Tomorrow is my grandson, Kenne Jaxon’s 8th birthday. It’s been about two years since we have seen our grandsons, Jaxon and Nick, so we had planned on visiting them in New Hampshire in May. Because of the pandemic, our plans have been put on hold. So I began to look for a gift to send Jaxon and in doing so became aware of a poetry book for children, The Lost Words, by Robert Macfarlane. It’s a collection of acrostic spell-poems, beautifully illustrated by Jackie Morris, each one devoted to a word removed from the Oxford Junior Dictionary.
Robert Macfarlane is a British writer and Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He is best known for his books on landscape, nature, place, people, and language.
“Books, like landscapes, leave their marks in us. (…) Certain books, though, like certain landscapes, stay with us even when we left them, changing not just our weathers but our climates.”
Two pre-schoolers live with their parents at the end of Tanuri Drive making it easy to put lessons on the street.
Everyone in Tanuri Ridge is now sheltered at home. There are only 72 homes in our community where many of us are spending some of our days walking the streets of Tanuri Ridge.
Some of us wander off down by the Tanque Verde Wash.
Stay safe, everyone.
One Beautiful Bird (Turkey Vulture) — Image by kenne
I had walked since dawn and lay down to rest on a bare hillside
Above the ocean. I saw through half-shut eyelids a vulture wheeling
high up in heaven,
And presently it passed again, but lower and nearer, its orbit
narrowing,
I understood then
That I was under inspection. I lay death-still and heard the flight-
feathers
Whistle above me and make their circle and come nearer.
I could see the naked red head between the great wings
Bear downward staring. I said, ‘My dear bird, we are wasting time
here.
These old bones will still work; they are not for you.’ But how
beautiful
he looked, gliding down
On those great sails; how beautiful he looked, veering away in the
sea-light
over the precipice. I tell you solemnly
That I was sorry to have disappointed him. To be eaten by that beak
and
become part of him, to share those wings and those eyes–
What a sublime end of one’s body, what an enskyment; what a life
after death.
— Robinson Jeffers
Turkey Vultures leaving their overnight stay along the Tanque Verde Wash as they continue their migration north.
Turkey Vultures Migrating North — Photo-Artistry by kenne
This is the time of year when hundreds of migrating turkey vultures
spend the night along the Tanque Verde wash, each morning they start
circling up seeking wind currents in their ride north.
This image is a composite of four images placed on a sky background.
The other morning we counted over 250 turkey vultures leaving the Tanque Verde Wash just south of our community.
This time of year hundreds of turkey vultures spend the night in trees along the wash.
Turkey Vultures Against A White Sky — Image by kenne
“Turkey Vultures are large birds, cloaked in loose-fitting brown/black feathers that make them look shaggy and unkempt when perched. The legs and feet are sturdy and unfeathered; the color, where not coated in excrement, is cherub pink.
The face is ruddy and wrinkled and topped with an embarrassingly sparse cap of feathers. Its expression is uncommonly serene and there is something about it that suggests infinite patience. Huddled on their perches, wrapped in shabby vestments, the birds look like a group of balding monks gathered in prayer.”
We all love the beautiful Bougainvillea blossoms. They add a lot of color to the Tucson landscape. However, maintaining them can be very frustrating. For starters, they have very long thorns, so pruning must be done very carefully, and they will die at the first frost, which can happen easily since we live near a wash allowing the cold night air to drop lower than the surrounding areas.
He loves bougainvilleas but hated the thorns. He wanted to know why all beauty came with such pain and was it as answer less as where eggs came from when life is all about the eggs, “because we need the eggs.”
Last Of The Migrating Turkey Vultures — Images by kenne (Three images in a slideshow format.)
Usually, by 1st of April, the last of the turkey vultures rousting overnight near the Tanque Verde has completed the spring migration north. This year we have counted upwards of 100 leaving each morning now well into April.
Another Sign Of Spring, Turkey Vultures Overnight by the Tanque Verde Wash
— Photo-Artistry by kenne
“In the time of the ancients,
the sun moved close to the earth
making life unsustainable.
Whereupon all animals gathered
to see what could be done,
deciding the sun had to be moved.
One by one, attempts were made
to move the sun.
Some, like the fox,
used his mouth
to pull the sun away,
but it was so hot
and he had to stop,
leaving his mouth black
still to this day.
Next, the opossum tried moving the sun with his tail,
but he too had to stop,
for the sun was too hot,
leaving his tail bald
still to this day.
Seeing all this,
being the most powerful
and beautiful of birds,
the vulture feared the earth
would soon burn up.
So, she bravely placed her
head against the sun,
flying high into the heavens.
Even with her crown of feathers burning, she never stopped until the sun was far away and the earth was safe.
Now you know
how the vulture
saved the world
and lost her
magnificent feathers
still to this day.”
We moved to Tanuri Ridge in June of 2010. In February Margarita Berg a resident of this neighborhood passed away. So we never met Margarita, but feel we got to know her through her husband, David.
David and Margarita would frequently walk their dogs on the trails down by the Tanque Verde Wash. Shortly after we moved here, I discovered the trails and the area designated initially by the Tanuri Ridge developer as a community park.
Anyone who has walked these trails is aware of Margarita’s memorial on a trail nearest the wash. Located at the base of a mesquite tree, approximately thirty feet from the washes edge.
During the winter of 2015, heavy rains in the mountains sent a current of water washing away some of the banks of the usually dry wash.
Then, last week heavy winter participation in the mountains overnight again sent a flash flood down the wash, rerouting the flow.
Noticing the flow of water from our patio that morning, I waited till the afternoon before going down to the wash.
As I walked the trail, I could see trail nearest the wash was gone, so too the mesquite tree with Margarita’s memorial.
The flow of the wash was now down about four feet from its early morning peak. The flooding had been so extensive, socking the land making it too dangerous to go looking for the tree.
I returned the next day to try walking west along the wash.
Looking across the wash, on the newly formed island a tree laid with large roots sticking up. Was this Margrete’s tree?
I wasn’t sure till I spotted a yellow plastic flower hanging in the debris.
Once I downloaded the images, I cropped the image of the downed tree. Over the years since 2011, the memorial has been maintained, adding plastic flowers and hanging trinkets from the tree.
In the early days of the memorial, David would visit the site, dropping rose petals on the memorial plaque.
“Goldfinches”– Photo-Artistry by kenne
Images by kenne
One Beautiful Bird (Turkey Vulture) — Image by kenne
Turkey Vultures Migrating North — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Cactus Blossoms — Image by kenne
Turkey Vultures Migrating North — Image by kenne
Turkey Vultures Against A White Sky — Image by kenne
Bougainvillea — Image by kenne
Turkey Vulture in Flight Over the Tanque Verde Wash — Image by kenne
“Liftoff ” (Turkey Vulture in Dead Tree Along Tanque Verde Wash) — Image by kenne
Another Sign Of Spring, Turkey Vultures Overnight by the Tanque Verde Wash
Turkey Vultures In The Morning Sun — Images by kenne
Desert Globemallow — Images by kenne
