Posey Magazine July/August 2011

July/August 2011

www.poseymagazine.com

Bob The bobcat saved from the wild and caught in a system that may fail him

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July/August 2011

©

A magazine for and about

Posey County, Indiana

Copyright 2011 No material can be reproduced without the written permission of Posey Magazine.

Contact us at: poseymagazine@aol.com

Cover stories

Bobcats were on the Indiana Endangered Species list until 2005.

As they made a slow comeback, the Division of Fish and Wildlife designated them a “species of special concern.” They are still considered “rare,” and the Department of Natural Resources has a duty to enhance and maintain a stable wild population. Writer Alison Baumann reports on one special bobcat that was saved from certain death and has become part of an odyssey that will leave you shaking your head. © Photographed by J. Bruce Baumann

Stories begin on page six

16 Feathers/By Sharon Sorenson Cherry tree birds 20 © A look back in time 24 I’m just sayin’ Posey County Students write about “True Love”

Posey Then & Now

25 Battle with a Bruin — A piece of Posey County history — By Linda Neal Reising 26 Posies/By Alison Baumann Ditch Flowers —the ultimate survivors 32 Butterflies — A brilliantly colorful addition to any garden — By Sharon Sorenson Special thanks to the following for their help

Darla Colbert, Heather Gallagher, Judy Grebe, Wayne Nall, Joseph Poccia, Kathy Riordan

THE MUSIC I

woke up singing this morning, but no one could hear me, not even my cat who dogs my every step. You see, I have a nearly constant soundtrack playing in my head that only I can hear. That is until I begin singing, or more frequently, humming along.

This morning it was “The Hut Sut Song,” a novelty song with mostly nonsense syllables made popular in the late 1940s. But it just as easily could have been the Webb Pierce version of “In the Jailhouse Now” or Elvis Presley’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” It might have been the Nancy Wilson version of “Lush Life” or a Motown tune.

One of my earliest memories is getting up as a toddler to slip into the kitchen to share Daddy’s breakfast. I was lured out of bed by the sounds of the early-morning radio and a musical jingle advertising “Checkerboard Square” cereal.

Once on, the radio played all day and into the night. Oh, of course, there were news programs and the occasional drama (“The Lone Ranger” was a personal favorite), but mostly it was music, music, music. My mother loved music, especially Big Bands, and my father loved music with an emphasis on country. But

it didn’t really matter much, as long as it was music. Well, when the country music got a little too mournful with cheating hearts and dead lovers, my mother would protest a bit, but by and large, as long as it had a beat she could dance to, Mother was happy.

She taught me how to dance with the same sweet patience she always showed when teaching me anything. Maybe because she remembered her brother, Clarence, teasing while teaching her the latest dance steps by threatening to show her only once.

She and my father had done much of their youthful courting with music as a backdrop, and I can close my eyes today and see them moving as one on a dance floor to “String of Pearls,” “In the Mood,” “Song of India,” “Amapola.”

In the summertime when the humidity matched the temperature and the unbearable heat came shimmering up off the asphalt, our little family would pile into whatever passed for our car at the time, and off we’d go for a nighttime drive in the country. You didn’t have to drive very far then to get deep into the country, and the cooler air would wash over us bringing with it the summertime smell of corn

growing.

We had no car radio, but with Daddy at the wheel, we didn’t need one. He’d sing whatever crossed his mind first and one song would lead to another and we’d all be singing along. Some were popular songs of the day and some were songs he had learned as a boy in the country standing at the sink and washing dishes with his sister Evaline.

From time to time, we would venture across a river, either the Ohio or the Wabash.

Even if I had dropped off to sleep in the back seat, I always knew we were on our way home when I would hear: “Back home again in Indiana, And it seems that I can see The gleaming candlelight, still shining bright Through the sycamores for me.

The newmown hay sends all its fragrance From the fields I used to roam.

When I dream about the moonlight on the Wabash, Then I long for my Indiana home.”

Bet you sang along, didn’t you?

—Charlene Tolbert Contributing Editor Posey Magazine She can be contacted at: poseymagazine@aol.com

POSEY POSTCARD

I only know that summer sang in me a little while, that in me sings no more.

© Photographed by J. Bruce Baumann

—Edna St. Vincent Millay

Saved from the wild

By Alison Baumann © Posey Magazine 2011

He was less than 24 hours old. He weighed about 2 ounces.

He was blind and helpless; his eyes would not open for another 10 days. A team of men clearing debris in the Wabash bottoms in Posey County had inadvertently tossed him out of his nest in a woodpile and either killed or scared off his mother; they found him curled up alone in the mud tracks of their equipment.

Although it was a cold, wet May day, the men figured the tiny bobcat kitten probably wouldn’t live long enough to die of starvation or exposure—coyotes and other predators regularly hunt the bottomlands, while hawks, owls and eagles patrol from the air.

Even in the early days, Donnie Martin knew not to attempt to pick Bob up when he was eating. But with a full stomach, the bobcat allowed the man who saved him from certain death to hold him. © Photographed by J. Bruce Baumann

As soon as Bob’s eyes were open, he was free to roam at will. He spent hours practicing his hunting skills, sometimes freezing in a position for long periods of time. When he got bored, he wandered off for hours and sometimes days, hunting squirrels, birds and small rodents.

It’s awfully hard to turn away from a baby, wild or not. This one would surely be dead in a few hours unless they could find someone who would take on the responsibility of feeding and caring for it. They thought of Donnie Martin from Solitude (“The Woodcarver of Solitude” in the Jan/Feb issue of Posey Magazine). Martin isn’t formally trained in wildlife care or rescue, but decades of hunting, fishing, observing and just plain living in the woods of rural Posey County—as well as hours of work as a volunteer for the local Department of Natural Resources and Ducks Unlimited—has taught him a lot about

wild animals.

Martin was driving home from Evansville, where he’d been visiting his father in the hospital, when he got the call. Gary Baldwin was on his way to Martin’s house with a newborn bobcat in a shoebox—would Martin take care of it? “I wasn’t the one who picked him up [from the wild],” Martin says, “but I would have done the same thing if I’d been there.”

Truth was, though, that Martin didn’t have a clue what to do; because he doesn’t keep pets, he didn’t even know a veterinarian he could call. Fortunately, his friend Randall

Everything Donnie Martin did was to prepare Bob for the wild. When Bob came around, Martin’s roughhousing forced him to defend himself.

Little had already contacted a vet in Illinois, who advised him to buy Kitten Milk Replacement and start feeding the kitten from a bottle—right away. The kitten hadn’t eaten now for several hours, and dehydration was an imminent threat. The vet didn’t hold out much hope; the chances of saving a motherless animal that young were miniscule—as anyone who’s tried to rescue a baby robin can attest.

Martin got back in his truck and went “screaming” back to Rural King in Evansville.

At home, he found an old baby doll bottle, warmed up the pre-mixed formula, and started feeding—1 tablespoon every 2 hours, 24 hours a day, according to the instructions on the label.

Half a tablespoon every hour would be even better,” the vet had advised; “you can feed too much, but you can’t feed too often.” He paused. “Kittens won’t void by themselves,” he added, “the mother cat licks them to stimulate them to void.” Martin agreed to rub the kitten’s stomach with a warm cotton ball after each feeding and resigned himself to weeks without sleep.

Amazingly, “Bob” the bobcat not only survived but thrived. Martin weighed him before and after every feeding and kept a careful log of his steady progress. At about 10 days, Bob finally opened his eyes and started walking. Martin spent hours on the Internet researching how to feed and care for him as he grew. Raw chicken wings, with their high calcium content, turned out to be the food of choice. Once Bob cut some teeth, there was no going back to the baby doll bottle, and Martin could finally get some sleep.

As soon as Bob could walk, Martin put him outside. Bob wasn’t in a pen or enclosure of any kind, though at first he spent most nights in Martin’s garage. Predators were still a threat to a small kitten without the protection of a mother, but Martin’s hope from the beginning was that Bob would survive to join the growing wild bobcat population in Posey County.

He set the kitten on tree trunks and

encouraged him to climb, then ignored the hours of plaintive calls when Bob found himself on a high branch and couldn’t figure out how to get down. He watched as Bob’s hunting skills moved up from butterflies to more nutritious prey, and he cut down on the chicken-wing rations to encourage him to hunt for himself.

Gradually, Bob wandered farther and farther afield. He was gone overnight, then for days at a time. Martin found out from friends that Bob spent hours perched on an augur at a nearby farm, waiting to pounce on the blackbirds that came to feed on spilled corn. He spotted Bob in the woods behind his house, bounding up a tree to fling an unsuspecting squirrel to the ground, then leaping down to devour it.

Bob still came around, though.

During deer season, Bob hung around the butchering station near the garage, diving for the scraps of deerskin, guts and bones that Martin threw in a barrel. As winter set in, Bob often prowled the rafters above the woodstove of the garage while Martin carved on wood sculptures and chatted with friends.

Sometimes, Martin let him in the house, and they sat together in a recliner, watching the birds at a platform feeder just outside the window.

Inevitably, word about Bob began to circulate in Posey County. People showed up at Martin’s house, hoping Bob would be there and they’d have a chance to get close to a wild bobcat. Bob let some people pet him; with strangers, he usually maintained a respectful distance. When he’d had enough of human company, he’d quietly slip away into the woods, back to the wild life he’d been born to.

All of that would come to an abrupt end early in the morning of March 23, 2011.

At about 10 months, Bob was almost fully grown when he wandered into Brittlebank Park in Mount Vernon and encountered April Reyling.

BOB — The bobcat

Out of the wild — and caught in the system

A pril Reyling was walking alone in Mount Vernon’s Brittlebank Park

just after dawn when she noticed a bobcat following her, making what she describes as “a weird sound, like a baby crying.” When she stopped, she says, the animal lay nearby, but when she tried to move, it followed her, screeching and at one point baring its teeth. Reyling called Posey County Dispatch and told them to hurry. As she waited for someone to come, the animal lay at her feet, and she took several close-up pictures of it with her cell phone, thinking that if she were going to die, at least someone would know what had happened to her.

When Posey County Animal Control Officer Chuck Mobley arrived on the scene, Reyling claims that the bobcat became more

By Alison Baumann © Posey Magazine 2011

nervous, pacing and growling. She reports that when it was finally secured in a cage, it was “screeching and growling.” Mobley recalls it differently, observing that when he got there, “it was obvious that [the bobcat] wasn’t threatening anybody.” On the contrary, Mobley says, “it was following her around like a puppy dog.” Mobley tossed out a dog treat, and Bob came to it. When Mobley took out his catch pole, Bob got up on his hind legs and began to play with the rope.

Mobley was instructed to catch the animal and, instead of releasing it in a wooded area as he usually did with wild animals, to take it to the home of Posey County Conservation Officer Paul Axton, who was off duty that day.

When Bob had been transferred to a crate at Axton’s house, Axton noticed that the bobcat just sniffed his hand rather than trying to claw or bite him. He thought it might be a female or even a “crossbreed” with a feral domestic cat. Although he admits that his previous experience with bobcats was limited to occasionally assisting a trapper in releasing

High up in a tree and photographed with a telephoto lens, Bob patiently waits for a squirrel or bird to make one wrong move. It didn’t take long for Bob to learn how to live in the wild. © Photographed by J. Bruce Baumann

one from a trap, Axton quickly decided that Bob was “not acting as a wild animal” and that he presented a threat to the public.

Axton told the Mount Vernon Democrat that there have been no known bobcat attacks on humans. His fellow Conservation Officer Dan Bellwood confirms that bobcats do not attack people: “I’ve never known them to be dangerous,” he says.

Nevertheless, despite not being on the scene and never having spoken to Reyling, Axton decided to turn Bob over to the Department of Natural Resources for rehabilitation because “this lady was being threatened,” and also because Brittlebank Park is only a short distance from an elementary school.

Axton says that DNR is still in the process of determining whether Bob should be returned to the wild, but at the time of the incident he told the Mount Vernon Democrat that the animal was “not releasable into the wild” because it had “too much of a human imprint on it.”

In Indiana, when a wild animal comes in contact with humans, the usual practice is

for it to be captured and released in a wild area in the same county where it was found, unless it is sick or injured. According to Mobley, as well as Axton and Bellwood, this procedure has been followed many times in Posey County with a variety of animals.

In addition to Mobley, the County has two licensed Nuisance Wild Animal Control Operators who are authorized on a case-bycase basis to pick up animals and release them back to the wild.

The Brittlebank Park incident was the first time Animal Control had been summoned to pick up a bobcat in Posey County, but Jerry Schilling, a local professional trapper, confirms that the prescribed practice is followed here for bobcats as well. When Schilling traps a bobcat, he contacts DNR and is routinely told to release the animal where he found it. Only if the bobcat has been killed in the trap is Schilling required to take possession of the carcass and wait for a Conservation Officer to pick it up.

In a 2009 incident reported in the Evansville Courier & Press, trapper Mike

Wathen captured a bobcat that kept returning to a yard in Darmstadt. With the assistance of local Conservation Officers, Wathen took the animal to the Sugar Ridge State Fish and Wildlife Area, where it was released.

Bob was not so lucky. From Vincennes, he was sent to the Exotic Feline Rescue Center in Brazil, a nonprofit facility for injured or abandoned cats that were either born or raised in captivity. Martin applied for a wild animal possession permit to bring Bob back to Posey County, but DNR refused, claiming that Martin originally acquired him illegally. Martin counters that he never really “acquired” Bob at all, and that he followed the spirit as well as the letter of the law by never confining him and by successfully encouraging him to hunt and live independently in the wild.

DNR’s decision is now under review by an Administrative Law Judge, a longtime DNR employee who now works for the Natural Resources Commission adjudicating claims involving DNR. The judge stated at the pre-hearing conference that her job is to

determine what the law allows, not necessarily what the people want or what is in the best interest of the animal. The review hearing is scheduled for August, and the decision could take up to three months after that.

Meanwhile, Bob waits at the Feline Rescue Center. Although DNR is ostensibly deciding whether to return him to Posey County, either to the wild or under Martin’s care, the Center’s mission does not include preparing animals for release. “When an animal comes here,” a spokesman for the Center says, “it has a home for life.”

Scores of Posey County residents have written letters and signed petitions asking DNR to return Bob to the county. Sheriff Greg Oeth observes that Bob has “quite a fan club” here, but as this issue of Posey Magazine goes up on the web, Bob’s fate is still uncertain.

Alison Baumann shares a small farm in Savah with an assortment of creatures, both wild and domestic.

She has had poetry, essays and fiction published in numerous regional and national literary journals.

She can be contacted at poseymagazine@aol.com

Bobcats in Indiana • No one has a reliable count, but there’s no question that bobcats are making a comeback in Indiana, particularly in the South Central and Southwestern parts of the state. Sightings of the elusive 15- to 30-pound cats are becoming more common in the woods and open brushlands of Posey County.

• In 1998, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources commissioned a study of the bobcat population centered at the Crane Naval Center. Thirty-eight bobcats that had been captured and fitted with radio collars were ultimately found in four adjacent states—one more than 300 miles from where it had been released. The results of the study are still being evaluated, but it is clear that bobcats, especially juveniles, range broadly to establish territories for hunting and mating.

• Although farmers sometimes complain that bobcats are a threat to livestock, research has established they actually benefit farmers by feeding on small rodents, birds and sometimes reptiles. Except for trappers, who have occasionally been scratched or bitten when releasing bobcats from traps, there are no known instances of bobcats attacking or injuring people.

• In 2005, bobcats were removed from the Indiana Endangered Species list and designated a “species of special concern.” The Indiana Comprehensive Wildlife Strategy Report published in 2006 listed the bobcat as a “species of greatest conservation need,” meaning that its population is “rare, declining or vulnerable.” In the interest of wildlife diversity and a healthy ecological balance, DNR thus has a legal duty to take measures to enhance and maintain a stable population of wild bobcats.

• DNR rules and practices are intended to protect the wild population and to discourage citizens from attempting to keep bobcats as pets. Captured animals are to be returned to the wild promptly unless they are sick or injured. In that case, they are sent to a licensed wildlife rehabilitator for up to 180 days and then released to the wild.

• Only after medical treatment and attempted rehabilitation may DNR determine that the animal cannot be released “due to a serious injury or an acclimation to humans.” DNR must then decide whether to euthanize the animal or keep it in captivity indefinitely after (1) a completed inspection by a Conservation Officer, (2) approval from the Division of Fish and Wildlife, and (3) “written verification from a licensed veterinarian that the mammal is non-releasable.”

Feathers/By Sharon Sorenson

T

he cherry tree next door hosted last week’s birding hot spot. Much to the neighbor’s chagrin, at least 17 bird species winged in for a scarlet snack of ripening fruit.

Woodpeckers—downy, hairy, and red-bellied—carried cherry hunks off to nestlings. Chirping sparrows joined house finches in the fray. That little rascal of a mockingbird who zealously guarded my suet- and fruit-filled gourd feeder last winter only to trail after a sweet young thing when she fluttered her flirtations — well, he came back, lured by the abundant red fruit. She deigned to join him.

Cedar Waxwing

Š Photographed by Sharon Sorenson

American robin

Cardinals, robins, bluebirds, blue jays, house sparrows, titmice — they were all regulars at the cherry buffet. Even hummingbirds stopped by, but only to check out the bug supply the sweet fruits attract.

The most numerous visitors, however, were those that, when I was a kid, we called— appropriately—“cherry birds,” a species whose little flocks seem to materialize out of nowhere just when cherries turn pink. Their thin, high-pitched, monotone “seeeee” call, both while perched and in flight, announces their arrival: cedar waxwings.

Funny name for a bird, cedar waxwing. But a little red spot on adults’ wings looks very much like a dab of old-fashioned sealing wax. The “cedar” part comes from the bird’s affinity for cedar cone-berries. But they

could just as well be called cherry waxwings.

Actually, cedar waxwings don’t show up just when cherries ripen; they’re year-round residents. But they’re more obvious when they arrive in flocks to enjoy fruit-bearing trees, like hawthorn, mulberry, wild black cherry, holly—whichever sweet berry or fruit is in season. Sweetest of all, though, is not the fruit they eat, but their habit of perching in a row, plucking a fruit, and passing it along the branch to the next waxwing, rubbing bills as they do. Sometimes the tidbit reaches the end of the row only to have the last bird send it back.

Baby birds, however, especially fledgling bluebirds and robins, made for humorous cherry picking. Babies like berries because, unlike bugs, the berries sit still.

Easy to “catch,” nutritious berries pop down with little effort, a calorie-rich meal for growing birds and their nutrient-demanding feather production. Sometimes, however, the cherry is beyond the bird’s best stretch from any direction. After tipping, flipping, and fluttering, fledglings’ expressions seem to say, “Okay, Mom, what do I do now?”

Even success in grabbing a cherry doesn’t necessarily mean the fruit breaks from its stem, so the added flutter and fluster make for a comic routine.

Most fun, however, were the robins.

Waxwings, cardinals, and other more mannerly birds nip hunks of cherry, eyeing the rosiest cheeks for the tastiest nip. Robins, on the other hand, like to down their berries whole. But when cherry is larger than gullet,

Eastern bluebird fledgling what’s a self-respecting red-breast to do?

Squeeze and mash, drip and dribble, and the cherry turns to mush, soft enough to down with a few big, gullet-bulging gulps, causing tense moments when I wondered if the poor bird would choke. None did.

Alas, after one flight-filled week, the tree is bare. So, dear neighbor, I’m sorry about the lattice-top cherry pies you planned. But oh! What the birds and I enjoyed—they the bits and pieces and mushy whole fruits and I the antics of their feeding.

Male red-bellied woodpecker

Sharon and Charles Sorenson settled in St. Philip in 1966 and continue to improve their certified backyard wildlife habitat that to date has hosted 161 bird species and 53 butterfly species. Send your bird questions and comments to them or contact them for public-venue programs, conferences, or seminars at forthebirdscolumn@yahoo.com.

Posey Then & Now Circa 1921

From the yearbook The Cynthius

The Cynthiana School, which began in 1890, was originally housed in a log structure. The building served all levels, including the high school which began as a two-year course of instruction, but added a third year in 1894. After the log school building burned, the brick structure was erected in 1896. The high school eventually added a fourth year of instruction in 1903. The photograph shows the way it looked in 1921 before the 1925 addition to the east side of the building. The addition included four classrooms, a gymnasium and restrooms, as well as new office and storage space. With the consolidation of local schools in 1959, the Cynthiana Junior and Senior high schools became a part of the North Posey School District. The elementary school continued to operate until 1971.

Posey Then & Now Circa 2011

Š Photograph by J. Bruce Baumann

After the school closed, the building served a number of functions, including housing a uniform factory and a workshop for restoring vintage cars. The top floor was also used as a large apartment. Today it is the home of Fair Haven Christ Fellowship Church, an inter-denominational house of worship, led by Pastor Mike Douglas. Its congregation now has 70 members.

Although most of the original building is gone, remains of the brick walls of the Cynthiana School gymnasium can still be found inside the church. You can contact the church at: fairhavenchristfellowship.com.

Posey Portrait

The Fourth of July golf cart parade in New Harmony, 2007

Š Photograph by J. Bruce Baumann

Posey Portrait will feature a random photograph of a friend or neighbor — in a place we call home

Poetry JUST COUNTRY We called it the country, but it was really just suburbs with a double lot.

We planted hedges, laid a brick walk, bought ourselves a mongrel dog.

Kept the net set up for volleyball on Sunday afternoons, had a few friends over.

Well, it was eight-six us, and the chicken almost ready on the grill when the snake showed up — Mr. Blood-in-the-Roses — lock-jawed on the rear end of a bullfrog.

Katie stuck her pigtail in her mouth and started cryin’, Mother grabbed her, put her shoes back on.

Men stood around makin’ jokes (men do), shufflin’ in the grass, front of the roses, watchin’ the bullfrog die.

Ate their chicken kind of slow that night, drank a few beers, left early— thought it was the suburbs with a double lot, but it was really just country.

— Alison Baumann

I’m just sayin’

TRUE LOVE

There are many types of love: parental and family love, girlfriend/boyfriend love, pet love, love of a sport or activity. You get the point. How many of these loves are true, though? You and your boyfriend/girlfriend could break up and you’ll move on, or you could lose interest in a sport. But if you lose a pet or adult figure that’s in your life, you don’t just move on. I believe true love is having something that you couldn’t move on without.

Lucas Goings Mt. Vernon Jr. High My true love is my hog, Licky. It isn’t one of those hogs you go buy from a farm. It’s a hog that can run out and outsmart anything. Also, my hog is the only hog that’s my love. It’s like getting a girlfriend and you really love her.

But my girlfriend is my hog, Licky.

Aaron Dickhart Mt. Vernon Jr. High True love doesn’t come riding up on a white horse. Nor is it a frog that you kiss and he becomes your prince. You don’t seek true love. True love finds you. It may not be easy at first, but you’ll learn to live with it.

Diane Lintzenich Mt. Vernon High Love can be in many forms but true love is real love. You can love anything but when you really love something you go out of your way to be sure that this thing is always ok. I love my phone. I do anything to keep it from

I’m Just Sayin’ is a sounding board for young people. All middle and high school students (including homeschoolers) in Posey County are invited to submit essays, stories or poems on the designated topics for each issue.

Submissions must be no longer than six sentences. Topics and deadlines for the next two issues:

PICTURE POSEY

getting scratched or dirty. I can honestly say that I love my phone. If I lost my phone I’d be over!! I put my phone in this guard every night when I go to bed. My phone is my one and only love!

Cory Word Mt. Vernon Jr. High

With school out of session, we decided to dedicate the September/October issue of I’m just sayin’ to photography. All Posey County middle and high school students (including homeschoolers) are invited to submit photographs. We’ll print the best.

The rules are simple. All submissions must be original photographs (no manipulation or photoshop) taken in Posey County.

Submit up to five images via email to poseymagazine@aol.com as an attachment. Size your pictures 10 inches wide on the long side, with an image size of 150dpi. Include your name and school, contact information, and complete captions. The deadline for submissions is July 20, 2011.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at poseymagazine@aol.com.

True love comes not in passions or fires.

One finds it not in our violent desires.

It’s much more subtle and gentle, And rare, while quite boring.

It’s the wife who snuggles close, Though her husband is snoring.

November/December issue: A Disappointment Deadline: September 20, 2011

True love is extremely overrated.

It doesn’t exist.

We’ll all die alone.

So don’t get your hopes up.

Nicole Hawley Mt. Vernon High

Michael Stephens-Emerson Mt. Vernon High Love is like a butterfly, so beautiful & free, It’s much lighter than a feather yet stronger than a bee.

Love is like a rose, so colorful & alive, If you dare touch, your blood it will deprive.

Love is like a cake, so sweet yet dangerous.

When you fall out of love, it can be very serious.

Chelsea Paddock Mt. Vernon Jr. High

Battle with a Bruin

By Linda Neal Reising

A Posey County resident since 1980, Linda Neal Reising lives in the historic “Cale House,” where she writes fiction and poetry, as well as fending off rowdy raccoons and voracious Virginia creeper. She can be contacted at: poseymagazine@aol.com.

M

ost people who live in rural Posey County have encountered a wild animal—perhaps a skunk, a raccoon, or a fox. But the pioneers who settled this area had much larger and less friendly creatures to contend with.

In the early 1800s, John and Sarah Cox lived on a farm near present-day Stewartsville. One day, John went to Terre Haute to buy seed corn. As the day drew to a close, Sarah began thinking about being alone all night. First she carried the heavy ax into the house. Next, she shut and braced the cabin door. Finally, with a large butcher knife in hand, she sat down and waited.

Night fell, and she remained still, listening, her neck and hands growing stiff as she clutched the knife, her heart thumping and her breathing becoming erratic. Suddenly, she heard muffled footfalls.

Then sniffing began at the cabin door. At that moment, she knew it was

a bear. The beast started pushing on the door with great force, rattling it against the bracing. Sarah stood up, ax in hand, but eventually the door stopped shaking.

Sarah continued to sit at attention for the rest of the night.

The next morning, as the sun finally crept through the window, Sarah cautiously opened the cabin door. She entered the yard and began to look around.

Several yards away, she saw a tree that John had chopped down earlier. Near it was the top of the tree he had not yet cleared away. As she neared the felled tree, she heard a whining sound, then saw a mother bear and a litter of cubs.

Knowing how vicious a mother bear can be when she senses that her young are in danger, Sarah turned and ran quickly back to the cabin door, fearing at any moment she would feel the bear’s claws raking her back and ripping open her flesh.

She made it to the cabin, slammed the door and locked it behind her.

Not long afterward, she heard her husband’s voice, announcing that he was home. Joyfully, she unlocked the door then told the story of her harrowing night.

Once John heard his wife’s tale, he grabbed his gun and, together with Sarah armed with the ax, approached the fallen treetop. John quickly killed both the mother and her cubs.

Posies/By Alison Baumann

You can buy goldenrod plants for your perennial garden; by now everyone knows that it’s the inconspicuous ragweed, not the brilliant goldenrod, that causes hay fever.

T

echnically, most of them would be called wildflowers.

You can look them up in the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers, Eastern Region if you want to. But “wildflower” brings to mind delicate little blooms you would never notice if you weren’t looking for them. I picture middleaged ladies in brogans and bulky corduroy skirts traipsing through the woods in early spring, guidebooks in hand, parsing out complicated Latin names.

The flowers that line our Posey County roads from April to October are a different sort entirely—Midwestern brash, © Photographed by J. Bruce Baumann

Queen Anne’s lace, a member of the carrot family, blooms all summer and has an edible taproot to boot.

Ivy-leaved morning glories (above) twine amid ripe stalks at the edge of a cornfield along Savah Road.

Growing up to five feet high, woodland sunflowers light up the shady ditches under hedgerows in late summer.

These daffodils blooming along Greathouse Road spread across the road from where they were originally planted to decorate a barn. a little uncouth, not remotely Latin. They have unpretentious Anglo-Saxon names that describe either the plants themselves or what people have tried to use them for—fleabane, wintercress, wild garlic, ironweed, goldenrod, sneezeweed, cow parsnip, pigweed, boneset, daylily, oyster plant.

Most ditch flowers are big and showy.

Many are rough, crude plants you would never want in your garden: think of the floppy,

fuzzy basal leaves and phallic flower stalks of mullein, or the thorny stems, leathery foliage and muddy brown flowers of pigweed.

Others, though, are surprisingly lovely and pretend to history and even commercial success. Queen Anne’s lace, with its feathery foliage and white flower clusters, is said to have been named after Queen Anne, the Danish princess married off to James I at the ripe age of 14, who pricked her finger in a

lace-making contest and left a single drop of royal blood in the center of her masterpiece.

Our wild orange daylilies, of course, are the stock from which a vast industry of outrageously expensive garden hybrids has grown, and cultivars from wild garlic have been delighting diners for centuries.

Some ditch flowers aren’t really wildflowers at all. Daffodils, hollyhocks and naked ladies that spring up in isolated

Naked ladies, also known as surprise lilies, spring up in August—months after their strappy spring leaves have faded and disappeared. colonies are most likely garden escapees.

Some long-ago farmer or housewife must have either tossed or planted them along the road to dress up the front of the house, and they have survived and succeeded far beyond the original plan.

Whatever their provenance, ditch flowers are the ultimate survivors. With masterful understatement, the Audubon Guide describes most of them as living in “disturbed ground.” Disturbed is hardly the word for ground that suffers the regular insult of trenchers that scoop huge troughs in the earth in a mostly futile attempt to keep country roads above water during the spring floods.

Disturbed is hardly the word for ground that can be under water for weeks on end and then be subjected to constant showers of road rock and dust, not to speak of drifts and drips of high-powered pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers from farm fields that push up as close to the ditch as the earth can possibly support a tractor. Somehow, even deliberate applications of Roundup intended to eliminate weeds around cropland only slow down the show of ditch flowers for a little while; within a few weeks the next round of blooms rises above the desolation as if nothing bad had ever happened in the world.

With their complex and wellorchestrated succession of blooms, ditch flowers play most of three seasons here in Posey County. Next time you’re tired of weeding and tending your carefully planned garden, take to the back roads and see what nature is up to. It’s quite a show.

Alison Baumann shares a small farm in Savah with an assortment of creatures, both wild and domestic. She has had poetry, essays and fiction published in numerous regional and national literary journals. She can be contacted at poseymagazine@aol.com

Butterflies

Pipevine swallowtail

A brilliantly colorful addition to any Posey County garden T

© Photographed by Sharon Sorenson

By Sharon Sorenson

ermites, house flies, mosquitoes, wasps, cockroaches—insects all. Shunned by most folks, welcomed by none, insects in general garner no one’s love.

In fact, most folks consider most insects to be pests and sometimes apply gallons and gallons of pesticides to rid their yards and gardens of them all.

Except one.

In fact, this one insect is the most sought-after kind of wildlife people covet in their yards and gardens. Many go to great lengths to attract it.

It doesn’t bite, sting, or carry diseases.

And in most cases, it’s really quite lovely, a brilliantly colorful addition to any Posey County garden.

On an emotive level, it symbolizes freedom and, even more dramatically, the human soul.

We’re talking butterflies, of course.

Posey County is home to about 100 butterfly species, not counting their close cousins, moths. Some are spectacularly large, like tiger swallowtails, the size of the palm of a hand. Some are dramatically tiny, like gray

hairstreaks, the size of a dime. Some boast brilliant color, like the iridescent blue on a pipevine swallowtail. Some wear camouflage, like the brown-black streaks on a hackberry emperor.

Some, like common buckeyes, have “eyes,” big spots on their wings that distract or deter predators. Some, like eastern tailedblues, have false “heads,” markings on their hind wings that lead predators to bite off the wrong end, saving the insect’s life. Some, like viceroys, mimic the appearance of bitterly toxic butterflies (monarchs) to keep predators at bay.

All butterflies go through metamorphosis, from egg to larva to pupa to butterfly.

Some live only weeks. One lives long enough to migrate to Mexico for the winter.

Fascinating creatures that they are, butterflies also require such specific habitat that many face serious decline. While butterflies enjoy most any flower that offers nectar, in their larval stage, they require species-specific host plants. By having both host plants and nectar plants within close proximity to one another, successful butterfly gardeners can help keep butterflies alive for the enjoyment of future

Common buckeye

generations.

In a nutshell, butterflies need our help.

Think about it this way:

Most blooming plants serve up nectar to at least some degree for butterflies, but each butterfly species also requires its own specific host plant. Host plants, however, are less common in area yards and gardens than are nectar plants because their blooms are less remarkable and because some are even considered “weeds.” Host plants, however, must grow relatively close to nectar plants so that butterflies can easily wing their way to and from egg-laying and caterpillar sites to nectaring sites. Because native habitat has grown more and more scarce, destroyed by human development, butterflies face dessert-like conditions in much of their range.

Whatever we humans can do to provide the necessary host and nectar plants may be the measure that saves these special insects—assuming, of course, that pesticides never touch the garden. Designed to kill unwanted “pests,” pesticides destroy all insects — including, of course, butterflies — in both adult and larval forms.

For more details about identifying butterflies and planting appropriate nectar and host plants, check online at http://butterflywebsite.com or www.thebutterflysite.com.

Monarch

Tiger swallowtail

Eastern tailed-blue

30 Common Posey County Butterflies and Their Host Plants American Snout Black Swallowtail Common Buckeye Common Checkered-skipper Dainty Sulphur

Eastern Comma Eastern Tailed Blue Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Giant Swallowtail Gray Hairstreak Great Spangled Fritillary Gulf Fritillary Hackberry Emperor Little Yellow Monarch Mourning Cloak Painted Lady Pearl Crescent Pipevine Swallowtail Question Mark Red Admiral Red-spotted Purple Silver-spotted Skipper Silvery Checkerspot Spicebush Swallowtail Sulphurs Viceroy Tawny Emperor Variegated Fritillary Zebra Swallowtail

Hackberry Dill, Fennel, Parsley, Queen Anne’s Lace Plantain, Snapdragon Mallows/Hollyhocks Marigolds, Sneezeweed Elm tree, False Nettle, Hackberry, Hops Clover Black Cherry tree, Spicebush, Tulip Poplar tree, Willows Hop tree, Prickly Ash Clover, Mallows/Hollyhocks Violets Passion-vine Hackberry Partridge Pea Milkweeds Elm tree, Tulip Poplar tree, Willows Everlastings, Mallows/Hollyhocks, Thistle Asters Pipevine Elm tree, False Nettle, Hackberry, Hops False Nettle Black Cherry tree, Tulip Poplar tree, Willows Black Locust tree, False Indigo Sunflowers Sassafras, Spicebush Clover, Partridge Pea Tulip Poplar tree, Willows Hackberry Passion-vine, Violets Pawpaw Sharon and Charles Sorenson settled in St. Philip in 1966 and continue to improve their certified backyard wildlife habitat. Send your questions and comments to them or contact them for publicvenue programs, conferences, or seminars at forthebirdscolumn@ yahoo.com.

Gray hairstreak

Out In The Back Of Beyond/Editor’s Notebook

Some things I think I think I think the story of Bob the bobcat reveals a lot about who we are when we think as humans instead of robots.

I think, as the writer suggests, that it’s awfully hard to turn away from a baby, wild or not.

I think a system that suggests otherwise lacks compassion and common sense.

I think Gary Baldwin and Donnie Martin understand compassion and common sense.

I think Donnie Martin deserves high praise for the endless hours he spent saving Bob from what would have been a certain death.

I think Martin’s intention was to train Bob to live on his own in the wild.

I think Martin accomplished that goal.

I think the person who suggested she was frightened and/or threatened acted as if she was neither by taking photographs with a cell phone from mere inches away.

I think the words of the animal control officer who responded to the call from Mount Vernon Dispatch, describing Bob as “not threatening anybody,” proves my last point.

I think the history of bobcats confirms that they have never been a threat to humans.

Ever.

I think Bob was mishandled when the Conservation Officer decided to take him to Vincennes, instead of releasing him back into the wilds of Posey County, as prescribed by state guidelines.

I think that the DNR Conservation Officer who was neither on the scene nor experienced with bobcats, and who made the decision that Bob was “not acting as a wild animal” and that he presented a threat to the public, either had a personal agenda or used very bad judgment.

Those comments are in themselves a contradiction.

I think that the selection of a longtime DNR employee now working for the Natural Resources Commission as the

judge in Bob’scase may seal his fate.

Her pre-hearing comments leave the impression that she has pre-judged the case.

I think that someone with a history as a DNR employee should not be selected as an administrative law judge to determine DNR cases.

I think that it looks like DNR officers make up the rules as they go along.

I think the DNR operating rules and “nonrule policies” need a hard look: If they aren’t intended to serve the public or the interest of wild animal populations, whose agenda do they serve?

I think it’s time for a lot of changes at the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.

I think that bobcats — categorized as “a species of special concern” — deserve the protection the state of Indiana intended.

I think Bob should be immediately released back into the wilds of Posey County.

J. Bruce Baumann is the editor of Posey Magazine.

He can be contacted at: poseymagazine@aol.com

“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.”

—Albert Einstein

© Photograph by J. Bruce Baumann

www.poseymagazine.com

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