IX. Micah's Limerick Knockdown

(by Micah, of course)

Take two cannibals eating a clown
Replace them with some other noun.
You'd think it'd choke
But instead you've a joke
That won't fail to bring the house down.

"Guardrail damage ahead," said the sign
But to my eyes, the guardrail looked fine.
It seemed a request,
So at its behest
I smashed that rail way out of line.

"Come eat our garden!" they said.
"Its plants will all keep you well fed!"
But the tree with the beans
Is not what it seems
And now I'm organically dead.

We drove to San Antonio
To go see the Alamo
It was rugged, no gilding
With a big gift shop building
Which I think I'll remember for sho'.

There once was a Texan gas station
Which we passed without utilization
Half a tank of gas later
There were no stations to cater
Which gave me humble pie mastication.

Music: Deep in the Heart of Texas (not the version I wanted, and also the video is ridiculously bad. Missing the lyrics "The sage in bloom/ is like perfume/ Reminds me of/ the one I love/ Deep in the heart of Texas.")

VII. A Cookie Cutter City Primer

[by Micah, with follow-up by Erica]
Before I launch into this, I should give you some context, as it really doesn't make any sense without it. Therefore, it's really a shame that I'm not going to give you any. If Erica wants you to know what this is about, she can type something up. I'm not your monkey.

A is for Arby's, American Fare

B is Bojangles, get breakfast there.

C is for Chili's, burgers galore

D is for Denny's, pass out on the floor.

E's Econolodge, a place you can stay

F is TGI Friday's on every day.

G is Golden Corral; it is wafer-thin!

H is Home Depot, DIY yourself in.

I is the IHOP, a faux foreign partner

J, Jack-in-the-Box, an artery hardener.

K is for Kohl's, with its too-frequent sales

L is for Lowe's, selling hammers and nails.

M is McDonald's, that bastion of taste.

N: [nothing here yet; just holding its place.]

O is OfficeMax and its stationery

P is PierOne; you can be sedentary.

Q is for Quizno's, with hot toasted subs

R's RadioShack's strange collection of plugs.

S is for Starbucks, the king of caffeine

T: you want Taco Bell? That's what "yo quiero" means.

U, 'cause U-Haul to a new neighborhood

V is Verizon. Can you hear me now? Good.

W, Walgreen's coupon advertising

X is sort of for Exxon, whose profits keep rising.

Y and Z will go in here, discovery pending

But for now, we've got nothing, so that's how it's ending.

[Erica's note: "Cookie Cutter City" is what we have been calling the loose collection of 15 or more chains that populate most highway exits, north, south, east and west. It is disappointing to find that you can cross an entire country to find exactly what you left on the other side. So far, the only places we have found that do not contain some version of Cookie Cutter City are west Texas and the Californian desert outside of Los Angeles. It takes work to avoid Cookie Cutter City, but that's exactly what we've done.

Some chains not used above: Appleby's, Auto Zone, Bed, Bath and Beyond, Bennigans, Best Buy, Blockbuster, Burger King, Chevron, Chik-Fil-A, Circle K, Comfort Inn, CVS, Dairy Queen, Days Inn, Dollar General, Domino's, Dunkin' Donuts, Enterprise Rent-a-Car, Family Dollar, Flying J's, Hampton Inn, Hardee's /Carl's Jr., Holiday Inn, Hollywood Video, KFC, Knights Inn, Krispy Kreme, Linens 'n' Things, Long John Silver's, Microtel, Motel 6, Movie Gallery, On the Border, PetSmart, Popeye's, Red Lobster, Rite Aid, Ross, Ruby Tuesday, Shell, Sherwin Williams, Sonic, Staples, Subway, Super 8, Target, TJ Maxx, Wal-Mart, Wendy's, Whataburger.

Exotics: Doe's Eat Place, Southwest Milk Logistics, Mr. Appetites Go Fish Trucking]

VI. Mad Libs

Mad Lib 1, "Untitled"
Micah and Erica, 2009
Ink on Paper

"Don't make this a [truculent] Mad Lib™," I said to Erica. My [Islet of Langerhans] was [found], though, for I knew it would not end [artlessly]. Our days have been largely [sweeping] so far. Erica tells me things about birds that I never knew; for example, did you know that [Resplendent Quetzals] are in the family [Aestivalis], along with [Moas] and [Archaeopteryxes]? Neither did I!

We've just [equivocated] into [Nebraska]. It's still [oleaginous] here, which I find highly [festering]. Since I began this sentence, we [recited] over a time zone, making the amount of light [jocularly] more acceptable. Still, I protest on general principles.

Erica keeps [leap-frogging] me, saying I have [restive] [nostrils]. I maintain that making [screwy] facial expressions at someone who spontaneously breaks into an a capella rendition of ["Kiss"] is the only way to assert one's [envy]. Admittedly, I [twistily] joined in, and there's at least a [puny] chance that I started it in the [twelve billionth] place, but the logic is sound nonetheless.

Is it just me, or does everyone get [Billy Ray Cyrus] songs in their [cankles] when [poisoning] Mad Libs™? I can't [excite] the word "[gerund]" without hearing, "How do you say 'goodbye'? [Hauntingly]! [Hauntingly]! [Haunting]-[X]-[Z]!" Then it's the Masochism [Foxtrot], then the Elements. At that point, I get [arrogant] that I can't [Palinate] the elements, or even the tune. Then I [patrol] another [noun], and the cycle repeats.

Erica's [bunny-hopping] songs by [Captain and Tennile] now, and the light is gone, so I think it's time to end this. Until next time, [Godspeed]!

[Grindingly],
Micah, with [woodsy] assistance from Erica

---
Mad Lib 2, "__ the Alamo!"
Erica and Micah, 2009
Ink on Paper

From Austin, we have [17] miles to make before we hit El Paso, which is our [blithe] stop for the [eon]. To drive straight through will take us [6] [minutes], but Micah points out to me that I have [rooted] the Alamo. "[By Jove]," I declare, and we head to San Antonio instead, to see this [fiendish] historical [grackle].

The Alamo, for those who have not studied [Intermediate Truth and Beauty], commemorates the [pie-eating contest] between [the Hank Williams Museum] and [the Hall of the Mountain King]. The [blimp] began when Colonel [George Washington] [let slip the dogs of war] and denied the [rental agreement].

All at once, [Helen Keller], [Peter Parker], [Robert Downey, Jr.] and many other [bandoliers] history would one day make famous returned to the [bathroom] and defended the [rodents] and [zero-visibility dust storms] living there. When things started looking [frightening] for the Texan [clouds], [Madonna] cried out, "[Elude] the [Venezuela]!" which became a [hesitating] cry of the U.S. people for the rest of the [nanosecond].

Micah and I take [contrary] pictures of the site, tip our [ascots] to the [penurious] heroes of the day, and [congeal] onwards.

-Erica, with help from the ever [despondent] Micah

Music: T for Texas

A Couple of Jakes

Jake (henceforth “Jake” and “JakeOne”) and Jake (“JakeTwo”) were best friends in college. They are both from Illinois, but they met at Murray State in Kentucky. JakeTwo has continued on as a Masters student in herpetology there. JakeOne has abandoned for the wild beauty of North Carolina. They are both fire technicians, they are both talented biologists, and they are, for the time being, my roommates.

At home, JakeTwo refers to OtherJake as “the drawling Hoosier.” Both of them enjoy harping on my mistake in thinking that Hoosiers are from Illinois. “Easygoing, drawling Hoosier,” I correct, refusing be misquoted. “We don’t drawl,” drawl the Jakes. At work, we distinguish between the Jakes by calling them Jake and Jacob, because they need to have different names on the fire radios. As “indelicate” as the fire crew can be, they recognize that it is wrong to use “JakeTwo” as a signifier for our newest Jake, and so call him Jacob, which is not his name. Touching.

Jake has offered to be called “Jeff” for historical reasons. Last year, there were eight Jeffs, but the new season of hires left us with half that. Jake recently got hired onto the fire crew permanently, earning him the title of “6362.” This, of course, means that JakeTwo will now be “Jake,” and Jake will be called “Six-three-six-two.” Confusing? Try listening in on the fire channel when Lincoln (Fire Boss 646—spoken as six-four-six) calls his fourth crewmember. “6464? 646. 6464… 646.” “646—6464 here.” Our Jake degeneracy is trivial.

Regardless of what we call them individually, everyone likes to refer to the Jakes as “a couple of Jakes,” which, in hunting terminology is a pair of immature male turkeys. Oh yes, as you might expect, the jokes are endless. Among the mildest: “You caught yourself a couple of Jakes,” says my boss, a Jeff, as they walk by. “I’m holding out for a Tom” is my standard retort.

JakeOne is a tall, blond farm boy who grew up raising cattle, and also hell. He loves slow-pitch baseball and thinks vegetables are some sort of mean joke. And as I have mentioned, he is fond of snakes and photography, and terrifying combinations of the two. I am including links to some of his photographs below. There was a night at the house when an Eastern Hognose slid up to me as I was returning phone calls, and I called the guys out to take pictures. A hognose is not poisonous to people, but it is not small, either, and it puffs itself up, gapes, hisses and rattles like a poisonous snake. It will also mimic a cobra, which can cause you to panic if you are at all normal. Jake lay down on the ground next to the hognose and took about a hundred pictures with the snake striking at him. Every picture JakeTwo and I have of this snake has a piece of Jake’s camera lens or Jake himself in it. There is only so close sane people will get to any sort of wildlife regardless of toxicity, but Jake is apparently unaffected by this convention.

Jake immediately impressed me as a wild man, even before I met him. I had been living in the house with him for a number of days before I even saw him. I heard him coming and going, but as he never used the bathroom or kitchen or anything contained within these walls, I had to meet him at work. Events since then have reinforced my first impressions, as when I returned from shorebird surveys to find Jake, surrounded by a group of tired and wet men, skinning a four-foot catfish that he had nailed to the house. Some of the guys had gone hogging—also known as “grabbling” and “noodling”—which is a sport where you walk through a river and stick your fist under rocks until a large fish grabs it in its mouth, at which point, you try to hoist the thing out of the water and wrestle it until it is dead. Yeah, I’m not kidding. You have to let it bite you and clamp onto your wrist, because a catfish is too slippery to hold onto otherwise. An added benefit of noodling around here is that the water is so deep that you need someone to stand on you to keep you down on the riverbed while you are doing this. (Lincoln caught this one with Rupert standing on him.) Oh, and have I mentioned that this is snapping turtle country? No? Watch your fingers.

I tried to skin one side of the catfish, but Jake was cleaner, faster, and had his side skinned and filleted in a matter of minutes, before I even got done assessing the subdermal physiology of the fish. My side was bleeding like a freshly slaughtered cow, and I had the better knife. We had a 30-pound fish fry at work two days later, which might be the field-station equivalent of an office party with a swarm of cupcake-baking secretaries. Why does our workplace have its own deep-fat fryer, you ask? There are no simple answers to questions like this.

JakeTwo is shorter, darker, and tough as titanium jerky, but he has a warm smile and a sometimes-friendly if constantly obscene nature. This is a conversation I overheard between JakeTwo and my boss, and is fairly representative of conversations with JakeTwo:
“So, you think you’ll try your hand at grabbling next time ‘round?” questions Jeff.
“I gotta be honest with you, I just don’t think my testicles are big enough for that,” answers JakeTwo, as directly as possible.
Jeff, not exactly used to being addressed like this, thinks for a minute. “Maybe you could use them as bait?”
“Sir, they’re not even big enough for that.” I won’t transcribe the fire crew conversations that involve JakeTwo, but they are funny. You get the idea.

JakeTwo is also NASCAR fanatic, so his move to North Carolina is a trip to the Promised Land; a homecoming for the True Fan. Through playing NASCAR 07 on the PlayStation2, and watching movies like Days of Thunder and Talladega Nights with JakeTwo (these are basically the same movie except for a puma named Karen, and you can see shots of Rockingham in them if you are curious), I have learned the differences between open-wheel and stock-car racing, what makes a good driver, how you “line up under caution” behind the “pace car,” and how each of the NASCAR raceways differ in terms of shape, turn characteristics, surface friction, and so on. For example, our Rockingham raceway, “The Rock,” has unique track bed characteristics that make it sort of a gem of NASCAR tracks. The Rock is also narrower on one end than the other because it was built to accommodate a small and now non-existent wetlands on one side of the site, so each turn requires a different driving technique and strategy to get through. This is one of those details I cannot help but laugh about, as NASCARs get 4 miles to the gallon, and have a major impact on the local environment. Somewhere there is a point that is being missed.

For his Masters research, JakeTwo tracks and captures cottonmouths alone in remote areas. He should be wearing his medical bracelet with information as to his antivenom allergies, but he isn’t. “They can kill you with their venom, they can open their mouths almost 180 degrees and bite you from any angle, they’re lightning fast, incredibly strong, and they still have six defensive mechanisms so that they don’t have to attack you,” he says, when I ask him what he likes about cottonmouths in particular. I guess there’s something likable about all that, though I still run the other direction when I encounter one. He wants to end up in the Everglades. “Big, flowing water, big snakes,” he says, with that reserved passion of someone who truly loves his work. I’m sure he’ll get there eventually, but we have cottonmouths, and he has a snake hook, so he just might see fit to stay for a while.

What else can I say? The Jakes are good roommates. I am a fortunate girl.


Living in Constant Terror,
Erica

Life, The Army and You

Very early on in the course of my work here, I realized that the entire Sandhills Gamelands were littered with interesting and sometimes dangerous military castoffs. This is a direct result of sharing the Gamelands with Fort Bragg, which uses them to train soldiers in weapons and maneuvers. We are not supposed to interfere with military business, and they are not supposed to interfere with our scientific work. In fact, we are not supposed to establish contact of any kind, but it is still difficult to avoid occasional conflict, as, for instance, when the orienteering leaders take down my directional flagging, leaving me stranded in the middle of nowhere for unknown ages, with no idea where I might find my truck.

Last week I was out locating survey points for an upcoming study, and twenty soldiers came running over the hill in full camouflage with loaded automatic weapons. All I can really say to that is good for them. The main responsibility of my job is to be aware of the environment around me, and I had failed to notice twenty-one human beings (including the commander) until they had successfully captured my bird survey point. I did, however, manage to pick out a very rare Bachman’s sparrow nearby.

One notable example of interactions with the military and why not to have them occurred a month before I arrived. Three of our scientists were out on the Gamelands late in the evening to survey frogs, and were quickly surrounded by a large group of soldiers, who were there, announced their commander, to “deconflict the situation” (stress on the second syllable there). Did the frogs need deconflicting, or was it the scientists themselves? Or maybe, as was claimed, the “situation” itself needed deconflicting, but that’s a tough one to parse. I imagine that these interactions require both parties to peer through some veil of mystery, normally opaque to all of us, temporarily thinned in the mutual attempt to conceive that the other is doing something useful or relevant. All in all, I am not sure that that situation was ever deconflicted satisfactorily.

A rather more serious event occurred two years ago, when two soldiers in civilian clothes were taking part in reconnaissance training in one of the local towns. Because of lack of communication, the police sheriff was not informed of the exercise. He demanded to know what the soldiers were doing, and was treated by them a “plant,” as the real sheriff should have known about the exercise. With no other information to go on than that he was facing two hostile, armed youths, he shot them dead.

Some of the interactions with our non-civilian brethren are thankfully more passive in nature. On one of our regular trips through the Sandhills to delineate bird territories, I found an unopened MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) of “snack bread.” Curious as to its origin and edibility, I brought it along to lunch. The others were excited by the find, and assured me that there was a long and questionable history of eating every unopened military ration that the Sandhills offered. Kendrick and Ryan between them have found (stomach-cramp inducing) cheese tortellini with tomato sauce, jambalaya (tasty), drink mixes (ordinary), salt rations, and in the non-food category, long underwear, rain gear, unlit flares, live ammunition (common!), locking ammo boxes, and various personal effects, some of which are old, perhaps from the 1940’s. Institutional memory is strong among the field biologists here, transient though we may be, and the finds of field techs stretching back many years make for good conversation.

I imagine that there are many challenges in creating appetizing yet durable food, and said as much as I opened the sun-baked mylar pouch to share the contents with Kendrick. We both gave the flat, moist, shortbread-like confection high marks. It had an unmistakable but mild flavor of anise, and it made me want to find more of the same little pouches out on the Gamelands. But, I am told, you eat what you can find, and there have been no repeats thus far. Another day, another surprising lunch item.

Aside from the egregious amounts of litter, there are other reminders that we are sharing the Gamelands with the military. On languid afternoons when the sun is shining down through the pines and turning the grasslands into a gold ocean, the air is filled with primordial calls of flickers, and the constant singing of warblers, bluebirds, martins, finches and sparrows, but equally punctuated by an insistent RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT of machinegun fire, as well as the occasional, much larger explosion. Low-flying planes buzz over, four at a time, for what purpose I do not know. I pass lone soldiers orienteering through the Gamelands and realize again, each time I see them up close, that they are children, just over half my age, and this is all the preparation they will have before we send them off to war. My anger about the garbage I find everywhere gets deflated when I look at these people, as if I suddenly see that litter is only waste resulting from negligence, and not a much more serious waste caused by treachery and misinformation. These kids will be sent to Iraq and Afghanistan, and whether or not they return, and in what condition, is anyone’s guess. I sneak in a wave from time to time, and on rare occasions, they wave back.


Stay Deconflicted,
E

Letters Home

I began a series of letters when I moved from Massachusetts to North Carolina. I couldn't have prepared myself for the move, or what I would be doing... I was more used to cities than wild areas. I knew no one, had no family in the south, but even though it was a big chance to take, it was worth it.

I'll start posting the letters I wrote home, sequentially, over the next month or so.

--------------

Hi Everyone-

I have arrived safely in North Carolina.

I live in Rockingham, a town with its own Wal-Mart. Nine thousand people live here, and I'll give you one guess where you can find them. I live in the bird sanctuary on a gorgeous lake. We are overrun with birds, lizards, and dragonflies. I work in Hoffman, a town of 600 people. They have a rusty water tower, and that's about it… a post office that could fit into my current bedroom, and two gas stations. Though in Rockingham proper, it appears that Hoffman has a raceway that seats 78,000 people, but since the raceway was closed down in order that a much larger, 115,000-seater could be built further north, there's not much going on out there. I will say that after a day in the Sandhills, I am happy to see these signs of "civilization."

I live with a fire technician named Jake, who, like the rest of the burn crew, has a slightly cooked look to him. Jake is an easy-going, drawling Hoosier who enjoys taking extreme close-ups of deadly snakes. He knows an incredible amount about the local wildlife, and we spend nice evenings out on the porch with our binoculars and field guides, when we are not watching "the Channel," in this case CBS, and scrutinizing "Survivor, Fiji" for wilderness survival tips. Occasionally, other scientists stay here with us, and some sort of bizarre two-for-one sale brings us a second "fire-technician Jake" next month as our final permanent roommate.

Day One in the Sandhills Wildlife Depot managed to seem both completely ordinary and completely foreign simultaneously, making me think that I have not quite resolved into which of the "many universes" from quantum theory I am destined to inhabit. There was the normal paperwork to fill out, I-9's to file, direct deposit forms, and so on. For the project, papers on Bachman's sparrows and Red-Cockaded woodpeckers to collect and study, field equipment to gather and store in the field truck. This time, I have a tow-chain and snake chaps in addition to clipboards, data sheets, and nest-monitoring tools. At lunch, though, I was sitting down with men named "Rupert," "Lincoln" and "Lee," sharing the cornbread and stew. I remarked that the vertebra that I happened to be chewing on seemed awfully mammalian. A long pause. "That's whah ah shoot mah rabbits in the heyud," offered Lincoln obliquely, spitting out a piece of lead shot. That guy cracks me up.

Later in the day, we visited the sites I will be studying. Most of them are Longleaf pine restorations, host to trees sporting hundreds of goofy green pom-poms and some very rare birds. There are also "the drains," which seem to be some sort of hell reserved specifically for ornithologists. Each site offers particular challenges, but let me back up a little.

North Carolina has taken a cue, perhaps the wrong kind of cue, from Smokey the Bear, and has introduced into the conservation panoply "Burnin' Bob White" (a small quail with a large rake) and "Drip Torchin' Tom Turkey." Go ahead and read that out loud. Drip-Torchin' Tom Turkey is a biologically accurately drawn turkey, wing outspread, pouring burn fuel on the ground with a tool that might be recognizable to fire technicians, but otherwise requires the unlikely name of its possessor to provide a clue as to its function. I know it sounds improbable, but this is North Carolina's plan for converting the masses to the environmental mindset. Given what I've seen of the predominant culture here, I think they might do better with Jesus in flame-retardant robes, or Jesus in a burning pine forest, or even just a bumper sticker proclaiming "Drip-Torch for Jesus!" But maybe in the course of questionable conservation practices, the pyromaniac holiday bird is not so bad. Let me offer this entry into the category of most questionables: "Chomper."

Chomper is the adopted child of the environmental movement of the 1960's and 70's, when conservation was apparently done by swap meet. At some point, Florida walked away with some of North Carolina's turkeys (unfortunately, not our famous drip-torcher), and we received "Chomper," a 6-foot gator that was placed into the Sandhills conservation area lake. This with the aim of making skinny-dippers and revelers think twice about whether they would like to lose a limb along with their clothing and inhibitions. A testament to the take-no-prisoners strategy for conservation, it did work, but now we have a lonely alligator, far from home, who basks in the too-cool Carolina sun. Does he dream about the long walk back to Florida and the clear blue swimming pools that await his return? I wonder if he longs for those vast, open golf courses and the slow-moving prey they offer, or looks up at the sky, to ponder "Why is there only me?" Did we rip him untimely from a more sophisticated world, where he feasted on marshmallows and wrestled with Attorneys General-to-be? "What do I do to avoid Chomper?" I ask naively, thinking that they are putting me on, that there is no gator. "Git out of the truck on this sahd and run fir the first hundred meters. You outrun 'im, you'll be jest fahn. Those snake chaps maht slow you down, but then agin, so maht the snakes." "Will he really come after me?" "Maht could be." Just like a scientist to talk in meters.

End of Day One.

I shouldn't be so down on the conservation around here, though. They do an awfully nice job of it. Next installment, Chiggers Debunked! No, they don't burrow into your skin! Or maybe I'll actually get around to saying what I'm supposed to be doing here. Take care of yourselves, and I promise to do the same.

-Erica

Welcome

Welcome to my blog!

I am, and always have been, a lover of birds. When I moved South, I began to realize that the challenges of preserving Southern forests and all of the life in them is fundamentally tied up in reintroducing fire into the savannas, the prairies, the pocosins, and indeed, all of the Southern ecosystems. I became a North Carolina Division of Forest Resources Prescribed Burner, and joined the North Carolina Prescribed Fire Council. I now try to educate people about prescribed burning, and the long and interesting history of fire-management in the South.

I took the title of this blog from a Hank Williams song by the same name, and I thought it would be appropriate to make it my first post.

Settin' the Woods on Fire
Hank Williams, Sr.

Comb your hair and paint and powder
You act proud and I'll act prouder
You sing loud and I'll sing louder
Tonight we're settin' the woods on fire!

You're my gal and I'm your feller dress up in my frock and yeller
I'll look swell but you'll look sweller settin' the woods on fire
We'll take in all the honky tonks tonight we're having fun
We'll show the folks a brand new dance that never has been done
I don't care who thinks we're silly you'll be daffy I'll be dilly
We'll order up two bowls of chili
Settin' the woods on fire!

I'll gas up my hot rod stoker we'll get hotter than a poker
You'll be broke but I'll be broker
Tonight we're settin' the woods on fire!
We'll sit close to one another up our street and down the other
Tonight we'll have ball oh brother, settin' the woods on fire

We'll put aside a little time to fix a flat or two
My trey and tubes are doin' fine but the air is showin' through
You clap hands and I'll start howlin' we'll do all the law's allowin'
Tomorrow I'll be right back plowin'
Settin' the woods on fire!

(Hear it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3hzYRVAkUs)