Middle-Aged Naturalist

White Faced Ibis Make a Comeback

2009-07-06T14:37:00.001-07:00

If you are up towards Knights Landing lately, or crossing over the Yolo Causeway on Highway 5 or Highway 80, you may have noticed black birds with long, curved beaks: white-faced ibis. Until about three years ago, I never noticed them around Knights Landing. This year they are very abundant, which piqued my curiosity about these birds.

Evidently, the white-faced ibis are making a comeback. Their populations were decimated in the 1960’s and 1970’s by both wetlands destruction and by chemical pesticides. You see, these guys are opportunistic feeders. They like the ground covered with water, and like our ducks do at home, they like to poke around in the water for earthworms, snails, insects, newts, leeches, and crayfish. They will also eat frogs and fish. And I suppose like the egrets that also hang out in the alfalfa fields near Knights Landing, they eat small rodents that run for their lives when the fields are flooded.

They also really like emergent vegetation—which is just a fancy science speak for short, newly grown plants. This makes sense, given that what they eat isn’t easy to find if the vegetation gets large. So again, the alfalfa fields, which are regularly cut and flooded are the perfect feeding places for white-faced ibis.

These ibis are also like the social networkers of the egret family. They love hanging out in large groups and are very social. They are pretty flighty and shy. Unlike the egrets we have around here, who will stand stock still sometimes if you approach them, the ibis are a little jittery. More often than not, they will take off as soon as you stop for a photo.

And I would love to get a good photo of them. They are vaguely exotic looking – with their beautiful curved bill and glossy black feathers. When they fly in large groups, they form irregular “V” shapes, but more often I see them in smaller groups, flying in a single line.

Personally, I think that a lot of the white faced ibis’s comeback in Yolo County is due to the Yolo Basin wetlands near Davis. The wetlands are relatively new to Yolo County and since it has been set aside, I have noticed much more diversity in our wetland birds. The wetlands give the Ibis a safe place to roost for the evening, and also provide nesting sites for the ibis. Since ibis will abandon their nests if disturbed and in some studies only successfully raised one young per pair per year, undisturbed nesting sites are crucial in the survival of this beautiful bird.

Growing Your Own Food

2009-06-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

Today my breakfast consisted of a peach from my dwarf peach tree in the front yard and two eggs from the chickens in the back. This next spring, I am looking forward to adding fresh goat milk to the mini-farm production list. There is something really satisfying about growing your own foods.

For one thing, you don't have to worry about the economy. Every year our chickens lay and our peaches, pears, plums, and tomatoes produce. This year our duck set and hatched ten eggs. Although one of the ducklings died, we now have nine ducklings that are getting to that size where they can be slaughtered and frozen. That is a lot of duck meat for the year. In the fall, when our new chickens start to lay, we will have some old hens, that again, can be slaughtered and frozen for the winter.

Last week I was cleaning the goat pen and was frustrated by the fly maggots in the straw. Then I remembered, I had plenty of chickens who would really enjoy eating those maggots. Not only is the protein good for the hen, but it creates eggs rich in antioxidants. I began to think about actually experimenting to have maggots grow on purpose and then have the chickens harvest them. I guess you could say that today I ate maggots and dirt, the breakfast of champions.

We also subscribe to Full Belly Farm's CSA box each week. My goal for this year is to use every unused bit of yard around my house for producing food with the ultimate goal: cancelling my CSA box (sorry Full Belly-- I guess this is both a plug and not). I am much better at growing livestock than growing plants. So I have a lot to learn when it comes to vegetables.

2009-04-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

This is Brute, so named because he was a single kid and very hard for his mother to push out because of his large size. He is one month younger than Bobby and yet a little taller and larger. He is going to be shown in the Yolo County 4-H Spring Show on May 2nd by my son, Dustin.

2009-04-14T08:07:00.000-07:00

This is Bobby Burns, because he was born on Bobby Burn's birthday. His father won his class at the Yolo County Spring Show last year. The judge, an NPGA judge said he wanted to give him Champion, but couldn't justify it because he was only a month old. His mother had 3 kids this year and two last year. This is the one I would use for breeding, if I were able to keep a buck.

Sea Lions in Knights Landing? Si!

2009-04-13T14:04:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, as my neighbor and I were walking our dogs on the levee near Knights Landing, we saw a large head pushing up through the water of the Sacramento River. We both looked at each other in amazement and kept our eyes glued to the spot. We had seen a sea lion in the river!

Sure enough, the sea lion emerged three times, until we went down to the edge of the levee and took a closer look with our dogs. I guess the people and dogs, which were now close by scared it and we didn't see it again.

Later, talking to a neighbor who fishes, he confirmed that fishermen near town had been seeing sea lions in the river. "They followed the stripers up the river," he said in his knowing way.

Painted Lady Butterfly Migration

2009-03-31T18:54:00.000-07:00

The Heart of Knights Landing

2009-03-27T19:49:00.000-07:00

A recent article in the Sacramento Bee suggested that Grafton School was the heart of Knights Landing and its closing sounds the "death knell" for the town. With the closing of the school, the article said, the lifeblood of Knights Landing would no longer flow, and the "faded river town" would be defunct. I respectfully disagree. To me, the heart of Knights Landing is the river, the wildlife, the amazing riparian habitat, and the people who live here, most of whom are not retirees or farm workers.

This week on my walk on the levees I encountered lupin, vetch, and poppies. As I walked with my neighbor along the levee, I found a 19th century bottle. A great blue heron, startled, flew off over the Colusa Basin Drain. Harlequin bugs joyfully made fruitful, and multiplied, on the levee banks, clinging to a foxtail in the fading sun.

I find it fascinating that the main people who the reporter interviews are the school secretary, and teachers, who will probably be losing their jobs when the school closes. Oh, he also interviews parents who have their children in the school who will be sorely inconvenienced when their children are bussed to Woodland. What these folks failed to mention, and the reporter didn't seem to know because he didn't do his research, is that Grafton School has been performing in the bottom 10% of the entire state for some time.Many children in town don't attend Grafton because it provides limited special education services and only recently began teaching in English. They failed to mention that the shining computer lab replaced the multipurpose room used by the community. This room was supposed to be replaced by a school bond that the town voted on about ten years ago. After refurbishing the former cafeteria and multipurpose room, used for 4-H meetings and exercise classes as a computer room and library for the school, the new multipurpose room was never built.

When my daughter was first enrolled at Grafton about 15 years ago, the principal told me that she was so proud that 10% of the latest 6th grade class graduated from high school. Although the curriculum was taught in Spanish, she told me that I was the first parent of a non-Spanish speaker who wanted their child to learn Spanish. And when my son first attended in second grade about 6 years ago, it was the first time in my children's lives that the curriculum was presented in English. As I helped in the classroom I listened to his teacher tell the class ' "peeg" you spell it p-i-g." Both his second grade teacher and a school board member told me I was crazy to have my kid at Grafton if I had other options. This is the life blood of our town? No wonder he thought the patient was already dead.

My children were home-schooled. And of the ten children that live on my block, only one of them attends Grafton. Didn't the reporter wonder why of 2000 people, many with families, there were only 150 children in the school?

The Sacramento Bee writer said that Knights Landing was a town of farm workers and retirees. I guess if the only people you interview are farm workers and retirees, you can get a pretty skewed idea of reality. On our block we have two people who work for UC Davis, a Yolo County librarian, a museum textile conservator,a naturalist on the American River parkway, a dog groomer, a heating and air conditioning repairman, a state parks interpreter, someone who works for the Sheriff's department, a rice mill worker, a hairdresser, and a truck driver. Oh yeah, we also have four retired people on our block. Did I mention that ten children live on Fifth Street, nine of whom don't attend Grafton?

Our town is much more complicated and variable than a school. True, the school is the geographical heart of the town. But maybe it's time for a transplant. Maybe the heart of our town needs to be something that serves everyone in the community.

Maybe it would be better not to build 100+ homes in a town whose sewage and water system can't accommodate them. Maybe it would be better to work for public transportation more than twice a week in Knights Landing so people without cars could also go to the grocery store and the doctor, as well as picking their kids up from school in Woodland if they are sick. Maybe it would be better not to educate the children of farm workers in a school that isn't doing a very good job and so doesn't include children from the other economic and cultural groups in town who have other options. Maybe it would be a good idea to have a playground that is open to all the children of Knights Landing (not just to the children in the after-school childcare program), a soccer field again maintained by the community, a baseball field that is actually maintained, and buildings which once housed only a few children serving as a community center?

I would invite Hudson Sangree, who wrote the Bee article, to be my guest on a tour of Knights Landing and to see Knights Landing through the eyes of the rest of the town folk who have nothing to do with the school. Most of us actually use computers in our own houses, go to the public library in town since we don't use the school's, and fix lunch for ourselves. Come on Hudson, how about it?

The Story of Stuff

2009-03-24T09:58:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know, I also contribute to another blog called "Happy, Simple, Frugal, Healthy." This blog has got me thinking about stuff. Sure, you can save money by clipping coupons and shopping sales, but more and more I am thinking...."Do I really need to buy this?" Believe me, you spend a lot less money by not buying things on sale, than buying things on sale. You know, like at Grocery Outlet, where they hand you your receipt for $53.00 and tell you "You saved $45 dollars today!" I feel really good about how much money I saved, until I think, "Wait a minute, I actually spent $53.00, and because I wouldn't buy this stuff for full price, I didn't save anything!"

So I have been trying to do without stuff that I really don't need. And amazingly, I am saving even more money.

Now another friend just sent me the link to this great video, The Story of Stuff. I guess I knew all this when I watched WALEE, but sometimes we all need a wakeup call. Just how is that radio for $4.99 at Radio Shack paid for if we aren't paying for it? Why are we still buying into the idea that we can throw everything away, despite the fact that we continue to see the earth covered with plastic bags and twinkie wrappers?

The film gets slightly preachy at times, but I think it is truthful. Maybe this economic depression will be really good for our ethics and help us be better stewards of the precious resource we have. If you watch the film please comment and let me know what you think. Also, post your comments about things you have done to slow down your own consumption.

Endangered Livestock Species

2009-03-19T10:35:00.000-07:00

I am a big supporter of the Heifer International, and it was in their magazine that I discovered recently that many species of livestock will soon become extinct if some of us don't continue to raise them. Among them are Nigerian Pygmy Goats and Khaki Campbell ducks, both of which our family raise. Speckled Sussex Chickens (which is the breed I had before the Production Reds I now have) are also on the endangered lists for livestock breeds.

The American Livestock Breed Conservancy is working to keep rare breeds of livestock viable and still in our gene pool. Their site, not only encouraged me in my search for a breed of rabbit for our mini-suburban farm, but in documenting the characteristics of the rare breeds that our family keeps.

Reading the American Livestock Conservancy webpages reminded me, that not that long ago, people were still actively working to develop breeds of animals that bred true but that would also meet their individual particular needs. Someone wanted a meat rabbit with a blue pelt so that they could sell it for ladie's furs. Viola...the American blue, now an endangered breed, was born.

Should we protect breeds whose usefulness was from another time? Or, should we continue to develop breeds that meet our current needs? I'm of two minds about this. What do you think?

Dwarf Spring

2009-03-18T16:27:00.000-07:00

I always know spring is here when our dwarf peach tree begins to bloom. This compact tree, which we planted when we first moved here in 1990, has deep pink, double blooms and wonderful early June fruit. At the moment, behind it, the dwarf crab apple trees are blooming in a lighter shade of pink. If the weather cooperates, it looks like this year we might have some extra fruit for canning. When the tree was small, people used to ask us what kind of flower it was. This is one of the plants in my garden that helps me remember how long we have lived here and happy times. I really love this little tree.

Wabi Sabi, or Why My Gardener is now Unemployed

2009-03-13T15:54:00.001-07:00

When you get overwhelmed by life, you sometimes lose sight of the deep core values that you hold. Late last summer, a man stopped by my house. Telling me that I had weeds everywhere, he convinced me that for $20 a week, he could help me with my garden. At first, everything was great. He cleared the weeds, he mowed and edged the lawn, and even though I hate leaf blowers, I admit, that I liked having the paths and sidewalks clean.

Slowly, I began to realize though, that this man did not like plants. When he pruned, he just lopped randomly. He kept removing my mulch by blowing or raking it up so that I had smooth bare dirt underneath. He wanted to cut down trees, remove old logs, he cleaned my pond and killed the fish that lived in it. And finally, he asked for Roundup.

I began feeling worse and worse every time the guy came over. I planted potatoes in the front yard and piled them deep with goat manure and straw. I planted carrots and chard in my wine barrels. I mulched my roses and told him not to move the mulch. I thought we were coming to a truce, working out our differences, and then my neighbor told me my gardener had asked HIM for Roundup.

My gardener is now unemployed.

And although my neighbors will probably regret the reversion to the wild, I am moving my garden back to the way I prefer it, weeds and all. As of today, the gardener has not been here for a month. And today, I saw a Pacific Tree frog in the garden, honey bees, wasps, lot of pupa, aphids, fruit flies, and weeds....These creatures don't like bare dirt and leaf blowers.

In the back yard, the chickens keep my grass mowed and ladybugs creep through it where it is long. My compost piles are becoming large and productive. Yesterday turning them over I found lots of potato bugs, beetles, worms, and a magnificent large black widow spider. Today, a pair of bush tits went wending through the rose bushes eating aphids and other insects off the leaves.

Nature is not bare dirt and trimmed bushes. Nature is hiding places, tangles of plants, yucky and inconvenient bugs, water that because it is quiet and still feeds frogs and gives them a place to lay their eggs and where mosquitoes lay their eggs so fish have something to eat.

Today, I certified my garden as an official wildlife habitat with the World Wildlife Federation. In order to certify, you have to provide food, water, shelter, and breeding habitat, conserve water, and not use chemical fertilizers, herbicides or insecticides. The animals can now eat the crab apples my unemployed gardener blew off the sidewalk last fall and took to the dump.

The Japanese have a phrase for this idea: wabi sabi. It means imperfect, impermanent, or incomplete. It is our recognition that the old is beautiful, that perfection is not uncluttered, and that nature is constantly in flux. Nothing lasts, nothing is perfect, and nothing is finished.

Orange Peel Fungus

2009-02-26T17:10:00.000-08:00

I found this orange peel fungus growing underneath a piece of firewood in my side yard. At first, they are a brilliant orange, but as they age, as this one is doing, they turn a duskier brown color, as they get larger. Here, you see chickweed growing through it. If you look carefully on the left side of the photo you can see where a slug was munching on this one.

Colusa Basin Drain

2009-02-23T18:20:00.000-08:00

I always thought that the sign that welcomed you to Knights Landing should say, “Welcome to Knights Landing, gateway to the Colusa Drain.” It sounds like a dumpy kind of waterway, and sometimes it is, but the longer I live here, the more I appreciate the life that it sustains.

“The Colusa Basin Drain, which enters the Sacramento River at Knights Landing, is the largest source of agricultural return flow to the Sacramento River,” ends the Department of Water Resources webpage about the Colusa Drain. DWR has been sampling the water at the dam on the Colusa Basin Drain at Knights Landing, and where it enters the Sacramento River since 1957. From previous data, the highest waterflows in the Drain are usually around January, February and March.

DWR has also done studies on the aquatic vertebrates (fish) and invertebrates, diatoms and algae of the Colusa Basin Drain. I would like to post the lists (by common names with photos) here and feature one of the creatures each week.

I don’t want to overwhelm myself, or anyone else, so for this week, I am going to publish the list of fish that DWR found in the Colusa Basin Drain. Personally I like the common names, because I am a common sort of gal. But for those of you who like the scientific names, I am including them.

Bluegill Leopmis macrochirus
Channel Catfish Ictalurus punctatus
Common Carp cyprinus carpio
Indland Silverside Menidia beryllina
Sacramento Sucker Catostomus occidentalis
Largemouth Bass Micropterus salmoides
Threadfin Shad Dorosoma pretense
Warmmouth Lepomis gulosis
Western Mosquito Fish Gambusia affinis
White Catfish Ictalurus catus
White Crappie Poxomis annularis

The abundance of fish attracts many fisher men and women to the banks of the Colusa Basin Drain in Knights Landing, as evidenced by much of the trash they leave behind. Although DWR measures particulate matter in the Drain, they don’t measure the amounts of particulate plastics, which is a real concern of mine, in the water. Plastic bags and wrappers, and fishing lures and tackle were the number one sources of environmental pollution in a study we did last year at the year’s end. I wonder about the fish eating these small fragments, which often look like things fish eat. For more information about plastics in the ocean and our waterways, see the California Coastal Commission website.

Sacramento River at Knights Landing

2009-02-13T21:02:00.000-08:00

Here are the things I have seen along the river in the last few days. Along the Colusa Drain where it enters the Sacramento River, a Great Blue Heron, a pair of Common Mergansers (I believe they are nesting), and the male Kingfisher that hangs around the area. I also saw a large (300+) group of blackbirds, a red tailed hawk, and turkey vultures. With the pumping of water into the irrigation ditches, it looks like the otters are coming back as well. Oh yes, and the black feral cat that lives along the levee towards Grimes constantly makes his appearance. I continue to hear Pacific Tree Frogs calling, although just a few at the moment.

February Wildlife

2009-02-09T16:27:00.000-08:00

Out on my dog walk today I saw a flock of about 60 goldfinches; otter signs (clam shells, large snail shells, scat and footprints; and heard Pacific Tree frogs beginning to call.

Let Mamma Do It (Part Two)

2009-02-05T19:06:00.000-08:00

After my rant the other day about letting nature take its course and letting mamma take care of the pygmy goat babies, we had an experience where we needed to help out so that the very big baby could be born. Sometimes you need to intervene to save a life. So much for always being right.

Stewardship by Not Consuming

2009-02-02T09:42:00.000-08:00

Here is a quotation from that really struck me today,

"Reducing consumption is not a topic that's popular with people who try to sell you things, or politicians who want you to shop to keep the country great, or neighbors who want to engage in look-what-I-bought competitions. It is not a topic that's popular with most Americans, who generate 4.5 pounds of garbage per person per day. To get a sense of just how obscene that is, consider this: in 2003, Americans tossed out 236 million tons of solid waste. The people in your current home of Thailand, by comparison, chucked a mere 14.4 million tons. Thailand has about one-quarter the population of the U.S. -- but only one-sixteenth the trash. Yikes."

In November, I began a short project with some homeschooled kids where we picked up garbage along the Colusa Drain just where it feeds into the Sacramento River. We recorded the trash that we picked up and most of it was food wrappers -- not waxed paper and sandwich bags, but donut wrappers, fast food wrappers, drink cups, candy wrappers, and chip bags. You get the picture.

These wrappers are all getting into the river via the place where people fish on the Colusa Drain. And then I began to think about my latest obsession being frugal by clipping coupons. I have been saving money on my groceries by clipping coupons and shopping sales. Thinking only of this, I have bought two small packages of mustard and small packages of spices for a mere 30 cents. I bought Celestial Seasonings Lemon Zinger tea for $1 off when I could have bought lemon grass at the Co-op in the bulk section for about $1 with no packaging. I began to think about the small packages and the waste I was generating. I knew there had to be a larger idea here than merely saving money and then the idea of the product packaging hit me full in the face -- a giant beam in my own eye!

So I have to take the beam out of my own eye, at least at the same time I am taking the speck out of my brother's eye. (Although I have news for our Lord, these wrappers along the river are more than a speck.) And begin examining my own desire for consumption, greed for money, and the easy temptation of giving into our desires for more and more.

For me, there has to be a bigger picture to live a consistent life. And for me the bigger picture is that we were given this precious resource, the Earth, by God (or however you think we got it) and have a responsibility for stewardship of it. Yes, I want to save money for land to grow my own food and care for the land responsibly. I have always felt a calling to do this. But is it worth it if I help destroy the earth in the process?

In my mind, I think, if I had my own cow, I would not have to buy milk at Costco. If I grew my own food, I would not have to buy it. I want to save money for land, so I need to clip coupons. But if I clip coupons and buy five bottles of Windex because it was 99 cents a bottle, did I really keep the bigger picture in mind? Couldn't I have bought one gallon of vinegar and cleaned my windows as well?

I feel sick to my stomach to see the snack food wrappers all over the riverbank and to think of them at the bottom of the river, but do I feel sick enough that I will not eat snack foods with packaging that will destroy the earth? What about those coupons for chips? They are only $2 per bag this week!

I don't throw my snack wrappers on the ground, but I still generate these wrappers for things that I could make easily or really shouldn't be eating -- cookies, pretzels, chips, sodas, and yes, I will even admit, beer bottles.

This week, I am going to be mindful about how the packages of the foods I am consuming become the things that the mother earth is consuming as well and think about how I can save money by not consuming.

Bummer....what an inconvenient truth....

Let Mamma Feed Them

2009-01-30T17:14:00.000-08:00

Today I was at a 4-H goat meeting and got into a conversation with someone who had raised dairy goats by hand when the does were right in the pen with the kids. They milked enough milk into a bottle and then hand-fed the kids because the breeder had told them the goats would be tamer if they were hand-fed.

I think this is a crazy practice for dairy goats, pygmy goats or any other kind of animal. Circumstances certainly arise when animals don't feed their young and of course we need to take over then, but the idea that animals will be tamer if they are hand-fed is ridiculous. In fact, I think that hand feeding goats causes some problem behaviors that you don't have if you let the mamma feed them.

Hand-fed kids think that people are the same as goats. While this might be really cute when they are young and follow you around, suck on your fingers and butt you for milk, it isn't very cute once the goats get big and think you are a goat. When they get bigger (like a 150 lb. Nubian dairy goat) these behaviors aren't really cute anymore. When I was in the pen with these hand-fed dairy goats, the goats knocked over the owner's two year old. That is not good goat behavior.

For me, a tame goat is one that leads well, lets you trim its hooves, give it medication by mouth, touch its ears and other parts. Mostly goats don't allow other goats to do these things, so why do you want them to think you are a goat? They can butt other goats, but they don't butt people. They can jump on other goats, but not on people. Just like you wouldn't want a dog thinking your kid was another dog and fighting it for food, you don't want a goat thinking you are another goat and playing king of the mountain with you.

Handling the babies when they are small with the mother there is more effective than hand feeding, and working with the goats by leading them and lifting the hooves will accomplish the "taming" without resorting to heating bottles 4 times a day.

Along the same lines, I let the mother wean the babies herself and don't separate them to wean. Really, what is the point? The babies grow faster and are healthier if they get milk longer. Eventually, mamma has had enough and the babies are weaned. This would be the natural way with goats in a herd.

So try it-- experiment. Just because you are a human doesn't mean you need to control nature! Let your goat feed her own babies, but handle them and see if they aren't just as tame, and more manageable than goats that have been taken from their mothers. Let mamma wean them on her own, and see if you don't get better growth of your kids rather than weaning them at a set time. And leave their horns on (but that is a whole other rant).

Working on the Sabbath

2009-01-29T09:02:00.000-08:00

For the last three years, I have been working on the sabbath....and on Saturdays too. Like most people who work in public safety, or public education, we serve the rest of you who work weekdays and like to recreate on the weekends. You rest, we provide you with the services that make your rest day possible. This post is for those of you church goers who use parks, museums, expect emergency care, ambulances, police, and fire responses on the weekends, yet seem utterly unable to understand why some people work on Sundays.

There are churches who advocate keeping the sabbath by not making other people work, but Quakers are not one of these groups. After the Friends Meeting, if you go by the Co-op market to pick up groceries, you will see many Friends buying their groceries. On the weekends, Friends use State Parks, emergency care, coffee shops, and other establishments, so why are some Friends so judgmental about the spiritual life of others if they don't attend church? Rarely I get a Sunday off, and when I attend meeting, I am not only greeted with "We miss you" but "why don't you attend meeting anymore?" Everyone knows I work on Saturdays and Sundays. In fact these are our busiest days in the State Parks, so the question they are really asking is, "Why is working at the park more important to you than attending meeting?"

I know George Fox said, "Keep your Meetings," but this was in the days before supermarkets were open on Sunday. In fact, nothing was open on Sunday, and if people were found working, they could be jailed. Now, I think people expect others to serve them on the sabbath, and yet judge those who do as somehow not being as devout. The devout, the thinking goes, would choose an occupation that does not require service on the sabbath. Somehow if you loved God enough, you would refuse to work on the day of rest. But Jesus said, "If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath."

I have good news, although I don't think I am the first to proclaim it. God does not dwell in temples built of hands, but everywhere. When I use my EMT skills to help someone who ran their motorcycle into a tree on Sunday and can't remember their name, God is there. When I direct traffic so the Life Flight helicopter can land, God is there. When I talk to the guy riding his bike and give him trail directions, God is there. When I am chatting with folks at the campgrounds about regulations that protect the earth, God is there. And when I show children the wonders of God's creation on a Sunday, I feel God's presence with me.

I understand that keeping worship services is important. There are still countries where this is impossible. And there is a great power in the combined prayer of many people. I understand this. But I also feel that God has guided me to the job I now have. I have found my "place just right." And although I no longer attend Meeting for Worship, I still worship God in silent prayer, reflection, and study. Some of the best Christians I know are people who have never set foot in a church. They walk the walk, not talk the talk.

So I invite all of you who spend your Sundays in church to ride along some Sabbath with a State Park Ranger, an ambulance driver, or a firefighter. Come to work with someone who picks up garbage in a State Park, or who conducts Junior Ranger programs on the Sabbath. See what that grocery store worker who sells you tampons on a Sunday is up to all day.

Leave your church, your meeting, your comfort zone, and see how the rest of us keep the Sabbath holy.