Bird Droppings June 6, 2011
I could sit and listen to a stream all day

About an hour ago I woke up and took our Westie out and in the darkness of an early morning had to start thinking about why there were Westie’s anyhow. Granted my main reason was since this dog had kept me up during the night and for a few minutes after tearing into a rose bush and flicking a piece of leave on my glasses making me really mad at one in the morning just after I fell asleep I was almost wishing there were no Westies. It seems a British hunting enthusiast shot his beloved Cairn terrier while hunting game. Cairn Terriers are the same as Dorothy’s little Toto in The Wizard of Oz. They are camouflaged brown and grays tweed in the moors of Scotland and England where they were popular hunting dogs. However they were very hard to see in little light of early morning or at dusk when Colonel Malcolm was hunting. However according to Wikipedia the main source of information in today’s immediacy age was the following description.

“Some sources credit Colonel Edward Donald Malcolm and his kin of Poltalloch, in the Argyll region of Western Scotland as the originator of this breed in the 1800s. Other sources credit the Duke of Argyll (Chieftain of Clan Campbell) as the originator of the breed. It may have taken as long as a hundred years of selective breeding to produce all the desired qualities. Their white coat made them highly visible when hunting on the Scottish moors and easily distinguished them from their game. They also possess keen intelligence and a sturdy frame.” http://en.wikipedia.org

I like the Duke of Argyll story better since the first Duke fought with Robert the Bruce and probably was friends as well with William Wallace of Bravehart fame. Cairn Terriers occasionally gave birth to white puppies and someone decided they were easier to see when hunting and West Highland white terriers were to be. What started this train of thought was watching my dog run around in the dim light of morning bouncing and playing and visible whereas our thinking back a few years our Yorkie would disappear in the shadows.
I try and make my room at school as relaxing as I can for the students I work with and running water is a part of that. I have several tanks of turtles and fish and such have filters flowing that give the effect of running water. Up in north Georgia one of my favorite places to go is on the Toccoa Creek. If you hike up the creek, near the beginning there is a long climb up through freezing water and over huge boulders that ends at a water fall situated about a mile from Camp Mikell, the Episcopal Arch Diocese of Atlanta mountain retreat. While we hike up the mountain stream anywhere along the way I can sit and zone out listening to the water spilling over the rocks. My going out each morning is not only a benefit for my dog to potty but it gives me a chance to think to ponder to sort out the day ahead and occasionally calm down from threatening the dogs life for waking me up again.
It is relaxing for me to be in that quiet back yard nearly soundless although today a great horned owl was keeping me company off in the distance. My son says the owls wake him up in the middle of the night and several mornings I have heard three or four calling along around the oak and pine forest we live next too.

“Calm is the morn without a sound, Calm as to suit a calmer grief, And only through the faded leaf The chestnut pattering to the ground:” Sir Alford Lord Tennyson

For me it is a calming effect much like the sound of a stream to sit in the quiet of the early morning before anyone else is up.

“Still it wouldn’t reward the watcher to stay awake In hopes of seeing the calm of heaven break, on his particular time and personal sight. That calm seems certainly safe to last tonight.” Robert Frost

Poets have so often referred to calm many seeking in their own lives. Henry David Thoreau searched the land seeking calm and an understanding of all about him.

“An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.” Henry David Thoreau

Yesterday I took my son to the mountains of North Georgia for an education class in the Foxfire Approach to Teaching. When we pulled in the property along the way I noticed tress snapped at mid point and several literally uprooted. At the start of the climb up the mountain there is a small church where the roof was being repaired and a tree had fallen at a church in obviously from a recent storm. My son asked how old I thought the tree was and I told him 118 years old he was taken aback and asked had I counted the rings on the massive trunk easily four foot in diameter and still laying in the church parking lot covered in caution flags and tape. I said by chance I ran into a relative of the person who planted it 118 years ago as a sapling on one of my trips up here but as I sat and looked and thought of a passage from Thoreau.

“If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.” Henry David Thoreau

I watched as the members of the church worked on the roof of the church. I am sure come today city workers will grind up the great tree into mulch and I was wondering if anyone was going to salvage the great tree trunk nearly thirty foot of three to four foot diameter oak easily worth some money for lumber. We had passed several saw mills locally on the way here I am sure someone has an eye on it, if not just to beautify a home somewhere. Although it will probably end up fire wood as so many here in the mountains still heat their homes with wood. As we got to the Foxfire property there were signs of the storm but the ancient cabins and buildings had been not touched in some cases almost a miracle. Shattered limbs and trunks were marked off with caution tape as they had been working on clearing the debris. But the calm and peace of a morning and or a stream is hard to beat and now back to graduate studies and writing of a more limiting nature. Peace my friends and please keep all in harms way on your mind and in your hearts.
namaste
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