tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35232453534687947592024-03-13T04:34:54.431-07:00Dirt WorldA companion to A Natural Sense of Wonder: Connecting Kids with Nature Through the Seasons.Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-35456088563737670462017-07-12T07:52:00.000-07:002017-07-12T07:54:20.124-07:00Swimming HoleGetting hot out. Here's a version of a chapter from my book<i> A Natural Sense of Wonder</i> about finding a local swimming hole. There are several good holes in mentioned in here. For more, see also<a href="http://www.swimmingholes.org/va.html"> http://www.swimmingholes.org/va.html. <br /></a><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
I began the summer
with two simple goals: grow a garden and find a place to swim, a place to cool
down and clean up after hoeing and weeding, a watery area to call our own, a
swimming hole. We live on the New River, one of the oldest rivers, flowing
north out of the Carolina mountains and through Virginia on its way to the Ohio. The New is the cleanest mainstem river
in Virginia
by all accounts, but rarely will you see people swimming in it. They mostly
paddle and fish, sometimes tube on this stretch, but rarely will you see
swimmers, people out swimming, taking a leisurely and refreshing dip.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
I grew up in a
town on the Delaware,
also a river town, but with a whole river culture. The houses all face the
water, high up on the bank. And down on the river, people have boat docks,
platforms to swim from.<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span>In
Radford, the river almost seems an afterthought to town planners. In some places,
one has to traverse six lanes of railroad tracks to get to it. At 58-acre Bisset Park,
with about a half-mile of river bank, there’s no official access.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
swam in the Delaware River, bathed in it—it
cleansed me. Used to keep a bar of soap on a barrel under the dock. My friend
Michael and I would try to jump in earlier each spring, later and later each
fall. I made it to November once, when the river was low and clear. Jumped in
once late March, the river breathtakingly cold, bragging-rights cold. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>To
most people, even swimming in the river was crazy. “You swim in that river?” A
common view is that rivers are merely cesspools, sewage transport. Some of them
are. According to the EPA, 40 percent of America’s rivers are not clean
enough to swim in. But some of them, thanks to the Clean Water Act, are cleaner
than ever. Fresh water, cool, clean water, running downstream from some
forested hillside that collects and distributes rain. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But
something else keeps people out of the river too. David Sobel defines ecophobia
as a fear of the natural world but also its deterioration. Because there’s so
much bad news about the environment, children disassociate themselves from it,
like a victim of abuse “cutting themselves off from the pain.” For Sobel,
children fear nature, too, because so much of their learning about it is
abstract. They study rainforests, for example, that are far removed from home.
All kids really need to feel comfortable in the natural world is “modeling by a
responsible adult,” contact with nature and an adult to help them form a
relationship. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If
there is something like ecophobia, perhaps it manifests itself most often in
and around natural water courses. I have heard more than one kid confuse
crayfish with crabs, and refuse to go in the water because of either. They ask
if there are sharks in the river or other creatures that bite, such as water
moccasins (found only miles south and east of here). No toe-eating bass, though
a rabid otter did bite (nay maul in her words) a woman this summer in upstream Claytor Lake (where the New is impounded by a
dam), a story the newspaper felt worthy of the front page: “Deranged Otter
Attacks Pregnant Woman.” “It was like a scene from Jaws,” noted one witness. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
A friend once told
me that she swims only when she can see bottom. “Who knows what could be down
there,” she tells me. “I need to see my feet.” When I touted the cleanliness of
the New River in class, a student said: “That
river? But it’s not blue.” The paint on the bottoms of swimming pools and the spring
break brochures had convinced her of water’s hue. Swimming in the river is so
aberrant that my friend Mark was mistaken for committing suicide by drowning.
He waded in to cool his shin splints after a run and woman came waving and
hollering across the grass from the parking lot, “Don’t do it! Don’t!” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
I have set two
more ongoing goals: to help my daughter forge a bond with the natural world and
develop a sense of physical competence and adventure, both readily fostered in
boys but overlooked in girls as a basis for a forming a strong, independent
self. She will often have to swim against the currents (so hard for some girls
to fight) of front-page glossies: how to be chic, how to fit in, how to be
completely anxious about you are. Older brother Sam would rather fish, but
six-year-old Elliot acts like a fish, wriggling with delight whenever in or
around water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
She has mostly
avoided the fear of the watery world beneath the surface, that water horror of
traps, hidden depths, old rusty cars and weeds waiting to grab hold of a leg or
foot. Admittedly, sometimes something brushes my leg, or I touch something
squishy and I move fast. But it’s always nothing, just me twitching. For the
most part, kids get over the ick factor fast, rolling up the seaweed into balls
or bombs, draping it over their hair to make crowns, or the locks of Medusa.
Part of the fun of swimming in a river is overcoming that fear, knowing that we
can ride that wave. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
With the New, the
fear of natural water is compounded by the fact that we live several miles
downstream from a hydroelectric dam. The water is thought to rise suddenly,
producing a surge, even a wave. At a picnic, I once approached our mayor about
the possibility of an access area in the park, a Bisset Beach,
asking him to leave questions of liability aside for the moment. “I don’t know.
That river rises awful fast.” He couldn’t leave liability aside.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
It doesn’t help
that the river is rumored to have been called “The River of Death.” I can find
mention of this name only in Patricia Givens Johnson’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New River Early Settlement</i>, which notes that the “Indians of West
Virginia” called it this, but there was no West Virginia
then, not even a Virginia.
The Shawnee are
said to have called it Keninskeha, which means “river of evil spirits,” and in the
New River Gorge of West Virginia, the river is much more dangerous. An almost
countervailing myth, were it not historically accurate, concerns the story of
Mary Draper Ingles, kidnapped by the Shawnee and taken all the way to the Ohio.
<span class="MsoPageNumber">To find her way home, for 43 days, she wou</span>ld
have to “follow the river,” a historical novel by James Thom. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
The river can
certainly rise fast in flood conditions, sometimes flooding the park and the
freshman parking lots near Radford
University. But no one I know
swims during (or after) storms. From April 15 to October 15 the Claytor Hydro
Plant performs an annual “run of the river” release, a levelized operation
“designed to accommodate recreational needs and activities downstream from the
dam on New River.” The USGS hosts a website of
real-time data, revealing the discharges and gauge height of the New. In
August, the graph spikes twice a day, enough to raise the tailwater elevation
at most a half a foot, but mostly it levels off, a consistent 1,730 feet above
sea level.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Other than from
heavy rains, the river rises once a year. On October 15, American Electric
Power performs a “drawdown,” lowering the lake elevation so property owners can
make repairs to their docks. On that day, Radford residents have reported a
bubble of up to four feet high. Sherriff Mark Armentrout tells me he has ridden
it some 30 river miles to Pearisburg on a jet ski. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
don’t mean to downplay the dangers of the New, for every year someone drowns in
it. But my kids have picked up on the erroneous perception that you can be
walking along in shallow water and all of sudden be sucked into a deep hole, as
if there was an undertow in a river. When the depth of a river changes fast,
its underwater secret is most often revealed on the surface, in the form
eddies, swirls, or bubbles. These and the swift water of certain places, such
at the gorge in West Virginia,
or flood conditions, are to be avoided. My job as parent is to help them read
the water, test the current, and assess the risk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
The search for a
swimming hole has taken on some urgency because my city has closed down the
only public pool. Citing maintenance costs and neglect, they closed the pool in
the park overlooking the river, filling it in with soil and covering it over
with grass. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
This is the second
pool the city has closed. We had one made in the valley of another park, Wildwood Park,
with water fed by a New River<span class="MsoPageNumber"> tributary. The Dec</span>ember 20, 1928, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Radford News-Journal</i> said that “for
adults and for children alike, provision for adequate recreation is important”
and so they endorsed a new pool. It was to be “a new place of assemblage, where
people of various groups will come together, play together.” The pool opened on
Independence Day in 1929 and averaged more than 400 people a day despite its
cold conditions due to cold creek-fed water and shade from the nearby steep
hillsides.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
But in 1964,
citing neglect and maintenance costs, the pool closed. In 1964 a series of
cultural changes were also sweeping through the South. On July 6, 1964, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">News-Journal</i> carried this report.
“Integration came to the city of Radford
Sunday at the public swimming pool. A family of Negroes requested entrance at
the gate of the pool. Their money was refused, but they entered the pool.” City
officials did not comment. In 1977 the pool was filled with dirt, covered over
with grass. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
There’s a swim
club nearby, a private pool—chlorine sterile—but it requires us to buy stock to
belong. I’d rather put my stock in the river, even if it means my kids have
poor swimming form: they are doggie paddlers and nose holders, clueless around
a diving board, even more so about the pre-teen strutting and towel snapping at
pool’s edge. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
So we head down to
the river, where no one is refused, cross the grass of the soccer field and
nearby playground, kids (can we come?) and their parents (can you do that?)
looking on, past the NO SWIMMING sign (merely for liability), to a small
opening in the trees. We climb down the roots, the rebar of the river bank,
stay away from the poison ivy, and drape our shirts on nearby branches. With a
whiff of the river silt, I am a boy again floating down the Delaware. Then we walk out the gravely
bottom (old sneakers help), past the shade of the leaners, and release our
bodies to the current, let the gentle flow caress us, wedge toes on the rocky
bottom. No need to fear hidden feet: we can look down and spot skipping stones
when the water is waist-high. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
There’s a spot
under the railroad bridge with a bedrock bottom, ideal for bridge pillars, also
good for swimming holes. But in the water we see railroad tie spikes and tie
plates (do they come loose and fall?), and then hear the hoot and rumble of the
train overhead. This spot is also used for beer drinking and fishing
(ubiquitous bait cups and eagle claw packages), probably at the same time, and
so feels a little junky—the vista is also closed off by rough-cut stone pillars
and an iron bridge above, a rust rain when the locomotive passes over. Another
spot looks good from the bike trail, but the current is a little swift, the
rocky beach too filled with glass and pottery shards. In another, near the
islands upstream from town, and the fish weir believed to be <span class="MsoPageNumber">left by Indians—</span>just up from the remains of Ingles
Ferry—Elliot jumps out of the canoe. One leg sinks thigh-high in mud, the other
remains in the boat, it slowly pushing away from shore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
In pursuit of a
good swimming hole, we’ve even expanded the search to a two hundred-mile radius
from home. There are many good ones in this mountain region. All you need is
some running water, some seclusion, and a depression in the nearby stream-bed
causing or eliciting joy. To narrow down the search, we are aided by the
internet, specifically swimminghole.org, a not-for-profit website focusing on <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“moving, fresh water spots . . . especially
beautiful or fun for swimming.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On Memorial Day weekend,
we try our first, Blue Bend in West
Virginia, with nearby camping and a “family friendly”
designation. </span>Elliot and I swim out to a gravel bar and then across
another deep stretch to the other side. Then we hold hands and run until we
fall in the water, stroke back to the other side, and repeat. We kick up silt,
bits of mica that the minnows swim after, swimming with us. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: 139.5pt; text-indent: .5in;">
The
next day, we go to a more remote hole, nearby Hippy Hole (“bathing suits may be
optional”). The information is always anecdotal: <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“very shortly you will ford the creek and in a short distance more you
will come to a trail junction. Go left and when the trail comes back to Anthony’s
Creek and makes a sharp bend left you will be at Hippy.” When we arrive, others
are camping there (damn hippies), </span>so we wade downstream and find eddies.
Cold mountain water tumbles though the tall canyon on the first warm day of
spring. We sit in thrones, impressions in the rock, and let the stream surround
our feet, legs, waist. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Next to Devil’s
Bathtub, “<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">not really close to
anywhere.”</span> The mile and a half trail takes you through a luxuriant
forest, up an old logging road framed by laurels and hemlock, the forest floor damp
with rattlesnake orchid (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Goodyera
pubescens</i>) and many mushrooms, some rose-red and some that look like coral.
The walk feels like a quest through some forest primeval, a river Styx, but nothing satanic about it<span class="MsoPageNumber">. </span>After many stream crossings, the cascades grow in
size and frequency until we arrive at a crystal clear pool, a small waterfall
crashing into it, ledges on both sides that could be benches for Naiads. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Above it, there is
a section of rock scooped out by water, in the shape of a tub, water tripping
over bedrock steps and swirling currents into the tub, only the water is not
warm like a bath. It is cold, bone tingling cold, but so invigorating. The
rocks there are moss covered, slippery, and we try to slide on them, but no
waterslide exists in nature: one is always reminded that what one’s bottom
bumps over is rock. A guy we meet on his horse <span class="MsoPageNumber">says
he hasn’t been back there since he was a kid:</span> “That water will take your
breath away, buddy.” We also see a copperhead on the way up that takes our
breath away. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Then to the nearby
Cascades, a lacy sixty-foot waterfall at the end of a two-mile hike. We go on
the hottest day of the year, a 100 degree day, with three other neighborhood
kids, and meet a man who drove two and a half hours from Charlottesville to get here. He swims out in
the deep water, but the kids hug the shore, jump off small rocks, hide behind
the waterfall curtain, laughter echoing over the rocks. “This has to be the
best swimming hole,” the man says. “I’ll be back.” So will we. We try Dismal Falls
but it’s too close to the road, and because so, there is trash: tampons and
toilet paper, bottle caps and butts, a pair of sunglasses hanging from a knot
in a tree, a rubber raft. One wonders what would happen if the falls weren’t
named Dismal? If the county wasn’t Bland (and if there wasn’t a 600-person
correctional facility nearby)?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Still, it is good
place to explore. While Sam fishes for minnows, using the smallest fly I have,
Elliot says “follow me Dad” and I am taken aback by the reversal of our roles.
She <span class="MsoPageNumber">balances</span> across a log bridge over the
upper creek, then up a trail under the rhodies, back into the creek and up some
rocks, <span class="MsoPageNumber">a steep crag, exploring, c</span>limbing,
adventuring. A good swimming hole, after all, is made by rocks moving and
misbehaving long ago. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Then to Wolf Creek
in Narrows (“Narz” to some), where the New River
narrows, and their swimming hole “the boom,” because it was a log boom. Elliot
jumps from the platform on the far shore. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Mostly, though,
it’s back to our place on the New, not really a hole since it’s not circular,
unless all rivers are holes in the ground. On summer nights we ride our bikes
down to cool off before bed. Usually, it’s just us kids, but once it was filled
with people. Perry Slaughter, The Associate Pastor of Valley Harvest
Ministries, told me that baptism is symbolic of being “buried with Christ and
rising to something new,” a public declaration of faith. The church has a
dunking tank on site, but that day they decided to take it to the New, making
their ceremony even more public. As we approached, we became mesmerized by
their song: the phrase “take me to the water” repeated, the word “water” rising
in pitch until “take me to the waaaaaterrrrr,” wait a beat, “to be baptized.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Just upstream from
this spot, under what is now Claytor
Lake, was a town called
Dunkard’<span class="MsoPageNumber">s Bottom. </span>A “Dunkard” was a term of
derision for people who were “dunkers,” German Baptists who practiced a trine
(as in Trinity) immersion baptism. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
The second verse
crescendos to “none but the riiiigtheous,” and then trails off to “shall see
God.” We see a lot of omniscient creatures at the river, mortal spirits. We see
the periwinkle blue dancer, a damsel fly, skim across the surface. Great blue
herons glide toward landings, sometimes squawking, and belted kingfishers dart
near the shoreline, often rattling, like a heavy fishing reel. There are always
ducks down there, and orioles and bluebirds in spring. Young, acrobatic
swallows play by dropping a feather for a playmate to catch below, practice for
hunting insects. Like bluebirds, tree swallows are secondary cavity-nesters,
preferring to use a nest already there rather than create or excavate a new
one. So are we with our swimming holes. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Historic Springs of the Virginias</i>, Stan
Cohen documents about 75 healing springs, spas, and baths, all “founded on the
premise that their waters, no matter what type, could cure common diseases at a
time when medical science really could not do much for patients.” Neither
cholera nor yellow fever were common in the mountains, the former because it
existed mostly downstream, the latter because it was mostly found in the warmer
seacoast. There was Yellow Sulphur and White Sulphur Springs (and a blue and a
red one too), Hot Springs
and Warm Springs (both still there), Sparkling Springs and Healing Springs.
Often these were places for the elite (in some cases still are), but some also
bottled their water, sold it as an elixir, an elusive fountain of youth. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
We don’t drink the
water here on the New when we swim (but our drinking water comes from it), but
we do find healing, youthful properties in it. After Elliot dives under she
emerges again on top, breaking the surface of the water, pulling the wet hair
from her eyes, wiping the beads from her eyelashes. We go down together, keep
our eyes open to look at one another—our hair floating up toward the
light—until one of us makes a face and the other releases a burst of bubbly
laughter. We come to the river to cool down, but I hope this water also
provides a spark in my daughter: an immutable kinship with nature, a connection
to her home waters, the wisdom to overcome fear. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
At the onset of
evening, summer almost over, I take the kids to the river. Elliot and I swim
out to the middle, past where her mom likes us to be. She asks to jump from my
shoulders, then kicks away by herself and comes back to me, her dock, a life
buoy, a balding guy on his tiptoes standing in the middle of the New. One day
we will swim to the other side. We started this year in <span class="MsoPageNumber">early May. Next year we will shoot for</span> April. We
could keep swimming this year through fall. She and I have made a pact to swim
together anywhere, anytime. Tonight, she refuses to get out, though I’m
shivering on shore. “No way. Swimming is my destiny!” School will start soon
and she will sit in straight, dry rows, but for now she swims, knowing that
it’s safe to go in the water. </div>
Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-90461890853170462602013-09-12T11:23:00.001-07:002013-09-12T18:15:30.037-07:00A Meeting with the Queen Who Does Not Speak<br />
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">On
the night the queen would hold court, the people marched to her castle in
unison. Along the way, they picked a few flowers. Perhaps the kids could be
banned from picking, but the queen could not tell everyone what to do. So they
marched and carried flags and climbed the castle stairs together. </span>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There
were too many citizens to fit inside her meeting quarters, so they asked for a
larger room, a venue, one of her words, but the queen refused. So they packed,
stuffed and sweaty, in a room that used to hold peasants, but was now refurnished
for the monarchy. </span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Seated
with the queen was the rest of her court, the three wise men from before, but
also four brave nights and a maiden. </span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
parents spoke, upset with the queen. </span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Why
have you not responded to us?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
queen did not answer. </span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“It’s
not right to ban flower picking. You have no reason. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have no evidence of its danger.” </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
queen didn’t feel she needed to give any. </span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
children spoke too. They were eloquent, well-behaved, speaking of their love
for flower picking, and how picking in one spot was just simply too dull.
“Overturn this ban,” they pleaded. "Lift our spirits.” </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Some
citizens who were not parents of pickers themselves even spoke. They also did
not like the way the queen and her court were behaving. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Then
one member of the audience, the mother of two fine pickers, chastised the queen
for disobeying the laws of the land. “You cannot make laws that affect the
people without first asking the people. It is written in your charter.” </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
people cheered at this. The queen looked worried, but still she did not speak. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Only
one person spoke in favor of banning flower picking. He mentioned the tough job
the queen and her court had to perform. It appeared he curried favor, a job, a knighthood,
from the queen. He said his own sister, once a flower picker, was bitten by a
dog. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“But
they could get bitten by a dog anywhere,” someone whispered, to another. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“A
star could fall out of the sky,” the person snickered back. </span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">After
all the people spoke, they waited. Would the queen speak? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Instead,
the first knight spoke. He told the people that the ban on flower picking was
something they wanted. They had heard this before and still could not believe it.
They didn’t want flower picking? It was a distortion of the truth, but the
court thought that if they repeated it enough, the people would believe it. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Then
a fair maiden spoke. She liked the people and was chosen by them to serve on
the court. She apologized for the poor communication on the part of the queen.
She seemed to understand the parents’ frustration. But the ban on picking could
not be reversed. To say flower picking is dangerous and then say it is not
would be the sign of a weak kingdom, something that would not do. Besides, she
had spoken with a magistrate in the capital and he would not hear of lifting
the ban. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“A
magistrate? He knows what is best for our children? Not we parents?” </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">No
waivers would be permitted, though the parents had signed many before, never
wavering, not even now. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Then
the bravest knight of all spoke. He had fought many battles, and made sure the
people were reminded of it. He wished the children to know that he “loved them,
he loved them all.” But he did not think drudgery should be any consideration:
“In my day, when we prepared for battle, it was pure slog, downright tedium I
tell you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such toil is good for the soul. So
buck up kids.” He also wanted to relay a message. “Besides, all this energy you
are expending should be put toward your studies.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The children, among the best students in the
Land of Rad, thought him haughty. Many of them were better spoken than he. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Another
knight spoke, and he appeared somewhat open to cooperation, but he offered no
specifics. Forward, he said, onward. Where? The people wondered. And then the
last knight spoke. He said that this was the largest group of people that had
ever gathered in the kingdom, and he was pleased. Not that his mind was changed
or anything. But it sure made things interesting for once. You try sitting
through these meetings. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
parents left in frustration, all their work for naught. But they gathered
outside and talked more. They tried to sift through what they had just heard,
figuring out what to do next. The queen never herself never spoke, but clearly
she was afraid of this group of parents. If there had been one good thing to
come from the ban on flower picking, it was that the people were now banded
together, a community. People from different villages and neighborhoods were
friendly. People on opposite sides of different issues would now work together
to overturn the ban, to overthrow the kingdom. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-72760894077631975432013-09-10T07:06:00.005-07:002013-10-03T12:47:55.960-07:00On the Banning of Flower Picking: An Unfair-y Tale<i>As we discuss a ban on road running in Radford, you may be interested in a similar town that banned flower picking. It was written by one Jonathan Slow, a little-known friend of Jonathan Swift, whose 1729 "A Modest Proposal" suggested that one way to deal with hunger in Ireland was for the poor to sell their babies to the wealthy for food. It is offered in the same tradition of satire. Tune in for the next installment when the queen herself speaks. </i><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />The
Banning of Flower Picking: An Unfair-y Tale</span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs51/f/2009/257/e/1/Flower_picking___Merlin_by_Irrel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="259" id="irc_mi" src="http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs51/f/2009/257/e/1/Flower_picking___Merlin_by_Irrel.jpg" style="margin-top: 0px;" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />The Land of Rad was a
peaceable kingdom. Families lived happily and the children played. Every
afternoon the children went about the town picking flowers. They picked flowers
everywhere, up hills and down, by the river and all through town. They got so
good at picking flowers they won prizes. They were the best flower-pickers
ever. Their secret was that they had so much variety. They could pick in high
places and low, wet ones and some dry. They never thought that picking flowers
could in anyway be dangerous. In fact, they grew strong and healthy picking
flowers. Their cheeks were ruddy as roses. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Then one day some wise men
held a council. They didn’t like all this flower picking. They feared the
children roamed too free, without proper supervision. They talked to the queen
about this and the queen agreed it was not a good idea. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Yes, they flower pick
in too many places. All over the kingdom. Let them pick where we’re sure they’ll
be confined.” </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The head flower picker objected.
“But their bouquet of flowers will not have variety. They won’t enjoy flower
picking anymore, and they will never again bring honor to our town.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Tis enough,” said the
queen. “You dare to question my authority?” She had her three wise men escort him
from her building and issued a decree: All flower pickers would now have pick
flowers in one field only.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“But why?” The parents
of the pickers asked.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Because of the bears,”
one of the men said. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“But we’ve never seen
any bears, not ever,” said the parents. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Because the flowers
are poisonous,” said another wise man. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Which flowers? We’ll
teach the kids to avoid them.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Because there are
hunters,” said the third. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“But the hunters don’t
even hunt where the pickers go,” the parents pressed on. “How can the queen
issue a decree without our consent?” </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“It is an edict, not a
decree, and she needs no approval from you. What do you know of the dangers of
flower picking?” </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The parents asked to
speak with queen, hoping she would reason with them. “Please, queen, listen to
our cries.” But she would not appear before them. Instead, she sent her trusted
wise men. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Before they spoke, they
made the head flower picker issue a statement they had approved. He kept his
head down and read: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Because
flower picking can be dangerous, I agree with the queen’s proclamation that we
pick in approved places only. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Then wise men #1 spoke.
He was a big man and it did not appear as if he ever flower picked, but he said
he had experience with it, and he didn’t like it. So he thought no one should
pick flowers. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The people didn’t want
this. “You can’t ban something you don’t know something about.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Wise men #2 spoke. He was
stern and waived a piece of paper. “I have evidence here of highly toxic
plants. They are everywhere.” He seemed to dare the parents to contradict him. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Sure there are bad
plants,” someone said, “but the kids don’t go near them.” The second wise man
glowered at speaker. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Wise man #3 spoke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We developed this ban for your own benefit.
I have heard from some of you that picking is dangerous, so no picking.” </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The people turned to
each other. They didn’t know anyone who thought it was dangerous, and they
certainly didn’t think so. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The wise men grew
restless at this chatter, and they spoke louder now. “It does not matter. We
know what is good for the children. And we will not be persuaded otherwise!”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“But please sirs. Let our
children pick flowers again. They know the best places to pick and what flowers
to avoid. They enjoyed it so. And they brought great honor to the kingdom. They
are good kids. They know how to pick. If they don’t pick right, please help
teach them. You are wise teachers after all.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Safety is our first
concern,” wise man #2 said. Not education? The people whispered to each other. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Enough!” wise man #3
said, the one who had the queen’s ear. “What shall I tell the queen? That you
want them to die?”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The people couldn’t
believe their ears. Did they want them to die? “Quite the contrary," said one:
“We want them to live, as true pickers, able to amble and roam across the
fields they have grown strong in. Is that too much to ask?” </span><br />
<br /></div>
Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-43061227432370605622009-09-14T11:04:00.001-07:002009-10-26T17:50:41.754-07:00By Land or By WaterSpent last weekend on the river. Something so right about putting all the stuff I need for a weekend in a boat and taking off from shore (sure). Sam fished, intensely, as usual. I did too, some (didn't catch nearly as much as he), but I also just enjoyed the quiet, the flow of the river, paddle in water and slip thorugh waves and rocks, see what's around the next bend.<br /><br />We saw an eagle take off above us, woomph woomph helicopter noise as it unfolded its wings. Also saw an osprey dive and catch a fish, feet first.<br /><br />Had the girl scouts over at our place for a picnic. I had set up the games: badminton, bocci, kickball. But they elected to walk in the creek, all the way down to the hammock we keep in a wooded grove. After burgers and dogs, somebody said, "let's go back to the hammock." And somebody else: "by land or by water?"<br /><br />Next weekend, mud run and hanging rock observatory to watch the raptors migrate.Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-22900329262544878482009-09-04T11:28:00.000-07:002009-09-30T09:38:25.736-07:00RGV Sr.I’ve been bad. Awful really. Terrible. Blame the ebony jewelwing. The nighthawks that flew over the other night. Blame the great blue herons that fish in our creek, or the little green ones. Blame the garter snake the kids recscued from the kittens. Or the screech owl that puts us to bed at night. Mostly blame the sun.<br /><br />My last entry was May 11. Around that time, we were learning of the my father’s melanoma. We made trips Pennsylvania, the Poconos, about six or seven during the summer, and each time he got worse as the cancer metastasized. A month ago today he passed away.<br /><br />So I haven’t been writing blog entries. I’ve been writing <a href="http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090806/NEWS/908069979/-1/LIVING100309">obituaries</a>, eulogies, and <a href="http://dickvannoy.blogspot.com/">tributes</a>. As I worked around the place last night, I certainly thought of him, a man who spent a great deal of time tinkering around the house. My stepmother just called to say that she has no idea how he kept the deck and driveway so free of leaves . . .<br /><br />Nature has been some comfort in all of this. I wrote in the eulogy that loss reminds us of what is joyful about our world even as it wounds us. We look at something with a renewed sense of both its splendor, and its brevity.<br /><br />This weekend, out on the river for some healing time, though any time I’m on a river, just the smell of it, I’ll think of my father.Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-3090336614153278092009-05-11T08:41:00.001-07:002009-05-14T16:38:34.891-07:00Birdin'<a href="http://www.ownbyphotography.com/Cedar-Waxwing.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 450px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 561px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://www.ownbyphotography.com/Cedar-Waxwing.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><div>We spent the weekend near Mt. Rogers and went out on one of the field trips with a birding group. It was a pleasure to be with such knowledgeable people. Allen Boynton of VDGIF led the excursion but he was aided by <a href="http://mountainnaturalist.blogspot.com/">Scott Jackson-Ricketts</a>, whose keen ears turned up Canada (musical jumble that ends with <em>pickety wip</em>) and chestnut-sided warblers (<em>pleased to meet you</em> . . . I want to add, <em>hope you guess my name</em>) deep in the hardwoods. The other birders helped as well: one guy said he had been birding for over 37 years, and he knew his songs: how to tell the black-throated blue (<em>zoo zoo zoo zee</em>) from the green (<em>zee zee zee zee zoo zree</em>). We saw least flycatchers (c<em>hebeck</em>) and a redstart, red-eyed vireos and blue headed ones (a slower, slurred red-eyed). All beautiful. Alan and Scott were able to catch some in their scope for all of us to view. For some reason, I kept having trouble finding the little guys in my binoculars. I could see them perched on a limb, but then would fail to aim at them or something, so I’m going to have to be a better binocularist if I’m going to be a better birder.<br /><br />The highlight for Sam was probably a ruby-crowned kinglet, which he had never seen before, but I think it was also just the company of other bird lovers. At one point we were all were walking down an unpaved road, Comer’s Creek, and saw a cedar waxwing. A local farmer approached in his red truck, but all the birders were still looking up, tripods in the street. They’re a funny bunch. If there’s a good looking bird to see, all else stops. The guy in the truck was clearly not used to seeing such a crowd of people before on this road, and for sure wondered what we could all be staring at.<br /><br />Several of them were glad to have a young person along, the only one. They wanted to know his favorite bird (not sure), most interesting (yellow warbler), and if he had a “life list.” He doesn’t really, yet, but he might as well. This birding thing, and it is an activity, to bird, doesn’t require too much exercise but it will get you out, and is a good hobby to foster. An obsession for some, yes, but it was easy to see that these people, at 8:00 on a Saturday morning in the Appalachian woods, many had left spouses and family home to be there, are happiest doing something they love.<br /><br />In other birding news, a friend of ours planted 10 bluebird boxes on our farm and Sam is helping to keep track of their progress. We don’t have any bluebirds in our boxes yet, but we do have a chickadee haven. Chickadee nests are built out of moss. If they were bigger, they look something to take a nap in . . . Here’s the update we sent to Jason Davis, a biologist at Radford University who is studying bluebirds in the area (he and Judy Guinan told me they may be on a hiatus during the summer, but I said we may keep sending reports anyway, so we can at least feel like we’re a part of a real scientific study, have "real responsibilities" to paraphrase our VP candidate)<br /><br />Box 1 - Chickadee Nest, six eggs (change over last time)<br />Box 2 - wren's nest (nest too high to see if eggs)<br />Box 3-4 - NA<br />Box 5 - Still starling nest, not much progress<br />Box 6 - wren's nest, possible eggs (also too high to check)<br />Box 7 – tree swallow nest<br />Box 8-9 - zip<br />Box 10 - 6 chickadee chicks!<br /><br />Oh, and we have Baltimore orioles nesting in our sycamore. And the red-winged blackbirds are everywhere. Now to get out and bird. </div></div>Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-13500554277973045972009-03-17T08:29:00.001-07:002009-04-07T08:36:47.728-07:00Reed Award from SELCGreat news: <em>A Natural Sense of Wonder</em> has been selected to receive the Philip D. Reed Award for Outstanding Writing about the Southern Environment from <a href="http://www.southernenvironment.org/newsroom/press_releases/03_16_2009_reed_award_winners/">the Southern Environmental Law Center</a>.<br /><br />I didn't know if I had enough of an "issue" for that award, an endangered place or species (save for <em>Childus Outsidus</em>) but so glad to hear, especially coming from a panel of judges whose own work I admire.Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-7438662226952031642009-03-15T06:25:00.000-07:002009-03-15T06:29:29.132-07:00Child's PlayGreat review from Robin Elton at Eco Child's Play.<br /><br /><a href="http://ecochildsplay.com/2009/03/08/book-review-a-natural-sense-of-wonder/">http://ecochildsplay.com/2009/03/08/book-review-a-natural-sense-of-wonder/</a><br /><br />The essays "are a pleasure to read; humorous, beautifully written and clearly influenced by passionate naturalists such as Rachel Carson, Henry David Thoreau, and E.O. Wilson. Each essay rings with wonder and awe, both for the world around him and the children beside him, and the tone never veers toward preachy or sanctimonious. "Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-54314813513907220482009-03-04T18:01:00.000-08:002009-03-06T13:33:08.404-08:00We'll Show 'Em<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309519953745822098" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 197px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uqm79k7rEHs/Sa80RFLeQZI/AAAAAAAAAC8/7QrwrC7o978/s200/elliotsnow.JPG" border="0" />Usually when we leave the funnest, funkiest, best ski place in the land, Whitegrass, and head home, both cold and snow fade as we head southeast. But this weekend, after we climbed the last pass to the Virginia border, we saw flakes in Harrisonburg, and by the time were up to cruising speed on southbound I-81, a storm had begun. When we hit Roanoke, the big city round here, the driver’s knuckles were nearly as white as the snow.<br /><br />When we arrived home the trees were hanging low over the driveway with the heavy stuff, our first real snow this year. And inside the robotic alert voice on our answering machine told us what we wanted to hear: no school.<br /><br />The kids are older now, pre-adolescent, and though a good snow day still thrills them, my wife and I were the first out the door. We put on our skis and blazed trails around the farm. I kicked out along the creek and scared up a great blue heron, a bird that frightens very gracefully: slow jump and lift out of the creek, unfold wide wings to row high above sycamores.<br /><br />We skied around the rest of the place, looking for tracks in the snow and the stories they might tell. A rabbit must live near the old general store. Something bigger by the cherry tree. Little feet scurried out by the grove.<br /><br />Then back to the hill, the “intermediate” one, first on skis, but the wind created a crust, a hard crud over soft crystal, so instead of graceful “S” turns--if snow tracks tell stories--mine show a zig instead of a smooth glide, off balance, throw poles up, catch self, try to turn again and recover, lunge back, throw one ski out, straighten body, deep drift again and trip over, break fall with side of face and shoulder, catch snow in eyebrows, melt snow in mouth. In the snow: a bad snow angel, a big roun<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uqm79k7rEHs/Sa8z_YBNoTI/AAAAAAAAAC0/xaSKOtMJixk/s1600-h/sledmaster.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309519649565417778" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 178px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 210px" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uqm79k7rEHs/Sa8z_YBNoTI/AAAAAAAAAC0/xaSKOtMJixk/s200/sledmaster.JPG" border="0" /></a>d dent.<br /><br />We also took our skis off and tried a few attempts with the sleds but that crust was hard to break through. I had much trouble keeping our purple plastic toboggan thing going straight. It seemed to gather speed okay, but then turn suddenly and unexpectedly, skid out in the rear, with no way to steer into this one, and passenger dumped into another head over heels roll.<br /><br />We had to pack the snow, of course, had to do our duty, we said, to make it easier for the kids. Sometime the parents have to show the kids how it’s done. So we kept at it until they joined us, and then spent most the morning up and down, in to warm up, and back out, sometimes on skis, others on sleds, sliders and something Sam calls “Yeti,” his abominable snow-sliding monster.<br /><br />The second day, day two, school was again closed, even though the roads were clear. But we live south of the Mason Dixon Line, and snow is a major inconvenience here, very unexpected, so we just don’t bother with it. We close schools even at the mention of snow.<br /><br /><br />Day two I was finally catching up on some school work, sitting at writing desk, looking out on the snow-covered hill, a white expanse only occasionally broken up by tufts of brown meadow grasses. I could barely see their brightly colored hats bob up and down on the far hill, as the kids went about their work, trudging back up the hill, but I could hear their screams, especially Elliot’s, as they zipped back down.<br /><br />These screams must have attracted the neighbor kids, the neighbor kids we have never seen or met. We’ve been here eight months and barely seen these kids, Timothy and Corley, or their parents, but they asked to join my kids on the hill, the “expert” slope, suicide run. And they did. They’re homeschooled but they had the day off too, and together my kids and these neighbors, new friends, were out the whole day, from lunch until I had to leave for a 5:00 class. They hadn’t met before, but snow drew them out, leveled the playing field—or sledding hill. They made a snow fort and tested out the ice on the creek. It didn’t hold.<br /><br />Show them how it’s done? Sam set the length record for both days, grabbing Yeti by the handles and a running start, dive head first and down the steep slope, hang on for dear life over bumps, whiplash, wind in hair, sun on face, and glide to a stop in snowy pasture. Sledding records. Out all day. Meet the neighbors we have yet to bother to meet. They showed us. They showed us in their ruddy cheeks, their roller coaster screams.<br /><br />At the end of the day, another robotic message came in: there would be a “Standards of Learning Writing Test” on Wednesday, “please make sure your child gets rest.”Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-85455405998539406042009-02-13T09:42:00.001-08:002009-02-25T09:36:28.282-08:00Audubon Naturalist ReviewFrom Julie Dunlap:<br /><br />Maps captivate Rick Van Noy. Delaware River maps, labeled with depths of channels and classes of rapids, opened his teenage world to canoeing adventures. Mapmakers became the focus of his scholarly work in literary criticism—investigations of Thoreau and other writers who create maps, and of cartographers, such as John Wesley Powell, who write about the landscapes they chart. Van Noy’s understanding of how both types of mapmakers struggle to convey their intimate connections with particular environments is revealed in his first book, <em>Surveying the Interior: Literary Cartographers and the Sense of Place</em>.<br /><br />Now a young father, Van Noy finds new meanings in maps. Surveying the fresh terrain of parenthood, he discovers that today’s children risk getting lost on their home ground. Tethered inside by game systems, YouTube, and parental anxieties, kids learn little and care less about the wild creatures and unmown places outside their doors. The causes and perils of youthful alienation from nature have been elucidated by Richard Louv in his celebrated <em>Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder</em> (Algonquin, 2005). Van Noy’s book serves a different purpose. As he puts it, “... I leave the diagnosis for others, focusing instead on the prospects for recovery, on what can happen when kids are allowed to naturally play.”<br /><br /><em>A Natural Sense of Wonder</em> begins in fall, with a quiet essay about walking to school. Readers get to know Sam, age 7, Elliott, age 5, and their suburban Virginia neighborhood, from the chinquapin tree on Seventh Street to a starling flock on Eleventh. Along the way, Van Noy points out lessons in ecology, history, health, and family that his children are gaining while their peers commute to class in cars. Drivers in the drop-off lines may think the Van Noys’ walks quaint, but the author insists that developing human brains need direct experience of the colors, textures, and smells of their surroundings. Reconnecting kids with place, he argues, is not optional, “It’s about survival.”<br /><br />The family ventures farther as the seasons progress, though not with unalloyed enthusiasm. The kids sometimes balk at early departures, and their mom mutinies on a protracted canoe trip. Wrong turns and forgotten tents make Van Noy himself question the intent of their forays. Such hesitations and missteps enhance the book’s accessibility to other parents, and practical tips add to its usefulness. Take toys along, for example, when you lead children to the creek; they’ll forget about the Wii back home as Barbie bobs down the rapids. Removing yard fences is another key, for barriers designed to keep children safe too often block them from getting wet and dirty. “The only way to experience the world around you,” says Van Noy, “is to jump in.”<br /><br />An English professor, the author refers to Thoreau, Dillard, and other writers as signposts along his way. Eventually the path carries his family to the Maine coast where Rachel Carson once explored. Where Sam and Elliott splash in tidepools, Carson collected periwinkles for her nephew, Roger. Such intimate adventures, says Van Noy, put “maps in their heads, of not only where they are but what inhabits that landscape.” If only all children would be taken outdoors, to wriggle their toes underwater and get to know the sky above home. “They would feel like full participants of the landscapes they inhabit,” he writes, “happily roaming the ridges and creeks in a world that needs their attentiveness.” Van Noy does more than share Carson’s hope that every child be granted an indestructible sense of wonder that lasts a lifetime. He is doing his best to make sure it happens.<br /><br />Freelance writer Julie Dunlap lives in Columbia, Maryland, and writes about environmental history and environmental education.Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-33664828246892098282009-01-07T13:00:00.000-08:002009-01-09T14:38:59.391-08:00Rule Number Seven: From OrionI knew I like that Brian Doyle. Enjoyed his "<a href="http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/3649/">The Greatest Nature Essay Ever</a>" in the last issue of Orion and now this <a href="http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/review/4269/">great review of NSW</a> in the Janurary/February edition:<br /><blockquote>The greatest virtue of Van Noy’s lean and thoughtful book isn’t his thesis, now proved by oceans of evidence about increased obesity and decreased attention spans, or even his graceful and penetrating prose; it’s the witty ways he draws his two children and their friends outside, away from the electric drug—taking the long way to school, poking headlong into every vacant lot, building a treehouse, wandering off on birding adventures, hiking with other families, so that the day isn’t a Boring Family Outing but motley play, skating, wading in creeks, salamandering, poking in tide pools, running around in the dark chasing lightning bugs, and, well, just puttering around with open eyes and ears.</blockquote><br /><blockquote>“Imagine if [kids] knew plants and animals the way they knew brand names and logos, if they knew mountains the way they know malls,” writes Van Noy. “They<br />would feel like full participants in the landscapes they inhabit, happily roaming the ridges and creeks in a world that needs their attentiveness. . . . I share with Rachel Carson the hope that children be given ‘a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life.’” And that’s the lesson I’ll carry away from this book, and the memorably sinewy phrase, too: an indestructible sense of wonder. I suspect nothing could be as useful, as generative of joy and mercy, as energizing and refreshing, as nakedly holy, as a faucet of wonder that never shuts off; and if we really do love and savor children as much as we say we do, if we really think them the heart of what we might be at our best, the secrets that might heal the bruised and broken world, we can give them nothing more crucial and nutritious than that.</blockquote>Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-37431981405341113542009-01-02T11:39:00.000-08:002009-02-13T07:26:15.513-08:00GreetingsWe began the New Year by washing some bottles we found on our property, three small green and one larger Pepsi, all glass, will twist-off bottle caps that read “Expires 9/30/88.” Then we filled them with a<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uqm79k7rEHs/SV5vOlqEcWI/AAAAAAAAACs/dUBRICbkh7A/s1600-h/newyeartree.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5286785308996956514" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 150px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uqm79k7rEHs/SV5vOlqEcWI/AAAAAAAAACs/dUBRICbkh7A/s200/newyeartree.JPG" border="0" /></a> rolled-up message, a large “GREETINGS” visible from the outside: “If you find this bottle, please write back to us. . . . We set this bottle adrift on January 1, 2009 from Mill Creek, in the New River Watershed. Please tell us when and where you found it and who you are." We tied a red bow around the neck to help distinguish these from the rest of the trash. We hope that this, and “Greetings,” and the shape and color of these bottles, will make them noticeable. Then we walked down below “Sam’s Dam” and bid them bon voyage, ran with them along the bank and saw them navigate snags and bends, tumble and roll down some mini-rapids, “This is a real adventure Dad,” Elliot told me, only to watch them get hung up in some ice near our neighbor’s creek. They will have to wait until the next thaw, or flood, before they continue their journey.<br /><br />We also took down our tree, a live one, purchased this year again from the Lion’s Club in Radford. I have about a 30% success rate with these live fraser firs, which like it cool, so we’re hoping that they’ll do better out in the country. We chose a spot up near the sledding hill and to provide some privacy break from another neighbor’s field. I can see it from my desk window now.<br /><br />It was quite a chore getting it out of the house. We have a dolly that we used to move it out, then we ran the dolly up onto a trailer that hooks onto the tractor. Sam drove the tractor switchback up the garden hill while Elliot and I pushed and tried to keep the dolly from rolling right out the back again. But we made it and after rolling the tree in its new home, we eyed it up to plumb and filled with dirt, keeping the trunk base clear and just above the ground, cut the ropes and pulled back the burlap some, add water and good wishes for a healthful New Year.<br /><br />Sam kept right on digging a “foxhole” nearby when we were done. That’s one good thing about having some land. At our old place, I feared twisting an ankle at every sign of buried treasure or trench. But there plenty of places out here for foxholes.<br /><br />Later in the day, we took a walk up Piney Woods and up a path that travels through some neighbor’s 50 acres. We met them the other day, an older couple, Jim and Linda Coyle, and they gave us permission to walk their land anytime. “Enjoy,” he said to me. “Really? You don’t mind?” He smiled again, waved his hand as if to cover the perimeter, ridge to ridge, road to creek, “Enjoy,” he said again, a little slower and more emphatic. So we walked past what Linda says was an old schoolhouse, brown clapboard with white trim, maroon metal roof, and then we found a fallen tree to cross Mill Creek. We walked home along the creek, crossing a built bridge this time and a gazebo of some people we don’t yet know.<br /><br />All in all, a very good start to 2009, a year in which I hope for more of the same: exploring the creek, planting something green, sending greetings (by whatever means) to friends downstream. Whoever you are, wherever, happy 2009, and thanks for visiting.Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-87282421199492906222008-12-01T15:09:00.000-08:002008-12-02T08:08:20.966-08:00Devil's Marble Yard<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uqm79k7rEHs/STRvEwBk9qI/AAAAAAAAACM/KQZ-S5nLE4s/s1600-h/marbleyard.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274963190959371938" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 133px" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uqm79k7rEHs/STRvEwBk9qI/AAAAAAAAACM/KQZ-S5nLE4s/s200/marbleyard.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Terrific Thanksgiving weekend here at the funky farm we’re still trying to come up with a name for. Sam built us an outdoor fire and we sat around trying out monikers. “Four Sycamores” would honor our huge creek-side beauties. “Cedar Springs” would give a nod to our evergreen brethren and the many springs and seeps, nearly a dozen that trickle under and sometimes out of this place. I suggested “Hairball Lane” as tribute to our many pets and things got sillier from there: “Crazed Rooster Knoll,” for mean ‘ol Steve Martin, “Rabbit Heath,” in recognition of our pal Rex. So we’re still working on this. </div><div><br />On Thanksgiving Day, Sam and I made a bridge from a little island in the creek to the marshy side we rarely go, where he now “claims” territory by whacking away the dried stems of the plants that are too thick to walk through in summer. We put down stones as pillars and laid a piece of old oak fencing across them. It wobbles a little when you walk across, but so do all bridges to playland.<br /><br />Elliot and I made a wreath from clippings we could find, not only the green of white pine and cedar but boxwood and yew too, and then some red in the form of bittersweet and the berries from plant I forget (but should know), and finally some thistle and pine cones. We found a few feathers too, a cardinal and maybe a mockingbird—those went in as well.<br /><br />We also hiked to Devil’s Marbleyard (a hike with an interesting name). It’s a family tradition to take to the mountains rather than the malls around Thanksgiving. We took some other kids with us this year to share in the fun. They hiked fast and together, leaving my wife and I in the back to enjoy the quiet. The day was warm and bright and we spotted a six-inch brook trout in the stream. When we got to base of the marble yard, chaos and noise reigned, as if Mr. Lucifer himself let loose on the scene.<br /><br />Some kids immediately wanted to scale the massive boulders to the top, while some were more tentative and wanted a hand stepping from rock to massive rock. One boy decided to stay on the trail. If he was trying to get away from the shouts and noise, he choose the right path. But after a few minutes we heard no sound from him, and he did not return our shouts over the rock field. We began to get nervous. I lept up the rocks as fast as I could. Still no sign or sound. I went farther up the trail, which now split away from the rock field. Then I re-traced his steps, worried I’d find him lying beneath some steep rock face. Still no boy. I imagined calling the Forest Service for rescue. Imagined calling his mother with the bad news. So I dropped my pack and ran back up the trail, past where I had been before. There was a teary-eyed boy, afraid he had gotten lost in the woods, walking back down. We don’t know exactly how it happened: I guess I should have made sure he know that the rocks were our destination. And he by now knows not to leave the group on such hikes. I think he was wary of the rocks and thought the only way to be “one of the kids” was to hike to the top by way of the trail, but the trail left the rocks, headed off for another ridge.<br /><br />Once he calmed down, he asked about bird sounds. Apparently, one bird was making a “beep beep” sound and this seemed to haunt him with his situation: alone and frightened. And then, at a happy reunion over lunch on the rocks, one of the girls did a tumble and nearly landed on her skull. And at the bottom of the hike, Elliot and her two friends walked off the blue-blazed trail onto a horse trail. Lagging behind, my wife and I heard their shouts. What’s funny here is that this hike borders a juvenile correctional facility, so they nearly wandered into protective custody. “Oh, come to join our institution, have we girls?”<br /><br />What kind of bird was it? No doubt a demon one. The devil’s own. This is a great hike, but if we go again, we will be by ourselves. </div><div></div>Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-89227787132874189322008-11-17T15:07:00.000-08:002008-11-17T15:13:58.352-08:00Family Camping, Ears BurningGot a nice mention in a nice looking magazine I didn't know (but am glad to know) existed, <em><a href="http://publishing.yudu.com/Apkn3/CanoerootsandFamilyC/resources/27.htm">Family Camping</a>:</em> "where Louv looks at the problems, Van Noy offers solutions."<br /><br />My ears were burning cause of <em>Sierra</em> too (page 12 people tell me), perhaps this page of "<a href="http://sierraclub.typepad.com/greenlife/2008/10/get-out-kids.html">Get Out, Kids</a>." Funny how we can't tell the electric world from the print, ain't it?<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://publishing.yudu.com/Apkn3/CanoerootsandFamilyC/resources/27.htm"></a>Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-55968620914567474492008-11-06T06:52:00.000-08:002008-11-07T08:17:06.273-08:00Walnut DreamsThe walnuts have mostly all fallen. They drop from a high perch and clang our metal roof, then slowly roll into the gutter--if it’s clean, or the husk a slow roller--or will bounce right off if the gutter is full (which it probably is) or the nut has started high enough on the roof to gather speed and jump to the ground with a heavy thud, and then roll some more.<br /><br />There they lie. Unlike leaves, which you can walk through and kick up, walnuts, especially when hidden under leaves, roll. From our garden, which is slightly uphill from the house, I have thought about trying to skate downhill, like I was cargo. It is nearly impossible to walk when the ground beneath you moves.<br /><br />I’ve enlisted the kids for help in picking up walnuts. They load them in the bucket, or the wagon, and cart them off to a pile underneath another grove off of walnut trees, which really seem to like our property, as does another “black” hardwood, locust. They have found other uses for the walnuts too: throw them at the rooster when he gets frisky, line them up on the driveway and smack them with a hockey stick.<br /><br />We have cracked open a few too. First we peeled off the inky outer covering, cleared away the worms (nearly all have worms), then washed the inside and put them out on an old screen to dry. Then, smash them with a small hammer and <a href="http://www.grist.org/advice/chef/2008/10/02/index.html">pick out the yummy meat—probably more caloric expenditure then net gain</a>, but fun nevertheless. Really, they had the most fun whacking them with the small sledge.<br /><br />I had some tree guys come and clear away some of the walnut limbs (we have three trees close to the house) that lean over the roof precipitously. Then Sam and I cut up some of the wood and split it, naming our enemies with each slam of the maul. JOHN McCAIN split log in half. SARAH PALIN cut half in quarters.<br /><br />Now the walnuts have fallen and the election is over. We joked that we would hoard our walnuts in case the apocalypse came. But now it seems like some weight has been lifted, that what was falling our roof and waking us from our dreams is all past. Our sleep is more restful even though the ground is still littered and we have much work to do. But we are nearly done with nuts. Snow will be the next thing to fall. Soon after that, everything will start moving up again.Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-29937890594725707902008-10-13T11:29:00.000-07:002008-10-13T11:32:42.298-07:00From the folks in NJ . . .The folks in NJ have my back. <em>A Natural Sense of Wonder</em> is the "micro" to Louv's "macro" (I think that's a compliment):<br /><br /><a href="http://secure.njconservation.org/html/swi/10-03-08.htm">http://secure.njconservation.org/html/swi/10-03-08.htm</a>Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-41640796826296979142008-09-26T10:31:00.000-07:002008-09-26T11:11:43.488-07:00Virginia Naturally<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_uqm79k7rEHs/SN0ikUF0mfI/AAAAAAAAABs/_wtagtVZO78/s1600-h/vanlogo%5B1%5D.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250390747847629298" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_uqm79k7rEHs/SN0ikUF0mfI/AAAAAAAAABs/_wtagtVZO78/s200/vanlogo%5B1%5D.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br /><br /><div>I gave a keynote talk recently at the <a href="http://www.vanaturally.com/vanaturally/septnews08.html">Virginia Environmental Education Conference</a>. I talked some about the book, what led to writing it, and Carson's sense of wonder: what I take it to mean for environmental education. Carson said it was "as important to <em>know</em> as to <em>feel," and </em>I explained how what I wanted to do was not so much to engage in a sociological explanation, but to transport readers to a specific time and place, an experience, through narr<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uqm79k7rEHs/SN0h2-MoSAI/AAAAAAAAABk/auamTQ2PYFk/s1600-h/vanlogo%5B1%5D.gif"></a>ative, so they might be inspired to seek their own journeys, to get their own feet wet, in a sense (I read from "Creek Walking.") Rather than screed, I wanted to give readers story.</div><br /><div>After reading from "Field Guides," and Sam's comment, "I want to get a map of this place," I had this to say:<br /></div><div></div><div><em>The sense of wonder is the starting place for that map. Carson would encourage us to play in order to develop the emotional foundation, the health and creative energy, that further learning must build on, and that she thought was necessary for later vitality and joy. Most of us had an experience like this, and that’s why we got into the field we did. I meant for my own book to be as much a prompt to adults about incorporating a sense of wonder and playfulness in their own lives as a guide about taking children outdoors.<br /><br />The other day, while hiking with a friend in the Grayson Highlands, we started discussing “Yahoo” moments (before we had computer browsers), those exclamations of pure joy and what our word was: was it Yeehaa? Yahoo? Whoopee? Do they use the same words in China? And when do these moments happen—when was the last time one happened to us? We concluded that, for us at least, they often happen on mountains, especially running or skiing down one. I describe one moment like this in the essay, “Seven Days,” about hiking to and around Mount Rogers.<br /><br />One of the things that environmental educators know is that these moments are also often unexpected, spontaneous, they are uncharted and off the map, or the lesson plan. There may be no standardized outcome, as when I took my son’s second grade class out for a walk along the creek and reached down below a platform to grab the containers of salamanders and crayfish I caught that morning and behold, a black rat snake. Everyone remained calm—they thought that was part of the display. “Oh look, he brought a snake.” In an ideal learning environment, the best lessons, there are many points of arrival, in some cases taking the form of a snake, but also many points of departure.<br /><br />The lesson changed somewhat that day to learning about snakes, and our response. What a sense of wonder most certainly is not is a fear, because fear might have caused someone to go after the snake with shoe or shovel, as they do where I live. I often see fear associated with the New River, where kids have asked if there are water moccasins or crabs or toe-eating bass. Fear turns us away, and is something we have to work to overcome: through education but also what we model: our own enthusiasm and sense of wonder. </em></div><div><br /><em>The phrase I’ve been thinking a lot about recently in the Carson quote I first read is “sterile preoccupations”—things we get absorbed in without life, things leading to self-importance, or self-absorption. The sense of wonder is an antidote to the view that nature exists only for human means. The ultimate goal of it is that it might impel us to act respectfully toward the world, to give us the understanding that there is worth in these creatures or land or trees or bodies of water beyond human purposes. At the same time, it continually recharges us—it reboots our fire. It gives us the pliancy and vibrancy to fight battles, or sit through long meetings. In Carson’s career, it was the essay she wrote, the crucial bridge, from the scientific observations she made the sea books, to the call to action of Silent Spring. </em></div><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><div>The phrase it "reboots our fire" came from the story I began with: had the kids out to camp one night before school, and as the fire was dying, the embers fading, she said we needed to "reboot the fire." That same night, one of the campers asked if he could go back to the house to relieve himself. I suggested he go around the corner, and he looked at me like such a thing just isn't done. So I thought of a title for a book: <em>Last Child to Pee in the Woods</em>.<br /></div></div><div><div><br />They laughed. Met many fine people there, like Director Ann Regn, doing "EE" for a long time, passionate and committed, and glad to see their issue getting such national attention. Maybe some of them will comment here. </div><br /><div>More on one of the folks I met in the next post. </div><div><br /></div><br /><div></div><br /><div><br /><br /></div><br /><div></div><br /><div><br /><br /></div><br /><div></div><br /><div><br /><br /></div><br /><div></div></div>Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-5234829474248541682008-09-26T10:23:00.000-07:002008-10-08T06:17:34.874-07:00Mud Fun<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uqm79k7rEHs/SN0b0AM2dxI/AAAAAAAAABU/i6_edhbKsRc/s1600-h/353%5B1%5D.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250383320804914962" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" height="171" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uqm79k7rEHs/SN0b0AM2dxI/AAAAAAAAABU/i6_edhbKsRc/s200/353%5B1%5D.jpg" width="214" border="0" /></a><br /><div>My son and I completed the "<a href="http://www.mudrun.com/">Mud Run</a>" last weekend, which ends in a crawl through a mud pit, grit in teeth and slime on skin, to get to the finish line. No kicking please. Our favorite part about the course, however, was really the rest of it: the wind sweeping through the field and then wade through some 75 yards of the (cold) Roanoke River, then up over the single-track mountain and through a creek, jump logs and down the hill, small mud pit a tease before bigger finale. 'This is great," he kept telling me, adrenaline-charged, running in a pack: "I'm tellin' everyone about it for next year." So perhaps we will be back, to run in mud. </div>Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-36636438892777961112008-08-12T15:36:00.001-07:002008-08-12T17:21:00.131-07:00Elliot’s Photographic Scavenger Hunt<span xmlns=""><p><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Went out to see the Perseids last night. Set the alarm for 2:00 and took blankets out to the grass behind the corn crib, now Steve Martin's (the family rooster's) home. It's not like we lived in the big city before, but we certainly have a much better view of the stars out here. We laid on our backs and watched silvery flashes race through the infinite black. My wife has often made it out for this, and last night I finally got my bottom up.<br /></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><br />Technology gets blamed for a supposed "nature deficit disorder," but technology can also get kids out. Two examples: we bought <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Backyard-Birdsong-Guide-Eastern-Central/dp/0811863425/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b">a new bird book that plays songs and calls of Eastern birds</a>. On our trip to Maine, Sam had yellow warblers flocking to the shrubs nearby. He had a robin fly right at him the other day, checking to see about this intruder (he also had Steve Martin come at him when he imitated a rooster's call).<br /><br />Example #2: my daughter is in much right now with a broken wrist (bad fall from rope swing). Yesterday I sent her on a photographic scavenger hunt. I wanted a picture of a preying mantis (we've seen a lot), a spider that lives near here that we don't know and have never seen before, part arachnid and part triceratops, and any other insect or bird life. She didn't get the preying mantis. But here's what she did <a href="http://rvannoy.asp.radford.edu/rvn/Perseids.htm">came back with</a> (sorry--gonna be easier if I take you to another webpage--and this in a post about the benefits of technology):<br /> </span><br /></p><p><br /> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /> </p><p><em>That is supposed to be the spider</em>.<br /></p><p><br /> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /> </p><p><em>Some kind of butterfly. (Hey, photography not yet our strong suit).<br /></em></p><p><br /> </p><p><em><br /></em></p><p><br /> </p><p><em>Ebony jewelwing. (Yeah. Hard to see I know. Deal with it).<br /></em></p><p><br /> </p><p><em><br /></em></p><p><br /> </p><p><em>Our very own indigo bunting, very upset by some hummingbirds, ruby throated, we think.<br /></em></p><p><br /> </p><p><em><br /></em></p><p><br /> </p><p><em>Mothman.<br /></em></p><p><em><br /></em></p><p><br /> </p><p><em>Bee on thistle.<br /></em></p><p><br /> </p><p><em><br /></em></p><p><br /> </p><p><em>Goldfinch.<br /></em></p><p><br /> </p><p><em><br /></em></p><p><br /> </p><p><em>Yellow jacket on apple.<br /></em></p><p><br /> </p><p><em><br /></em></p><p><br /> </p><p><em>Self-portrait.<br /></em></p></span>Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-21490263564556655752008-08-09T16:11:00.000-07:002008-08-09T16:12:12.554-07:00Soccer Coach / English TeacherFound another kindred spirit in the blogosphere: another parent trying to get his kids outside. He's also a soccer coach so maybe he can help. And as a fellow English teacher: he wonders why he stresses the "disinction between a tercet and a quatrain when they know nothing about tanagers and cardinals." I hear ya loud and clear <a href="http://clarkbeast.wordpress.com/">Clark</a>.Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-88413726685230006032008-08-09T07:43:00.000-07:002008-08-09T16:11:29.754-07:00Soccer ParentMy son is attending soccer camp this week in our annual, early-August heat. I watched him finish from the little shade provided by the aluminum bleachers. After it was over, he told me nothing of the drills they did, skills they worked on, or the games they played, but, as this field overlooks the New River (and the only place to find shade on the banks that once provided no shade—another story), he told me that he saw five or six rises in the stretch of river between the Dedmon Center field at Radford University and the little island across from it. Though his feet were tired, he wanted to know if we could put canoe in and maybe “troll the ledges on the other side.” As of yet, he’s still not too much of a soccer player, but he does like to fish.<br /><br />I played when I was young and loved when all eleven players came together. I liked to run and I guess I had excess energy to burn. Played up until and into college. But, I don’t much like this soccer culture anymore. Sam played on a travel team last year and I saw some benefits: the discipline of practice, the listening to your coach, the working with your teammates. But our team, though talented and made of 10 year-olds, wasn’t always the best of sports (and our parents came in last in the sportsmanship ratings). And for some people, soccer seems like their whole life.<br /><br />But there we were at camp this morning, with the other soccer moms and dads, dropping off kids in specialty soccer flip flops, the kind with nubbins to message your feet (it is so not cool to wear your cleats until the very last minute). Why do we--collective we--do it (by it, I mean the practices and camps, the travel to games)? There are benefits of exercise, yes—soccer is a very aerobic sport. But why specialize so much? Would his summer days be better filled with the kind of camp where they play outdoor camps, canoe and kayak, swing on rope swings? Can somewhat smarter than me help? Is there a sociological explanation? Is it bragging rights? Part of our economic system? Playing soccer provides some kind of economic capital. That can’t be it—you can’t make money in soccer in the US, but it seems symbolic of something. The suburban parents dropping off kids, in their Suburbans, are mostly doing alright economically.<br /><br />Balance. I guess that’s what I’m after when it comes to these organized sports. A little soccer here. Some baseball there. Maybe a game of tennis. Or Frisbee. A good hike. Lots of walks on the new place. And tomorrow, after soccer, we’ll see what kind of small-mouthed bass are lurking beneath the rock ledges beyond the pitch. Wonder what will be more exhilarating, offer more reward: the ball in the back of the net, or fish at the bottom of one?<br /><br />Postscript: caught a beautiful bass on the first cast of the day. It jumped out of the water to throw the hook, but Sam kept him on. A beautiful fish too: golden yellow, a little green, hard brown spots in a stripe up the side, hard lower lip to grab and take the hook out, and to kiss upon release. So there’s a question for readers. Do you kiss your fish?Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-90735849224864833772008-08-04T14:21:00.000-07:002008-08-05T10:32:22.139-07:00The One That (Almost) Got Away<a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_uqm79k7rEHs/SJdzqSe-AHI/AAAAAAAAABM/oKx6NiOdUkY/s1600-h/vannoyscorncrib.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5230776662567551090" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_uqm79k7rEHs/SJdzqSe-AHI/AAAAAAAAABM/oKx6NiOdUkY/s200/vannoyscorncrib.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Haven't put much up lately. This picture sort of shows the reason. We moved. To readers who are familiar with the book, the "one that got away" came available again, and then we made an offer that they accepted, and after that our house sold (in the first day), and it was hard to stop this ball once she started rolling. But here we are, and though the chore list is long, the boxes still unpacked, I can step outside off the upstairs porch in this picture and watch the sun set on some 10 acres, watch great blue heron in the creek that flows through, see our two dogs play (it's a great place to be a dog), or listen to the newest member of the family, a rooster named Steve Martin. Our feet had gotten nearly cold right around the move, but I think the place is growing on us, and we're glad we're here. </div><div></div><div>This weekend we went to a nursery down the street, now closed for the season (we didn't know), and they practically gave us what was left: a few pepper plants, some annuals, but also a gingko and a pear tree. Elliot has always wanted a flower garden and the woman who runs the place was so pleased to hear that the plants would be going in the ground rather than shriveling up in their plastic containers that she kept piling them on. Good neighbors. Childress Garden Center (not the kind of place to have a website, or I'd link it). </div><div></div><div>Tomorrow night, 8/5: speaking at the <a href="http://www.radford.va.us/library/">Radford Public Library at 7</a>. </div><div></div><div>A blogger, Nels, reviewing the book for something, commented that NSW would "<a href="http://dhawhee.blogs.com/d_hawhee/2008/07/reunioning-etc.html#comments">make a good pair with Kingsolver</a>."</div><div></div><div>In other news, will be giving a keynote at the <a href="http://www.deq.state.va.us/vanaturally/eeconference08.html">Virginia Environmental Education Conference</a>, September 17. </div>Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-55488231584771567422008-06-23T13:06:00.000-07:002008-06-23T13:17:25.766-07:00Georgia Books and WaterI think I found a kindrid spirit, or at least <a href="http://georgiabooksandwater.blogspot.com/2008/06/natural-sense-of-wonder-connecting-kids.html">an ideal reader</a>. We have a few things in common: he also raises two kids, likes to fish, has a disdain for weed eaters, and has spent time in Slovenia.<br /><br />"Finally, I also liked the fact that, though the author explores the more complex issues of kids in nature, his essays are all firmly grounded in the reality of actually having and raising kids." Amen Eddie Suttles.Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-67135454918898118892008-06-17T10:52:00.000-07:002008-06-22T07:58:02.912-07:00Big Picture Window<a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_uqm79k7rEHs/SFf6UpPB0jI/AAAAAAAAABE/DN3QUOfiIbA/s1600-h/picturewindow.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212910326277853746" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_uqm79k7rEHs/SFf6UpPB0jI/AAAAAAAAABE/DN3QUOfiIbA/s200/picturewindow.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Rachel Carson saw the big picture, saw that if you killed all the bugs, there wouldn’t be any birds, nor any other forms of life. We’ve just spent a week in Maine, at her summer cottage on rural Southport Island, looking out the very big window she often sat near. We have views of a few pines directly outside and then the Sheepscot River beyond and the forested island on the other side. </div><br /><div>This morning it is calm, smooth surface, but last night the wind swept through and we watched silvery waves reflect the sun going down over the island. It would be beautiful here even were it not Rachel’s cottage: we’ve seen lady’s slippers and bunchberry, osprey and eider ducks, and the kids have spent most of their time in the surrounding woods or down on the rocky beach, especially in the tide pools. That it is Rachel’s cottage adds something more, a particular a reverence, a gratitude maybe for what is here. Her presence surrounds us, not only in the handwriting we saw on the door, the growth chart, but in every walk through the woods and along the “edge of the sea.” So we speak in hushed tones. </div><div></div><br /><div>The cottage is rustic, exactly as it should be. The place could probably be a national heritage site, but its quiet charm would be ruined. And it is quiet--except for the wind and the gentle sweep of the tides, this place is absolutely quiet and serene. Besides, no tourist busses would fit on these narrow streets. It’s cool too. I now know what so many made the trip to Maine in summer. Before air conditioning, this was where you could sleep at night. It was here that Carson went after Silent Spring came out and she wanted a respite from the media coverage and attacks by chemical companies (“What does she know about future generations? She’s a spinster.”) A perfect place to rest. Simple, without distraction, with a big picture window looking out onto what matters. </div>Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3523245353468794759.post-1320727166066228602008-06-16T05:59:00.000-07:002008-06-16T08:32:36.178-07:00Get Out and PlayHere's <a href="http://packetonline.com/articles/2008/06/11/time_off/entertainment_news/doc484fedd8a1d28450506977.txt">an article from The Princeton Packet</a> on the book and an upcoming reading at Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed, Thursday June 26, 7:30.<br /><br />One thing about the article: I don't know for sure if fewer kids are swimming in the river as I don't live there anymore. I was mainly commenting to the reporter (and in the essay "Swimming Holes") about the differences between that Delaware culture and the one I experience at home on the New, but perhaps both have changed some. Fewer swimmers in both places.<br /><br />Since this came out near my hometown, I heard from an old teacher: "It's always fun for me to answer the retired educator question, 'What ever happen to ...?' Another mystery solved!"Rick Van Noyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00581436320024050545noreply@blogger.com0