Yesterday the woods felt full of potential. As Cedar and I tramped on the Big Tree Trail for the first time in a week due to my travel, I expected to see more change. Most of the snow has melted or sublimated, neighbor Kelli spoke of seeing three deer yesterday, and I heard my first varied thrush of the year. The woodpecker I heard last week changed from acoustic (hollow tree drumming) to heavy metal (the Iha family’s gutter or downspout). But there were no signs yet of skunk cabbage, which I’m sure is doing its heat-generating thing below the ground.

Late March Devil’s Club time lapse over about a week. Not much action yet.

It felt like we’re on the threshold of spring, and maybe occupying a mini season-within-a-season. Still lots of room in the woods with very little spring foliage unfolding, but everything seemingly close to bursting with the increasing light. I looked up the word “threshold” as I thought of this mini-season, and was amused to find that it is related to “treading” or “tramping” in old English, and even, maybe the “Italian trescare ‘to prance,’ or the “Old French treschier ‘to dance.” While I’m not doing much more than tramping, Cedar might even have a little trescare in her. But we’re dwellers on the threshold of spring, no doubt.

Yesterday was one of those days in which Juneau challenges us to even try not to be amazed at its beauty. I failed in the best of ways, and I’m going to imagine that Cedar, while trying to keep her cool, was a little blown away, too.

This exhaustive (and I’d guess exhausting to anyone reading more than one or two of these posts) account of Cedar’s life would not be complete without a short review of her criminal record. 

Already expunged, because of lack of photo evidence, are the visiting sweater incident, and half of a Birkenstock. In the former, Katie’s friend Izzy tried to be gracious about the hole in the beautiful hand-knit wool sweater she brought as her main warmth layer on her first trip to Alaska. Later in the summer, Cedar proved with one of Katie’s favorite sandals, that cork and leather are digestible. And of course, there’s the Permanent Fund Dividend check incident. (On the topic of money, she recently weighed in with her opinion of $2 bills. )

But this latest chomp, the island of Unalaska out of my new t-shirt commemorating our Kayak Club days out there, makes me wonder whether it’s time for some consequences. (The problem, of course, is that I can never catch her doing the dirty deeds, so a scolding after the fact doesn’t seem to do the trick.)

The experts might suggest that she has anxiety, born from too little exercise or too much separation. I’m gonna have to pack it in as a dog owner if that’s the case. 

Months ago, I mentioned to a friend that Cedar might have a shoe fetish. He sensed I was using the word wrong (and I was), reminding me that the word has a very definite sexual connotation. The more I mull, the more I wonder whether Cedar may have a special relationship with shoes that needs some exploration. Maybe I could get her a juicy, sexy shoe or sock poster to put up near her bed, so she can have some alone time? 

For now I guess I’ll ground her for the time it takes me to post this, leaving her to contemplate the consequences of her excesses, with the help of a book to allow her to embrace “the healing (heeling?) power of melancholy.”

Bright sun, cold shadows:
it is hard to tell the truth
about anything.

-John Staley, 100 Poems of Spring

“Aesthetically, their value is incalculable. The sound of a drumming woodpecker is a sign of the approach of spring.”

WILLIAM A. LENHAUSEN, “WOODPECKERS,” ADF&G, 2008.

Spring isn’t here yet. At all. But it is March, and the days are getting longer. And I guess I have to choose whether or not to let bird people, or birds themselves, serve as my meager inspiration for spring. Nah. Not yet, at least. I’m still having a good run with winter.

On this morning’s walk, Cedar and I listened to a distant woodpecker dude, apparently starting to scope out his territory for a hot(ish) spring date. Why not? Get it going before any of us acknowledge it’s spring, I guess?

These birds, with necks as strong as football players’, are acting like frat boys of the forest, whether they’ve been here all winter (ouch) or just arrived from warmer climes. According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game…

“The male sets up a territory by ‘drumming.’ This loud repetitive noise is made by hammering the bill against a resonating surface such as the trunk of a dead tree. Woodpeckers use various displays, including head-weaving and body-bobbing, during courtship and as signs of aggression toward intruders.”

William A. Lenhausen, “Woodpeckers,” ADF&G, 2008.

It’s cold, we’re skiing still, and I’m not going to join the head-bobbing spring drum circle yet. I will note, though, that the woodpecker, like the struggling middle-aged writer, takes advantage of heart rot. Hollowed out trees not only make better drums (true story, no matter what beautiful things John Straley writes), but they also make better habitats for insect prey. The point of that non-story, I guess, is that we oughta leave our old growth forests in tact, allow trees and bad blog writers to age, so they can see themselves in one another, and so those drumming peckers can couple up. Male woodpeckers actually share all the domestic duties, and they can do in tens of thousands of potentially pesky insects, so laissez les bons temps (and drums) roller, I guess. 

Meanwhile, some bons temps roll for Cedar and human…skiing (then snoring), walking, reading (ahem), and generally wagging to some fine March weather. 

Dear Cedar, 

I’m sorry to have left you once more, but it sounds like you’re in good hands. Did I hear that you got to go shopping in PetCo and pick out your own toy? A frisbee sounds so you. Nice job. I’m getting very good reports from the Boxes, who tell me you have your own special snow spot lounge on their deck.

That makes me happy, kid. Keep it up, and go easy on the panting when you want to play, okay?

I suppose you’re wondering why I left again. This time it’s to go back for a reunion with some parts of the state and myself that I’ve lost touch with. I’ve been able to reconnect with my friends Clo and Bruce who have supported me through all kinds of crazy transitions and moments in life. (A transition is like when you go in and out the door a million times—one of those, but it takes a little longer and seems harder for us humans.)

They’ve been sharing their experiences doing things like crust skiing and winter fat biking and dragging docks to their cabin with snow machines, and flying planes and burying their old house and–I can relate to your panting–Bruce likes to heat the old sauna up to 180 degrees. (That’s even hotter than the Boxes’ house when the sun is out.) Clo and Bruce are both tougher than your dad, but I faked being tough by skiing for most of a morning through amazing trails around the whole city of Anchorage with birch and black spruce and lots of moose tracks. Moose are like a cross between a dog and a dinosaur. 

Speaking of dogs, I’m sorry you didn’t get to meet their dog, Otter. You two would have had some fun together, I know. But when I come home smelling like someone else, please know my heart is still with you. 

Can’t wait to toss that frisbee to you, 

Love, 

Dad