Porter and Austin

I enjoyed reading Porter, her language and story telling abilities made it a joy to read. So far I feel that many of the writings we have read discribe nature. Here she nature is much more of an adventure to see it. FInding the moth and seeing it, studying it was a big adventure that she was longing to have and then finally did. Even taking the pictures was an adventure, people were out and about and she was "working as fast as I could make my fingers fly". Not only the hatching moth but the excitment and anticipation made it seem like such an exciting event. I like adventures (though I rarely seek them out), but I would have gotten excited for the Cecropia.

While reading Austin my mind travelled to amazing plants and animals. Here I am in Northern Indiana sweating more then I ever have and reading about plants and animals that have a limited source of water but survive, (without complaining).

One of the comments I like is "Trust Indians not to miss any virtues of the plant world!" How is it that many Native peoples around the world (not all) have been able to live for so long without major damage to the earth and the rest of us who have moved around the world have messed things up. Would this be a reason for our culture (and the many generations before us)to be so disconnected from the world, because we don't have the native vegetation in us? I don't know it was a thought that I had.

Shrub Carr Ecosystem

Eastern Wood Peewee

Order:Passeriformes

Family:Tyrannidae

Genus:Contopus

Species:C. virens

Identifying Characteristics: Adults are grey-olive on upperside and light on underside with olive coloring on breast. Whitish wingbars. Call is a "peee-a-weeee".

Special Adaptations: Very large habitat.

Softleaf Arrowwood

Order:Dipsacales

Family:Caprifoliaceae

Genus:Viburnum

Species:V. molle

Identifying Characteristics:

Special Adaptations:

Question Mark Butterfly

Order:Lepidoptera

Family:Nymphalidae

Genus:Polygonia

Species:P. interrogationis

Identifying Characteristics: The silver mark on underside of hindwing is broken into two parts and looks like a question mark. Upperside of wing is red-orange with black spots. Live in wooded areas with some open spaces.

Porter and Austin

I have to start off by saying that I love female nature writers. It may be because I am a woman myself, but for some reason their writing draws me in and hold me there. It seems as though every female nature writer has a maternal view of nature that they bring to their writing. This makes it so special and so different from the many, many male writers that we read so often. Now I'm not saying that I don't appreciate nature writing from a male perspective, but it is just SO different when it comes from a woman.

Reading Gene Stratton Porter made me giggle and brought me back to a lunch I had with my grandmother and her friends before I came to Merry Lea. They had invited me out for their weekly lunch and during the lunch wanted to hear all about what I would be doing in graduate school. Now these ladies are not your typical 80-90 year old women, they are sharp, smart, and progressive. They loved what I would be studying and wanted to give me every bit of advice to help me. One of my favorites mentioned Gene Stratton Porter. She said that I would have to go visit her house since I would be so close to it and continued talking about how much she enjoyed reading her when she was a child. She talked about how she wanted to be just like the girl of the limberlost and read Porter to her children when they were young.

Anyways, I really enjoyed reading Porter. I remember reading her when I was young, but I didn't have the same experience as I did reading it today. I love her writing. It is so poetic yet down to earth and natural. It is easy to understand, yet beautiful. The way that she was describing the Cecropia moth was fascinating. I loved that she spent so much time focused on this one species of moth and the intense love that she had for it. The way she describes her encounters with the moth makes it seem almost magical and mysterious. If she would not have said so, I would never have thought this moth was a common one.

Reading Austin though brought me back to the type of writing I love. For some reason I love deserts. They fascinate me. I am always amazed by the amount of life that is happening in such a seemingly barren place. In my undergrad I was a Southwestern Studies minor. Basically all of my classes for my minor involved Southwestern nature writing and history. Austin's writing was very similar to all of that and I really loved it because of this. Southwestern writing tend to show this connection to the land and the culture of that land. I saw this while I was reading. She constantly refers to all the physical attributes that make up the land as well as the "Indians" that inhabited it at that time. You can tell from her writing that she really loved everything about the desert. This is true about so many people. While living in Texas I met many people who disliked Texas for many reason, but refused to leave because of the diverse landscape and culture that fills the area. I felt this many times while reading.

I looked up a bit of information about Austin after the reading. She was born in Illinois and did not move to the Southwest until she graduated college. Her family then moved to California. Throughout her life she studied Indian life in the Mojave Desert and became a defender of Native American and Spanish-American rights. This view is shown in much of her writing of all types. I saw it in this reading that we did and it felt very much like the feeling you get when you read other female Southwestern writers.

Hot, Hot, Heat

I have always enjoyed the writings of Gene Stratton Porter and how she draws you into her writings visually- and without pictures too! What I think is most significant for me about this selection is not so much her hunt for the moth, but the realization that she is hauling around a really heavy set of camera equipment to photograph with through the marshes, swamps, and bogs! Here is a good representation of the type of camera she was using- she would have also had a large, wooden tripod to attach it to, a case holding many negative holder (where the film is kept), release cord, large, dark blanket for standing under (in that hot, hot, heat!), and I'm probably not naming everything..... In order to take the actual picture of the moving specimen, she had to stand underneath the blanket, look through the glass (which has everything backwards and upside down, manually focus by moving the bellows back and forth, set the aperture, close the shutter, take the negative holder out of the case, put it in the back of the camera, take the darkslide off carefully, press down on the release cord, take the picture, and then put the darkslide cover back in and remove the negative holder...all awhile, hoping that the specimen hasn't moved! I am in awe of by her diligence and persistence. With all of our digital camera fanciness we have today, we have forgotten so much of our past- and how perhaps there was more appreciation for species, like moths, because of how time consuming it was to actually take that picture! There were no such thing as a snapshot back then. These images would have been indispensable and precious to the one who captured them. Their value, undoubtable, was unmeasurable.

Yay Women Writers!

Let me start this blog response by saying that I really enjoyed reading these articles that were written by women during the 1900s. I thought that was really neat.

The first article by Gene Stratton Porter, "From Moths if the Limberlost," felt like an adventure from Indiana Jones or Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It was like the author was searching for the holy grail but this time it was a butterfly/moth and she didn't have a whip or she wasn't using coconuts as horse hooves. As reading of how the author was on this long search for the Cecropia I couldn't help but feel discomfort. From studying to be a scientist I understand that we need to discover and research things to move on to the next level but I often struggle with feeling the need to discover and name every species out there. And to discover all those species it requires taking them out of their natural habitat so we as humans can fully understand every little piece of that certain species. Now don't get me wrong I love exploring new areas and discovering new things and I love labs, but this is just a constant struggle that I feel. In the realm of science, there has always been that constant struggle, of finding how to find a good balance between humans and nature.

I really connected to Mary Austin's article "The Land of Little Rain" because it was a little taste of familiarity and it actually made me really miss home. Even though Austin was talking about California I couldn't help but think of home. She did a good job of describing the wonder about the desert and how it's so different from other places like Indiana. I really do love the dry weather, blue skies, sunshine, painted rocks. Austin is right, it for sure doesn't rain a lot but when it does it is so spectacular! The clouds get dark blue and purple and the lighting is unbelievable, so clear and dangerous and then when it does rain... it rains! But then after 15 minutes or so the rain stops and the clouds move on and then the sun breaks through. Those are the type of storms I like. Another thing that I really enjoy is that you can look out at a landscape and see for miles to the next horizon, and you can see every crevice and do't get me started on the texture of the rocks! . Austin states, "Very fertile are the desert plants in expedients to prevent evaporation, turning their foliage edgewise toward the sun, growing silky hairs, exuding viscid gum." I think that is just so amazing how plant life adapts to the climate of the desert and how it survives. Those are the type of things that assure me of why I choose to study biology and why I want to be an environmental educator.

Porter/Austin

I love everything about Gene Stratton Porter except her writing. For some reason, I just can’t get used to her style. “Moths of the Limberlost” does contain the perfect description of finding and photographing a Cecropia moth, and I actually liked this except more than some of her other works.

I clearly remember finding my first Cecropia. I couldn’t believe how big it was. The moth seemed otherworldly. Perhaps Porter had a hard time finding the Cecropia because it has a short life span. I got lucky finding mine. It was resting quietly on the side of a building. I know there is some skill in capturing butterflies and moths, but I believe a lot of it is luck. Enter skill. Porter’s placement of the female Cecropia was deliberate. She experienced a moth orgy like no other. I had heard Porter routinely left her windows and doors open to allow butterflies and moths to enter at all times. In this case it seemed to work perfectly.

As I read “The Land of Little Rain” it is pouring outside the Merry Lea Learning Center. A gully has formed next to the construction project. The newly constructed river will eventually find its way to the Elkhart River. I have never read any of Mary Austin’s work. She shares the power of description with Porter, but I find her much easier to follow. I can feel the heat she describes, and know the despair. Is Austin depressed? I think so.

Potter & Austin...

Even in these spaces/places that seemingly appear unhospitable, there is a way to transcend & break on through and live. Austin's telling of how it,"becomes necessary to keep eggs cool rather than warm", was amazing to picture. How the birds shield their young and become a medium of shade, while there is"...no special preponderance of the self-fertilized or wind-fertilized plants, but everywhere the demand for and evidence of insect life."
Austin seemed to connect respect for the deserts' living inhabitants to their belonging landscape -mirroring the tenacity of those plant relatives. "There are hints to be had here of the way in which a land forces new habits on its dwellers...", it's true, we respond to our environment, to a culture of place. "They trick the sense of time, so that once inhabiting there you always mean to go away without quite realizing that you have not done it." Surely, the land is a witness to our sense (or lack of) of belonging. Fragility of life and its' own self-determination spoke to me in Land of Little Rain,"...so much earth must be preempted to extract so much moisture. The real struggle for existence, the real brain of the plant, is underground; above there is room for a rounded perfect growth.

Just picturing an "amaranthus ten ft high and a year later matured at 4 inches" reminds me of the impermanence all sentient beings face.
Yesterday you were in the world alongside your wife of 40+ plus years and today you are telling me about her because she has shape-shifted and you find her presence -out there, in the land dear to you. I stuck around yesterday & got to talking to Larry and had no clue that he had lost his wife 8 months ago.

As a witness, I wonder how the desert receives the bodies of people dying, from the noted perished "coolie" men to those today crossing the border. It's a clenching terrain for how you must persevere in order to not die and when you do, it's the way you go that is most hellish, "Dehydration had reduced all your inner streams to sluggish mudholes. . . . Your sweat runs out. . . . Your temperature redlines -- you hit 105, 106, 108 degrees. . . . Your muscles, lacking water, feed on themselves. They break down and start to rot. . . . The system closes down in a series. Your kidney, your bladder, your heart." - Luis Alberto Urrea, "The Devil's Highway,".

The end of Moths of the Limberlost, made me smile at her highly animated personhood. Potter definitely enjoyed herself and even though I am not about collecting "specimens"in these ways, she conveyed the process of her coming to know, and that's the piece she relished and shaped her. Evidently, she truly lived along side the Cecropia to be in the know of their mating, the intricacies in the laying of eggs, stories of cocoon emergence,"...with Cecropias holding high carnival...from every direction they came floating like birds down the moonbeams.
I imagine the Cecropias came to know a Potterness, that could only come from being gleaned in such close scrutiny.