simple pleasures and salamander hunting

me and latt's 6th anniversary was a few days ago. he got off early from the nursery he's working at, and the rain stopped around the same time he got off. he came home to me and rowan and jack and we got suited up in boots and slickers and headed off to explore the spring-fed creek that comes down labyrinth mountain to terra. it gets prettier and wilder as you go, and since we've been having so much rain of late everything was so clean and cool and the water was just rushing along. the boulders got bigger and mossier as we went, and the sense of being in a magical place got stronger and stronger. my favorite spot we've gotten to so far runs past these enormous columns of rocks, with caves and everything. it's a very special, very powerful, very quiet place. last time i hiked those big rocks, i found an ancient bucket wedged in between a tree so old it was one contiguous carpet of moss and grey, weathered ironwood and a boulder bigger than a tank. i picked it up and peered behind me at the spring, seeing, perhaps only because i wanted to see it so badly, the old trail, and the girl upon it, in a beeline to a deep hole in the stream where the water must have been sweet and clear and cold.

by the time we trekked back down the stream a couple hours later, we had collected five species of salamanders, and eight specimens, from under rotting logs and creek rocks. we took the home and read our field guides and terrarium books, figuring out that we have a cave salamander, a dark-sided salamander, a lead-phase southern red-backed salamander, and one we haven't exactly figured out yet. we also had some type of brook salamanders that are more aquatic, and latt took them back that night to their stream. we added them to the terrarium where the serendipitous spotted salamander already resides (serendipitous because during our last flood, i opened the front door and found it literally on my doorjam, under the heavy steel door, but fine). we've been learning about their needs and their preferred habitat, and we'll be learning from them and enjoying them. the best pets i ever had were a troupe of california newts, with their sweet muppet-y faces and their benevolence to each other as they dove and swam. the ones we have now can live up to 20 years, and are a delight to watch.

i am blessed that my kids, and my husband, share with me this kind of deep love of wild places, and waterways, and the beauty of these woods. northwest arkansas is a treasure for many reasons, but its preponderance of salamanders has pushed it over the edge of amazingly cool to us all.

and it was a perfect anniversary gift to me.