Salvation of the Fall

It feels good to have a pen in my hand and a journal in my lap again.  This time of year always makes my fingers itch to write, my words tumble in front of my eyes, and my mouth curve into an ever-present goofy smile.
Of course, it takes me a while to put actual pen to paper, sentence after sentence, because I'm too easily distracted by the soft breeze, gentle sunshine, and golden air that comes with Autumn.  Basically, I'm in love.
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But back to words.  The peculiar thing about writing, especially writing about something (or someone) with which (whom) you are in love, is you become overwhelmed with the emotional side of things.  I want to write, to use my words, to explain why and how Autumn is so special, but all I can do is look at it and grin.
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Seriously.  When you read this, you can't tell, but there is at least a sixty second pause between each sentence because I'm too busy being enamored with the outdoors, goofily grinning at the trees and the sky.
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How do I put into words what I see when I survey the golden-aired days of Autumn?  How do I put into words the unfettered joy from my toes to the ends of the hairs on my head?  How could there not be words within the thousands I command that do this morning literary justice?  It is a fool's errand to capture things in words that are not meant to be captured so.  But too late, I have begun.
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The colors are brighter.  The bird songs are clearer.  The days are slower.  The deer are lively.  The air is crisper.  The leaves are crunchier.  The people are happier (okay, some, not all).  Everything is restless to move, to explore, to stretch legs after an oppressing, hazy summer.
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But what really characterizes Autumn is in what you  can't see, or touch, exactly.  The sun touches the skin with a fiery glance that would be just like summer's sun were it not for the cooling, graceful touch of the air.  It is perfection to your skin.  What could be a scorching touch is tempered by the merciful, seemingly ever-present breeze.
These set my soul afire.
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It is in this season, in this hot-and-cold paradoxical weather, that I find the peace of salvation, of grace, of perfection.
Nothing to me is more adept to describe the character of my God than this season.  He is the hot, just, fire of the sun and the mercifully cool touch of the air.  Grace & fire.  Justice & mercy.  Love & truth.  Hot & cold.  Perfection & perfection.
The perfection of God demands the perfection of his followers.  His hot justice, hot righteousness, brilliant perfection are a constant in the Old Testament, in Revelation, and in pockets of Romans and other New Testament books.  But, some are spared that fiery purge through the merciful perfection of the cross.  The cooling sacrifice of His son covers the heated justice of the Father.
It is only through this that I live with hope for tomorrow.
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Autumn is more than just the golden leaves, the sharp air, the harvest season.  It is the season when I work out my salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12-13), not unlike the dying leaves on the deciduous trees.  Without the cooling touch of the air, we (the leaves and I) would be scorched, burned to death by the fierce heat of the sun.  As it is we are buffeted, caressed, and moved by the air and sun together...Yes, to die, but to be born anew in Spring.

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:
Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning; 
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him."
Lamentations 3:22-24

Indian Summer

Field season is over.
It's been over for a month now.  I still remain "in the field," but more as a placeholder, an emergency contact, an onsite employee in case the bears decide to get crazy.  They do every now and then, shucking collars or going off the grid.  In between, I do odd jobs; I have continued the roadkill surveys, I track for Casey (as you might have read in my telemetry blog), I remove leftovers from summer work, and I answer hunter questions.

So, my days are filled, but as the noon's cool off and the cotton bolls come out, I cannot help but hold my breath for the coming autumn.  We've had some legitimately cool days, giving me just a taste of my favorite season.  Fall is coming!

Any good SEC alumni would say that fall is the best season because of football.  It's icing on the cake, for me, but fall itself is the cake.  The crisp air, the golden colors, the switch in energy of everyone and everything...fall brings with it the death of many leaves, but the new breath of hope, peace, and contentment.
It is difficult to convey with words why autumn feels like a hopeful, new beginning to me.  By all rights, it shouldn't, really.  Crops are harvested--not planted--leaves begin to die--not begin to live--animals are growing up--not being born--hunting season begins.  Death, or at least the advance of life, happens in the fall.

Maybe that is it:  life continues.  Animals born in the spring have (hopefully) matured enough to be safe from those things that will quickly snuff their lives.  Crops have completed their duty:  grown to their fullest.  Leaves leave their chlorophyllic duties to the next generation.

Accomplishment.  That is what Autumn is.  It is when the world leans back, folds our arms, and says, "whew."  It is the hope for tomorrow, for the next year of accomplishments, the peace of the previous year, and the contentment of cooler weather and warmer beverages.

But we're not in autumn yet.  We're in Indian Summer.  The final stretch of new growth, maturation, hard work, green leaves, and hot days.  I'm keeping my heart on the horizon, but my hands and my eyes in the present, with the work yet left to do.

No Crybabies in Biology

Whoever made up that rule clearly didn’t ever try his hand at telemetry.

What is telemetry?  It is technology designed to reel you in, pet your ego, then dash your hopes when you feel you’re most accomplished.  It is a tool that weeds out those who are not determined, stubborn, and maybe a little crazy.  It is an abominable—and completely necessary—practice that involves listening through static for a chirping device that is attached to a (moving) wild animal.  It is the most useful skill a wildlife biologist can learn—if you actually think you can learn it—except for maybe map making (which is another thing this rule-maker clearly never tried).  It is an addictive practice in the true definition of the word: it brings you up, then drops you so low you think you’ll never recover, but pulls you up and tells you that the only way you’ll get that experience (of success, of finding the animal) is to do it again.  And it’s right.

Telemetry is, like I said, the practice of tracking an animal using a device somehow attached to them (a collar with bears, a sub-dermal device with some animals, a glued contraption with sea turtles) that emits a chirp over a radio wave (VHF: very high frequency).    This technology has been around since, oh since I don’t know when, and it has been employed for ALL manner of wildlife biology research endeavours.  From home range determination, to finding den sites, to tracking movement patterns, to identifying which animal produced which turd, telemetry is your man. 

Granted, since its creation (80s? 90s? I should do my research…), collaring and tracking animals has taken leaps and bounds forward.  Enter…GPS collars.  These devices will still make crybabies out of the burliest of biologists, but more because of their price than their personality.  GPS collars can be programmed to send satellite data to the researchers of the tracked animal’s movements.  These collars (or other devices, as previously mentioned) will also emit a VHF radio chirp, which is handy because occasionally the GPS units fail (go figure) and they revert to “basic” VHF. 

Let’s just take a minute here to say that when you step back and look at it, this technology is AMAZING.  I mean, you can stick an antenna up in the air, twirl around in a circle, and listen to a chirp that is coming off the back of a WILD BEAR (in my case, anyway).  I mean, WHAT?!  So.  Cool.

But there’s a difference between marveling at the technology and actually making the technology bend to your will—I’m sure many of you have or will experience this with computers, phones, televisions, cars, GPS units, radios, watches, whatever.  Even though it was created by people for the betterment of peoples’ lives, technology seems to have other ideas. 

Enter real life factors: back-signal, weather, elevation, gain, frequency, volume, radio towers, cell towers, power lines, car electronics, and imperfect hearing.  All these are fancy ways of saying that if you don’t hold your mouth right and have good luck, you might end up chasing a phantom created by the radio wave bouncing off the side of a hill, or getting twisted because your cell phone charger was plugged into your car.  Even one of these factors I’ve mentioned is enough to bring quite a few people to tears.  Put them all together, and, well, you understand why I think this rule maker is nuts.

Crazy isn’t always wrong, though.  Yeah, telemetry can bring tears to many eyes, but so can stopwatches (I suppose, though I tend to feel superior when I know I could smash it—have we really evolved that far?  Anni smash watch, Anni feel better), or cell phones.  But I guess a crybaby would have cartoon tears spouting from her eyes, creating twin puddles on the ground, then curl up on her couch and say she can’t.  Believe me, I was [                      ] this close to doing that today.  As much as I wanted to, deep down I knew that what I would actually be doing is letting my “boss” (for lack of another quick term) down, inconveniencing her by asking her to take time out of her schoolwork to come “do this for me,” and saying that man’s creation, technology, was better than me, bigger than my God and me. 

Needless to say, I may have cried today, I may have felt (and probably acted) like a baby, but I didn’t quit.  Could quit.  So maybe the rule maker was right, but I’d like to add an amendment: There may not be crybabies, but there are tears.

Oh, and I found the bear.

Fall. Falling. Fallen. Fell.

With the beginning of school, the opening of the WMA, a fancy new space phone, and a new month settling in…thus begins fall.

Even the weather reflects the shift in seasons: it has been unseasonably cool for August…for once.  Hopefully it will stick for the avid football fans who will soon fill giant Sanford Stadium; baking in the sun while rooting on our beloved bulldogs might be a part of the initiation for UGA students, but it is certainly not enjoyable. 

I cannot help but feel a little dizzy at how fast the summer went by.  It seems like only yesterday I walked across the stage in room 100 and accepted a certificate of completion from Dean Clutter, thanked my family and friends, and walked into adulthood.  Since then, autumn isn’t the only thing that has fallen into place. 

I fell back in love with martial arts.  Frankly, I’m not sure I ever fell out of love; I think my passion for it was just dormant for a while.  AKF Athens (and Oconee) welcomed me home, and after graduation I became a little bit of a dojang rat—you know, like mall rats, kids that never seem to leave.  Here in the woods I do not have the comfort of my studio: familiar students, fabulous teachers, mats I all too often meet at quicker speeds than I intend…and I miss it terribly.  But, as one of my teachers said: As a light summer breeze can change direction so must we follow the direction that life takes us. 

With that, I fell into step here: my first big girl job out of college.  Some of you have probably heard about my adventures: from stuck trucks to big bears to hair snares to little bears to tracking to tears (love that the English language has the same word for two words) to barbed wire to hicks, I’ve tried to write about it all.  I quickly fell into the habit (in May, while I was alone for a week or two) of writing a lot and writing often.  It kept things from getting too quiet.  Once my cabinmates got here, things were never quiet: though I cannot complain, and I think I can say that I gained two friends through this CRAZY living situation. 

And I gained (hopeful) security for my next two years.  But that is another story for another time, when more details have fallen into place.  For now, suffice to say I am continuing to fall deeper and deeper in love with these beautiful, bumbling, black bears, with no end of my infatuation in sight.

What else is falling into my life? 

Rain.  Lots of it.  This summer we have seen a true break in our Georgia drought—though I think technically it ended a year or so ago—and MAN have we seen some rain. 

People.  Everywhere from Ocmulgee WMA  to Perry to Athens, I’m meeting new people and falling into new circles and having new people fall into old circles.  It’s fabulous to see new faces, new hearts, new minds, new personalities.  Animals are incredible, simple, awe inspiring, cool, and of course cute, but they ain’t got nothing on people.

Choices.  Let’s be real, choices are always falling into our lives.  Part of having the kind of brain we have (or really, a brain at all) is that we get to choose: this or that, now or later, yes or no.  From the beginning of human history—whether you’re thinking of Adam and Eve or recently-transformed-apes or Olypmus’s subjects—we have always had choices.  I guess it is fresh in my mind because I have had some big ones on my plate as of late.  Time will tell if I made the right ones.  But, sometimes making the right choice is really more like falling into it than waltzing confidently into it. 

Sometimes things just fall into place.

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Post script:  I tracked a mortality signal from bear 157 today.  Mortality signals can mean several things. 1) we have a dead bear. 2) the collar dropped from a live bear. 3) GPS goofed, and the collar is actually active and still on a live bear.

Today it was option one.  I'm not sure what happened.  

But, since she's a bear, and not a person, she doesn't get a burial, or a eulogy, or an obituary in the Macon Telegraph.  Unless, I suppose, I give her one here.

157 was a little bit of a thing we trapped on private land at the end of July.  Actually, she was the second bear I darted that was caught in a snare! So COOL!  She weighed about 80 pounds, but was a mama bear (two yearlings!).  I told my parents that night she reminded me of me, a little.  She's so small, yet kept on truckin' with those two kids who were almost her size.  157 was also the only bear I've successfully tracked on my own.  I found her in a beautiful hardwood, hiding up there with her two yearlings. Also, SO COOL.

But, life doesn't always turn out like you'd expect, as I have been saying all along.  

Sometimes it throws you a curve ball, sometimes, when you least expect it, you fall victim to mortality.

Breaking the Silence

Why the ominous title?
Well, like everything, once silence has settled in, it is hard to overcome.  Some are frightened of silence, some find it comforting.  Some find it strangely confining; think about it, how often have you mentally pepped yourself to speak through the quiet?  Whether it's a silent car ride, silent dinner table, silence staring at the phone wondering whether to call or not...it's tough to break.  The words back up and get jumbled, like a traffic jam, or too many kayaks on the Broad.  Things happen out of order, clumsily, or unintelligible.  But, inevitably, it's never as painful as your brain makes you think it will be.  A little awkward, jolting, and slow at first, but worth it.  Only a few sentences necessary to work out the kinks and find your flow again.

This blog has been eerily silent since the middle of July.  It's now the 3rd of August, and I'm not even sure what has happened since I last wrote.

What I do know is this:
-We've caught 28 bears, #28 being the bear we caught and recollared last night (they had caught him as a sub-adult last year)
-Our hair sites are down, with much frustration and blood shed (barbed wire is evil)
-I tracked my first bear (and saw her and her cubs)
-I got disoriented in the rain in a blackberry wall looking for a collar
-Casey, Hooker, and I have all lost our minds...but at least we're all crazy together?
-I've officially been hired through November
-The students (Josh, Casey, and Hooker) leave in a week, and I stay to hold down the fort
-William came to visit
-I pulled a truck out of the mud with a 4wheeler
-MY truck was pulled out of the mud with a 4wheeler (different 4wheelers)
-The GPB crew came and left without major incident...except that they came once field season craziness had set in
-My family and friends successfully moved me out of the Athens apartment
-Casey and I both slept through Hooker shooting a hog from our bathroom window (approximately 20ft from our bedroom)

What that means is:
-Hooker wants to push for 30 bears.  It's tough, but I think we could do it.
-I now have the task of compiling a map for the hair sites next summer
-I need more practice with telemetry, but it's a little terrifying
-Crazy happens...but it's better than dead
-I'm looking forward to being a bear tech for longer: these animals (and people) have stolen my heart
-I'll be writing alot since I'll be alone
-Four wheelers are awesome
-I'm living rent free till November..then who knows what God has in store for me!
-AND we're exhausted.  High powered rifles ain't got nothin' on sleep.

Oh, and here's a picture of a bear cub Casey tracked (and I followed with a camera)

Silence isn't any scarier than speech, and while it's easier, it's not better.
Speak while you have voice, even if it's awkward.
(see post above if you need an example)

The Boldness of Youth

John 1:23: Finally they said, “Who are you?  Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us.  What do you say about yourself?”  John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”

Jeremiah 1:4-10: The word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” “Ah, Sovereign LORD,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am only a child.”  But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’  You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.  Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD.  Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “Now, I have put my words in your mouth.  See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”

All my life I have been encouraged to be bold, to be myself, to stay true to what God created—and my parents raised—me to be.  At twenty three…I’m still trying to figure out who, exactly, that is.  This is old news: few people know who they are at twenty three.  Or twenty four.  Or twenty five. But, still, every person feels like they should.  Will we ever understand it is not for us to know everything?

Jeremiah 10:23: LORD, I know that people's lives are not their own; it is not for them to direct their steps.

I am young.  Sure, I might not be a prophet in the traditional, Old Testament sense, but I write.  I (sometimes) share my faith, I speak to people.  In creeps that seed of doubt: I am a mere twenty three years old: how could I possibly have the words of a “full adult?”  

Perhaps God calls the young because we don’t have it figured out.  We are still clay in the potter’s hands: willing to be molded, stubborn enough to keep on truckin’ in the face of “impossibilities”, resilient enough to be broken and re-formed.

1 Timothy 4:12-16: Don’t let anyone look down on your because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.  Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching.  Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you.  Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress.  Watch your life and doctrine closely.  Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

All over the Bible, young people are implored to set an example: be diligent, be humble but confident, be rooted in your faith regardless of those who tell you you’re too young.  If you have a gift, be it creative writing, logical argument, drawing, singing, composing, dance, martial arts, scientific writing, poetry, administration, acting…whatever…use it.  Do not neglect it: you have that skill for a reason, even if you feel too young to have it be any good.  It is yours to use, even if it is not yours to decide how or when it affects people. 

Young people throughout history, not just in the Bible, have long been the movers and shakers of the world.  The most poignant, and perhaps one of the bravest, examples of youth as leaders are the Freedom Riders.  I told my dad once that I am certainly grateful I wasn't around during that time, because I would have felt compelled to be one of them: he shuddered, and agreed.  These youth risked their lives—and some lost them—to be bold, make a point, and stand up for what they thought was right. 

2 Timothy 1:5-9: I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.  For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of hands.  For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline.  So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner.  But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace.

I have the words because I am given the words.  If it were left up to me alone, out of my mouth would pour meaningless chatter, cacophonous ramblings, distracted sentences.  As it is, these words I write are not my own; no, they flow freer than my own words ever could.

I write (I might write too much) not because I think that every word I publish changes every reader’s life, but because I have a hope that someday, something will click in one reader’s mind, and their life will be better for it.  If one sentence of all the sentences I’ve ever written helps one person, I’ll consider my words successful. 

Even if twenty three is young by the world’s standards, it is not her standards to which I compare myself.  I compare myself to the standards set by the Lord for Timothy, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Samuel, David, John the Baptist…all the youngsters that heard the call, said they would be bold, and persevered to complete their works.  So will I.  I will write.  I will write until words fail me.  

Isaiah 6:3-8: And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, hold is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”  At the sound of their voices the doorposts and the thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.  “Woe to me!” I cried.  “I am ruined!  For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the Kind, the LORD Almighty!”  Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.  With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”  Then I heard the voice of the LORD saying, “Whom shall I send?  And who will go for us?”  And I said, “Here I am.  Send me!”

Green Beach

7/6

For all the horrid weather we have dealt with this week—rain every day, whipping winds, muddy traps, fallen trees, soupy roads, sad crops, no bears—today is absolutely beautiful.  Now, it could be because I’m not working, and just have an opportunity to lounge, but regardless. I am supremely thankful for this Saturday.

I wandered out to the edge of a scrubby dip…the wild land in my huge front yard.  I’m maybe 100 yards from the cabin and “civilization,” but with my back to it, I can pretend I have found solitude.  My temporary seat is in my hammock, strung between a catalpa tree—elegant with its spade-shaped leaves and stringy seed pods—and a sawtooth oak—graceful and sharp, with jagged leaves and shaggy acorns littering the ground.  From here, I can feel the wind come at me, full tilt, mussing my hair, cooling my bare feet (OH! How I miss going without confining boots and socks!).  I see the wind wave that derned romantic invasive, Spanish moss, see it bend the tall grass—you know, the one with a v-shaped, seed studded top with those annoying black bits—hear it rise and die not unlike the waves of an ocean.

It may be a July Saturday in Georgia, but I only know that for the white noise of cicadas and the incessant, yet charming, question of the bobwhite call.  Without those tells, I would easily believe I was on the edge of an ocean with the strangely calming, yet irritatingly irregular, rhythm of waves.

Frankly, I’d rather be…

Here than there.  HA. Gotcha.  You thought I’d choose the beach.  Nope.  I’m looking out into a sea of green, rippling, fluttering, waving, and shuddering in the wind, and it is infinitely more interesting to all the senses than the blue and tan of a beach.  For one thing the birds have better tastes in music.  Quick trills, long runs, perky chirps, squeaky wheels, and persistent questioning phrases bounce all over, accompanying the bring flashes of red, blue, yellow, brown, black and gray of these birds.  For another, my sea of grasses, pines, oaks, blackberries, cherries, greenbriar, grapes, daisies, pokeberries, poison ivy, maples, Virginia creeper and countless other plants provide numberless shades of green that rival the best box of crayons.  And today is different from tomorrow: in that time some leaves will burn, will brown, will turn red, will mature into a darker, more “adult” green.  Yes, I would take this sea over the blue one (comprised of “seafoam green,” “sky blue,” “turquoise,” “slate gray,” “cadet blue,” and “sand).  The whipping wind does not sandblast your skin, but instead serves as a gnat removal tool and a cooling touch to contrast the hot sun peeking through the rippling leaves.  AND the wind brings with it that smell I can only describe as “green.”  The wind picks it up from that vast dip before me and rushes it to my nose, uphill, as if to say: You smell that?  That’s life!  It’s quiet, inexplicable, but bursting with infinitesimal processes and constant change!

Indeed, that smell is far more pleasant than the aroma of salt—NaCl?  A reminder of chemistry?—and sand—chunks of old, dead creatures and bits of glass litter?—and gull poop—I mean, gross.

So, you beachgoers, carry on, reclining on your 2.5x5.5 foot toweled rectangle, coating your body with wind-borne sand.  I’ll be here, buffeted by cooling winds that carry with them the exhalations of the green, living sea before me.

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In other news, on Friday I darted my first bear!! YEAH!  I need practice, but I did it!

Saturday night I caught my first bear!! YEAH!  I reset a trap Casey had put together, and it caught a bear!  Unfortunately, this was a bear we’d already collared (109)…and caught three other times.  Actually, he was the handsome 280lb bear I posted a picture of in “Summer Nights”.  Silly bear, traps are for new bears.  Maybe he just likes the free nap!