. According to the National Audubon Society Field Guide To Mammals, within hours of giving birth, females will mate again. If no young were lost, a single pair, together with their offspring, could produce 350,000 rabbits in five years; however, the Eastern Cottontail’s death rate vies with its birth rate and few individuals live longer than one year.

I’m one of those guys that believes species like the Eastern Cottontail belong right here in the midst of our homes and carports, not just “out in the woods.” It’s good to see rabbits, chipmunks, Mourning dove, Copperheads, amphibians, dragonflies and even the Black Widow Spider in the garden. It means I have a healthy yard that’s more than a yard. It’s habitat. Friendly to critters and therefore friendly to humans.

So, the public is once again deliriously feasting upon the news of politician betraying the public trust.

Who it is doesn’t even matter.

Why is any of this surprising, with either with party?

Most of these guys have varying degrees of slime residue, and many are still actively involved in their various high crimes and misdemeanors. What’s equally appalling is the crazed public interest and the ridiculous “outrage” expressed when they hear about it, as if it’s something unusual or unexpected. The public feasts on it like a smorgasbord of intrigue and gossip, stuffing itself like Mr. Creosote.

Oh well. Soon enough it will all be over. At least one can hope.

I’ve completely enjoyed reading Murray Bookchin’s The Ecology of Freedom. What an amazing read, something I’ve put off far too long. It’s a marvelous, eye opening treatise on the unification of social and ecology theory that lays out, quiet completely, the effects of hierarchies in human societies, not the least of which is the formation of the State, a well known spawning ground for corruption and thievery and violence. You also get more than a spoonful of coercion, domination, classism, resource wars and all sorts of other nasty stuff.

In the introduction he states that “society in the form of bands, families, clans, tribes, tribal federations, villages, and even municipalities long antedates State formations. The State, with its specialized functionaries, bureaucracies, and armies, emerges quite late in human social development-often well beyond the threshold of history. It remained in sharp conflict with coexisting social structures such as guilds, neighborhoods, popular societies, cooperatives, town meetings, and a wide variety of municipal assemblies.”

As Hayduke would say, “‘Twas ever thus.”

The good news is there are viable bands, families, clans, tribes, villages and communities that can function quiet well without the State. We can create bioregional federations. And just think. You won’t have to hear all this rubbish about who’s shagging who or who got caught with their paw in the kitty. Not to mention really nasty stuff like Guano Bay, genocide and nuclear war.

Ask yourself, “What’s my government done for me lately?”

“To think, as it was, then again it shall be. And though the course may change sometimes, the rivers always reach the sea.”

Utah based wilderness rambler Mike Coronella recently posted to the Abbeyweb about an interesting find just outside the southwestern section of Arches National Park. I appreciate him allowing me to repost his account and photo:

“The area in question is very jagged; the edge of a massive upthrust, the layers are exposed leaving the harder ones protruding up into the sky, very cool, very colorful. I was able to get to a high point just as the rain started; I could see down the cliff line on the west side of Moab Canyon and the grand valley–and the far end was obliterated by rain. I could hear thunder far off, and to the east, where I could clearly see through one of the Window Arches, the rain was starting to encroach. I was certainly in a place that warrants a hike to see; the view was exceptional, despite the coming storm.”

Looking down at his feet, he noticed some large pieces of chert forming letters that spelled

ABBEY

According to Mike, they were “obviously put down a long time ago, judging from the way the dirt was around them.”

As much as I’d be thrilled to hear of an original “Abbey” somewhere in the wilds, I’m a little skeptical of this being one of them. Seems a bit grandiose for Abbey. A more subtle inscription like the well known Everett Ruess “nemo” or “nemo1934″ would be more convincing. Then again, the man did drive a red Cadillac convertible around, occasionally tossing beer cans out the window, so he could definitely be ostentatious. The “believers” have also been quick to point out other examples of this sort of behavior: pissing into the abyss, rolling tires into a crater outside Albuquerque, then poring gasoline on them and setting them ablaze fire, shooting flaming arrows off the lip of the North Rim into Grand Canyon, rolling boulders off cliffs and into canyons, etc.

I don’t believe any of these examples necessarily indicates he’d make a large geoglyph of his name. These other actions either weren’t in the wilderness, weren’t lasting or easily detectable for very long. You wouldn’t have known the boulder was rolled off by a human. You’d never know he pissed off into the canyon.

But perhaps the key reason I don’t think it’s Abbey is that he always struck me as someone that avoided bringing unnecessary attention to himself. Even his most jarring “letters to the editor” were not meant to draw attention to himself but to an issue. Or to expose a lie. Like I said, I could see a small inscription that would most likely never be found, but something you could see from a plane? Don’t think so.

Looks like a fan tribute to me.

Larger resolution image is here. Mike’s photo stream on Flickr is here.

Mike Coronella is also the co-author of The Hayduke Trail, published in 2005 by The University of Utah Press.

My garden looks like a jungle and the harvest is what I’d call “decent.” Not what I wanted, but then again, the jury is still out. I say “jungle,” because the tomato plants are six feet tall. A little too leafy, though, and while there are dozens of tomatoes on the vine, they’re not ripening fast enough for my anxiously awaiting salad bowl and stomach. The cherry tomatoes are the exception. I’ve harvested hundreds of those little jewels along with about two dozen cucumbers. What a thrill it is to walk into the house with hands full of fresh produce!

The romaine lettuce harvest has been over for some time. It’s a cool weather plant, so when we started hitting the high eighties and nineties, the plants too a slumber. I’ve allowed them to go to seed.

The peppers, as expected, are loving the heat. I have more than I can possibly use.

Another 100 degree day forecasted for the lower Delta today, with humidity around 75%. Typical late summer, delta heat. Leave your seersucker trousers and starched white oxford cloth shirts in the closet. Take the straw boater if you must, but better yet, get a good Panama hat.

Even the nights are hot, although delightfully punctuated by the song of the cicadas, and the evening dance of lightening bugs. The garden orb weaving spider regularly harvests insects in her carefully made web, strategically positioned between the light adjacent to the back door and a old fence pole where the hummingbird feeders hang. Two brown bats circle above the chimney, helping keep the resident mosquito population at bay.

Sitting on the patio, I imagine I’m Ben Quick, in The Long Hot Summer, and sip on a mojito made with fresh mint from the garden. I think of what it must have been like to sit on the front porch of one of those big old plantation houses, staring down a row of oaks decorated with hanging Spanish moss. Of what it means to be a Southerner, to be connected to this bloody soil. A beautiful land marred by its proud but undeniably pestilent history. It’s a contemplative evening seemingly alone, as there are no humans, but very much not alone since I’m in a place full of all sorts of life.

The inside is quieter than outside. No sounds but the ceiling fan motor and an occasional bump caused by its uneven rotation. A candle burns on the coffee table. The stereo is tuned to NPR, and my faithful but increasingly lazy dog sleeps under a table covered with photos of my family. They’re all gone, visiting here and there, enjoying the last drops of affordable crude.

Finally, my mind, as it normally does, drifts West. I ponder a life along a stream in New Mexico, in the foothills of the Gila. Tomatoes are replaced by cacti. The cicada and orb weaving spider are replaced by the Collared lizard and the tarantula. There’s no humidity, only dry, bone searing heat. But as I grow older I realize, more and more, that us humans are connected to place, and that I am deeply connected to this place, the South. It’s hard to leave, but why? What keeps me here in this hotbed of Bible-thumping conservatism, racism and violence?

It’s home and has been home for at least five generations on both sides of the family. I know this place. I know the plants, the animals, the weather patterns, the streets, the trails, the sounds and smells. Nearly all of my memories are from here, and even if I left, I feel that it would never really let me go. It would always call me back, and I could never forget or ignore the sounds, the smells and the feel of this sensuous, steamy, beautiful place.