Saturday Morning Walks

I like my Saturday morning walks down to the Potomac to pick up trash. This time of year the trees are all beautiful colors. And today, pre-hurricane Sandy, the weather was warm and sunny.

First wildlife sighting this morning was just below the old tobacco barn on the farm where an antlered white tail deer came out of the woods on one side of the farm road and crossed to the other maybe 20 yards in front of me.

Then I saw 3 pairs of bald eagles -- or one pair three times -- or something like that. That's always fun. I like that I can identify their chuckling calls to each other and know to look for them.

Later on I was down at the beach and came upon a flock of at least 20 bluebirds on the sand eating seeds or bugs, flitting between the shrubs and the ground. A couple of them made their way to about 12 feet from me to investigate whether I was all that interesting. Apparently I wasn't worth further research. After a few minutes a large group of crows came along and flushed all the bluebirds and suddenly it seemed like maybe there were 50 of them, not just 20. I don't know if they were the proverbial bluebirds of happiness, but they made me happy.

Then along a wooded road I came across a white throated sparrow or two singing away. They're always a favorite of mine because I can whistle their song (though each fall I have to ask Ann whether they are the white throated or the white crown sparrows!). I can remember a time not all that long ago when I had no idea that there are as many different kinds of sparrows as there are.

Walking back up to the house I circled past the Children's Garden and through the farmyard, then up past the chicken coops. As I got a little closer to the house I heard a persistent coughing or snorting in the woods, and spied three deer whom I took to be a doe and her two young ones. These are probably the three I see most mornings these days as I drive out our driveway to work. The momma was scratching her nose with a hind hoof over and over and over again; the source of the noise that had caught my attention. I left them be and went through the gate to our yard.

Jacques Barzun

When I was studying for my Master of Sacred Theology degree, one of the textbooks in a historiography class was The Modern Researcher by Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff. Barzun died this week. These lines from his obituary in the "Washington Post" caught my eye:

“In essays and a series of books on American education, including 'Teacher in America' (1945) and 'The American University: How It Runs, Where It Is Going' (1968), Dr. Barzun presented education as having a mandate to impart 'common knowledge and common reference.' He inveighed against 'the gangrene of specialism' in college offerings that he thought would cause the 'individual mind [to be] doomed to solitude and the individual heart to drying up'.”

[From “Jacques Barzun, wide-ranging cultural historian, dies at 104” Washington Post, 26 October 2012 (emphasis added)]

I like that.