NYC Parks

The End Of An Elm



Betsy came back from her run the other morning issuing a report on our English Elm, Ulmus procera, a tree I believe to have (or had), the greatest girth in Brooklyn. We have been passing this elm on the rather lonely walk between the Parks office/Secret Police and the Bowling Green for a dozen years now, but in recent years it has shown signs of distress. I decided to walk to the B train, detouring north toward Prospect Park, to see for myself.



The trunk is massive although a phone camera's distancing effect misrepresents this truth. My guess is a circumference of an easy sixteen feet. 



Dutch Elm disease? We thought Parks may be preparing to take this tree down because the fencing had been removed.



So often with trees, they sucker, even in death. We will miss this great tree!




Bush Terminal Park


Not far from the place they call Bush Terminal, looking out on the Upper Bay, a park has been materializing over the last five years. Ever. So. Quietly.


It's not obvious, or even apparent, how one will be able to get to there. The design encompasses a seawall, a grove of trees, a few steep mounds, and maybe a sports field. 


Impatient, I didn't want to wait for the girl to move out of this best view of the new park. She and some friends were hanging out, far from typical public or domestic settings, where the street meets the bay. While I'd like to be the first person to step foot in this park, I suspect these kids will get there first.




Lakeside Esplanade



The new lakeside is open for 4 hours each weekend day from Oct. 20 through November. I headed out last weekend during the pinkest of all events -a breast cancer walk-a-thon in Prospect Park.

My approach.

The stone near the drum circle.



No one was around.

Low, dappled light and asters.

Strong bones.

Imagine the ducks here.

For reasons unknown to me, the paved path doesn't move continuously along the waters edge. One must go around an area with trees and shrubs to get to the other side.

Which makes me wonder why this "path is built into the planting behind the wall. Is it because they know people will tramp back here or do they not know?

I am glad they retained the WWI monument. I'm not a fan of the structure, but I'm fond of the statue.

Evocative of the great death and misery of WWI, its deco-gothic figures are haunting in the way few war memorials allow.

On the other side, the "indoor" rink. Minimal, airy, yet hard-edged. An outdoor rink sits beside, but the whole affair sinks back into the landscape. Some will have trouble with its blunt angularity, but the whole building complex, from lakeside, does not overwhelm.

There are lawns.

Construction is nicely executed.

And Abe finally has a place that doesn't feel like a back alley.

And, yes! They finally fixed the stairs that lead to Abe. The easiest job has taken years.
These urns were updated, restored, repaired, recast? However, they're new.

But not these, just down the path.

Turning back, a view toward "Music Island" where music is no longer made.

I imagine this a view of what Prospect Park must've looked like in the 19th century. We are lucky to have it so late in the game.

Between chaos and order there is only maintenance. And what plans has Prospect Park Alliance or Parks for maintaining its new jewel? Some staff who were tying wire to a hole cut in the chain link mounted on the slope of the music grove spoke frankly -there's little chance of this holding up as far as they can tell. 

An obvious point of departure: The nicely detailed fencing is hardly barrier to those eager to head out onto the peninsula.

It beckons, a vanishing point leading your eye to a place all your own. Leap that fence, hangout unmolested by the strollers; drink 40s, smoke, enjoy what nature intended. Let's get the clean up and restore volunteer group ready.

On my way out of the park, I found the swarm of pink had grown. I could see them marching way across the lake as well as before me. I imagined they circled the park entirely. They beat drums, danced, whistled, and carried signs.

And the stone that was painted to resemble the autumn leaves had been turned pink (ish).

And I made my way out of the park, passing through the muck below the lake.


Grass Is Stinkier On The Other Side



Yep, I know, Parks -it's cheaper maintenance and it is always green, sort of. But, when the wind blows from the north or northwest, it stinks to high heaven like some kind of chemical bath. It's hard to imagine breathing deeply while playing soccer over this stuff. It's simply rotten.

I walk by this twice a day on my way to and from the train. Several blocks long and no escape from its hard-to-define smell. If you've ever lived with or near wet outdoor carpeting, its that smell. While it may be more expensive, and it may not survive the beating, I love the smell of cut lawn grass. Love it.

So, as I see it, Parks chose between rotten and love, and they went with rotten. Sorry to be so hard, I get your reasons, but there's simply no love there.


A Beautiful Day




Fall back on a beautiful day. Crisp air, slight breeze, blue skies, the scent of fallen leaves, and the yellowed and tawny leaves of the beech tree. The beech is the reason I go to High Rock Park on Staten Island, and mushrooms the excuse. Today there simply were no mushrooms, but a few small, pale yellow caps, and a strange, large white wood mushroom that smelled, to me, spicy, verging on anise. Marie took samples. This was our second trip to High Rock, and I was high with hope to find some edible mushrooms. We did find an old, large hen of the woods, and a minute after that, a tick of the woods. Pants into socks, but nothing to eat.

We did see lots of these Striped Wintergreen (or the much more fun Spotted Pipsissewa), Chimaphila maculata down near what I call dead tree pond.

These are the seed capsules of the same plant. Marie says the seeds are as fine as dust.

Moss, always respectable.

So we didn't have much luck with mushrooms, but we did stumble into Pouch Scout Camp, where I was awed by the range of reds of all the oaks surrounding the large pond, known as Ohrbach Lake. It's a little odd, but G. maps does not show a pond in that area in maps or terrain view. But there it was, isolated and beautiful. Save Pouch Camp.

Hungry and unprepared, we ate some Staten Island pizza at a place called Francesca's. Marie had some wine, Vince and I cokes. Military History channel was on the tv, displaying as many dead soldiers as it could muster between our cokes and that last slice. Readers from Staten Island, send us in the right direction for lunch -we were at the mercy of the road to the Verrazano.

I delivered Vince and Marie to their place and off I was to the beach farm to plant some garlic.
Late in the day it was warm, a touch balmy. The air had stilled, and I had some cloving to do at the picnic table with scale, garlic, and notepad. The soil is nothing like my upstate plot, soft and friable, but with small stones and occasional chunks of concrete. The dibber dibbed, and I planted 100 or so cloves, drank my still hot coffee (thank you real thermos), thought about where next year's vegetables would go given the greater space commanded by the garlic. Tomatoes will stay put, and the haricot vert will be in this year's garlic/broccoli bed. Herbs are staying put, as will the pea/cucumber trellis. But where will I experiment with the allium vineale? Still unknown.

I harvested my first ever cauliflower -the one I planted near the compost hole. Grew twice as large and twice as fast as the others. Still, so late in the season, it was not a big head -maybe 6 inches across. Yet it tasted so good, and sweet, that I ate most of it before Betsy got home, leaving just enough for her to taste. So good.

Some broccoli are producing side shoots and I like how they purple. They are also very sweet. I ate all that I picked, which isn't very much as much of broccoli has yet to head up and probably won't so late in the season. There were also many snap peas, some of which I snacked on while planting garlic, but left most because of the early dark that afflicts all outdoor activities at this time of year.

I stood enjoying the warm blanket of air, the white noise of waves in the distance, coffee in hand. How I wished my agricultural practices could all happen right here, at the beach farm. I was reminded of my roots on Long Island, two landscapes at my core -the red oak woods and the beach, and the atmosphere of life near the ocean. Then I thought of our eastern farm lands, changing from potatoes and cabbage to sod, then to grapes, but more often than not -to homes.


I went home, as the moon rose, to make meatballs of lamb and red cipollini onions mixed with diced dry sausage and fennel.




High Rock Mycorrhizal



I had only been to Staten Island's Greenbelt twice. Once, a several years ago and then again this past spring for a late winter workshop on trail maintenance. Neither visit was comprehensive, leaving the vast majority of the trails unexplored. This time, I was going because I thought that woods of High Rock would be a good location to find edible mushrooms. And because it was mushrooms, I asked Marie and Vince to come along. 


High Rock Park is a hill landscape, only 90 acres, with a mature canopy of mixed red maple-sweetgum, oak-beech, and oak-tulip communities. The trees, the minimal understory, and abundance of leaf litter that I saw last March suggested to me that this would be a great place to find mushrooms. And, it was. Not steps from the parking lot, not steps from the entry road, there were mushrooms exploding through the leaf litter. 

The mosquitoes were more noticeable than usual, and that mixed with increasing humidity created the muggy, itchy feeling no one enjoys. After dousing ourselves in a deetless repellent that choked with the scent of hair spray, we were on our way. The red in white trail, the yellow trail, and then the green -all are good. The woods beautiful, the trails wide. Because of the hurricane, downslope trails were blocked by fallen trees, but generally easy to maneuver (I believe I belly rolled over one trunk).

Chicken

?

??

The large vernal pool (year round pond?).

Stinkhorn.

Bolete?

Boletus.

Myco-humorous.

For lunch, we drove to the greenbelt nature center. Afterward, we went off on the trail behind the center. There was little in the way of mushrooms in those woods until the forest changed to upland dry oak with an ericaceous understory (huckleberry?), not unlike those near the edges of the Long Island pine barrens. Here, we also found mushrooms, although with less frequency and variation than at High Rock.

Now that I've traveled more of the trails at the Greenbelt, I think I have learned to avoid the lowland woods if I wish to stay out of the bramble and briars, which are less interesting, and remind me too much of the suburban, disturbed nature in which the better woods are embedded. They also harbor more poison ivy, and with all the trees down, we had to limbo the vine more than once.  Moses Mountain, a unique or strange, small yet steep-sided hill feels like a vegetation-covered monument to construction debris (turns out, it is just that -thanks Robert Moses). At road crossings, garbage abounds, speaking more of a teenage hangout and trash thrown from cars than of a fine woodland park. And if it's mushrooms you are seeking, the lowlands also appear less fruitful. 

We decided that High Rock demands another trip, in autumn, but, I think, I can let the rest go. My mind has already started drifting towards another borough, another park: Van Cortlandt, where I am slated to pick up the trail work again this fall.



Over Reach?



I do find it a shame that both Central Park and Prospect Park are ordered closed tomorrow -Saturday. I also find it a shame that the greenmarkets of Saturday will be not happening. We can well predict the timing of this storm to be at the earliest Saturday evening. Greenmarkets are well wrapped up by 4pm and why not hit the park this Saturday morning before all the weather, if not to at least get a vision of it before it thrashes.

Beaches, well fine, I get it. The high surf, etc. But I will still make an honest attempt to get to the beach farm tomorrow to harvest before it all blows over. Will the Fed be as panicky as Parks?

I tell you, I depend on my rational attitude when it comes to this sort of thing, but all the chitter chatter, all the suggestive hyperbole by governors of mid-atlantic states, makes me anxious. I think what I could use is a little quiet on the emergency preparedness front. But I know it's not me they're talking to; it's an all day convince 'em committee, trying to reach that fart who never listens.




Snake Park



It's actually called Lanape Park. We pass it on the way to the beach farm. From the road all you see is a giant snake and white eggs that spray water. I liked that sense of menace mixed with the absurdity of eggs that spray water, although it seemed a little scary for the little ones. I got my camera working, so we finally decided to stop and take a closer look.

From the road we couldn't see the turtle, the mother of the eggs that happen to be hatching.

Its hard to see, but the mouth has a nozzle that sprays water. Meanwhile the snake is coming for dinner. I still like it better from the road. Something about eggs that spray water tickles me.

Check out these cigars. If the snake didn't scare the kids, maybe these ghostly faces will. Seriously, how did this pass the committee? I understand it is supposed to suggest Native American-ness (spirit poles?), but it ends up being just weird. What exactly were kids supposed to do with it? We couldn't spend too much time figuring it out, as adults aren't allowed in playgrounds in NYC. At least, not unless they are towing a kid themselves, which we weren't, and so we spirited away to the beach farm.




Glass Act


I received a comment the other day with this info attached. If you live in the Fort Greene area, or you frequent the park, consider lending these civic-minded folks a hand.

"...my organization Broken Window is putting together a clean up of broken glass in Fort Greene Park. We intend to send the glass for recycling at a facility in New Jersey. I would love to ...get some kind of shout-out on New York City Garden, because we are still looking for more volunteers. Thanks so much!
Shana

Lord knows I've been cleaning up the broken glass in my small plot for years. I'm sure they can use all the help they can get. Check it out.


Attention Prospect Park Visitors!



I am now hearing that Prospect Park will be sprayed tonight, after 12:30am (and our neighborhoods after 8pm tonight). If you are sensitive to this sort of thing (or foraging tomorrow), you would want to know this. Despite contacting my councilman, and having received a response, I have no new information from the city on the spraying that would help me understand what the procedure is for application of pesticides (Anvil 10+10). They tell me they do not spray the house. But how could that be? What exactly are they targeting from their truck mounted sprayers? Seriously, it's not cool, New York City.

I have to now hit the internet to find information that the city should be providing. How hard is that NYC? Just a little info goes a long way. Why do you not want us to know more about what you are doing? Because we might disagree? Hmm.


"New labeling precautions for pyrethroid products, with one exception, prohibit applications to blooming crops or weeds when bees are actively visiting the treatment area. "
-suppose its bad for the garden then. You thought you were organic!

Also, pictures of a truck sprayer and hand-held sprayer from the same Mass website:



I imagine the setup is similar in NYC. Notice how they sprayer is mounted to spray up and out, in a "fogging" type of manner. The Massachusetts site says to shut your AC, while NYC tells us not to. Hello -mine is now off. The droplet size is quite small from something like this and is capable of entering your AC.

If you witness the spraying tonight in the any of these zipcodes please report what you see: 11355, 11358, 11364, 11365, 11366, 11423, 11427, 11215, 11218, 11219, 11225, 11226, 11232, 11238, 11691 or 11692.


Here is a link to testimony to a congressional hearing by a doctor on the effects of these types of pesticides. Note that the pyrethroid pesticide she discusses is similar to the pyrethroid they are spraying in our streets. Also note that the ULV designation doesn't mean less, it means lower volume of spray but higher concentration of poison.



OY.

If you are a bee keeper, read this:

Where the risk factors combine to pose a serious risk to bees, you will want to consider one of two options. Beekeepers with one or two colonies can confine their bees during and immediately after a spray. If you choose this method, you will have to confine your bees the night before the spray takes place, and leave them shut in for 24 hours. Before confining your bees, make sure they have sufficient space to prevent overheating - that may mean adding an extra super of empty combs. Remove the entrance reducer, if present, and screen off the entrance with 1/8" hardware cloth. Plug or tape all other holes in your equipment that the bees can use as entrances, and replace the inner and outer covers with a piece of 1/8" hardware cloth stapled over the top of the hive. Cover the hive with two layers of wet burlap, and keep the burlap wet while the bees are confined. Place a sheet of plastic loosely over the burlap during the spray to minimize direct contact with the pesticide, but remove it immediately after the spray. If your bees are in the sun, you must provide shade. A day of confinement is all that a colony can take without suffering damage, especially if it is hot. Beekeepers with more than a couple of colonies will want to move their bees out of the spray area. Be sure to contact the health department in the county where you plan to move your bees to be sure there is no spray program planned for that area.

If you leave your colonies unprotected in a spray zone, observe the entrances for several days after the spray takes place. If you note an unusual number of dead, crawling or dying bees in front of your hives, call your regional DEC office immediately and ask that a Pesticide Specialist sample your bees to determine if the kill is due to the pesticide that was sprayed in your area. Ask DEC for a laboratory assay to determine if the product used to control the mosquitoes is present in your bees. Also, report any confirmed pesticide damage to me, so that I can determine the statewide impact of the spray programs on honey bees.

I have contacted agencies in other states to learn about their experiences with these pesticides. The staff at the Florida Department of Agriculture Mosquito Control Program informed me that they have not had any bee-related problems with Anvil and Scourge when using nighttime, ground applications. Some minor damage to bees hanging outside their hives on hot nights has been noted, but that is all. In a similar vein, colleagues in Missouri have also informed me that they do not experience damage from pyrethroid sprays unless the spray contacts bees hanging out on hot nights. So, that is relatively good news.

You can contact the following New York State Department of Health website for more information on the West Nile Virus, control methods for mosquitoes, and the various pesticides being used as part of the control program: http://www.health.state.ny.us/. You can contact the following DEC website to locate phone numbers for your regional DEC office: http://www.dec.state.ny.us/.

I am contacting the state's county health departments and asking that they restrict any spraying to nighttime applications of Anvil or Scourge. Also, I am asking that they consider focusing on control of larval mosquitoes rather than the adults because larvicides are less toxic to bees. Compounds such as methoprene and Bt are effective against the immature stage of the mosquito, non-toxic to people, and relatively non-toxic to bees. Local community-based programs that focus on the elimination of breeding areas, such as old tires and cans with water, can also have a significant impact on mosquito populations.

Please share this information with all members of your organization.

Sincerely,

Nicholas W. Calderone
Assistant Professor of Apiculture
Department of Entomology
Cornell University
Comstock Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853


OYsquared.



NYC Playgrounds Only For Kids And Moms

Read this account of a recent ticketing after eating a donut with a friend in a NYC playground.
Follow up story here. I guess playgrounds get considerably less safe with non-child raising adults around. Cops are well aware when they're racking up easy ones, and no greater opportunity for a bunch of easy ones are a few donut eating couples sitting on a playground bench.

Enforcement of the law requires discernment, not bluntly wielded objectivity. If I am breaking rules, unknowingly, it is up to the police officer to discern my intent. If I look like a drug dealer, pedophile, ask me for my ID. If I look like an ignorant donut eater, tell me to scram.

On The Work Trail



We went to learn how to move thousand pound quarry stone.

But I am one of those guys, distracted by the greenery all around the trail, who can't put away his camera. Here the garlic mustard, which was profuse and even beautiful at times over that first week of May.

Stone moving a little bit much for this volunteer, she decided to clear the woods of all the garlic mustard.

Poison ivy was everywhere. Its typical red-tinged shiny young leaves in threes.

But then also this specimen, with deeply cut, dull green leaves having confused more than one volunteer.

The trail section as we left it in April.

This in May. The NYNJ Trail Conference trail builders do fine stone work.

There was much new growth near the staircase, including the leafing out of a group of lovely young tulip trees.

And the oaks nearby, likely a red or black oak (pointy leaf serrations).

Celandine -major.

Chelidonium majus, a poppy from Europe that likes roadsides and wastes, much like our road embankment staircase.


My guess is Rubus phoenicolasius, or Wineberry. I remember these from the Muttontown Preserve. Also growing alongside the embankment staircase. Pretty dull in April, now it's full of interesting plants.

This seems to be a trail where animals go to die. Must have something to do with the highway.


This is another segment of the John Muir Trail. A previously boulder strewn incline, now being improved with quarried steps to minimize mountain biking on the trail (yet probably won't stop it).

The water bar we had practiced moving after it was placed and dug in. Water bars move water off the trail so that fast moving water doesn't erode the trail into a deep gully. And finally...

Part of that day's work was "de-berming" a paved hillside path to allow water to move off the path and into the woods. In the course of this work, volunteers scraped and shoveled many plants out of being. Trail builders do not have the resources to take great care with the trail-side plants while doing renovations. Much like any infrastructure work, the heavy lifting gets done without the light touch of plant protection or relocation. Saving plants is an entirely different frame of mind, and would require the knowledge of which plants are worth saving, how to dig them up, and how to place and care for them until they re-establish. It also requires trail work information before it begins. 

I noticed the may apples, a rather obvious species, and decided to spare some. I picked a few out, some missing leaves, and bagged them, poured Poland Spring into the bag, and left them with my things. Of course, it couldn't have been 2 minutes before I was ragged on for stealing park plants by one of the officials. But we're killing them anyway, I argued. The whole affair left us feeling awkward. Of course, we're both right, but...it seems to me that even if I had planted them deeper in the woods, without watering them (who knew if we would get much rain, it being the beginning of a dry week, now we are in a wet one), I suspected they had little chance of surviving. In fact, on our last outing volunteers planted a number of plants in a bad spot (under a maturing pine and in the path of moving quarry stone) and most were dead by the time I returned to the site. Anyhow, I must keep reminding myself not to be a gardener when I am helping with trails.

Many of the may apples were in flower. I transported my three stolen (or saved) may apples to my yard, planting them under the yew tree (my best approximation of woodsy shade) and watered them. Three weeks later I am almost surprised to say that they are still alive. If they like it there, they will spread, and then I will need to share them with Prospect Park. I'll call this take and give.

Remember this tree I posted about two weeks ago? Working on an ID. I still think its a weed tree.

It's now leafing out, much later than many of the other species, like tulip tree and oak, around it. I think I know what it is and I simply have been too busy to dig it out of the books. Update: I think it's a mulberry tree, maybe Morus alba.




Gone Golfing



Last Monday was one of the few warm days since March one, and I intended to use it to photograph Van Cortlandt golf course for some possible future paintings. I was under pressure to get my shots under a cloudy sky, and only a few hours till the sun would burn off the clouds. Problem was that I couldn't find any visual access to the course from behind the fences and brambles. So, I followed the trail that followed the fence. 

I made my way around the southern reaches of the long, finger-like -err, what's the word, I don't play golf, uh, fairway? Throughout I found places where human desire and manual dexterity folded back chain-link so that I could jump on the green and steal a few shots.  And that's what it felt like -crime. The distinction between the course and the surrounding bramble creates a strong division, and I understood which side of the fence I belonged. If I am ever to progress toward making paintings of courses, I will need appropriate access, which I hope does not come with the 50 dollar tee fee, a permit, and a golf ball driven off my head.

Off the trail was a swampy pond-side vista. It struck me as a man-made pond that once graced a private landscape, but has since gone wild.

The willows' green is really quite remarkable, delivering such intensity that gray morning.

I crossed a ramshackle bridge covered with bird seed.

And the birds couldn't wait for me to pass.

The skunk cabbage was up, unfurling.

Maple flowers had littered the ground.

Ficaria verna, a buttercup, also known as Lesser Celandine.

It's a well known invasive. If you're out in early spring, you'll see this in wet woodlands.

Blue jay feather catches my eye.

I find myself between two greens, the liminal browns I suppose, on a path intensely dark.

A stream runs between the path and the course to the west.

Exceptionally flat and exceptionally straight. I start to think about where I am.

And the evidence of the old railroad makes itself known.

I realize that I must be on the Old Putnam Line, which I saw marked on a google map.

To the side of the trail, hundreds of trout lilies. The same were recently pointed out to me by my friend Jane, in who's garden they have formed dense mats under some trees. She hadn't seen them there in 40 years of gardening. I was aware of trout lilies -the flower, but never noticed the leaves, and then Marie put it all together the other day at 66sf.

When I approached the tunnel, I had to decide how much further I was willing to go. A little, I decided, and two hundred yards further I did turn around, and that was when I saw the rabbit.


My intention that morning was never to explore the park, so I made my way through a hole in the golf course fence, hustled up a green embankment, jumped over a section of fallen chain link, to the trail which we had been re-rerouting a few weeks earlier. From there I headed to the van, as I was beginning to feel ill, too hot, even for such a warm day.

I'm still not over the cold that developed that day, as it makes its way into the depths of my lungs. I blame the blasted winds that seem to be pummeling us daily, and especially on those days I need or want to be outside, such as mulch day at the Greenwood or yesterday at the beach farm. That post soon.



Trail Blazing


On April 2nd I had my first round with trail rerouting in Van Cortlandt Park, the Bronx, New York, North America, Earth. Trails require such micro to macro thinking (thank you Google).

The group was a handful of middle-aged men and women(40-55, and that includes me) and a group of extremely well-mannered and thoughtful teens. 

Many of the teens were out planting new shrubs and trees along the trails.

We hiked to the location (me with full wheelbarrow -oof), a descending trail on a highway overpass embankment. The embankment trail is rutting and washing out in heavy rains. 

Christina and Tom, of the Friends of Van Cortlandt Park, laid out the new route.

I tackled a water hole (my take -careless drainage from the adjacent golf course), letting it flow down to the right of the re-routed trail. 

This is the upper portion of the embankment trail. The stone crew will be here over the coming weeks to begin making a stone staircase. I got to make my first stone check dams. At first glance, it seemed there wasn't much to do, but then after 4 hours, it appeared we had done a lot.

The soil level raised, another stone check dam in place, and a drainage trench dug to channel water off to the right of the trail. Plants planted alongside the trail too.

I had to keep my gardener-self somewhat in check. Otherwise, I would have been asking why we are planting such large-growing, sun-loving shrubs under a mature pine. In many ways the group was simply planting only to redirect traffic, not to encourage growth of those plants. But I had to let it go, it's not a garden, it's a weedy woods on a highway embankment. Yet, I have vowed to myself that if I am going to participate, I may as well be the expert on natives and weeds in urban habitats so that I can help decide which plants pulled should be replanted or tossed. It seems to me that knowledge would be quite useful on metro trails projects.

After we finished up on the embankment, we headed up top where another group was removing an old rusty guard rail. Next meeting, on May 7th, we'll be working with the stone crew on the steps, and then clearing brush for a reroute on the upper portion of the trail. Not a big fan of the brush clearing in this bramble-filled roadside location. I'll bring a machete.

I spotted a dead bird of prey while we were working.

A ranger came by to take the carcass away for testing.

She identified it as a red-tail hawk.



Tree 101


Can anyone help identify this tree? I think it is a weed tree, but only guessing this because of its preponderance at the flanks of a highway overpass and the visual yuck factor. Its bark is yellow-green -no leaves just yet. The largest one I saw was about 15 feet tall.

Bark

Form

Three in one image.

If its a weed, the next time we are moving a trail, I can suggest that we don't need to replant them, as had been the case on our last outing. As it turns out, expertise in native and non-native plants its pretty useful on trail projects.




My Labor Where My Mouth Is



Early morning, vernal pool, High Rock Park.

With a skin of ice.

The vernal pools are formed in depressions matted with a forest's worth of leaves.


Over the last few years I've made some fuss about parks in these pages and have suggested that one of the best ways for folks to experience nature, to satisfy the need to connect with it, is not only to have a visual experience, or even to sport in our fields, but to actually work with it. I had been wondering how one can get into our parks to practice, participate, work with the stuff of parks. The rule around here is that you cannot really touch, prune, collect, harvest, pull any growing thing in any of our city parks. That's a lot a nada.

But my inclination, a gardener's inclination, is to do those very things. My thinking had completely changed the way I see the direction of future parks, to the point where I had actually proposed to The National Park Service a park in the form of a farm. Of course, as far as I could tell, they had no idea what I was talking about, and acted as if I never sent them that 8 page proposal.

So I needed a more conventional way of working with nature in our parks, but at the same time, I had rejected the idea of working for Parks or any of the various alliances that service them. Enter the New York New Jersey Trail Conference. What's that? From their website:

"The Trail Conference is a nonprofit organization with a membership of 10,000 individuals and 100 clubs that have a combined membership of over 100,000 active, outdoor-loving people."

What do they do? In short, they create, map, and maintain hiking trails in New York and New Jersey. I own their maps, which are the best, printed indelibly on Tyvek. As it happens, they are organizing more actively in New York City these days. Just think about all the trails in all the parks we have between the five boroughs. The NYNJTC has trail building expertise, they have standards for blazing (trail marking), they can organize labor to get things done in ways Parks cannot always seem to manage. I like a small organization.

 Volunteers discuss what was learned on the trail.

Through their work, NYNJTC frames the way we perceive nature and landscape and that is something of which I am deeply invested -through my painting, photography, and even this blog. So it only made sense that I would finally take the dive, commit some of my free time to urban trail projects. Of course, I want something in return, and that is to learn as much as I can about building sound trails, boardwalks over wetlands, bridges over ponds, or stone steps. And maybe I wish for some influence too -the trail should go this way, towards these plants or that vista, how about building a trail in this or that park, or planting these plants in that location.

I love beech trees as they hold onto their ghostly leaves throughout winter.

I also get to visit parks I would be less inclined to for a variety reasons and get to know them intimately. For the coming three months I will be working on trail rerouting and restoration, boardwalk building, and stone step construction in Van Cortlandt Park, which I have never visited. Last weekend I attended a trail maintenance workshop at High Rock Park, also previously unvisited, and part of the Staten Island Greenbelt. Make some time for this park. It's wonderfully hilled with vernal pools in a mixed red maple-sweetgum, coastal oak-beech, and oak-tulip tree forest. In winter, early spring and late fall you can see the ocean as never before from its trails. Isn't that something?

A larger vernal pool, filled enough to be draining over the roadway on which I stood.