A creek or river has two directions: upriver or down. Easy to navigate. The
winding creeks, bays and marshes of the Chesapeake look, from the air, like a
tangled forest, Mirkwood perhaps. From the water, the view is of a circle of sea
and tree woven together like a mare's tail in a high wind.


I guess I should have stayed with the Vikings. But then I wouldn't have had
an adventure. And adventures are things you tell stories about after you survive
them.


It started at the butt crack of dawn, before it actually; me, in the dark,
zombieing around finding breakfast and the last things I needed to throw in my
buddy's Subaru with the boat gear. I don't do Butt Crack of Dawn. And I really
truly deeply loathe navigating the traffic on 83 south and anywhere near
Baltimore. So I rode shotgun and thought about sleep, but ended up with a big
fat coffee from a pit stop in Mary's land instead.


We headed south, along the western edge of the Chesapeake Bay (laregest
estuary in North America). Through Baltimore, still sleeping in the early
Saturday morning light, silvering its way around tall buildings, the Aquarium,
tall ship Constellation in the harbor. South, south with D.C. far off to the
west, up the Potomac. Our destination, a small farm in southern Maryland, lay
near the other end of the Potomac. There, in a slip at the end of Canoe Neck
Creek, off St. Clement's Bay, off the Potomac, lies a forty foot Viking Longship
called Sae Hrafn, (she's docked at the house of a guy who flies blimps, so the
Longship captain and the Blimp Captain live on the same road... really!).


The ship is owned by the Longship Company, a doughty crew of serious amateur
historians and reinactors fascinated by the Viking Age. We are computer wizards,
cinematographers, artists, writers, fixers of engines, retired Park Service, and
at least one rocket scientist (really; he works for NASA). If you show up for a
voyage (it's free, but donations always accepted) you'll probably find someone
wearing a T-shirt with Viking runes on it that say: if you can read this you are
a Viking, or "Viking World Tour" (in the style of rock concert T-shirts) with a
list of historical high points of Norse culture (often battles and raids). At
least half a dozen crew will be wearing Thor's hammers, and some of us may also
have the Nerf version of Mjolnir (from the Marvel Comics' Thor film) on our
desk.


We pull up to the crumbling tobacco barn, load ship's gear into trucks and
cars, drive down the long farm lane to where the land ends. We load the ship, I
load the kayak... in about the same amount of time. A 1-person crew has to have
all the safety/survival gear the big ship has, with less crew to load it. I have
food, water, canned coffee (all the necessities of life), first aid,
windbreaker, bilge pump, towline, more water, spare paddle, fins (to help me
swim back up onto the boat if I dump), camerabag, cell phone tucked into an
Otter drybox in my PFD pocket. I don diveskin (protection from sunburn and sea
nettles) and hat and river sandals and PFD, shoved the kayak down a short grass
slope into the cool waters of Canoe Neck Creek. Here the world is sandy bottom
(unless it's mucky silt), semi-saltmarsh (we're as far down the west side of the
Bay as Assateague Island is down the east coast), farms, wooded treelines,
scattered houses, and a few marinas out there, somewhere, where there is more
boat traffic.


The new crew (visitors on the ship for the first time) hear the articles read
(rules of the Ship), and get a demonstration of rowing commands. Frogging oars
and catching a crab have nothing to do with local wildlife. The new crew
includes a lady who grew up in Hawaii (who may or may not have had ancestors who
sailed there a thousand years ago), her husband (who may or may not have had
ancestors who sailed the North Atlantic a thousand years ago) and a charming
Halfling (our favorite moniker for children, a reference, of course, to the
beloved Hobbit). The ship is readied, the docklines undone, the crew sets oars
and Sae Hrafn (Sea Raven) slips out of the slip.


I back paddle, shooting video, some stills (easier to upload quickly, videos
require editing, a coherent storyline and music). We head out into the creek,
beating against a brisk 8-10 knot wind, singing sea chanties (the bawdier ones
are left behind as we have a Halfling aboard). I paddle rings around the ship,
literally. They are chugging along under oars at a pace that leave me drifting
in their wake, occasionally dipping a paddle into the drink. I can charge ahead,
turn around and get shots as they pass. Swing behind, and cross the stern firing
video from a camera (a Nikon Coolpix L100) rigged with a bit of aquarium hose
covered wire so I can hold it in my teeth and keep paddling. Aboard, Captain
Dave has the new HP Go Pro slung around Sae Hrafn's dragonwolf figurehead's neck
taking shots of the action aboard.


Out into the sun, bright silver glinting off ever choppier waves as the water
opens up before us. Most of the new crew fall into the rhythm of rowing, and
watch changes (so rowers can rest). I paddle, with no watch changes, but at a
slow enough pace (tracking the ship) to relax. The Halfling takes the Helm; a
tiller attached to a steerboard (hence the word "starboard"), the tiller carved
to look like a raven's head. Someone mentions that Blackistone Island (now known
as St. Clement's Island) lies ahead, there beyond the mouth of St. Clement's
Bay, and we should make for it. Our one Captain and Founder is Bruce
Blackistone, who seems to be related to the founders of the island. He is
aboard, and it seems proper for the Captain to visit his Ancestral Holdings. I
float in the ship's wake, swinging around shooting video, falling back to the
lee side of the ship (port, in this case), so as not to drift into the oarsmen.
The dim misty island stays dim and distant. They row, I paddle.


"Are we there yet?" no one says. We sing, we feel the wind, the chop dances
under our hulls. My bow shoots out of the water on oncoming waves. The camera is
high enough to not get wavesplash, the sun is shining, the wind is blowing, the
white gulls are crying...


...to the sea, to the sea, the white gulls are crying, the wind is blowing,
the white foam is flying. That's Legolas' song of the sea from J.R.R.Tolkien's
Lord of the Rings, perhaps my all time favorite bit of poetry, although it is
actually a sort of sad going away song. The rhythm is fine for rowing or
paddling, especially if you sing it in Elvish. Cormorants flap by, blue herons
stalk the edges of the water, an eagle flies overhead and vanishes into the
trees. The Elves would love this.


"Are we going to make landfall on the island?" I ask. I'm thinking I may have
had too much coffee for breakfast, and not enough potty breaks.


"Want to go scout ahead?" Since I can paddle considerably faster than they
can row, and have less stuff catching the ripping good headwind, it seems like a
good idea. I stuff the paddle in the water and shoot ahead. (Comparative Stuff
That Catches Wind 101: Me: me (the kayak has ridiculously low freeboard)...
Them: a few feet of freeboard, mast, rigging, manblocks, random boathooks spears
and axes, 40' hull, a dozen rowers, a sail furled on a yard, figurehead shaped
like a cross between a wolf and a dragon, tail high atop the sternpost, oars,
flags, cameras, the Captain's Chest, tiller, steerboard). For the
sailing-impaired: freeboard is how much of your boat sticks out of the water.



The sky is a still blue dome, spotted with sheep clouds and no chance of Thor
slaying frost giants with Mjolnir (no thunderstorms predicted). The wind is in
our faces kicking up waves. Still above, chaos below. A chart of the area shows
a sandy bottom varying in depth from foot-deep shoals to thirteen feet or so in
the channel. Wind blows the water, tide pulls it another direction, it bounces
off shoals, intersects with a powerboat wake, drops into the deep, ricochets off
riprap (the ubiquitous rock armour lining many shores, especially ones humans
have built stuff on, stuff they don't want washed out to sea when the sand
erodes). The waves rock, roll and collide, making a pattern like a horse
galloping over rough country in the dark. After awhile, my head is spinning
trying to keep up with the motion; not seasick, but kind of wishing it would all
just stand still for a minute. I focus up, on the non-moving horizon and the
motion under the hull starts to make sense again.


The ship is behind me now, a blit somewhere against a distant treeline. I
can't turn around to look; turning the nearly eighteen foot sea kayak is like
turning a truck... and while you're turning, waves are blasting you from all
angles, and at the height of the turn, blasting you dead broadside. Just turning
in the cockpit is a yoga maneuver, one best not done in bouncing waves... you're
likely to be twisted like a pretzel about the time you get a wayward broadside
and find yourself in the drink. So I paddle ahead, keeping an eye on the biggish
tree in the middle of St.Clements Island. I note the compass course as I start
away from the ship: the reciprocal heading is 210 (the direction I want to be
going on the way back). I actually learned to use a compass underwater; for our
dive test we had to navigate a triangle in about ten feet of visibility, and end
up back at our starting point.


Easy compared to navigating the Bay.


The low blueish line of trees that is Blackistone/Clements creeps closer. The
water to either side rolls away to the horizon. That must be the Chesapeake. I
think about turning around, to see where Sae Hrafn is. I think about turning
back; it's getting choppier and I am essentially alone. I have a whistle. I have
a cell phone. I soon learn that the primitive tech is far more useful. I eye the
beach; is that a dock? A ramp? Sand (easy to beach on)? Or riprap (impossible to
land on)?


The waves shift shape again, lower, reflecting waves bounce off the shore,
and the shallows beneath. I spot a dock, with guys fishing off it. I paddle up
and shout ahoy or something. They ignore me. I shout again, and ask if there's a
public landing. I get a blank look and something about their look and demeanor
suggests they might not speak English.


Now I know how Captain John Smith felt. He was the first Englishman to
explore the Chesapeake. He went in a small boat called a shallop (about the size
of Sae Hrafn) with a dozen or so guys, rowed and sailed into unknown territory.
He encountered people, but they did not share his language. He had a compass and
other navigational instruments, but had to make up his map as he went. He had no
support, no backup, just him and his crew. There's a spot on the modern map
called Stingray Point, not far from where we are rowing today; it's where Capt.
Smith saw a stingray in the shallows and ran it through with his sword. The ray
objected and stabbed Mr. Smith in return. The Goode Captain became so ill he
told his men to dig his grave... he managed to recover enough to have the ray
for dinner... and to go on to help create that Pocahontas myth.


I see sea nettles, but no stingrays. I do see a water taxi, and evidence that
Blackistone/Clements is now a tourist destination. I paddle under the dock in
some nice waves, yell something like "Ahoy the taxi!" and get someone who speaks
the same language. Yes, there is a boat ramp around the other side of the
island...and a potti.


The last thing I want to do at  this point ispaddle around an entire %$#^%$#^
island. I look at the island; not very large, actually. I'll just go around that
point and see whats there. I really gotta go.


I pass a picnic area. Something decidedly Park Pottyish. Riprap and nowhere
to land. I keep paddling. The waves shiftshape, flaten, rise, reflect, bounce
off the riprap. I turn the corner and LO! there is an actual sand beach. rising
above it are bushes and trees in Victorian fall colors; deep greens and browns
and burgundys and rusts. And rising above that is a white house with a cuppola
on top which is a Light.


I haul the boat up on the beach, then haul it up farther. The last thing I
want is to call 911 and explain that I am stranded on an island because I didn't
park the boat correctly. I find the potty. I take some pics of the lighthouse,
and somewhere in there I play phone tag with the crew of Sae Hrafn.


I'm hauling the kayak up higher on the empty beach when I hear the muffled
sound of the Star Wars theme. I crack open the Otter box in my PFD pocket and
see the call is from Dave. "Hello? HELLO?!?"


bzzzzzt... the phone calls vanishes into the ether. I hastily dry my hands on
the least wet thing I can find and poke through the phone menu to find which
Dave number that was (I am tech-impaired, so this took a minute). I call back,
he calls back, call drops, I call back.


I can see for miles across the flatness that is the lower Potomac land and
seascape. I can't imagine what's blocking a cell signal. I move up the steps to
the lighthouse and the phone rings again. "HELLO?!?!?"


We establish that I made it to the island, and they didn't. The other tall
ships in the Bay have backup engines for conditions where they can't sail. Even
then, they often are much less efficient under power, or in the case of the 1768
Schooner Sultana, buck and snort like recalcitrant Shetland Ponies because their
hulls were designed to fly before the wind, not plow into it. Sae Hrafn's backup
engine is the dozen or so rowers aboard (the longship, shaped like a big canoe,
is not built for any kind of engine). We are investigating the use of a push
boat (much like the push boats used by Skipjacks) in our (hah hah) copious free
time. The wind has shoved Sae Hrafn into a near standstill. Without forward
motion, you can't steer her; the steerboard doesn't have enough water flowing
past it to be effective. Then the wind grabs her and shoves her sideways. the
rowers try to counteract this by rowing more on one side or the other. In a
kayak, you instinctively counteract the force of the wind and the shove of waves
with an extra stroke, a harder stroke, a longer stroke. On the longship, you are
coordinating 8 to 12 rowers, shouting orders over the wind that's shoving you
into the marsh.


They wisely have decided to turn around and sail back.


I am half an hour ahead of them, I haven't eaten anything except a few
granola bars since breakfast at 6am. I've been paddling since noon, it's now
about 2:30. I know I can't catch them once they set sail (I have paced them
under sail, but I can't paddle faster than they can sail, or make up a half hour
lead). I need to eat, and then I'm making the voyage back alone. I have a
compass course, and I can see their sail when I get farther up the creek (though
they might have dropped it by then). I down a few quick bites and contemplate
resting on the beach for a bit... I'll have the wind behind me, surfing on the
waves, but it will still be rough, a rest would be good.


I don't waste much time. I take a few pics and video of the light and the
beach to prove I was there. I batten everything down in the 'yak, dryboxes,
drybags, stowed. I shove her out into the waves and hop in, popping the
sprayskirt around the cockpit. I paddle around the island to the midpoint where
I first approached, set my compass course, look up the creek from which we came
and...


...there are two creeks. Separated by a bit of land. Two long stretches of
water, bordered by treelines and agricultural land and scattered houses. No road
signs. No arrows pointing "this way to longship landing". Left creek or right
creek? I look at the compass again. Looks like left creek. Unless I'm at the
wrong point on the island. Does that look familiar? Can't tell. Water. Trees. I
head out into open water, to where it stretches away to the far misty blue blur
that might be distant trees or clouds on the edge of the world. I dance on the
waves, they sweep up behind me, yawing the 'yak right and left, even with the
rudder down. I shove on the paddle, the 'yak surges forward, surfing the waves
home.


Finally the treelines around the creeks grow greener, nearer. I check the
compass a few more times; it seems like I am on the right track.


Then the bright red triangle of a daymark appears in front if me. Really, I
don't remember that. I look at the compas. I twist around and look back at the
island. Yep, this makes sense, that looks like what I was paddling toward.


How could I have missed the osprey condo with the big bright red triangle on
it? I call Dave, and raise the ship. Just want to make sure I'm on the right
track before I paddle up the wrong creek. Dave and Bruce check the chart aboard
Sae Hrafn, Can't find the red daymark, number 2. No really, I'm sitting infront
of it, it's here. What? what was that again? The phone crackles like a joke in a
horror film. I hear mumbled sounds, then "Oh, here it is."


And I am totally up the wrong creek, with two paddles. And they are telling
me it's St. Patrick's creek I am in.. and that I should be in Canoe Neck, and
that's to the north. I look that way and all I see is a long unbroken treeline.
I am convinced I am either in the correct creek or I need to be in the one to
the far right (east). A conversation ensues while I try not to drop the cell
phone in the wrong creek and the guys on the ship check the chart again. Unable
to visualize what they're telling me, I finally agree to go up the creek and
look for a marina. They'll come find me.


What I don't know, is that I am actually in the mouth of St. Clements Bay,
the "creek" to the right (east) is Breton Bay and would put me somewhere on the
far side of the world if I paddled up it. St. Patrick's Creek is to my left
(west) and Canoe Neck just beyond it to the north. I can't see either one of
them. In the Chesapeake region, creeks, rivers and bays make stumpy tree shapes,
branches going out short and thick and twisty, then abruptly ending in marsh and
land. The land interweaving with this ends in gazillions of puzzling peninsulas
called "necks". I was looking at a series of "necks" which from that angle,
looked like one solid treeline.


Stealth ninja creeks.


I paddle up the broad chunk of whatever water I'm in, looking for a marina.
Farms, stray houses, fields, riprap, wooded shores falling into the water as the
sand under the trees' feet is eroded by wind and weather and tide, a random dock
here, a tied up boat there. Nothing like a marina with an address that someone
could drive to. I see a large, official (ie: non-houselike) building with a
sandy beach at its feet. I pull the boat up on the beach, start to hike up to
the building, now clearly i can see it is a quonsett hut, a big silver half
cylinder (farm? secret meth lab?) surrounded, in the back, by tall chain link
fence. I pause, turn and pull the boat up farther, then tie it to a tree.


The building is empty of life, except for two vehicles parked out front, It
looks like some sort of business, and a sign suggests farm. then from somewhere
in back coems a deep throated bark, more like a dragon cough, then a roar, then
more, and I consider two things: the guard dogs will bring humans who I can ask
the address of and if it's OK for my friends to pick me up here... or the dogs
will jump the fence... or the dogs are guarding a meth lab. OK, that's three
things. I run back to the beach and untie the boat, head out, very tired, into a
lowering sun and falling light on an empty river.


Then I see a sailboat, going downriver under engine power. I paddle out
toward it, wave vaguely. Shout. Finally blow my whistle. They look, slow, turn
and come alongside.


"Is there a marina around here somewhere?"


"No, you're in St. Clements Bay. No marinas."


I explain where I came from and that I am lost and looking for St Clements
Creek, no wait, Canoe Neck. It's been a long day.


"It's up there." One sailor points vaguely at the distant treeish haze.
Pause... "you want us to throw you a line?"


Sure. Absolutely. Two random guys on a boat, towing me some random place I
can't see. They could be pirates. Axe murderers. Drug dealers. But probably not.
There's a kind of law of the sea at work here. The kind of thing that causes
three kayakers to go up to a 60 foot catamaran they've passed at the same spot
hours before and ask if everything's OK, and find out they're stuck on a
sandbar, and offer to tow them off. We didn't hook the towline up to the 'yaks,
we used the cat's anchor to kedge them off the bar. Law of the sea. The guy
struggling with his jet ski in the middle of a thunderstorm on the banks of the
Susquehanna while I cowered in my van (Thor may be one of my favorite mythic
characters, but I really hate thunderstorms)... I jumped out and helped him with
his boat, even though I loathe jet skis.


I run up behind the sailboat, one guy ties a line off to the 'yak's bow, they
pay out 30 feet or so of line and start the diesel. "Don't worry, we won't put
her up on plane or anything..." Sailor humor. Sailboats don't plane, powerboats
plane. Kayaks would plane, for about two seconds before they did some rather
spectacular special effects. We don't plane, we chug along, the wind blowing the
diesel fumes sideways, the 'yak gliding along at an unnatural speed, the rudder
keeping her in line with the big boat.


Somewhwere in here, Star Wars rings out in muffled splendor from my PFD
pocket. I juggle the phone, the paddle (trying not to catch a crab with it as
I'm being towed)... "I, ah, hitched a ride"...


A few minutes later, they untie the line at Canoe Neck Creek. I invite them
to come play with Vikings, and I paddle up the creek looking for the third cove
on the right, and certain that I'm going to have a chart next time. 　


10 mile paddle. Mostly into the wind. Plus 1.6 mi up St. Clement's Bay to the
quonsett hut (farm/beach), towed to mouth of Canoe Neck Creek by sailboat.


St.Clement's is actually Saint Clements Island State Park.


I was in the mouth of St. Clement's Bay, not St. Patricks Creek (to the
left/west at that point), and needed to go up the Bay (north) to Canoe Neck
Creek. I went north as far as the quonsett hut place (visible on Google Earth,
1.6 mi north of the mouth of Canoe Neck Creek).


The two creeks I was looking at were actually St. Clements Bay and Breton
Bay. Indeed the water to the right (Breton Bay) would have been way wrong.


The course out of Canoe Neck to St. Clements Is. is a long sweeping curve;
there is no  point where it seems like you have made a sharp right turn to the
south. I was following the ship and shooting video, so I wasn't really paying
attention to the course.


Charts: never leave home without them. 


www.longshipco.org We need a few good
rowers...uh...sailors. No experience
necessary.


　

 A conversation with a young friend I work with spawned this... 

She had gone to the York Fair and seen some farm animals. Her childhood in
the Phillipines included a grandpa who had a small ... what we'd call a farmette
or gentleman's farm or truckpatch: pigs, chickens, garden. 

"What kind of cows did you see", I asked.

The ensuing discussion pointed out how much most of us don't know about our
burgers and ice cream and where it comes from. I have a passing knowledge of
some of the cattle breeds, generally color-coded: if it's black, it's an Angus,
if it's white it's a Charlais, if it's black and white it's a Holstein. If it
looks like Disney invented it for a Bambi movie it's a Jersey... Bambi with the
attitude of the Terminator.

I asked if she had cows back in her childhood home. Sure, of course. Water
buffalo? What? A quick google search on the phone turned up pictures of
kalabaw.

"The carabao ( Filipino: kalabaw;  Malay: kerbau) or Bubalus bubalis
carabanesis is a subspecies of the domesticated water  buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) found in the Philippines, Guam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and various parts of Southeast Asia. Carabaos are ssociated with farmers, being the farm animal of  choice for pulling both a plow and the cart used to haul produce to the market."  (Wiki)

Which led me to wondering how they are related to cattle and buffalo/American  bison.


The Cow:
Family: Bovidae Subfamily: Bovinae Genus: Bos Species: B. primigenius Subspecies: B. p. taurus, B.
p. indicus
 
The Water Buffalo: Subfamily: Bovinae Genus: Bubalus Species: B. bubalis Subspecies: B. b. carabanesis

The Bison:  Family: Bovidae Subfamily: Bovinae Genus: Bison Species †B.
antiquus, B.  bison, B.  bonasus,†B.  latifrons,†B. occidentalis,†B.  priscus

The Cape Buffalo  (of Africa, which  looks like a water buffalo) is a whole 'nother beast: it is not closely related  to the domesticated water buffalo, and it is not the ancestor of modern cattle.
Domesticated Water Buffalo are quiet, gentle beasts... Cape Buffalo are one of  the most dangerous beasts in Africa, you're better off meeting a lion on the  trail than a buffalo. Cape Buffalo will ambush and attack pursuers. Of course,  their main predators are humans, lions and crocs. They have to be
tough.

The Yak: Family: Bovidae Genus: Bos Species: B. grunniens 　
 
Family:  Bovidae Subfamily: Bovinae Genus: Syncerus, Species: S. caffer...
subspecies: S. c. caffer,  S. c. nanus, S. c. brachyceros, S. c. aequinoctialis, S. c.
mathewsi

Clearly all the same beasts (bovinae) up until the "genus" part. 

When I looked up cattle species (not breeds), the idea of Cow got more  complicated...

What Wiki says: 

Cattle were originally identified as three separate  species: Bos taurus , the European or "taurine" cattle (including similar types from Africa and  Asia); Bos indicus, the zebu; and the extinct Bos primigenius,  the aurochs. The aurochs is ancestral to both zebu and taurine  cattle. Recently these three have increasingly been grouped as one species,  with Bos primigenius taurus, Bos primigenius indicus and Bos primigenius  primigenius as the subspecies.

Complicating the matter is the ability of cattle to interbreed with other
closely related species.  Hybrid individuals and even breeds exist, not only between taurine cattle and  zebu (such as the  sanga  cattle, Bos taurus africanus) but also between one or both of the se and  some other members of the genus Bos – yaks (the dzo or yattle, banteng, and gaur. Hybrids such as the beefalo breed can even occur between taurine cattle and either species of  bison, leading some authors to consider them part of the genus Bos as well. The hybrid origin of some types may not be obvious – for example,  genetic testing of the Dwarf Lulu breed, the only taurine-type cattle in Nepal, found them to be a mix  of taurine cattle, zebu, and yak. However, cattle cannot successfully be  hybridized with more distantly related bovines such as water  buffalo or African buffalo. The aurochs  originally ranged throughout Europe,  North  Africa, and much of Asia. In historical times its range became restricted to  Europe, and the last known individual died in Masovia, Poland, in about 1627. Breeders have attempted to recreate cattle of similar  appearance to aurochs by crossing traditional types of domesticated cattle,  creating the Heck cattle breed. The yak  may have diverged from cattle at any point between one and five million years  ago, and there is some suggestion that it may be more closely related to  bison than to the other members of its designated genus. Apparent close  fossil relatives of the yak, such as Bos baikalensis, have been found in eastern  Russia, suggesting a possible route by which yak-like ancestors of the modern
American bison could have entered the Americas. 　

Cornfuseled yet??? 

"During the population bottleneck, the number of bison remaining alive in
North America declined to as low as 541. During that period, a handful of
ranchers gathered remnants of the existing herds to save the species from
extinction. These ranchers bred some of the bison with cattle in an effort to
produce "cattleo". Accidental crossings were also known to occur. Generally,
male domestic bulls were crossed with buffalo cows, producing offspring of which
only the females were fertile. The crossbred animals did not demonstrate any
form of hybrid vigor, so the practice was abandoned. The proportion of cattle
DNA that has been measured in introgressed individuals and herds today is
typically quite low, ranging from 0.56 to 1.8%. In the United States, many
ranchers are now utilizing DNA testing to cull the residual cattle genetics from
their herds. The U.S. National Bison Association has adopted a code of ethics
which prohibits its members from deliberately crossbreeding bison with any other
species."

 America nearly killed off the bison (part of it was an attempt to subdue to
Native tribes who depended on it, part was greedy hunting). Out of those
slightly more than 500 individuals came our present thundering herds. Not a lot
of DNA to work with there. I was surprised to see the cow DNA lurking in there,
that second generation animals were fertile, (unlike mules) and that ranchers
have tried to eliminate the cow DNA now.

There it is, the tangled DNA web of Cow.  I leave you with oen more Wiki
contemplation... of the word COW...

 Cattle did not originate as the term for bovine animals.  It was borrowed from  Old  French catel,  itself from Latin caput,  head, and originally meant movable personal  property,  especially livestock of any kind, as opposed to  real property (the land, which also included wild or small free-roaming animals  such as chickens — they were sold as part of the land). The word is closely
related to "chattel" (a unit of personal property) and "capital"  in  the economic sense. The term replaced earlier Old  English feoh "cattle, property" (cf. German: Vieh, Gothic: faihu). The word cow came via  Anglo-Saxon cū (plural cȳ), from  Common Indo-European gʷōus  (genitive gʷowes) = "a bovine animal", compare Persian Gâv, Sanskrit go, Welsh buwch. The genitive plural of "cū" is cȳna", which gave the now  archaic English plural, and Scots plural, of "kine".


　


　


　


　


　


　


　


　

I'm a fan of fantasy and Disney (from childhood), so the poster of a little
boy named Timothy Green with his falling sock and leafy leg was intriguing. Ah,
sez I, a tale of a Magical Child, an Elf child, the quirky misfit kid who
somehow changes those around him. Which is pretty much what it is. Sort
of...


Jim and Cindi, a couple who can't have biological children, commiserate their
Awful Fate of not being able to pass on their Highly Unique DNA to someone else.
I am appalled by the 7 billion people overburdening the planet already, so I
find myself shouting at the screen, "Oh just adopt a frickin' puppy already!" To
which Cindi wails, "I don't want a puppy!" (really, she says that). Jim draws
Cindi into a game, a rite of passage, in which they state All the Things Their
Child Would Be If It Had Been, write it on pages of a small notebook, place
those in a box, and bury it in Cindi's garden. Now they can Move On.


The setting here is a sort of generic fairy tale American rural town, rather
like Charlotte's Web was a generic American fairy tale 20th century farm, or
Brave was a generic pan-medieval fairy tale Scotland. All the apple pie and
soccer mom and sunshine through autumn leaf stuff you remember, or wish you had.
And the Dad who doesn't understand you, the sister who's kids are always better
than anyone else's, the tough coach, the school bullies, the snotty boss, and
the other quirky kid who develops a relationship with the Magical Child. The
actors are fine, the kids are excellent (especially the young boy who plays
Timothy), and NotMom Cindi is overdressed, (like, does she even own jeans?!?) as
if she's always on the verge of attending a party in some posh part of New York
rather than living in a rural town in Middle America with garden in back and a
horse across the dirt road.


Jim and Cindi go forth to an adoption agency, and are on the verge of being
rejected because they haven't filled out their paperwork quite fully. They fill
in the gaps with the Timothy tale. Here is where my suspension of disbelief had
a Major Epic Fail.


In fantasy or science fiction, you must have "suspension of disbelief". The
fictional world created, with its sun and moon and trees and familes... and its
Godzillas and Spiderman and Elves... must be believable. In fact, you work
harder, as a fantasy writer, to make the audience believe a guy bitten by a
radioactive spider can now stick to walls and shoot webstuff to catch crooks. Or
that a radioactive dinosaur rises out of the sea and sqashes cabs and busses in
Tokyo. Or that the Elf in the Fellowship really can bring down one of the
Mumakil with a single bow shot.


Sorry Disney; your framing story of Jim and Cindi explaining to Adoption
Agency Corporate Heads how they became better parents because a magical kid
emerged from the garden, with leaves on his legs, and Changed Their Lives is
just plain ^%$#^%#!!! stupid.


If you felt the need to have them tell the story, that is, narrate the film
we are watching so we get more Deep Insights, then have them tell US the
story... or narrate it to an unseen viewer... and in the end, we can see that
they were telling this "fairy tale" to their now adopted daughter.


There is also a bit of Epic Fail in how the magic is presented to other
people in the town, near the end of the story. Ooooooo, look, there are leaves
on his legs. I would have liked to see some more intense effects there: some
viney greeney stuff growing up from his feet, rootyer, Entyer (you surely
remember the Ents from Lord of the Rings?) greener stuff coming up (still
disguisable by the hilarious socks) and turning into a kid. There is one nice
little scene where they try to cut off the very odd leaves, so he'll be a Normal
Kid and the pruning shears suffer a Catastrophic Fail. They could have used that
idea again, in the town meeting scene, where a few people look at the last leaf
stuck on Timothy's leg and ooooo and ahhhh and Believe.


Or maybe he just used some super glue...


The film does have some lovely cinematography; that Fairy Tale America we all
want to believe in, especially in an election year. It also has an Epic Scene in
Timothy's arrival in the teeth of a gale. Kind of like Beowulf, only Timothy
isn't trying to row a Viking longship while also sailing it (impossible) or
standing in the bow in 100 pounds of chainmail (glub, glub). There is thunder
and lightning and rain (which at the end falls up), and the fertile soil
of the garden bulging like a treasure chest. We cut away before the emergence of
Timothy: a child rising from the earth would just be too zombie flick. Here in
the storm, the rain and the fertile soil the film hits deep mythic notes. In all
those ancient tales, the sky gods rain down and make the earth goddess fertile,
and she brings forth riches. In Norse myth, Thor is the storm and Sif his golden
haired earth goddess wife.


Gene Rodenberry (Star Trek's creator) once observed that you a cowboy doesn't
stop to explain how his six-gun works, he just uses it, you see how it works. So
Captain Kirk doesn't explain how his phaser works, he just uses it. We also
don't see how it works that Timothy gets into school and soccer and other bits
of normal life without some sort of history, birth certificate, social security
card and vaccinations. We just see that it works. It's not the point of the tale
anyway, the point is how he changes those around him. And he does, whether it's
turning the school bullies' Attack of the Killer Lunchables into an art
installation (he's the installation), showing the hidden beauty (and chin hairs)
of a prim museum manager, jumping off a diving board and finding he's never
learned to swim (gaining the attention of the other Weird Kid... and kicking her
in the head), or kicking the winning goal ... for the wrong team, he makes
everyone around him rethink their reality.


The avancing autumn, and the turning of Timothy's personal leaves to gold and
red and brown is a lovely little bit of storytelling. He has not come to stay,
but only for awhile, to teach them something. He is a Force of Nature, an
Elemental, something magical and archetypal, something tied to their dreams. And
like all dreams I have had, the reality is not better or worse than the dream,
only slighly sideways of it.


There is a wonderful relationship between the Girl With the Raspberry
Birthmark (Joni) and Timothy. She is older, taller, beautiful like a young Arwen
Undomiel (the Elven princess who Aragorn fell in love with in Lord of the
Rings). Their pure, innocent relationship causes Jim and Cindi no end of
education in the Art of Parenting Preteens and the Discussion of Romance Etc.
The kids create a wonderful sanctuary in the woods, an art installment made of
fallen leaves, lines of them stiched through branches, panes of them hanging and
catching the last autumn light. Leaves are the iconic image of this film: the
red and gold trees framing the country house, the autumn woods that are a
backdrop to the bicycle journey of Joni and Timothy, the leaf pencil that saves
the pencil factory (um, yeah, a pencil factory figures largely in the plot...
seems Stanleyville is the pencil capital of the world).


Timothy's tale, like all good fairy tales, has a point; it shows the parents
doing Dumb Parenting 101, the mistakes they make, well-meaning mistakes, and how
it is resolved, and how they really are pretty good parents after all. He is the
Magical Child, wiser than his apparent years, quirky, odd. He lets them make
their mistakes, he shows them a purer way, and the joy ripples out to the whole
town.


It's a quiet little film. Nothing blows up. No Grand Quests. No huge tears.
Timothy is everything Jim and Cindi have written on their slips of paper and
buried in the Box in the Garden... only different. Like all kids, he manifests
those dreams in his own unique way. He has a fresh viewpoint. He is the sword of
the hero (or maybe the pruning shears), cutting away the outworn, the old, and
replacing it with something new.


At the end, Something new arrives in the form of Jim and Cindi's new child,
adopted, not a bit like Timothy. Possibly none of the things they wrote on those
slips of paper in the box in the garden, or maybe all of them. She's carrying
her own brand of magic.