Happy Earth Day, Horace!

I was glad that Lisa, over at A Walk in our Garden, invited me to participate in the Earth Day Reading Project this week. Sponsored by Sage Butterfly's blog, the idea is to talk about 3 books that have inspired you to "live green." There are lots of books about nature that I love and I'll stretch the meaning of "living green" to include them, since for me a love of nature and taking steps to protect it go hand in hand. The first book I will mention is one I read in 8th grade, Camping and Woodcraft: A Handbook for Vacation Campers and for Travelers in the Wilderness, by Horace Kephart (available free from Google books). Kephart was born in 1862; this title was published in 1917. I found it in my local public library.

I was fascinated by his illustrations of various types of shelter, each with a romantic name like "Hudson Bay tent," and "tomahawk shelter." I couldn't wait to follow his instructions for assembling a bed roll for my next camping trip. He quotes a "southern Indian's" advice on building a fire that won't waste wood (Vol. 1, page 232); something I applied each time we camped. There are many things that distinguish Kephart's book from other camping books--his abundant opinions, his instructions for lost arts, his obvious love for the land and the people who lived their lives immersed in it.

Camping and Woodcraft is an 800+ page, two-volume work. Why would a 12-year-old choose this ancient tome? Honestly, there were few other camping books available to me in the mid-1960s. (Today, the St. Louis County Library system lists 164 books on the subject--still low for a system that holds about 1.4 million books.) Unfortunately, Kephart's books are no longer part of the collection. I'm pretty sure I skipped over the chapter titled "Trophies--Pelts and Rawhide," but I checked the book out several times and eventually read everything else. 

The best material is in Vol. II, Woodcraft: splitting a log, building a "masked camp," bee-hunting, "How to Walk," and cabin building. I tried his instructions--pictured above--for "Boiling water in a bark kettle" (Vol. 2, p. 257). Not having access to birch bark in my area, I constructed it from paper. It actually worked! Not only is the paper kettle watertight, and you cook with it and the paper doesn't burn (usually). I tried some recipes too, including "ash cake," but that wasn't exactly a hit with my scout troop. I'd stay away from the sassafras tea too.

I had to wait till the age of Wikipedia to find out more about the author. Most of Kephart's writing is about Appalachia, including the area that later became Great Smokey Mountain National Park, so I assumed he had always lived in that area. Episode 4 of Ken Burns' National Parks covers his contribution to the park and the Appalachian Trail. I was surprised to learn that he had a local connection: he directed the St. Louis Mercantile Library for 13 years. The Mercantile is a private library, established in 1846. I was a member of the library when it was located downtown. Now on the campus of University of Missouri-St. Louis, it's the oldest library still active in the US.

I puzzled over his dedication for a long time: “To the shade of Nessmuk in the Happy Hunting Ground.” Nessmuk (George Sears) and Kephart both wrote for Field and Stream and both were obsessed with wilderness. Born in 1821, Nessmuk is another throw-back who regarded progress as a very mixed blessing. It took a lot longer to run down Nessmuk's writings (now also available free from Gutenberg.org).

Some of Kephart's projects would no longer be considered "green," such as marking a trail with a hatchet and building a bed with fresh pine boughs nightly, but his enthusiasm for living simply, surrounded by forests, rocks, and sky make it worth reading even in the 21st Century. 

Happy Earth Day, Horace! Maybe some other folks out there in the blogosphere would like to participate in this 3-book tribute. Check out the description of the meme! The rest of my book list will have to wait for a later post.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love a Scorpion

Striped Bark Scorpion, photo by Ted MacRae

Earlier this month, one of my favorite blogs, Beetles in the Bush, had a popular post about scorpions. Seeing Ted’s scorpion photos—which he generously loaned to me—reminded me of my own limited experiences with these arachnids. The difference is I didn’t stick around to take photos. I skedaddled. Except once…

I worked for more than 20 summers at youth camps, most of that time at the same camp in Missouri. The camp is situated in the foothills of the Ozarks, four valleys surrounded by seven hills. West and south-facing slopes have comparatively sparse vegetation; cedar trees (Juniperus virginiana), post oaks (Quercus stellata), and fragrant sumac (Rhus aromatica), and an occasional patch of prickly pear cactus. In between are enormous limestone ledges, some like small cliffs, sparse grass, and butterfly weed. When I took a field zoology class from Dave Tylka I saw what was underneath those slabs of limestone. Until that first field trip, I never dreamed of turning over a rock to see if a black widow waited in ambush underneath.

So much for the ecological background.

This particular summer, I worked in the camp office. Along with 3 others, I stayed in a split-level cabin. On the upper level were 2 small bedrooms, an ancient bath and shower, and a phone that never stopped ringing. The lower level was a meeting area/kitchen, furnished with a couch and chairs made of a clunky log framework and a vinyl-covered cushions, fiesta orange. The walls and ceilings were stained lumber. Some described the style as “Early Adirondack.” Others noted its resemblance to a coffin.

We had a bigger problem than orange furniture in our cabin—roaches. They were everywhere, and I’m talking about big roaches. Flying roaches! My horror knew no bounds. The assistant director was a young woman from south Texas, who went by “Tex.” She was a fun-loving person, but not one to suffer a fool lightly. And I was being very foolish.

“Well my goodness, it’s nothin’ but a li’l billy ole roach!” she’d say with disdain. “Such a fuss over a li’l billy ole roach, cain’t even hurt nobody. Now if it was a stangin’ scorpion I could understand it, but this is jus’ a li’l billy ole roach!”

The next morning, I pulled a clean T-shirt out of the chest. If you’ve ever spent time at camp, you know the tremendous value of a clean shirt. Out of that shirt leaped a roach! They heard me screaming on the next hillside. Tex was not impressed. “The way you carry on over a li’l billy ole roach, cain’t even hurt nobody. I could understand it if it was a stangin’ scorpion, but that’s nuthin’ but a li’l billy ole roach! Back home, we had stangin’ scorpions. Now if it was a stangin’ scorpion, that’d be different, but this is nuthin’ but a li’l billy ole roach, cain’t even hurt nobody.” We replayed this scene every day. Every day for 4 weeks. It was beginning to undermine my self-confidence.

One evening we had a meeting of camp counselors in the big room on the lower level. There was lots of laughter, some yawning, and a bit of arguing over the campfire plans. Just as the meeting was about to break up, I noticed something scuttling across the floor. The screen door no longer met the threshold and through that gap marched the biggest scorpion I ever hope to see. In a flash, weeks of humiliation overcame my cultural bias against invertebrates, and I called out cheerily, “Oh Tex! There’s someone here to see you!”

She bounded down the short steps into the room, and made eye contact with all eight eyes of our very own stangin’ scorpion. She screamed for days…

You don't find satisfaction like that every day. I grabbed a broom, encouraging “Little Stangie” to climb onto the bristles. Puzzled and amazed counselors watched as I gently carried it out to the dark rocky glade by the door. I didn’t want some insect-phobe trampling this misunderstood arachnid. I might need him again one day.

The only species of scorpion in Missouri is the striped bark scorpion (Centruroides vittatus). Along with other species of plants and animals of the glades, it’s a relic of Missouri’s ancient past as a desert. Missouri Department of Conservation says that our species averages between 1 and 1 and a half inches. No way! This big daddy was twice that! They also note that the sting is no more dangerous than that of a wasp. An article by Darryl Sanders on Missouri University Extension website states that they can be “up to 2.5 inches long.” MDC tell us its favorite meal might be spiders, beetles, or smaller scorpions. And li’l billy ole roaches.