where a Jewish kid, raised and educated in the suburbs of New York—a kid who never went camping, never tinkered with cars or made anything with wood—could learn to feed and shelter himself, to fix rototillers, and power his home from the sun.
So the dozed drive was eroding. And a truckload of four-foot boltwood was loaded, unloaded, and reloaded for nothing. A waste of fleeting middle-aged strength. So . . . a son of Abraham is celebrating with fry-fish protein, friends and homebrew. He traces his lineage back that far.
Iron-eater
I’m interested in eating. . . a subject of much of this narrative.
Drove to the town beach last night to learn what I could about the origin of rust stains there. Allen had mentioned the water at the bottom of our road, running from a ditch red with rust/oil. The submerged leaves were coated with this rusty substance. Was it naturally occurring, or toxic result of nonpoint pollution—or something else beyond the reach of my personal knowledge?
The town’s recreation committee was meeting at the beach to assess its condition and make plans for refurbishment. From their talk now it seemed the beach would really come together this year. The Department of Environmental Protection was being consulted as to whether sand could be added to deposits already laid by the stream. I followed the five townspeople to the irregular waterline. A bearded man, apparently not of our group, was tramping the stream-shore bordering one side of the beach. Where pond and sand met it was evident that storms of this past week had eroded the beach. And water was lying across the scraggly surface in pools. Waves rippled in where shoreline had been but days before.
On some gravel deposits in a higher corner of the beach an oily coating was present. It was dark blue and sheeny. My own road rust-stains, though readily evident, were now under water—water for the most part seeming clear.
I asked the recreation committee what it was, and the majority thought it rust from road run-off. But one member said that these iron-like deposits are all over the town: lots of iron in the soil, in water, even in his own well. I remembered then that when we lived on a pond north of here water poured from our tap smelling of rotting vegetation, sulfurous, leaving rust stains on everything. Instead we drank water collected from a roadside spring three miles away.
The recreation committee didn’t seem concerned about the origin of the stain, because being natives they were used to seeing it. Nevertheless, seeing my concern, someone suggested checking with the Lakes Association to see if it had plans to take soil samples. A name was tossed out. Later I went home and got out the phone book.
The phone conversation led to more names and numbers; finally I spoke with Jim Chandler. Mr. Chandler is the education coordinator for the county Soil and Water Conservation District. He’s also on the board of directors of the Lakes Association. And it turned out that he was the lone bearded tramper I had noticed on the beach earlier. He cautioned that my inquiry was outside his field of expertise.
He thought the stain was an iron stain produced by iron-eating bacteria. They feed off iron in the environment. The mineral is a source of oxygen energy to these organisms. In multiplying they coat everything with decomposed material, iron in solution suitable for absorption by plants. Thus, when we eat plants our blood is enriched with its iron constituent, thanks to this process. And thanks to the lowly bacteria which we may tread underfoot daily.
Mr. Chandler compared the oily film caused by growth of the bacteria to foaming tea leaves in iced tea. People sometimes think stream water in undeveloped woodlands is polluted when they see this foam gathering in some nook. But if it smells like perfume then it is detergent or soap. If it smells like gasoline it is gasoline. But if it smells like decaying vegetation then it’s the humble iron-eater at work, part of the puzzle of our formation and feeding. The smell will tell.
Mr. Chandler suggested filling in the low spots where the rusty water collects. I thanked him for the information and hung up . . . more satisfied than ever with earth’s careful provision, but almost sorry that the mystery of rust pools on the road and town beach was now solved.
Dust on the Face of the Atmosphere
Here’s a rocky perch high on an open ledge beneath hemlock and white pine. But I am bereft of shade: a southern sun pumps down, the glasses on my nose intensifying its heat. Sitting below the great boles and below even the roots of the conifers above me, I stare out on the tops of other trees, stare at emerging leaves in crowns of nearby saplings. I look down and see hardwoods dwarfed by distance. Yet more remotely, down in the valley on ponds’ edge, and lining the causeway, march tiny conifers. Firs are pointed and dispersed among light-greening hardwoods; white pines are martial and strong, doming. Each plays its part in keeping the atmosphere temperate, breathable, bearable.
The causeway far below is tenuous, long and white, running between two ponds; stretching from one green wood to the next: a small segment of a very long line linking the village with southern and northwestern Maine. There are other white threads—pond roads and a beach—twining through the green and blue tapestry. At times it seems that tiny traffic on the white causeway is never-ending, a string of minute vehicles—tiny cars, trucks, buses, campers. The last are arriving for the fast-approaching summer season.
Some of the nearby oaks sticking up from the ledge below are clothed in last year’s leaves, rattling and clacking on stiff gray limbs. Here are no shining taut small leaves, no new growth surging up those twigs to push off the old and the dry, the used. The branch might as well be in some desert—its life is so dried out. It could be in a borderland of the Sahara. Some place where wind lifts sand clean into the atmosphere, sending spacious mountains of red dust far out to sea.
Aside from the clacking of leaves, I hear an intermittent muted noise of distant traffic and the constant hum of the wood mill in the village. I hear the birds, sweet tweet, and choo-choo-choo-chee. Wind whistles faintly past my ears. Once in awhile I hear the tinkle of the dog’s license as he rolls over behind me.
The tapestry changes as clouds move slowly over the mountains, the old rounded mounds of once-tortured earth. Ghosts of shade move across the spread flanks, darkening various contours in the weaving. Hawks stitch their flying threads in and out. A lesson in flight occurs above the tree-covered slope below this ledge on which I perch. The big hawk and the little soar and flap, roll out and pull up. In both lessons and flight they play, diving to meet in the air then career apart. For me they animate the tapestry perhaps more than the traveling caravan down on the highway.
The cloud moves above, blocking heat. I cool beneath it. It makes the air more like itself of the past several days when rains fell, sweetly. A week ago, in the midst of rain, I planned this trek, knew what weather I was looking for. Today, near the end of May, it’s here. So here I am. This is the view from Swans Ledge. From this height, I can almost see the Sahara.
I have no garden to work. Our soil is acidic from layers of pine needles. The water of the landlord’s aquifer and dug well will not tolerate fertilization. Anything more than half a cubic yard of fresh manure per one thousand square feet would contaminate our groundwater. It would take a field full to urge this ground to grow.
Today, instead of working a garden, I went “grocery shopping.” At the armory in Rumford. I picked up government-issue food. Once or twice a year we get a flier in the mail that entitles us to a GI handout of surplus. We became eligible by receiving fuel assistance under income guidelines. When the jobs were there we did not use the privilege, but, now that jobs are hard to come by, we go get the food. Gratefully.
This time it was peanut butter, canned green beans, canned steamed navy beans, canned pork, flower, honey, raisins, and five pounds of real butter. On the way home from Rumford I saw snow thick on White Gold.
The greening trees below are no longer dormant. But, up here on the ledge, I note the—dead?—branch on an otherwise verdant tree. Clack clack.
Lately I’ve been noticing that the fair greening opens and edges its way up the flanks of the old hills. These rounded heights of earth/rock have been gray-brown-and-white for months and months. Now they come slowly viridescent from side to summits. And below