Chasing the Green Man

We are "jonesing" for spring around here. A very snowy February has left lots of snow trying to melt, revealing squishy squelchy mud in the places the sun has won the melting battle.

The Willow and I took a walk yesterday.  I took the hearts off the mailbox post and put up the daffodils.  I considered putting up shamrocks, but I didn't have any green material, nor do I have much Irish in my blood.

We decided to take a walk along the stream. The sun was nice and warm, but the air was still cool in the 40's.  We were looking into the pool and marvelling at how clear the water was.  I still have a bit of gold fever, so my eyes were scanning the bottom for any shiny bits.

I saw a nice pendant sized quartz glittering about 8 feet from the edge.  I found a couple of long sticks, and tried to pick it up likeI was wielding  a giant pair a chopsticks.  As soon as the sticks would break the surface of the water, ripples would form breaking the clarity of the water, and I would pause trying to be still and let the water settle to find my target.

Three times I managed to get the little stone in between the sticks only to drop it as I tried to retrieve it.

We scanned the area for something to stand on. I considered taking off my boots and socks and rolling up my pantlegs  and wade in for it, but I knew that water was colder than I wanted to tread.

Willow found a driftwood stump that I placed in the water for a precarious foothold. I teetered, concentrating, straining to reach the bright stone. I watched the cuff of my sleeve break the water as my fingers scrabbled for the evasive rock.

"KERPLOP"

I heard a big splash at the end of the pool, and I thought it was either a fish or The Willow hucking rocks, so I kept my balance and my focus and kept reaching...

"OOOHHH DID YOU SEEEEE THAT?!?!"

My head jerked up, my balanced shifted, and I threw my feet in what I thought was the shallowest direction since I was about to pitch face first into the pool.

I splashed in and my momentum carried me another leap into what turned out to be the wrong direction.  I was up well over my knees, my boots and their thick felts immediately filled with spring melt water.

I quickly headed up the ridge, each boot weighing over eight pounds each with it's gallon of water, my feet and ankles burning and freezing.

I made it up to the rock wall and asked the Willow to run back to the house and get  my other boots. I pulled off the boots to a gush of water, and tried to shed my socks which had somehow shrunk and stuck to my feet.

By the time the Willow had come back with the other boots, I was finally barefoot, but my feet were too wet to put on the boots, so I walked along the top of the stone wall barefoot, skirting the patches of snow on the ground. When I ran out of wall, my feet were mostly dry so I put the dry boots on to cross the snow field on the lawn.

(yeah, I am not THAT tough)

Later that afternoon we set ten sugar maples taps, The Willow ceremoniously catching first drips on her tongue off each tap as it went in.  She doesn't care for the boiled down maple syrup, but she loooves the fresh sap.

Today I was reading about shamrocks and spring things like that, and I found out there is (used to be?) a spring tradition in the UK involving a parade and someone dressed as the Green Man. Which culminated in the Green Man being dunked in the stream to ensure plenty of rain for the growing crops.

The Green Man is said to rise with the sap in the spring .

Welcome Spring.

Dunked, barefoot, and tapped. :)

Mineral collecting- a new Twist on an old Hobby

I have always loved rocks. I remember smashing rocks as a child, the sting of a stray chip hitting my cheek, the flash of sparks when I found pyrite in the mix. I remember losing a thumbnail turning over big rocks in a creek on my grandmother's property as a wee one.

I must have been a prospector in a past life.

Geology has always been my weak science. I have always been frustrated by mineral identification. In every other regard I am pretty much a science geek, I remember when Trivial Pursuit came out and I would win by making sure I landed on a green (science)spot because I could answer almost all of the science questions. Forget Literature, Arts, History..can't remember the other one...I could answer one in five of those, so given enough turns I would eventually get those other ones for my piece of the pie.

I remember telling my mother as a small child that I had found gold in  the back yard.

"That's not gold, that's mica," she said.

Maybe I was an alchemist in a past life, because I remember about that time mixing bathroom chemicals behind the locked door. A little hand lotion, a little of this, a little of that. It's a wonder I didn't make chlorine gas and that would be the end of the story...I do remember the plumber coming and getting accused of putting stuff down the toilet and plugging it up, but the plug looked like cotton balls and surely I hadn't considered that worthy of my alchemy experiments. More likely my sisters flushing their tampons....

I remember going to a new school when I was about 6 years old, and someone raised their hand and asked to go to the labratory.  I could envision beakers and distillation equipment and sort of a still like device (ok, maybe I was a bootlegger in my last life) and I thought that must be more interesting than whatever the teacher was talking about, and the classmate had been readily excused to go there.  I couldn't resist.

I raised my hand. "May I go to the labratory?" My diction was very precise, and the teacher caught right on. 

"Where do you want to go?"

"The labratory, to see the experiments! You just let someone else go."

The teacher chuckled.  "She asked to go to the LAVATORY, the bathroom, the restroom"

I was so disappointed.

I didn't understand the concept of calling it a "restroom" either.

no wonder kids in America want to spend classtime in the halls-who wants to go into the smelly bathrooms? Everyone wants a restroom from a boring teacher.

Sorry Miss Somerville, but the only other thing I remember from that year was the first day when you showed the slide show of your trip on a 747 to Disney World, and how to spell photosynthesis. And how to grow beans in a cup, that was fun.

Miss Somerville didn't teach us Geology, unfortuneately.

Actually she must have been a terrific teacher because I remember that much. I don't remember anything specific from the next two years. Except I became a leader of a gang...not in the way it means now.  I even made up my own words for my own language, but couldn't get anyone else to learn it with me.  They were too busy learning the multiplication tables.  I still struggle will 11X12 I must have been writing my own language at that critical time.

I grew up, and contined my love affair with rocks, often picking up pieces that caught my eye and sticking them in my pocket, quartz being my absolute favorite.  I dont' remember what ever happened to them all, either chucked out in the washer at the laundramat, or left for roomates or landlords to deal with, apologies to them...

Later as a homeowner, I showed skill at laying flat stones for patios, most likely because the house I was raised in had a stone patio done in two parts. One was beautifully done and original to the house, the second added on later with sloppy masonry. I loved it so much as a child, I offered to scrub it for allowance and wrinkled my knees scrubbing and hosing it to sparkly clean and then having to haggle the value of the job with my mother...

I remember one partner scoffing at me when I crouched along our drive dipping in a seasonal stream with a wok.

"What are you DOING?" he enquired.

"Panning for gold," I said.

"There ain't no gold in there," he scoffed,

I found a couple teeny garnets and discovered one of the rocks up against the culvert was covered in fossils from about 300 million years ago.  He wasn't impressed, so I put the wok away.

In the years since then, other sparkly bits have caught my eye, and it's always the same from whomever I showed it to:  "Mica"

Later years I rode my horse on a big land preserve where there was an abandoned Mica mine.  Big chunks of dark glassy flaky mica.  Mica, ok...

A homeowner again, I have continued my fascination with rocks. Certain times the house has reached critical mass and I have evicted all the rocks.  I stink at rock wall building, but edged all my perennial beds with rocks that have caught my fancy. The small pocket ones end up in the house, and are eventually placed outside the back door which has currently reached critical mass so I have started a couple other places to pile them.

I moved from quartz to what I thought was red quartz. I have a couple of choice chunks in the random piles on my desk. Even though when I did some research I discovered it was probably cinnabar, an ore of mercury.

 I started lugging home metallic bits. Oh boy, now I am bringing home lead and arsenic yum.

I couldn't resist. The shine put stars in my eyes. Who cares if it is mica? That looks like gold..I can't identify it since my geology training has been limited to, "It's just Mica."

Internet research isn't cutting it, but I did learn that the only county in the state which I grew up in that has significant gold ...is the county that I grew up in.
Mom, I told you that was gold in the backyard.
The ex stopped in for a visit today and I had him take a look.
"remember when you laughed at me and the wok?" I asked.
"Looks like Mica to me,"  he said.

Then he added,
"Maybe it's time to befriend a few geologists in my department."


"Stairway To Heaven"

There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven.
When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for.
Ooh, ooh, and she's buying a stairway to heaven.

There's a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure
'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.
In a tree by the brook, there's a songbird who sings,
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it makes me wonder.

There's a feeling I get when I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees,
And the voices of those who stand looking.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it really makes me wonder.

And it's whispered that soon if we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn for those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter.

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now,
It's just a spring clean for the May queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on.
And it makes me wonder.

Your head is humming and it won't go, in case you don't know,
The piper's calling you to join him,
Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow, and did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind.

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul.
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold.
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When all is one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll.

And she's buying a stairway to heaven.

Led Zeppelin