The rare annual saguaro migration unveiled

During a recent trip to Payson, up the Beeline Highway, I was privileged to see the annual Saguaro Migration in full swing. This annual event has been totally ignored by everyone from National Geographic to Arizona Highways. It has also yet to be featured on Blue Planet. You will have to excuse the pictures because they were taken at 65 mph on the highway. It is not recommended that you exit your vehicle while the Saguaros are migrating.

You can just see the herd in the distance, coming over the hill. It is unusual to see them during daylight hours, but the weather has been very warm into the later part of the year and saguaros take advantage of the warm weather, even during daylight hours.

An old male saguaro is running from a pack of carnivorous cholla. The cholla prey on the weaker, smaller saguaros or those who stray from the herd.

You can just catch the lead bull saguaro leading the march across the desert.



A few juvenile Saguaros approach the highway. Unfortunately, many are killed trying to cross four lanes of traffic. You often see their squished bodies laying on the side of the road with their little roots sticking into the air. You who live in the South can relate by thinking of armadillos only longer and green.

Another shot showing a mixed group gathering for a quick dash across the highway.

He who hesitates is lost. Some of these fellows appear a little undecided.

This is a Saguaro barrier, a futile attempt to protect the migrating herd. You may think it is a crash barrier but that is what they want you to think.

Arizona is a land of extremes. But it is very disappointing that the conservationists have been so effective in protecting this species that their annual migration has almost gone unnoticed.

Arizona has flowers besides cactus

Some thoughts on poetry

Writing poetry is hard work. Contrary to popular belief, poetry is not simply short lines of prose arranged to look like a "poem." Here is an apparently simple poem by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Rain

The rain is falling all around,
It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.

[this poem came from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson, as available on Gutenberg.org]

I say apparently simple, because no poetry is simple. Let's look at this poem.

Stevenson makes a comment that is universal. But he makes his comment in a formal way, using certain conventions that make the thought unique and memorable. It is not the line length or the appearance that makes this into a poem. It is the combination of rhyme, meter, and content. So much of what I see today tries to be poetry by talking about "poetical" things. The whole world may be full of poetry, but it must be put into some form of rhyme, meter or content to actually become a poem.

Considering Stevenson's poem only from the standpoint of syllabic meter, it is in the form 8 syllables/6 syllables/8 syllables/6 syllables with rhyme on the last syllable of each of the two 6 syllable lines. The first and third lines have 4 iambic feet (tetrameter), that is accent on the second syllable such as -/. The second and fourth lines each have three iambic feet (trimeter). The word "umbrellas" is slightly problematical because the preceding stressed syllable falls on the word "the." The poem is constructed with enjambed or run-on lines in which the sense of the poem continues on to the next line without a natural syntactical pause, establishing a strong grammatical pull between the lines known as enjambment. See

http://english3.fsu.edu/~mkennedy/poeticform.htm Meegan Kennedy, Department of English, Florida State University.

Although the content of the poem appears simple, the thought shows substantial reflection on the universality of human experience and the egalitarian nature of natural phenomenon.

The next time you see a "poem" in print, think about both the form and content. You may find that much of what is being passed off as poetry isn't poetry at all. From time to time I will continue to comment on poetry. I believe that if poetry fails so fails the world. Not that I believe that poetry has any saving grace, but that true poetry embodies all that is good and beautiful in the world. An evil world cannot produce true poetry. However, just as pictures can uplift and edify as well as degrade and destroy, so words can be used for evil purposes. True poetry comes from the fullness of the heart and if used for evil, to that extent is no longer poetry.

Back to signs

I know this one is pretty silly. But how many of you worry about those labels that say do not remove under penalty of law?

On getting old

I think I can now relate to this poem I have read all my life, especially the sixth stanza:

"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head -
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "As I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door -
Pray, what is the reason of that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
"I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment - one shilling the box -
Allow me to sell you a couple?"

"You are old," said the youth, "And your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose -
What has made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said his father; "don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!"

by Lewis Carroll

The subject of signs

Now that I am on the subject of signs, I thought I should complement the Arizona State Department of Transportation for dispelling one of my great fears in life. All around the state you see signs that say "ICE MAY BE PRESENT IN COLD WEATHER." It was always a secret fear of mine that driving through the blazing heat of summer in Arizona, I just might hit a patch of ice and fly off the road. Now courtesy of the AZDOT I no longer have to worry.

Dust storms in Arizona can cause serious accidents on the highways. Admittedly, this is a problem and one that all drivers should be aware of. However, there are signs that say "REDUCE SPEED IN TIMES OF LOW VISIBILITY." (There are a few variations). Now, if there is reduced visibility, how am supposed to see the sign? I guess its just supposed to be a reminder, like all those signs that say "DO NOT CROSS DOUBLE LINE." They just make it hard to turn left. Not to mention all of the signs that say, "DO NOT PASS." I guess I break that one every time I pass one of the signs.

Use no forks

I was driving down the road and, as usual, reading all the signs. There was a truck in front of me with a large box. Printed on the box were the words, "USE NO FORKS." Now, I have been living for quite a while, and I am pretty much up on the news and such, but I have no idea why there is now a movement in America to ban the use of forks. As a former, and sometimes present, Boy Scout, I have gotten along well with just a knife. However, it is a little hard to eat things like jello, pudding and cold cereal with a knife. I assumed that spoons were invented for that purpose, and although I could probably make due with my fingers, a spoon and knife, forks have seemed to be convenient on occasion. Come to think of it, I really can't think of anything I couldn't eat with my fingers, a spoon and a knife. Maybe they are on to something?

The Death March

About twenty five years ago we had one of those memorable hikes that has long since passed into legend and has been referred to as the Death March. First of all, and right out of the chute, no one died. This was a Stake Camporee. The organizers, who will remain anonymous to protect the guilty, decided that all of the eight or so Scout Troops should have a real hiking experience. Since the hike was planned for November, they decided to hike to Charlebois Spring, probably named for a cattleman named Lou Charlebois who was the President of the Arizona Cattlemen's Association, deep in the Superstition Wilderness area, just east of Apache Junction, Arizona.

http://archimede.mat.ulaval.ca/pages/morin/charlebois.web/RR01/RR01_003.HTM

If you want more information, do a search on Charlebois Spring and you will find hundreds of references. Others claim that the Spring was named after Joseph Fernando Charlebois.

See http://genforum.genealogy.com/charlebois/messages/83.html

But as my son Jared would say, I digress. Now, depending on the reference it is anywhere from 6 to 8 from any access road. It just so happened that very few of these potential Scout hikers had actually walked that far in their lifetimes, especially not in Superstition Mountains. It also happened, as is possible at any time in the desert, that the temperature during the day was about 95 degrees. Unfortunately, they set the time for departure about 4:00 in the afternoon, guaranteeing that most of the participants would have to hike in the dark. (This is the tie-in to my previous post). If you do go looking for pictures of Charlebois Spring, you will note that most of the people in the pictures are wearing coats. This is not because they are crazy, it is because no one, in their right mind, would go hiking out into the middle of the Superstitions if the temperature is not down in the low 70s or 60s, with night time temperatures in the 40s or below.

At this time, my sons were not old enough to be in Scouting, and I had little contact with the Scouting program. (Of course this changed dramatically and I have spent the last twenty years or so in Scouting). We left later than the rest of the Scouts and their leaders. I remember that there were three or four of us hiking in together. I went along, essentially, for the ride.

We hiked in from the west end at the First Water Trailhead following the Peralta Trail. Keeping to the right (south) we got to the junction with the Boulder Canyon trail (if you follow this trail you go past Weaver's Needle and then to the northwest side of the Fremont Saddle). At this point the trail follows a wash for a ways and it is difficult to tell where the trail splits off so, of course, we missed the Peralta Trail. I figured out that we weren't on the right trail after a few minutes. We circled back in a large circle until I found the trail part way up a hill. Now, to understand this story, you have to realize that circling back to find a trail in the Superstitions isn't not very straight forward. You can never tell if you are going to run into a canyon or a cliff or something and you have to avoid cactus and catclaw.

It was starting to get dark when we were moving down the Peralta and soon it got really dark. I didn't have much of a light and I don't use a flashlight unless it is absolutely necessary, so I just kept moving. When we got to the main group, it was about 8:30 or so and the scene looked like that part of Gone with the Wind where all the wounded soldiers are laying all over the ground. It was pretty grim. A lot of people were injured and had blisters or back problems or whatever. They were spread along the trail for a couple of hundred yards, since there really isn't a clearing or anything to camp in large enough for Scout Troops. Some of the Troops never made it to the gathering area and just camped along the trail.

I went to sleep and in the morning it was even worse. The area of the Spring is pretty, especially with 100 or so Scouts running around. I worked on filling my water bottles with my filter pump. There was plenty of water. Those in charge decided that they had made a mistake and told everyone to just leave. They had a bunch of activities planned but all of them seemed irrelevant given the condition of the leaders and Scouts. We started hiking out the Peralta towards the Peralta Trailhead. We were supposed to have people come and pick us up about 4:00 in the afternoon. This was pre-cell phone and so we had no way to coordinate the pickup time with the rides who were coming. I walked out by Bluff Spring and still had most of my water. Bad decision, I should have filled up there. Making the climb over the ridge by Miner's Needle, the Scouts and leaders started to run out of water. I found some to filter, but my filter clogged up. I have given away most of my water and so I decided I better get out so I could be of some help to the rest on the trail. I was like the second or third person out, but there is no water at the Peralta Trailhead so I begged water off of people leaving in their cars. Finally, someone gave me a two gallon jug full, so I drank the whole thing and started back up the trail with one other leader. We found people all along the trail so we passed everyone to find out who was in the back of the group. We found a couple of leaders in really bad shape, almost passing out from the heat and dehydration. We gave them some water, took their packs and made them keep moving. I literally had to push my guy down the trail. We finally all got out.

When I got home, I found out I had lost six pounds of water in one day. Some of the Troops didn't get back until late that Saturday night after being lost all day. It was interesting.

Things that go blink in the night

Thinking about walking around in the dark reminded me of other dark related incidents in my, now dim, past. Our Scout troop would camp at various locations around the state, most of which, at the time, were moderately inaccessible. We camped for almost a week in a campground back into the canyon above where West Clear Creek now crosses Highway 260, which at the time was mostly a dirt road.

One night on this West Clear Creek camp, we were out running around in the dark making noise and probably playing capture the flag, when we saw a light a short distance away. Suddenly, we all stopped and stared at this rather unusual event. We ran towards the light to see if we could find the source and soon discovered that it was in a large bush. We shined our flashlights into the bush and the light disappeared. After a rather long discussion, we chocked the whole thing up to some hitherto unexplained natural phenomena, when the light appeared again a little ways off. At this point we had to decide whether to start being afraid or what. But the light disappeared and we finally all went to bed in our sleeping bags.

Many years later, for a short time, I lived along the Ohio River in Kentucky. This was my first introduction, as an adult, to the middle part of the United States. One of the things I saw for the first time were fireflies. It immediately occured to me that what had so mystified a bunch of Scouts from Arizona was nothing more than a lone firefly. I now know that fireflies are very uncommon, but not unknown, in Arizona. But it doesn't take that much to freak out a bunch of Scouts in the middle of the night.