My Reading List

When I chose something to read, I tend to act on impulse. I go to the library, usually to the 200’s, 500’s, or 900’s in the Dewey decimal system, and just pull down whatever catches my eye. I have a lot of books that I’ve been planning, often for years, to read “someday”, but I almost always forget these when I go to the library or bookstore.

I’ve resolved to change this for a while and finally get around to reading some of those things I’ve been planning to read. In fact, I’ve already made a start on this, reading Sand County Almanac, Black Elk Speaks, and Wuthering Heights within the last year or so, as well as finishing the entire Old and New Testament and most of the Apocrypha. (I think the Bible counts as at least 66 books!) To go a step further, I’ve come up with a list of all the books I can think of that I’ve been intending to read “someday”.

The 31 books on this list are on it for a variety of reasons. Some are considered “classics” in at least some circles. Others are obscure books which just happen to be on subjects which I am very interested in. Some of them are books which I have repeatedly seen referred to in other things I’ve enjoyed reading. Some of them are books on which movies I liked were based. Some of them are books which I once started to read and enjoyed immensely, but for one reason or another just never finished. In some cases, I heard the author speaking on public radio and thought, "I gotta read that book!"

I am not setting any timetable for reading these, or setting up any rules for myself, but I do plan to make an effort to get through most of them in the next year or two or three. I will post updates from time to time on my progress on this.

After I wrote this list, I realized that all but a few of the books in it fit into four broad categories. So here is the list by category. (The stars represent books I’ve already read a significant part of.)

Nature
Kingbird Highway, by Kenn Kaufman
The Voyage of the Beagle, by Charles Darwin
Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey
Sibley’s Birding Basics, by David Allen Sibley *
Coast Redwood: A Natural and Cultural History, edited by John Evarts and Marjorie Popper *
Last Chance to See, by Douglas Adams
The Mind of the Raven, by Bernd Heinrich

Indians and Cowboys
The Sacred Pipe, by Nicholas Black Elk and Joseph Epes Brown *
Dances With Wolves, by Michael Blake
Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry
Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose
The Return of Little Big Man, by Thomas Berger *
A Good Year to Die, by Charles Robinson *
The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje

Classics and Near-Classics
Moby Dick, by Hermann Melville *
Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
Life on the Mississippi, by Mark Twain
The Aeneid, by Virgil
The Histories, by Herodotus
Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov *

Public Affairs
Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser
The Corporation, by Joel Bakan
Strategic Ignorance, by Carl Pope
Manufacturing Consent, by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
Dude, Where's My Country? by Michael Moore
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, by Al Franken
The End of Poverty, by Jeffrey Sachs

Other
One River, Many Wells, by Matthew Fox
Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, by William Cronon
The Bonesetter’s Daughter, by Amy Tan
Vietnam, a History, by Stanley Karnow

Chain O’Lakes State Park, Lake County, Illinois – May 20 – 22.

Illinois is, to be blunt, a bad place to live for a nature lover. Only about 3% of the land in Illinois remains in its natural state. The only state of the fifty states which is worse in this regard is my native state of Iowa, where less than 2% of the land remains in its natural state. Still, even in Illinois one can find some nice green spots to enjoy, even if they aren’t exactly pristine.

The Big Guy and I spent the weekend in such a pleasant green spot. Chain O’Lakes State Park is not exactly a wilderness. It is small and the land and water were roughly used before it became a state park about sixty years ago. In fact the water is still roughly used by sports fisherman and speed boats. Still, it was a happy weekend.

We loaded up the car and left home late in the afternoon on Friday. The park is about an hour’s drive from our home, and we were there by about 5:30.

One of my goals for the weekend was to find a Sedge Wren, which, according to the birding guides I read, usually nests at the south end of Turner Lake near the campground where we had reservations. So after we set up camp, we went to the lake to have a look for the first of several times. Unfortunately, the Sedge Wrens either weren’t present this year, or chose to keep still whenever I was around. We heard lots of Yellowthroats, Yellow Warblers, and Redwing Blackbirds, but no Sedge Wrens.

After that, we went to the park concession to check prices on rental canoes. We birded around the boat launch area and tried to find a place where we could see the Sand Hill Cranes which we kept hearing. It was clear that we were a symbiotic team when we birded. The Big Guy had the sharp eyes of youth and often saw birds first, and I had the experience to know what they were.

In the evening at our campsite we saw some raccoons, no doubt checking to see if we had dropped anything edible on the ground.

The next morning was mostly dedicated to canoeing, one of the Big Guy’s favorite activities. We paddled a few miles up the Fox River, which flows through the park, and then back down for about three and a half hours. The weather was beautiful for this activity. The sky was clear except for a slight haze and the air was calm. Marsh Wrens, Yellowthroats, and Willow Flycatchers sang along the river banks, Barn Swallows, Tree Swallows, and Rough-winged Swallows skimmed the river for insects, and Foster’s Terns dove for fish. At one point we saw a beaver swimming in the river, and at another we saw a Sand Hill Crane carrying a round, white object (a duck eggs, perhaps?) in its bill, while a brave little Redwing squawked and attacked its rump, to no apparent effect.

We went back to our camp site for lunch. An American Redstart was singing in the trees near our camp site as we prepared lunch, and he stayed around for the rest of the weekend, but, try as we might, we never saw this beautiful bird.

After lunch, we went for a leisurely hike of about five miles and saw lots of birds. I don’t think I have ever seen so many Baltimore Orioles, or Bluegrey Gnatcatchers, or Indigo Buntings as I saw that afternoon. At one place, we found the nest of a pair of Bluegrey Gnatcatchers, high in a tree near a picnic area. The parents seemed to be displeased that we were staring at their nest, so we left as soon as we had seen what there was to see.

Rarer finds included a Cerulean Warbler, a Philadelphia Vireo, and an Olive-sided Flycatcher. The latter bird was one I had never seen before – my first life-list bird in Illinois in almost eight years.

When we went back to the campground, we found it much more crowded and noisy than it had been the previous night, and there seemed to be a frat-house party atmosphere among some of the campers. But fortunately everyone respected the official quiet hours, and by ten o’clock we were able to enjoy the night noises for a short time before we went to sleep.

We got some rain the following morning (Sunday). We had planned to go canoeing again that morning, but the rain and a forecast of possible thunderstorms made us change our plans. We packed up our camping things and got ready to return home. But by the time we were finished packing the rain had stopped, so we spent a couple of hours hiking one of the trails we didn’t do the previous day. Again, we had good luck finding birds. Finds of the day included a Kingfisher, a Great Egret, a Least Flycatcher, and a Yellow-throated Vireo. We also found a Warbling Vireo sitting on a nest, again looking unhappy that her nesting site was discovered.

We didn’t stay long on Sunday. The Big Guy had a school project to do, so we left around 11 AM.

Weekend Under the Redwoods

My love of the California Redwood trees is at odds with my enthusiasm for birding. Forests of giant redwoods are not particularly good places to look for birds, as relatively few bird species live in the deep shade of these forests. But last week the redwoods won out over the birds as I was making by weekend plans, and I went camping among the redwoods trees and banana slugs of Big Basin Redwood State Park, near Santa Cruz, California. The birding actually turned out not to bad.

I took off a few hours early from work on Friday, May 6th. (I’d given them 40 hours and more already. I wasn’t cheating anyone.) It took me about an hour to load up the wagon and about an hour and a half to drive to the park (the last half-hour for the last ten miles of narrow, twisty mountain road) and I was registering at the park office by about 4:30. The camp ground I stayed in was very no-frills. A fire pit, a picnic table, and a designated spot on the ground were about the limit of the amenities. Plus there was a 100 foot walk from my parking space to the actual camp site. But I much prefer the no-frills, walk-in camp sites. It just doesn’t seem like a complete camping experience if person next door is running an air conditioner.

And, of course, one aspect of the camp site was incomparable: you could step out of the door of your tent in the morning and put you hand on a beautiful living thing that was already growing before the English language existed.

After I had my camp site set up the way I wanted it, I took a drive to the near-by town of Boulder Creek for a hot meal at a nice little cafe.

Saturday morning I was up an on the trail by about 5:30. My destination was a craggy peak called “Buzzard’s Roost”. I didn’t see any buzzards on this walk, but I did see a Short-eared Owl flying over head. That was exciting, since I had never seen one before. Since a redwood forest was not the normal habitat for this species, I assume he was on his way to somewhere else. This particular trail had more oaks and low scrubby growth than redwoods. There were quite a few birds in this area, but they were mostly invisible in the foliage. This was birding by ear, which is the most challenging way to do it, but I used to be quite good at it, and I am starting to get good at it again. I counted twenty-five species on that walk, most of which I was able to identify by voice, either on the spot, or from my notes once I got back to my apartment and compared them to recordings.

I took two hikes that day, one in the morning, from about five-thirty to noon, and one later in the day from three until about nine. The long break in between was because I was battling a bad cold that day and needed to take it easy. As I almost always do, I walked at a very leisurely pace, stopping frequently to look at birds, butterflies, flowers, female hikers, and any other pretty sights which caught my attention. The trail I took in the afternoon took me past thousands of showy ivory-colored flowers which I never did learn the name of, but which were something in the iris family.

The final walk back to my camp site looked like it was going to turn into a real adventure. Here, the word “adventure” means an experience which is a lot more fun to read about than to actually live through. I had underestimated how much time it would take to get back to the tent, and by the end it was getting pretty dark. The flashlight I had with me was just about powerful enough to show me my feet once it got really dark, and the trail was muddy, slippery, and uneven.

Then, just as I was about a hundred yards from the camp site, something happened which made the whole muddy experience worthwhile. An owl called from a tree just over my head. A Western Screech-owl! A life-list bird!

If you don’t see how a few moments of hearing an owl calling in the darkness can more than make up for muddy jeans, wet socks, and stubbed toes, then you are not a birder, and I can probably never explain it to you.

The next day it started raining about five o’clock, just before my alarm clock went off. But nine, it was looking like it was going to rain all day. So, mindful of the fact that I wanted to get over my cold, rather than have it progress to pneumonia, I finally packed up my camping stuff and, after breakfast at the café in Boulder Creek, headed home. (Yeah, I wimped out.)

So that was my camping trip. How was your weekend?

If you see this, Mom, Happy Mother's Day!

I'll call you Sunday, late afternoon or early evening.

My Heart Goes Out to Michael Schiavo

In case you have just returned to civilization after living in a cave for the last few months, or have a very short memory, Michael Schiavo was the husband of Terri Schiavo, a woman in Florida who recently died after fifteen years in a persistent vegetative state and who was the subject of a big political rhubarb. My heart goes out to Michael Schiavo because he has been vilified for doing exactly what I would want my wife to do if I were in Mrs Schaivo’s state; namely, getting on with life and turning off those accursed "life"-support machines. I can’t do much for Mr Schaivo, beyond expressing my support in a blog which very few people will ever see, but I can to something for my self against the day when, God forbid, I am in the state Mrs Schaivo was in.

So, just in case someday some Doctor Frankenstein wants to use a machine to pump blood through my body, or some “pro-life” ghouls want to force-feed my body through a tube, here are the criteria use to determine whether to leave the life-support machines running.

Unless there is a good chance that I will one day again be able to stand on a mountain top, or on an untamed seashore, or walk through forests or meadows, turn off the machines!

Unless there is a good chance that I will one day again be able to tell a Song Sparrow from a House Sparrow, turn off the machines!

Unless there is a good chance that I will one day again be able to go places I’ve never been before, see things I’ve never seen before, and learn things I’ve never known before, turn off the machines!

Unless there is a good chance that I will one day again be able to make decisions which affect my own destiny, turn off the machines!

What do I mean by a “good chance”? I mean at least an even chance. Unless it is at least as likely that I will recover to the extent of meeting the conditions above as it is that I will not recover, turn off the machines.

I would not want to live if I could not truly live.