09.02.09
The Blue Heron cometh – to Touch: The Journal of Healing
Wow, it’s been 6 months since I posted here!
Much has happened in the past 6 months. Not only did our launch of Touch: The Journal of Healing go well in May of this year, it was even better than we had hoped for. We actually received over 120 submissions in the three categories we publish, poetry, prose, and graphics. From all of these we published 25 pieces created by other writers and photographers. We also dedicated the journal to a professional colleague of mine.
Just a few minutes ago, I uploaded issue 2 of Touch. This issue features many new poets as well as several who were published in issue 1.
At this point you might be scratching your head as you wonder what in the world a Blue Heron has to do with Touch: The Journal of Healing. Several days ago I found the bird control netting that I use to keep the koi and goldfish in the pond and the birds – i.e. ducks & geese out – laying in the water. We have a bullfrog who has taken up residence at the pond. He or she has appeared every spring for the past few years. I wouldn’t be surprised if the frog actually stays at the pond over the winter because several years ago I found one half frozen at the bottom of the settling chamber when I was cleaning out the sediment before I closed the pond for the season several years back. On occasion I will find him/her hopping across the net. This causes the net to be pulled down into the water, and it happens most often in the evening hours when the frog comes out to feed. The following morning I’ll find the frog sitting on the net sort of wading, but I’ve had this subtle nagging in the back of my mind about a Blue Heron. It’s been about 5 years since I’ve seen a Heron at the pond, and there had been no evidence of one, but I still had this nagging suspicion.
This morning, my nagging suspicion turned into my worst nightmare. At 8:30 AM I went out to the pond to feed the fish and there standing at the edge of the settling chamber – which has no net – was a friggin’ Blue Heron. As soon as I opened the door, the bird took to flight, but it was too late. If you’ve ever seen one of these things in flight up close, you’ll be reminded of a Pterodactyl. As I approached the pond, there on the bottom of the chamber were fish scales. The weren’t big enough to have come from a koi, but I counted the koi anyway. The damn bird got goldfish.
A few goldfish wash over the spillway between the pond and settling chamber from the spring to late summer whenever they spawn. I leave a few of them in the settling chamber to eat the filamentous algae that grows abundantly and the settling chamber is also where the goldfish fry (babies) grow into adolescence. At no time have I found a Heron at the pond of seen any evidence of one during this year. So during the past two weeks while we’ve been working to get issue 2 of Touch online, one of these damn birds has been visiting.
All day today, this bird harassed the pond. Whenever I’d see it approach the pond. I’d run out to scare it off. Sometime this afternoon, it seemed to come straight down from the sky before I chased it away, so I left the front door open so as not to alarm it for the next encounter and about 15 minutes later I saw it again. After I chased it away, I waited under the porch roof for about five minutes then slowly walked out to the yard as I looked up at the house roof. Sure enough, the damn bird was perched on the front peak of the roof. Here I was blaming the frog for sitting on the bird control netting. Heron usually feed most aggressively at dawn and dusk, so every 30 minutes or so I would go out into the yard to chase it away. After dusk, it didn’t return.
O.P.W.