PTSW: The Scat Rap

I was with storyteller Doug Elliott last October at the Hagood Mill Storytelling Festival in Pickens, SC.

Doug performing at Hagood Mill (with sign language interpreter)

I posted a little peice of this rap earlier today in my post about "Perseverance". So it popped into my mind that I'd like to learn the song for my Arrowhead storytelling. I've heard a storyteller favorite of mine, Doug Elliott, do this rap several times. Doug helped several others write it.  And I have his CD that includes it. When I grow up I want to know as much as Doug about our environment. 

Well, Mr. Google is my friend so I consulted him and, sure enough, the Adirondack Naturalist had blogged about it and posted the lyrics. Here they are as my "Poem To Start the Week":

Scat Rap
(1988, Andy Bennett, Mary Keebler, Rodd Pemble, Doug Elliott, Billy Jonas)

Chorus:
It starts with an “s” and it ends with a “t”
It comes out of you and comes out of me
I know what you’re thinking, you can call it that
But let’s be scientific and call it scat.

Verses:
You’re walking through the woods and your nose goes “ooooo”
Must be some critter’s scat’s near you
It may seem gross but it’s okay
They ain’t got no place to flush it away.

Down the trail something’s lying on the ground
Nature’s tootsie roll all long ad brown
Don’t wrinkle your nose, don’t lose your lunch
Break it apart, you might learn a bunch
Don’t use your fingers, use a stick
Keep it sanitary now that’s the trick

If you wanna find out what animals eat
Take a good look at what they excrete
Stuck in the scat are all kinds of clues
Parts of the food their bodies can’t use
Like bones and fur (2x)
Hard berries and seeds (2x)
Crawfish shells, ouch! (2x)
Grass fibers and weeds (2x)

Possum up in a ‘simmon tree
Eating all the ‘simmons he could see
Backed his butt into the weeds
His scat was nothing but ‘simmon seeds

Down by the creek on a hollow log
Scat full of berries and bones of a frog
Late last night he was out with the moon
Wading in the creek it was Mr. Raccoon

You’re driving your car by a woods or a field
Scat goes splat on your windshield
It’s full of seeds, all purple and white
You just got bombed by a bird in flight


Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold
Scat on the trail two minutes old
Two minutes old, is this a joke?
No, it’s still warm, look at it smoke
Cat scat, rat scat, bat scat, too
All god’s chillum do scat a lot, too

Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold
Scat in the woodlot nine days old
Nine days old, how can you tell?
Getting kinda dry and not much smell
Dog doo, frog doo, hog doo, too
All god’s chillum do a doodley do

Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold
Scat in a cave 1000 years old
1000 years old, could that be right?
Sure that’s no jive: petrified copralite
Mole scat, vole scat, bear scat more
There’s so darn many kinds of spoor

Sneaking through the woods be quiet now, shish!
Take a quiet step – something goes squish
Don’t put it in your mouth, it ain’t delish
Let’s put some in a Petri dish
Look through a microscope, what do you see?
Microscopic organisms 1, 2, 3
Bacillus, streptococcus, and E. coli
They eat scat and then they die
Don’t you worry, no need to cry
They ain’t that different from you and I

If you want to know who was out and around
Take a long hard look at the scat on the ground
It tells us what they eat, tells us who they are
That’s what we know about scat so far

And you can hear Doug Elliott perform the Scat rap here. 

McHenry 2022

 Today, as I drove from Cedartown to Rome, I dropped by my beloved old McHenry School. It is so sad to see this piece of Floyd County history fade away. Here are a few pictures...

At some point in recent years someone paved the entry sidewalk with bits of the "Pearly Gates" that used to greet visitors to the campus from McHenry Drive. 

The engraved stone commemorates the  classes that , I suppose, built the "Pearly Gates" in 1934-1935

I took a selfie of my nostalgic face with the former school, and the big Red Maple that is one of two that have survived of the 30 seedlings I and my students planted in 1973.

I had to check out the yard, right across the street from the school, that once belonged to McHenry's beloved dietician, the late Mrs. Clara Packer. Sure enough, there on the last day of January 2022, her early-blooming jonquils are still showing out.

Gleaning Facebook: Susannah at Three Months

Definitely some Shaw in this baby!

Susannah Mavis Carlin at three months.

 

Perseverance

One of the joys of my little part-time job at Arrowhead Environmental Education Center during the last nine years has watching the perseverance of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. 

During those years I have never seen a beaver. They  are crepuscular critters; they get busy during morning and evening twilight, and generally avoid being out and about during daylight hours. I am rarely at Arrowhead at dawn or dusk.

I hasten to add that the toothy beasts have been seen by other humans; virtually every kindergarten class that visits has in its midst several keen-eyed youngsters who see beavers invisible to me!

Virtually every nature walk through our 335 acres reveals new evidence of the determination and hard work of these sturdy and persistent engineers. We see little piles of wooden shavings where they have downed saplings and sometimes bigger trees. We see sticks, freshly peeled of bark, atop lodges and dams. We see new dams, or repaired dams. We see the dark sawdust piles indicating beaver scat. 

------

AN ASIDE:

As storyteller Doug Elliott would sing:

It starts with “S” and it ends with a “T.”

It comes out of you and it comes out of me.

I know what you're thinking but don’t call it that;

Let’s be scientific and call it “scat.”

------

So to me, the outdoor educator, the beaver is a wonderful opportunity to teach about adaptations, habitat, keystone organisms, watersheds, and much more. Children and adults are just fascinated by these critters and their amazing ability to alter their environment to fit their needs.

Unfortunately, landowners, including some folks in the Department of Natural Resources, must deal with those changes to the environment that don't always harmonize with the needs of another organism -- Homo sapiens. In our particular case engineering by beavers can weaken or even flood roadways and drives, plug up human ponds and lakes, and obstruct human drainage systems.

So during my years at Arrowhead there has been an adversarial relationship between Mr. & Beaver and the DNR land management staff. Periodically the DNR folks haul out their end-loaders and Bobcats to destroy the infrastructure created by the beavers. I can't blame 'em. 

But still there's part of me that just has to cheer for the Beaver team in this never-ending game. 

Today as I toured the walk along Lovejoy creek and our upper wetland area, I noticed that Castor canadensis has scored a lot of runs in the latest inning of the contest. There must be five or six new, or newly renovated dams and one restored lodge. Each of the dams seems to raise the water level by anout 18 inches. The one farthest upstream is the primary dam that creates our upper wetland. The new dam is a greatly improved s-shaped structure that creates a pond that comes only inches from overflowing the gravel driveway.

Here are a couple of unrelated pictures and then some photos of the beavers recent work product...

One frequent stop on our nature walks was a Sycamore tree right on little Lovejoy Creek. It was not a large Sycamore, but was the largest tree in that area and made a nice place to talk about seed dispersal. And since most folks ID trees solely by leaves and rarely can ID a tree that has lost its leaves, I enjoyed teaching kids to identify this one by its bark and its "Christmas balls" that hang on all winter. I was very disappointed when the tree was drastically trimmed a year or so ago. Oh well. It still has those "Christmas balls" are still evident, just a mile high. 

Here's the whole thing.

The first evidence of the busy beavers ...

A more obvious new dam that effectively raises the water level more than a foot.

Another reconstructed and very effective dam.

Still another dam relocated from slightly downstream.

Finally is the main dam, the s-shaped dam that impounds lots of water for the primary pond and the home of Mr. & Mrs. Beaver and family.

The beavers really redesigned their primary dam. It is now both more compact, though still s-shaped, and built a little higher than before.

The old beaver lodge has been refurbished with freshly peeled sticks. No beavers have lived in this lodge for a couple of years.

This is our upper wetland looking upstream from the dam. You can see that the water level is only a few inches from the surface of the drive. 

The upper wetland has more water in it than I remember ever having before. This picture is looking downstream.

A Surprise Dusting of Snow

Sheila and I had already gone upstairs and gotten ready for to retire for the evening when I noticed a video post on Facebook from our friend Leigh Callan of SNOW! Was she in Rome? A peek outside answered that question, so I redressed, bundled up, and walked out the front door to take some pictures. At 74 it is still a thrill to see SNOW!

I love the fact that my iPhone 11 has a camera that can take realistic picture in very low light. The lights of town, reflecting off the bottom of the snow clouds has always made an eerie sight that I often wished to capture over the years. But always before it would have taken special equipment and long exposures. Now -- easy peasy.

I love having four seasons; I'd really miss having a time of year when the leafy curtain drops away to give us a panorama of reflected light from the river.

I love living by the Oostanaula levee.  I walk on it most days. And from the levee directly behind my house I have a nice view of Rome's skyline, including our iconic City Clock.

Looking down into our back garden from the levee. I am trying to think of it as a "gahden" rather than a "yard" as I gradually work toward little or no mown lawn. But truth be told, it has been grievously ignored since last summer and is in dire need of sprucing.

Those are my footprints coming down the levee and through the arch.

It is s'posed to read: "Jan 28. 2022" 

The azaleas

The bottle tree protects the house from any mischievous river sprites that might come over the levee with devilish intent. The tradition is that spirits can not resist exploring inverted cobalt blue glass bottles and become ensnared by them.

Our neighbor Michael Ward sent us this picture he took of the house.

Facetime Concert

 Last night Brannon made a video call and, Oh!, how my heart swelled as my three grandchildren, each in her own way made their Grandshaw and Granny feel loved. Clementine was excited to tell us about her latest favorite movie. I've already forgotten the name but she performed its signature song from beginning to end and with verve! I of course snapped a few screenshots. Those are not usually outstanding photos but they'll give a gist.

Susannah is turning out to be a very happy baby.

Both Clem and Ruth love dress-up! Ruth patiently waited her turn (after Clem) to wear the fancy gloves and donned them happily during the phone call. 

Clemmie so enjoyed telling us about her new favorite movie.

Ruth teased us by upstaging her mom and sister to fill the whole screen.

Clem danced about as she performed her song.

In 1956 I took my lawn-mowing earnings down to Record Haven in Griffin, Georgia, to buy my first record, the famous double-sided mega-hit 45 rpm "Hound Dog" and "Don't Be Cruel".  66 years later my granddaughter proudly displays her Elvis figure.

Facetime ain't being there, and how I wish I could be there with them more regularly, but how thankful I am for these "virtual" visits.

He ain't perfect -- neither were Washington, Lincoln, or either Roosevelt -- but I thank God for Joe Biden.

Our economy grew 5.7% in 2021, even faster as the year went on! Of course there are problems that go with growth, but folks, I sure prefer the problems of growth to the problems of recession.

If we can get the rest of the president's agenda passed, I believe, and many economists say, the boom can continue AND can be spread more generally among the population, AND inflation can be slowed.

And, on top of that, we have a grown-up in the White House. Did anyone notice what he did when he let his anger produce intemperate words? He very quickly called up the reporter he had insulted and apologized. Like a grown-up. Can you imagine the infant who stained our White House from Jan. 2017- Jan. 2021 doing that?

President Biden's approval rating should be soaring.

But he will do what he believes is right and in accordance with his oath, regardless of opinion polls. Isn't is wonderful to have a president who doesn't dramatically hug the flag or shout "America first!" and pander to his base but who actually loves "the republic for which it stands" and quietly, sincerely, competently, patriotically PUTS America, rather than himself, first.