prospect park

There's No Good Way To End

As you could imagine, packing a studio and apartment into a truck, then driving it over 1250 miles of cold highway under the gun of a brewing snow storm, and finally unloading the eleven hundred seventy six cubic feet of deeply frozen objects in subzero temperatures, left little room for blogging. I was fortunate to have Matt, friend and artist I met long ago at Skowhegan, help me pack the apartment and half the studio into the truck on New Year's Eve. Big thanks go to friends of two decades, Mark and Shelly, who kept me well fed and rested after the apartment became unusable New Year's Eve through the second of January, Andy and Rachel who threw us a never-ending party the Saturday before, Mark, again, for copiloting my drive of two days, then carefully hustling things into and out of the house all through a blustery, subzero snowstorm, Marie for her generous tribute on her blog, and Sara, who has been cleaning and organizing hundreds of items into categories of keep, yard sale, auction, and trash.

So, nearly two weeks after that balmy Saturday walk around Prospect Park's lake, I can sneak a few moments from the cleaning, the disposition of a lifetime of things, the organizational relating of new, old and less so, to move this blog ever closer to the present moment...



Forsythia, having had a cold November, thought December must be spring.



The lake was in fine form.



On its south side, newly laid plastic to smother view-killing phragmites. 



Because the lake is all for the seeing of it.



Inspiring towers to go up, as they are beginning to, around Prospect's most affordable corner.



As expected, the new skating rink is immensely popular.



Many new people are visiting, leading to much needed, improved maintenance on the south side of the lake and ever more likely are towers to surround it.



But the beauty of Prospect Park is the ability to disappear into it, to disappear the city around it.



Yet all agency is marshaled toward development for the wealthiest and all too often in the name of preserving what is intended to benefit all. 







Farmers' Market Prospects



Entirely strange way to enter Prospect Park, and having done so felt its soft transgress.



Above, I spied a white redbud. I wasn't aware of this expression.



Departing the carriage road for the market, so many bins of vegetable scraps. I wish I was making my own compost and I do miss the city's free stuff (to which this does not contribute).



There were nettles (and hops), and many things free should you take the time to hunt and pick them.



Like ramps, which I grabbed, for spring's pasta with all things green. 



And quite a deal on lilac bunches at ten dollars for nearly as many branches; so one for us and one for grandma's Mothers' Day visit.



Caught In The Crabapple



On may way to photograph the park for possible, future paintings I got caught up in the spectacle of the park circle crabs, something I usually miss but not in this ever so unusual year where you may see forsythia, daffodil, tulip, dogwood, crabapple and cherry blooms all at once.








While photographing, I encountered a voice. Wha? Where?  Up, fool.



A woman, high up in a crab tree, remarked on the serious appearance of my point and shoot as she read among the flowering branches. She descended, I showed her this shot, and we moved on.



In the park late blooming maples.



Phragmite reflections.



Sunning turtles.



The lesser of the celandines becoming rather morer in the wake of fallen timber,



Giant woodland 'field' garlic, so much larger than those of the field.



And big earthworms drowned in heavy rain-swamped lawns.


Park Winter



Lamp lady, the garden siren, called me out of apartment doors today. So I made a trip for myself, walking the four mile or so round trip through the park to the Grand Army Plaza farmers' market, photographing along the way.


The park was busy with runners and sledders, but also photographers looking for charming shots. 





A squirrel darts from a tree to a phragmites stand to my right.





I became distracted by these two. That over the shoulder look? That's the look that asks, "is this okay?" His answer should have been no. 


Off they went, the girl shooting for the birds. I stayed because I was the only one around. I didn't like the odds. To the north was open water. Imagine me, with the red ladder on ice not able to support a girl one fifth my weight. Yet I did not vocalize my concern. Then, a runner in a safety orange shirt happened by lakeside, his protest just audible to me, and I agreed. "You shouldn't be out there!" he launched, after our exchange. To which the man said, "It has been frozen a month," in a tone more plea than defense and then slowly made their way back to the shore. Relief. 


By the Nethermead a sign proclaims "Caution!!" Falling limbs, icy pathways? No, ticks! I've never seen a sign in NYC parks warning of the nefarious blood suckers. In fact, a few years back I had been chastised for saying ticks were in Van Cortland Park, where I volunteered to work on trails (one had just been crawling up my shirt). Glad Parks is getting in front of it.


Isn't the water shut down for winter? That's what I've seen before, but the steady sound of moving, splashing water beckoned, and I braved the treacherous, icy path to see for myself. Yep, there it is.




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I'm happy to have dried stems and leaves of Phlox in front of our place. They bristle at the slightest breeze, they crouch under the weight of snow, their haggard display a presentation of feelings about winter. 



Despite subway signal problems, slush ice sidewalks, the apartment's frigid floor and gelidly radiating walls, I've grown accustomed to winter, finding solace in the recess of growth and decay. As much as I think of a new season's garden, of tomatoes and greens, peppers and garlic, it's always too much. I aim to accept what can be done and what can be done, well.




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.


Cura


It is after six, and the heat is finally on enough to kill the chill of my fingers and nose. The afternoon chill cramps blog writing, cramps sitting still, cramps thinking. I forget this -I want to forget this, until it happens the first time in winter, and that is now. It is winter in NYC. I returned just 36 hours ago, and I've already slipped and fallen on the ice. Oh, it's been a long time since I've done that, but I have a tender foot and knee to show for it.

Prospect Lake, morning.

I have been reading Robert Pogue Harrison's Gardens. Any one who considers themselves a gardener of anything -life, love, plants, soil, should consider picking up his book of essays.  He examines our relationship to the garden in order to see ourselves, and does this through the lens of literature, poetry, and gardens. His epilogue, appendices, and notes are delightfully (how often can you say that?) rich with additional insight.

I would love to quote his essays here, daily, but I've felt that way a few times, and would rather absorb those ideas into my thinking than present them ad pedem litterae. My particular favorite essays are The Vocation of Care, Eve, The Human Gardener, Men Not Destroyers, and The Paradox of Age. 

A tunnel with morning light.

Imagine that Eden is the curse, that God forces Adam to stay in the Eden that he secretly hates -but of course God knows this. Eve engineers an escape from Eden, and through it, man and woman are doubly cursed by God, and are now Godless, but are able to mature, to discover responsibility, to find care as a way of being, to fulfill themselves, instead of being passive receptors of the abundance of Eden. 

Imagine marriage within Eden, careless. Husbandry (I tried to deal with this ten years ago) is both to wife and world. Gardening is care, but not for the work at all, but for the love of that which we garden. Which need not be a garden, although the garden is possibly the most visible expression of it that we have, outside of love for another human being.

I'll always remember the older man, smiling broadly, while polishing the stainless steel escalator, at the Mitaka subway station near Musashino, Japan. That is an attitude of care. It builds a better world. I think we, as a society, have forgotten care as a way of being, see it as an expense, payable by exploitation of people. No matter how much care is present, it is not always seen -care is not always cared for. And we become less human for it.

Trash pail frozen into the lake ice.


Bird Droppings


Sweet Gum, or American Sweet Gum to some, Liquidambar styraciflua is a favorite tree. Here it is near the northern limits of its range, but should have no trouble surviving our temperate borough.

While walking upon Lookout Hill, I heard the faint tapping of the season's first ice pellets falling on dry leaves, although the sun was shining and the sky bright blue. I paused, looked around, up.

It was them! Cedar Waxwings making the most of the Sweet Gum above me.

Later, along the Lullwater, the same thing. I found this tiny seed in my hair, placing it on the head of the 3/4 inch rebar used to prop up wire fencing in the park. 


Miffed and Sleuthed

I have been anticipating the flowering stage of this plant, discovered roadside in Prospect Park. Its unusual character was immediately apparent. Today, however, I discovered it had lost its flowering top to someone or some thing. I was annoyed that I was not able to see it in flower. I am amazed by a plant coming up entirely on its own, without a community of like plants or any plants -just leaf litter, in the dense shade of large trees. What was that plant?!

I moved on, miffed by this missed opportunity. I looked around its immediate vicinity to double check that it truly was growing without company. It was and so I traveled the bridge over the Lullwater, still scanning for the plant in the understory.

To my left I notice a break in the wire fence. A pair of sunglasses, an evening's hideout? I break with conformity and go through the fence. Lo and behold, I spot the leaves.

The first I saw was leggy, the flowers spent and brown. They look weak, stems falling over, not the stout specimen I initially saw by the road. I think to myself how the dry spell must be affecting them, especially here, under the dense canopy of trees.

I move closer to the water and I spot my best opportunity for a photograph. The heavy, green- cast shade is affecting the flower's color, which leans toward green and white with a blush of pale purple. My original thought that the mystery plant was some kind of lily, given the leaf arrangement and the timing with our cultivated lily bloom, was clearly way off.

Ellen at GardenBytes believes it to be an orchid as she has just seen similar plants blooming in her woods. A close look at the flower backs her up. A quick check of white-green-flowered wildflowers at the Connecticut Botanical Society reveals that Ellen is right. Epipactis helleborine, or Helleborine, is an orchid, but one that hails from Europe and is rather derisively called Weed Orchid. Oh well, leave it to me to discover a weed in Prospect Park.


The Pleasure's All Mine



While doing my morning walky-runny thing in Prospect Park, I stop to eat. Am I the only one who does this? I found a whole new bank of raspberries (not the one above, mind you). I snacked from four different patches yesterday. Some where close to the flavor of blackberries, some mildly sweet, but most were still tart and seedy.

Creatures have not yet taken an interest -neither human, furry, feathered or six-legged. The gettin is good. As for a map, I will draw this much -stay away from the greensward, hit the paved-path woods. Bring a can, the next two weeks should be prime for picking.




Good Prospects



Today I had some red and some black raspberries in the park. I was caught eating only once.

These roses (swamp rose, Rosa palustris?) are blooming as well.

The bees adore them.

These roses, molded from putty, are called...?

Again, they're called...and can we eat the fruit?

I found these high bush blueberries. Today I ate just one.

Every year I pass by this forsythia shrub, on a path south of the lake. Invariably, it has this yellow venation on the same branches each year.

Are all leaf variegations the result of endemic viruses that do not kill the host plant?