I was very curious to look up the mouth parts of the horse fly when I came back from the land yesterday. This little animal has been high on my list of annoyances and for this trip at least has replaced ticks, poison ivy, snakes, and bears (in that order) as my number one fear. (I’m adding red bugs, aka chiggers, into the third position after recent dermal outbreaks that I mistakenly thought were errant spots of poison ivy—of which there are some of those too.)
I debate whether to even put bears on the list. I only do because there is a moment’s jolt of adrenaline when I hear a footstep in the forest. For the most part I’d enjoy seeing one again—as long as it isn’t a frequent occurrence. My fear has been more acute in California when I’ve camped in a zipped up tent and don’t have a ready means of escape and easy visuals of what’s coming.
Until this trip, horseflies have barely been on my radar. It could be that this season had a high birth rate or perhaps it has something to do with my behavior. I’m sweating profusely and largely staying in the same place building stairs out of heavy rocks on the steep part of the main trail. The horseflies, along with regular flys, seem to be attracted to my sweat. But whereas regular flies lovingly mop up the salty liquid right in front of me—like a restaurant worker cleaning a table— horseflies, generally speaking, speed around attempting to find a landing place outside of my eyesight.
Horseflies aren’t interested in your sweat or, as it turns out, your flesh—despite how it might feel. I had always assumed that they enjoyed chewing up a chunk of meat like a Texas oilman and that their mouth parts looked something like a grabbing claw. It turns out, they are actually cutting a hole to slurp up your blood not taking a chunk out.
To give a clearer visual they could be renamed Edwina Scissors Mouth (only the females do this). From what I understand, they have at least three sword-like blades. One is serrated and another, sharp and thin, is used to pry open the hole made in your flesh by the first. These appear saber-like while a third, double-edged and symmetrical like Excalibur, is plunged in the widened hole and has a channel in the center which allows the injurious insect to draw your blood into its body.
I don’t understand, evolutionarily, why horseflies are as loud as those annoying little motorcycles that seem to be so popular today with grown men who ride around with their knees up around their ears. It doesn’t make sense why the horsefly wants to give their victims a heads up. Perhaps with their harassment the mammalian body produces some yummy, high-energy, fear-induced chemical that is released into the blood stream and gives one’s life juice that extra kick these flying daggers are looking for.
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I thought it was a swarm of bees like the ones high in the flowering pepper tree in my backyard in California— loud but mostly invisible for the leaves. I kept passing the sound just off the main trail without bothering to look. The second day and perhaps the fourth time passing I stopped to really hone in. It wasn’t bees but flies and they weren’t high in the trees but four feet away, just above the ground.
My heart leapt into my throat. If I didn’t say it out loud, it was loud in my brain, Oh, a new-born, baby fawn!
I immediately wanted to reach out and pull its little body into mine, kissing every white spot on its small back and every inch of fur between the big wet eyes and black nose.
This feeling was made more acute having, coincidentally, just moments before received a video on my phone of my housemate’s dog Sasha who I miss terribly and who we often call bat-eared, fawn-bodied, kangaroo.
The phone, buried in a side pocket along my leg had begun playing music. I retrieved it and looked at the screen. It was one of those auto-generated, Google collages of personal photos soaked in heartstring-pulling-music.
I don’t know how these videos happen—when or why. They just appear at random. They often hit an emotional home run but sometimes stitch you together with a person you barely know or painfully remind you of a dead romance.
This was one of the home runs. It was all Sasha photos fading in and out, appearing and melting away along with my heart.
Of course I didn’t grab up the fawn which would have been a terrible violation of nature akin to snatching a kid off the street. No doubt its mother was somewhere about. It was curled into itself, eyes open but why wasn’t it moving? Were all the flies there because it was nearing death?
I inched closer and it startled.
I began to coo to it, “Hello beautiful baby.”
I crouched down and took pictures. When I rose to back away it made a panicked cry and with difficulty stood.
I cooed again, “It’s okay baby. It’s okay.” But I couldn’t entreat it to stay. It began to walk away slowly on wobbly legs. I felt bad for disturbing it.
I watched the new-born creep between the trees navigating the rocks and uneven ground with unsteady footing. In about forty feet it disappeared in the dense trees and brush and I turned back to work. I checked a few minutes later and saw it pass in an open space twice as far as it had been and still moving steadily onward.
I was worried. I called Stewart and asked him if it would be okay. Would the mother be able to find the baby? He assured me that the mother could smell her child. Later, another woodsman confirmed that they will call to each other and that in fact, any female mamma deer would come to the babies aid.
Thinking back to the day before, something strange now made sense. I’d been walking on the main trail from the shed and I saw the large white butt of a deer leaping away from me and then making a noise that I can only describe as a sound like a rope being pulled violently through a wooden hole.
It was a sound I’d never heard from a deer and it made me want to follow it to find out more. I left the main trail onto the one that goes to the memorial stones. I moved carefully between the overgrowth I haven’t had time to cut back.
Intermittently I heard the sound repeated , “Vrip, Vrip”, moving higher up the knob. I saw the deer flash between trees. The sound kept rising but I had no interest in following it into the steep bramble. I turned around, got back on the trail and passed the spot where I’d find the baby the next day — the spot where I think the mama was trying to lead me away from.
I’m guessing the fawn was born here and that the interest from the flies was in the birthing fluids which at the very least, probably made a nice coating on the babies fur.
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In the course of my discovery about this land, I end up doing a lot of theorizing. Learning is changing one’s mind when more information comes along and I’m rethinking my thoughts on those piles of stones.
A couple of friendly blog readers reintroduced the idea that these piles may have been made by people to farm the land. I’d dismissed that early on in my theorizing with the knowledge that this land was not good for farming. There are few dry weather water sources and almost no level surfaces. But whose to say the rocks weren’t piled up to make walking/hunting areas easier to navigate or to stockpile stones for future wall building or other construction projects?
Now when I think about the massive boulders being torn apart by age and weather, I look at the piles and wonder why they don’t fit more like puzzle pieces instead of being stacked…and wouldn’t I see more examples of boulders with a central core and shucked off pieces all around it? No, I think these piles of rocks were put there by humans—at the very least to avoid all the ankle twisting that they can cause. But when and by who?
A reader sent me this link from a reddit conversation on rock piles:
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Here are some photos of the work progress that’s been made so far.
The driveway is in thanks to a great recommendation for Jesse’s Lawn Service and Landscaping, Bobcat and Excavating. Watching someone good at using these machines it’s easy to see how the idea of transformers came about. Machine and person become one.
I’ve upped the level of maintenance on the main trail and taken the hoe to it. I’ve debated getting a heavy duty weed wacker like the ones used by professional landscapers. I lived for five years in my house in Concord before I used the dishwasher. Now I don’t wash anything by hand that will fit. Maybe I’ll return to the slower way when I retire. Will I hoe these trails for five or ten years and then submit? Right now I like the quiet work and don’t want the intrusion, expense or environmental cost of more machines.
Stewart let me borrow his truck for a second load of rock for the stairs I’m putting in. This time I had help from cousin Parker, Linda’s high school age grandson. Moving and seating these rocks has been by far the most strenuous work I’ve done. I’ll show the progress of stairs on my next post.
I’m not just moving rock. I’m also attempting to transplant some Christmas Fern and Cedar saplings. We’ll see if they make the transition. Summer may not be the best time for moving plants.
Sometimes I find trees along the trail that seem to need a helping hand. This one was overrun by multiflora rose which can produce a vine the size of your arm. This is a before and after shot. I have no idea how much freeing a tree of vines benefits it, but it stands to reason that it does.
Plants: The moss below wasn’t on my land but a neighbors who I just met and who graciously took me for a hike with her two old dogs all along the nob ridges. Carol lives with her husband Jack two houses down in a wonderful home hidden from the road with a big wrap-around porch and a 180 degree view of mountain.
Animals: The bristle fly on the left was very scary looking and I knew nothing about it. I walked with it for a hundred feet before gently brushing it off my belt. It is harmless to humans but if you are a larva watch out!
The little one on the right is a walking stick. I’m just guessing this was a young one since it was small–only about an inch. But who knows? It may be a species that maxes out at that length.
The neighbor took a shot of me with this enormous splintered oak that probably went over in a recent windstorm. We could smell the wood fifty yards before we saw it. It was like being at a lumber mill.
She also photographed me with the memorial stones when I took her on a tour of my land. The area is in need of tending although I like the look of it being kind of wild. I want to go back to nature but it would be a nice treat to make someone curious enough to pull back some vines in a wild place to discover what is written below.
Oakes Daylilies celebrated its 25th anniversary with its annual Daylily Festival. Retired now from the family run business, Stewart sat under a tent with Linda handing out catalogs and talking with customers old and new. The business started informally with his father over 40 years ago and now it’s run by his son and grandson. Four generations of flower growers! There was food, music, free day lily bulbs, landscape painters and a common love for a flower that brings joy to multitudes.
I’ve mostly been going to bed late and getting up late. If I can put in five hours of work on the land I’m doing good. If nothing else, I now have a driveway and a pretty good trail from there to the old shed. If I never get a cabin built at least I’ll have that wonderful walk and a place to get off the road.
Here’s the view from behind my Aunt Linda’s condo. I happened to get up early one morning and walk outside. I’ve much to be thankful for.
I hope you have a good independence day. Do not despair. Let’s remember what it means to be independent and free to think. Let’s remember the important principal of separation of church and state–that we respect all religions by not raising any above the rest in our public institutions–that we strive to be a nation with dignity for all people. Please use your voice. Speak out when something is not fair…and vote whether that means holding your nose, voting your conscious, voting for a partial ticket, voting for a third party — just vote. Democracy at it’s best isn’t easy. There is no single solution and as all my vegan friends say, “there is more than one way to peel a carrot and if it’s organic it may not need peeling at all.”
(Okay, no one says that.)
Spotty West Goes East 