Living Lightly
By
LILLIAN VALLEE
12. Marking Time: The Rhythm & Blues of Crane Migration
Once, in an unlikely place (next to a chicken farm in Livingston), I startled an unsuspecting flock of feeding sandhill cranes into a wild and raucous rising. Ever since then I have been trying to figure out why it was they who moved me into a new life and another time. The seduction, however, was as old as human history, for the cranes are among the oldest birds on the planet, and the bones of their ancestors have been found in Pliocene and Pleistocene fossil deposits (dating back four to nine million years). Aldo Leopold, the most eloquent and appreciative of contemporary crane watchers, liked to say they were a “tribe” stemming from the remote Eocene (38-53 million years ago). He saw their annual return as “the clicking of the geologic clock,” a reminder that people inhabited a temporal speck, unlike the cranes which lived “not in the constricted present but in the wider reaches of evolutionary time.”
Whatever the length of their stay on the planet, cranes are undoubtedly one of its oldest voices, and writers go into paroxysms of articulation trying to get crane voices right. The English word crane goes back to the Indo-European root, gar or kar, meaning “to cry out.” Sailing in, spiraling up, or dancing to attract a mate, cranes bugle, trumpet, croak or trill, depending on the occasion. While the young cheerp, the adults have a more complex repertoire of “contact” and “duet” calls alternately described as krro, karr, krrroo, kraw, ka-ka-ka, krruu-ih kraw, krru-kraw, or garoo-a-a (have fun and don’t forget to roll your r’s).
Here is Leopold’s description of crane melodies issuing from a silent horizon: “Out of some far recess of the sky a tinkling of little bells falls soft upon the listening land. Then again silence. Now comes a baying of some sweet-throated hound, soon the clamor of a responding pack. Then a far clear blast of hunting horns, out of the sky into the fog… High horns, low horns, silence, and finally a pandemonium of trumpets, rattles, croaks, and cries that almost shakes the bog with its nearness, but without yet disclosing whence it comes. At last a glint of sun reveals the approach of the great echelon of birds.” “A sense of time lies thick and heavy on such a place,” wrote Leopold of marshes. Without crane voices, without the thin thread of music linking us to all who saw and heard them before us, marshes, are humbled, sad, and “adrift in history.”
The appearance of cranes has a way of momentarily obliterating spatial and temporal boundaries, and perhaps that is why they are a perennial expression of longing, named and unnamed, as in this poem by Osakabe Otomaro: “When I lie sleepless, longing for Yamato/Must you be so heartless, o cranes/Crying at the end of the sandbar?” A cultural icon for peoples all over the globe, cranes can symbolize marital happiness (they mate for life), alertness and vigilance (outriders signal danger to the flock), renewal (the annual return), divine will (marsh gods, birds of heaven), joie de vivre (that amazing nuptial choreography) or good luck, longevity, happiness (multiplied one thousand times as in the Japanese wish). For some, cranes are symbols of good parenting because the parents are so responsive to their offspring; one parent will even distract and educate the older and stronger sibling if there are two chicks and the older is bent on eliminating the competition (sound familiar?). Few who attach a peace sign to the bumper of their cars realize that they are flashing the stylized Hopi Indian sign for unity, derived from a crane track, the footprint of “the ancient one.” The very same crane’s foot, its main stem and toes branching off to denote succession, became a European symbol of a long and illustrious lineage. “If you have a pedigree,” writes Diana Wells, “you have a pied de grue, or “crane’s foot.”
If you have an interest in the two (out of six) subspecies of sandhill that appear in the Central Valley, the Lesser Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis canadensis) and Greater Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis tabida) and have time to read just one book, make it Dayton O. Hyde’s Sandy: The Sandhill Crane Who Joined Our Family (originally published in 1968 but now available in a Northwest reprint) and read it aloud to your family. Hyde rescued two crane eggs from a floating nest about to be washed away in a flood on the Upper Williamson River in Oregon. One egg hatched and became the subject of Hyde’s book and, inadvertently, the starting point for conservation techniques that involved raising captive (and later endangered) cranes that successfully joined wild populations. Hyde’s captivating photos and anecdotes lend humor to a serious subject. Here is the account of the Hyde family’s annual Christmas pilgrimage to Palo Alto after solving the problem of what to do with the (imprinted) crane:
“In the end, Sandy went right along, flopped in my wife’s lap in the front seat, enjoying every moment of her trip as though she had suddenly discovered a soft, crazy way to migrate south for the winter without working at it… But with Sandy, adventure was never very far away. Stopped by a gruff-voiced policeman for a hair crack in our taillight, we had almost visited our way out of the predicament with only a warning, when the policeman bent forward to catch my embarrassed mumbling. Sensing drama, Sandy flashed out protectively with her stabbing bayonet of a beak and grabbed the man by the ear lobe. If the Irish have a sense of adventure, we didn’t discover it that day.”
Sources: Dwight Holing, California Wild Lands: A Guide to the Nature Conservancy Preserves; Pamela J. Jensen, Legends of the Crane; Aldo Leopold, The Sand County Almanac; Peter Matthiessen, The Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cranes; Dayton O’Hyde, Sandy: The Sandhill Crane Who Joined Our Family; and Diana Wells, One Hundred Birds and How They got Their Names.
Places to see cranes locally and to learn more about them: San Joaquin, San Luis & Merced National Wildlife refuges (Beckwith, Wolfsen, and Sandy Mush roads, respectively, the first in Stanislaus County and the last two in Merced County, 209/826-3508); and the Cosumnes River Nature Conservancy Preserve near Galt, 916/684-6821; Audobon Society (521-0108) and the Central Valley Bird Club (big symposium and field trips, November 18-21 in Stockton, www.cvbs.org).
Lillian Vallee is a Professor of Literature and Language Arts at Modesto Junior College.
Pumpkin pie is nearly always a staple of Thanksgiving dinners. Did you know that canned pumpkin is really squash? For years I have found the best "pumpkin" to be made of butternut squash. Squash does not have the bitterness that pumpkin sometimes does.
Cut butternut squash in half, scoop out the seeds, place cut side down in a
baking dish and add about half an inch of water to the pan. Bake at 350 degrees
or until it's soft but not mushy (may take from 30 to 60 minutes).
Peel it and run it thru a colander or whatever brand of machine you have to get
it smooth.
This recipe fills a large (12 inch) unbaked pie crust.
2 eggs
2 cups squash
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. each of cloves and nutmeg.
1 1/2 cups evaporated milk (one large can)
1 Tbs. honey and l Tbs. molasses
Beat the eggs, add everything else, mix well and pour into unbaked pie shell. Bake at 350 degrees until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean (about 45 minutes). My pie shells are made with part whole wheat flour.
Compiled by MYRTLE
OSNER
Caroline Mitton writes:
Do you have things you no longer want but that are too good to throw out? There's a Modesto group with a listserv just for you, called modestofreecycle.
The idea began a little over a year ago when a young man in Tucson, working for a non-profit organization that swapped used furniture and such among downtown merchants, decided to put the operation on the web and open it up to the community The idea has spread rapidly. Now there are listservs in 1200 cities. The one in Modesto has been in existence only since last April, but already has 355 members.
How it works:
Sign up through Yahoo and then list very briefly what you want to get rid of or what you're looking for. Whoever is interested emails you, then you two make your own arrangements for pickup.
Simple rules: no politics, no spam, all items must be free, legal and appropriate for all ages no selling, bartering, guns or girlie magazines. For more information, go to www.freecycle.org.
~ ~ ~
Another opportunity to give stuff away is available through Habitat for Humanity. This non-profit, which builds houses for families with their own "sweat equity", opened the ReStore in March. It's open 4 to 6 pm at 423 Seventh St., Modesto, and accepts used building materials, furniture and appliances. TO BUILD HOMES AND HOPE FOR THE FUTURE is their motto. Call or visit their office at 417 Seventh St. for information. Office: 575-4585, ReStore: 572-2880.
Have you heard of A.R.T.S., or All Recycled Things in Stanislaus? Sponsored by the Stanislaus Arts Council, materials are collected from businesses and individuals, then made available to teachers at the Educational Resource Center, 1100 Kansas Ave., Bldg. 2, Suite F, Modesto. "Free art materials for teachers! Come get ideas and materials: Paper, matte board, wood, ribbon, collage, and much more" says their announcement. Who knows, you may find exactly what you need for that next project.
Check
out these sources. Recycle what you can! If you have any other ideas, send us an
email and we'll publish it.
Photos by R. Lewis ©
The Friends of the Tuolumne is a local grass roots land trust
working to preserve and restore the Lower Tuolumne River is sponsoring a photo
contest to promote awareness of this valuable local resource.
The exhibition runs from November 1 – 26, 2004 at Richard’s
Custom Framing & Art Gallery. There will be two receptions: November 5 and
November 18.
First place prize is $500 sponsored by Modesto Irrigation District;
second place prize is $200; third place is a Gallery Directors Award $100 gift
certificate. Rex Klein Insurance Services also sponsors.
Three highly respected local photographers will judge: Roman
Loranc, Adrian Mendoza, and Douglas Smith.
Since the contest promotes awareness of the Lower Tuolumne River,
the photos are of the Lower Tuolumne River from La Grange to the San Joaquin.
Contact Allison Boucher, 209-477-9033 or aboucher@netfeed.com
for info.
