Cash for Clunkers: Zick Takes the Bait

Photo by Phoebe Linnea Thompson. Last caress for the old car. We're on our way to the car abbatoir.

I'll be on National Public Radio's All Things Considered this afternoon, between 5:30 and 6 pm Eastern time, talking about trading in my faithful, 14-year-old, 14 mpg Ford Exploder for a sleek green beauty of a Subaru Forester. Here's the text of the piece:

As of 8 pm tonight, the Cash for Clunkers program will grind to a halt. An estimated 600,000 low-mileage cars will have been traded in; the three billion dollars allocated for owner trade-ins guzzled down like gas in an oversized SUV’s tank.

I was going to buy a used car. Just one not quite as used as mine, a 1995 Ford Explorer with 178,000 miles on it, dicey shocks and transmission, and an insatiable appetite for fuel. Before the Cash for Clunkers program hove onto my radar screen, I had said it again and again: “I’m going to drive this thing until it falls apart under me.” I was sure we’d pass the 200,000 mile mark together. After all, we’d been through a lot.

That Ford carried me to the hospital twice when I was in labor. We strapped our new babies into its back seat, fumbling with the buckles and straps. Both kids grew up in it, and the slow and steady rain of Cheerios gave over to Nerds and bubble gum, and an orange DumDum embedded in the back carpet, stick pointing up. School papers and Matchbox racers and hairbobs accumulated under the seats; stickers appeared on the windows where I wouldn’t have put them myself.

There were bumper stickers from Maine to North Dakota. There was Give Turtles a Brake! There were dog stickers and flower power daisies and Life is Good stickers and during the 2008 election there were some pointed ones that got me more than a few hairy eyeballs from other drivers, maybe even a ticket or two.

Mice lived in it off and on, including one mama mouse who had the bad judgement to make a big fluffy nest and have her babies in the false fabric ceiling, which was a tenable plan until I drove the car and parked it in the sun. It took a month for me to find the nest. You can imagine. The half-gallon of milk that tipped over and leaked one summer day didn’t help. Neither did the chicken that rolled out of a grocery bag and festered quietly in the cargo area for a week until a small flock of vultures circling low told me there was something of interest in my garage. I didn’t drive it very often, just when I needed to.

It broke down on me only once, and that was just a dead fuel pump, in a parking lot only three blocks from my husband’s office. That car took care of me. And so, between the memories and the stickers and the mingled smells and the familiar, dependable roar of its engine, it became part of our family. I would drive it until it fell apart.

Until Cash for Clunkers. Until it hit me that nobody was going to walk up and offer me $4,500 for the MouseMobile, ever. And I began to see the wisdom of starting over with a new car, no, the heady, intoxicating appeal of it. I struck the Cash for Clunkers lure like a hungry bass.

But the thought of having a dealer fill its good heart with goo and rev the engine to death; of crushing its still strong if rusty body, broke my heart. It seemed so unnecessary. Couldn’t they give it to someone who needed a car? Couldn’t we not kill it, and say we did? I felt like a heel, a faithless, thankless creep, and twice I had to pull over and bawl for awhile at the thought of condemning a perfectly good car to such a violent death.

When I finally closed the deal on my new car, I asked the dealer to leave the Ford on the lot for awhile, not to lead it into the back pasture until after I was out of sight. He chuckled. "People get attached. They do!" I sat quietly in it for one last time, breathing its many aromas. I looked at its stickered rump in my fancy new auto-dimming rear view mirror with compass, stepped on the gas and headed home.

Last look at the Explorer, waiting to be junked. Oh, I can't bear it.

The sleek new beauty, a 2010 Subaru Forester. I know, it's the same color as the old one. I''m comfortable with green.

If you would like to hear the commentary, click here.

And if you do go to listen, please hit Recommend, and leave a comment? I'd appreciate it, NPR would appreciate it, and good Web action helps me get aired the next time!

Giant Otters on NPR

I'll be on All Things Considered this evening March 17, 2009, talking about getting bitten by an Amazon Giant Otter. I enjoyed everything leading up to the actual bite.
It should air near the end of the show; i.e., between 5:30 and 6 pm. Eastern time.
If you miss the broadcast, you can listen after 7 pm Eastern here.
You can also go to npr.org and leave a comment there, to counterbalance all the people who are sure to write in, hopping mad, to tell me what an idiot I must be to pet an otter.
OK, now scroll down to read today's post about a peanut butter factory. It's a big ol' goofy world, in'it?

The True Identity of Woody Woodpecker

Gentle listeners:
I'm on near the end of the second hour of National Public Radio's All Things Considered today, March 10, probably around 5:45pm ET. I'll be talking about the True Identity of Woody Woodpecker, with sincere thanks to ornithological superstars Alvaro Jaramillo and Kimball Garrett. If you miss it on air, you can read it, and listen to it after 7 PM ET, here.

This was probably the most difficult piece I've ever written or delivered--eight takes?? Over two hours in the studio for a three minute piece? Laughing like a maniacal cartoon character oh, twenty times? You'd never know to listen to it...I hope.

And now scroll down for our regularly scheduled natural history post. Thank yew.

Zick Alert

Not to usurp yer wallowing in baby pictures of my overexposed puppeh, but tonight one of my essays published on the National Public Radio home page. It's about turning 50--and disappearing.

Please click the link. I'd love it if you'd leave a comment or recommend it if it speaks to you.
Thanks so much.

The Monarch Ranch

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core

From John Keats' "To Autumn," written September 19, 1819

Fruiting and ripening is Autumn's theme. I've been bursting with the desire to tell you about our monarch ranch. But it takes time to gather the images and thoughts that I need to tell a satisfying story.

It starts with the Monarch Ranch, a coffee-table-sized area next to our pond. At first, it was just a plant or two of common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) coming up and quickly spreading. Uh-oh. Milkweed is an aggressive invader of garden space, and my first instinct was to pull it and keep pulling it. Which I did, and what I got for my efforts was sticky white sap on my hands and more milkweed.

It was here, it was queer, and it was time to get used to it. I decided that I liked the buttery scent of its flower heads, which look like balls of pink cake decorations. I liked the masses of fritillaries, silver-spotted skippers, admirals, ladies, swallowtails and duskywings they attracted.
These are great spangled fritillaries.

But there was a problem. Along about July, after the gorgeous honey-scented blooms had dropped, the milkweed stand (for it was by now a hearty stand, a battery of plants) completely obscured my water garden. What's the point of having a water garden if you can't see it from the deck?

So one fine day I went down with a clippers and lopped the whole lot of them off. Pulling them was futile; they'd just resprout.
Smiling for Phoebe, who's behind the camera. Also smiling because I can see my pondlet again.

Before cutting each plant, I checked it carefully for monarch eggs and caterpillars. Nothing yet. July's a bit early for egg laying here.

When I was done, I had a huge heavy pile of plants to haul to the compost. That's that. Well, sort of. Within a couple of weeks, the roots had sent up healthy, tender new shoots. They were going to reconquer the water garden.
Ahh, but this time they didn't get so tall, nor did they bloom. They just kept putting out leaf after tender leaf. And the monarchs noticed. Monarchs like tender new leaves, unlike milkweed tussock moth caterpillars, which can eat the tough old holey ones. There was a monarch oviposition frenzy that summer--26 caterpillars at one time in this tiny area--and the idea for the Indigo Hill Monarch Ranch was born. These pictures were all taken this year, but the ritual has been the same since its inception. Wait for the milkweed flowers to fade and fall in late July, lop the plants down to ground level, stand back and wait for the new shoots to emerge. Enjoy your caterpillar ranch.
What could have been an aggressive pest has been tamed by the cutback. It's not spreading much anymore (we'll disregard the shoots that come up in the cracks of the patio...)
But the greater shift has been in my perception of the plant. It's gone from pest status to exalted, as a source of fragrant flowers, fritillaries, and intense joy. Next: the ongoing chrysalis party in our kitchen.

News flash!


Just a quick message, inserted sideways into the chrysalis talk, to tell you that one of my commentaries, about rescuing a common yellowthroat on a Chicago street, is due to air this afternoon (September 22, 2008) on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. The show starts at 4 pm Eastern, and the commentary could air any time in the succeeding two hours. If you miss it, you can listen to the soundfile here.

Rabbit Heroism

All my container plants are up on blocks. This is Appalachia, after all, it matches the cars. Actually, it's because I have a rabbit nemesis in the yard who climbs up into my planters and eats everything down to stubs. She chews up geraniums, reducing them to a pile of leaves and stem segments. Some thanks that is for saving her babies.

I am happy to report that the shadbush she bit down from 14" to 1" has resprouted, and is now enclosed in chicken wire. Thought you'd like to know, TreeLady.

On Thursday, July 12, my commentary on heroic rabbit mothers aired on All Things Considered. You can listen to it here.