Rare Birds of Michigan

This last week I taught at Intelochen, at the first Interlochen Writer’s Workshop. Along with Jack Ridl (teaching poet) and Julie Ridl (fun gal, wife of poet JR) and Charlie (rescue dog) I stayed in the Epstein House, on a bluff over a lake, where supposedly Itzhak Perman stays when he comes to Interlochen. Our visitors during the week included Carla Vissers (fun gal and fiction writer) and Christopher Magson (birdwatching guy, husb of me.) The organizer and memoir teacher was AnneMarie Oomen, and I won’t even get started on her fabulousness... okay, well, she is fabulous, but that’s all I’m going to say right now.

While I was teaching, Christopher saw an indigo bunting and found a yellow bellied sap sucker in the road looking stunned. He picked the sapsucker up in his cap and carried it to the side of the road and watched it until it became un-stunned enough to fly into a tree. There were some strange birds in my writing class as well, and that made the whole five-day writing workshop more lively.

After the conference, Christopher and I drove to Grayling to meet Mary Szpur, Nancy Garrity and Mary’s mom Tatiana Szpur, who will be ninety soon. We visited Hartwick Pines, where we saw great big trees and cedar waxwings but no evening grosbeaks (last time we saw e.g.s galore) . That night we saw nighthawks acting crazy and territorial over our hotel, dive bombing and yelling. The next day we went on a Kirtlands Warbler outing, on which we did see Kirtland warblers. They are an endangered species, and since we saw four males, we saw about one percent of the entire population of male Kirtland warblers in the world.

They are endangered because they will only nest in new jack pine forests that spring up after big forest fires, and since Smoky the Bear has been keeping the fires down, the good habitat is limited. In the jack pine area we visited, we also saw brown thrashers and Orioles, lots of chipping sparrows, some juncos. Those Kirtland warbler fellows were something, just singing their hearts out through their little yellow throats. The females pretty much lay low, covered up by those low jack pine branches.

Afterwards, our five-some went to Houghton Lake to a heronry, with about fifty visible great blue heron nests. Wowee zowee, great fun watching those babies in the nests asking for food and mommas and pappas landing and throwing up food for them. Also there we saw half a dozen Osprey, young and old, some fighting over fish, and some black terns and cliff swallows.

On the way home we saw a car on fire along the highway just north of Grand Rapids. Just one highway cop was there and he kept his car way back. Big old flames and poisonous black smoke coming out of the engine compartment, the front tires kind of melted, everything crackling, some of the metal glowing. The fire hadn’t yet reached the gas tank. We were glad that it didn’t explode while we were right next to it, passing it. No evidence of anyone inside. A car on fire is a thing that makes you wonder, and yet it still doesn't seem so far from the natural order of things.

The Cheese of Detroit

Andy Mozina’s book of short stories has been released into the world. The Women Were Leaving the Men, published by Wayne State University Press should be on your bookshelf. Lisa Lenzo offered to pick me up at my home and drive me to Detroit to eat dinner with her parents and then attend the reading associated with the book release. Lisa’s mom produced homemade gnocci and then I got to try some Mascarpone cheese on crusty Italian bread. It’s like cream cheese only sweeter somehow, really nice. Charlie, Lisa’s boyfriend said he likes to eat it on everything; Lisa said she especially likes to eat it on those Carr’s graham biscuits, the ones that come in those Carrs variety packs.

The next morning was the best breakfast ever, a slice of strawberry and gooseberry pie (gooseberries from Lisa’s bushes, pie made by Lisa’s mom) with a heap of ricotta cheese on it, plus a few fresh strawberries cut up on top. That was right before we went cheese shopping at a cheese store near the farmer’s market. Hundreds of cheeses were there, all on a list (not on display in cases). These chesses were relatively inexpensive, many of them. Lisa ordered with confidence, getting great hunks feta and sharp cheddar and blue and something with caraway seeds in it. I asked for a taste of everything. I bought $40 worth of cheese, including feta, sharp cheddar (okay, I’m a copy cat), spanish manchego, muenster (for Chris), goat cheese, and havarti. There was a lot of talk about eating blue cheese with figs. Shoot, I just remembered I forgot to get gruyere for the French onion soup.

Detroit was super nice, with Greektown and the River Walk, just opened, plus the Detroit Historical Museum where the reading was. (The reception had the best snacks ever, including fine little mini cheesecakes.) Lisa’s parents live within minutes of everything. Oh, and Andy's reading was top-notch, fun and funny; he was the cat's meow. The other readers were good too: Dorene O'Brien, Jack Ridl, and Vievee Francis.

On the way home, we ate lunch in the car, a lunch packed by Lisa’s mom. Inside was some whole wheat bread, tomatoes, and five kinds of cheese, including muenster, feta, mascarpone, and two hard yellow cheeses. It was all super. For dinner last night I ate some eggs with the rest of a package (3 slices)of of Swiss cheese on them—I had opened the Swiss and since Christopher doesn’t like it, it is my responsibility to finish it. Now it’s out of the way, and I can get to the business of eating the new and exciting cheeses of Detroit.