Woodpecker Pie


Like most kids of my generation, my first involvement with any woodpecker, let alone a Pileated, was through Woody Woodpecker cartoons. It took moving here to recognize that the jungle call I had heard during every summer visit was coming from this bird. Although about to leave and running late, the rare close-to-the-ground sighting required a quick photo.



Inside this woodpecker stump (or some other such name for the bottom twelve feet of a felled Red Oak left behind for wildlife) an agglomeration of carpenter ants. This tasty cache left the bird so focused that I was able to get close enough for a shot without any zoom -a rare moment, indeed.


Lawn Of Plenty


It was about mid-May when I decided to carve five small rows into the front lawn for this year's vegetable patch. It is the sunniest, flat space on the land here. In the distance, the driveway and a hedgerow of Hydrangea arborescens -a solution to coarsely articulated snow-plowing and a mass of foundation plants in the way of a future house project. Seven weeks from the day the tiller expressed itself, the vegetables are taking advantage of our long, northern days.



My first round of green beans didn't arrive, quite possibly because I didn't water the seeds enough or maybe due to three year old seeds. They were all French beans, ones that trialled well, hmm -three years ago. So I bought new seed from the big box (so many home projects!) and planted those. Meanwhile it had been raining heavily for a few days -that's when some of the old seeds showed up, 'Velour,' I think. So far no problems with bunnies -or deer, raccoons, hedgehogs, and whatever other vegetable munching varmint one can have. So lucky -that's all it is.


One four inch pot of flat leaf parsley has become eighteen by twelve inches of parsley -use it daily.


One four inch pot of cilantro has become two feet by twelve inches of cilantro -makes a nice pesto!


The garlic is still green, but I know well enough to start harvesting them. As these go, their rows fill with herbs, green beans, and eventually those brassicas I fully intend to start one of these days...


Four pepper plants from a cell pack of four heirloom varieties. This one set fruit super early.


A cell pack of Japanese eggplant have provided us with an orb -not the usual thin and elongated fruit. What gives? I do prefer the way less seedy elongated varieties. Oh, Japanese eggplant doesn't always imply elongated fruit? These are 'Kyoto,' a round eggplant, and I ashamedly renounce my ignorance!



One four-cell pack of, hmm, I forget the name, but cucumber. I do recall it saying compact, and this one is definitely compact. We grew them in pots, elevated off the ground in metal pot stands that happened to be here. A couple of things to point out: these four plants in two pots have been productive for their size and have not succumbed to mildew. They have yet to reach the ground and have many flowers per vine. I recall googling the variety at the nursery, Shady Acres! Ahh, they have a plant list- It is Spacemaster. Pick them pickle size for best flavor.

A word about Shady Acres. Heirloom. That's the word. Seriously, Minnesota has some catching up to do when it comes to organic garden supplies and heirloom vegetable starts. It is very difficult to find what I came to expect -even at Larry's on the corner in Brooklyn (Best Deal on Bloodmeal!). I edify every nursery I come into contact with, including Shady in regards to fertilizer choice. I heard about Shady Acres from my neighbor who is busy trying to grow Minnesota's largest pumpkin, and was grateful for the recommendation -they carry heirloom vegetable starts. For me this means they have a variety of tomato beyond Rutgers, Beefsteak or Early Girl for the person who simply didn't get to starting his own.


Potatoes. They grew incredibly tall, so high that they could no longer be soil-mounded. Then a week of heavy thunderstorm rains, about seven inches in all, ensured that they would lay flat until they turned back up toward the sun, which they have, albeit more prostrate than before. They have been flowering for a few weeks now, with new potatoes sure to be available soon. I've decided to wait on those, aiming for the bigger potato of the future.



The tomato plants are some of the healthiest I've grown. Again, an heirloom variety pack from Shady Acres provided the starts. Ours have been in the ground for about five weeks, have grown over thirty inches tall, and some are producing tomatoes. We also have a grape variety, four plants in total. We won't get a ton of tomatoes out of four heirloom plants, but this year required low input, experimentation, and observation.


What is remarkable is the health of each plant. No visible disease, no wilt or cankers, no blossom end rot (can we thank high Cal-Mg soils?), simply robust plants. Look at that impressive stem. It helps to be gardening in a spot that has yet to see any vegetable growing. We haven't had any Colorado potato beetles either, so here's to hoping that our little clearing is protected by the woods and wetlands that surround it.


Lastly, the bug-eating army of amphibians can't hurt. And what of the pansies? It hasn't been a very warm summer so far, but plenty of days in the lower eighties. Here it may be that pansies just won't quit.



A Blue Moon

It is easy to miss what is going on in the sky, particularly if you are, like us, surrounded by trees. But this full moon, on July one, was hard to miss. In fact, it had been keeping me up at night, presenting itself in the wee hours after our nightly storms had cleared, glowing brilliantly above the southern horizon, a flashlight in my sleeping face. This July happens to have two full moons, the second of which is known as a blue moon.



If it weren't for an evening out at a friend's place in Minneapolis, I'm not sure I would have noticed the peculiar proximity of two planets fairly close to the horizon. As we sat talking about our art and possibilities, I perceived this celestial phenomenon without uttering a word. I may have missed the planets at their closest moment, but the event warranted an evening trip to the road just to our west, one that is up on the ridge and had been cleared for farming years ago.



Venus, the brightest body in the sky other than the moon and sun, is on the left and Jupiter sits to its right.



Not quite a celestial phenomenon, but the reddened light of the afternoon sun clued us in to smoke in the lower atmosphere. Originating in Canadian wildfires, the smoke arced down with the jet, creating hazy sun, sunset-like light earlier in the evening, and the low-hanging moon became an unofficial blood moon.



The Scarlet


Our neighbor, a Pennslyvanian by birth with farmer cred and a seasoned Three Rivers Parks employee, mentioned a few month's back that our woods was the only woods in the area where he had seen a Scarlet Tanager, Piranga olivacea. I took note. 


Now that spring has long past us, we've taken to having coffee on the screened, back porch in the morning. Much to our surprise, and with great luck, the scarlet bird flitted onto the old bird feeder, derelict as it is near the red oak that once supported it. I learned early on not to sit with a camera for just these surprises as I may not accomplish much else. Unlike many of the creatures that surprise us here, the tanager didn't flee, even as I pried open the swollen stuck screen door to take his picture. 


My compact Olympus quickly came to life for a few shots as the Tanager ascended to safer heights. Although perched rather distant for a limited zoom and small sensor, it is evidence enough. 



The black wing contrasts well with the brilliant red body, possibly one of the most stunningly colored birds of the Eastern Forest. Our visitor stayed in the surrounding trees long enough to clue us into his call, a blurred chirrup that sounds a bit like a coarse robin's call. 



Now we'll know when they are in town, by sound if not by sight. The Scarlet Tanager visits only for the breeding season, for which the male erupts into scarlet feathers, then shifts back into an olive and black coloration, something more suitable, maybe, for a winter in South America.





What's Your Poison?


When we started clearing the woods of garlic mustard this May, it didn't take long before I began to spot small shrubs that looked like poison ivy, but may or may not have been. I have long been aware of the morphological nature of poison ivy, Toxicodendron radicans. In the blazing sunshine of New York beach dunes it shows as a glorious shining-leaf shrub thicket or in the dry woods of Long Island it appears as a vining, often shiny but not always, plant growing up trees or just as often a three-leafed low shrub colony at the edges of woods and fields. In the deep, wet woods of Maine it often took the appearance of fresh, pale greenery growing low to the ground. 

Rex always said poison ivy was not growing on the property, but I knew it grew across the road in the sunshine, in front of and under the Alders. Because my possible sightings took place in dappled sunlight or on slopes recently made sunny by fallen oaks along with what I consider a cohabitant, wild grapes, I began mentally bookmarking each specimen as a potential rash. I posted on FB and the results were nearly fifty fifty split between poison and not poison, yet no one could provide a possible alternative to poison ivy.


Leaves of three, let in be -so the saying goes.


But what of this? Sometimes PI looks just like trees.


Another clue is the short branches on side leaves, long on front leaf. 


Surely that is poison ivy. Alternate veining on the leaves.


You say, no way -not this one? But see here. 


Mitten-shaped leaves, leaves of three, alternate veining? 


Reddened stems, alternate veins, short side stems, three leaflets, perfect habitat?


If this isn't poison ivy, then what is it?


Turns out that's not poison ivy growing about our dappled clearings. This one clue deciphered it: opposite branching on our plants. Poison ivy has alternate branching. How did I figure it out?

While Betsy and I were clearing the area around the mailbox at the road, I saw a small tree, but definitely a tree, that had leaves just like our little specimens around the yard. I googled tree that looks like poison ivy (why didn't I think of that first?). It's an Ash Maple, Acer negundo, also known as Boxelder. After two weeks of surveying, each had grown enough to reveal their true identity. Then I found this definitive guide that goes beyond all the hooey about leaves of three you'll find on the Internet. Keep the pdf on your phone when your hiking and all your identification problems will be solved.




Brave New Habitat

I could hardly believe the words coming out of my mouth -mosquito h a b i t a t. Yet that's what I said to the young lady in hot pink sweat jacket (ahem, hoodie) that loped out of the north (formerly little) wetland after I announced myself with a stern good morning.


The Metropolitan Mosquito Control District makes regular, unannounced visits to our wetlands. I have yet to be unsurprised by their presence or put in other words: they do not knock, call, or in any way let you know they are there (unless you see their truck; in this case it was parked on the road). I asked her to let us know that they would be present by simply knocking on the door, that the woods are dangerous (I hope that didn't sound like a threat :-\) and the mosquito surveyors need to be careful of falling trees, and by all means -please use the trails instead of trouncing the understory. 

This was the second time this spring that I've asked them not to spray because things need to eat and they eat mosquitoes, and even more so -the spray kills indiscriminately. When I ask why they are spraying, this is mosquito habitat (there it is) after all, they toss up the usual suspect -West Nile Virus. To which I've got a handful of retorts, and they then see that I am less than hospitable to this "public service." 

What we have here is a major home to countless frogs and toads, dragonflies that we love, bats, birds, and so much more. Mosquitoes bother the humans, don't get me wrong -I am thoroughly annoyed by them, but there is maybe 20 humans around these wetlands. West Nile Virus is not deeply concerning to me (maybe you, I can't say) but it is to me a "worrying tactic" used to nudge people into being agreeable to spraying. The truth is, or rather my truth is, that I believe they are spraying because mosquitoes are a nuisance and people just wish they were gone. 

Great. Now I am a proponent of mosquito habitat. I probably just broke the Fox News whacko meter. 

The helicopters fly just over the tree line in order to dump BTI, Bacillus thuringiensis subspecies israelensis, into the wetlands. I accept this practice as a compromise measure between myself and the mosquito-agitated public, although it seems an exorbitant use of funds for such spotty coverage. I can't say I've noticed a difference between post-BTI spread periods and untreated periods (but then, I'm biased -science please!).

The spraying of adult pesticides is done via backpack by day and likely by truck fogger at night (you may have seen this in NYC). I've continually asked surveyors to report back to their managers that we do not accept spraying on this land, even if our neighbors do. Apparently we need to get onto some sort of "do not spray" list. I have yet to find out how to do that, but I will, eventually.


O wonder!
How many godly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't.

 —William Shakespeare, The Tempest

____________________________________

I've begun posting on Facebook, at MOUND, and if you click the link at the upper left it will take you to my new page. Consider following me there, too, because I have begun using it for all the short form pictures and posts that never make it into this journal.



The Creep

Looking to the north we see the little wetland. Not so little, so maybe I should start calling it the north wetland. It's a glorious place.



Turn around and this is what you will see. Maybe you are familiar with it -Creeping Charlie, Glechoma hederacea. Charlie is the third weed in our list of once appreciated, now fallen plants. Unfamiliar to me, it turned up the charm early this spring with its geranium-like scent when crushed or walked on (I was quite ready to plant it in garden paths), but it turned on the creep as I got to know it. Now I see that it inhabits every garden, every path, and most of the lawn.

Creeping charlie was most likely brought to this location by my father in law. He may have planted it in his garden, where it still grows but less vigorously. From there it went to the lawn, where it spread readily via lawn mower-chopped stolons, each able to start a new plant. The spread from the lawn down into the woods was brought on by leaf raking. Bits of charlie would get caught up in the rake and leaves which were then deposited down slope each spring. The herb found the super rich soil, damp ground and shady location to be perfect.

Since this zone is a hotbed of garlic mustard and creeping charlie, I think mechanical extraction is the way to go. This side of the woods, the wet and cooler side, is likely habitat for the scattered ferns I see to the east and west. Twenty years of leaf deposits have made a very rich soil for future planting, meanwhile I will need to find another way to remove an acre of leaves from the charlie infested lawn.


Our Vegetables

My attitude about garlic growing is considerably more casual than in previous years. So far these varieties have shown excellent progress without more than a dose of blood meal and liquid fish fertilizer. The French grey shallots have done exceedingly well with little maintenance but the occasional weeding.



In fact, since the top photo was taken, they have lodged -meaning it is near to harvest and hardly any different from the time frame of my 2012 upstate New York growing experiment. These will be cured on the porch.





Very few interesting things going on with the garlic. They are taller, lankier than my Long Island grown garlic, although these were planted from my own LI grown heads. Each variety made the transition, so far, from coastal New York to Minnesota pretty well. There has been one interesting thing -the strange appearance of dead flies on some of the leaf tips.



They seem glued in place. Has another creature done this? Saving them for later? Or has the garlic done them in? No answers, yet.



About a month and a half ago I planted potatoes. They appear to be doing exceptionally well, with each rain adding another few inches in the last three weeks. No Colorado Potato Beetles yet and I can't keep enough soil on hand to mound up!

Of course, we put tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant in two weeks back. They were planted in 14-inch wide strips tilled into the front lawn -the only place sunny enough for vegetables. So far no creature has come to eat. I'm wary of adding green beans knowing how well rabbits take to those tender seedlings. Deer have not browsed, although we do have a resident raccoon living in a big, old maple in the woods about 75 feet from the garden. So far she's only been good for digging up a single, just-planted spud and harassing Betsy by tipping over her newly planted coleus.






The Balm of Night

The other night it was warm and breezy. The most perfect balm of temperature and dew point.



We walked out through the dappled moonlit woods to watch the clouds blow by from the quiet road. Then a raccoon went crazy where the road turns, tearing up the silence of night, and we headed back to the house.





In This Cornahh -Garlic Mustahhd!

The fight against garlic mustard, Alliaria petiolata, will be a long one. Above, you see a partially cleared area to the east of the drainage stream and an uncleared zone to the west (right side). Below you see the waterway and woods we are trying to protect.



Jewelweed, Impatiens capensis, is a native inhabitant of this part of the woods but comes to rise late as it is quite frost intolerant. It's also a lovely plant in leaf, flower, and remedy. I love this part of the woods and do not want to see it over run, but that's what's in store without our management. Sadly, we'll have to create some compaction damage in order to pull garlic mustard. With that in mind, keen observation is drumming up some techniques that keep us pulling only once a year until the seed bank is exhausted. This area has now been completely cleared (but not of buckthorn, another day).



In all, we cleared about 1 acre of garlic mustard. That's a drop in the bucket, but we had to start somewhere. Above, you see it gaining a foothold among our rare wild-growing ferns. Garlic mustard is a biennial that outcompetes everything around it by growing before winter loses its grip. It also leaves chemical compounds that help establish its foothold.

From Wikipedia:
"Garlic Mustard produces allelochemicals, mainly in the form of the cyanide compounds allyl isothiocyanate and benzyl isothiocyanate,[16] which suppress mycorrhizal fungi that most plants, including native forest trees, require for optimum growth.[17] However, allelochemicals produced by Garlic Mustard do not affect mycorrhizal fungi from Garlic Mustard's native range, indicating that this "novel weapon" in the invaded range explains Garlic Mustard's success in North America.[18] Additionally, because white-tailed deer rarely feed on Garlic Mustard, large deer populations may help to increase its population densities by consuming competing native plants. Trampling by browsing deer encourages additional seed growth by disturbing the soil. Seeds contained in the soil can germinate up to five years after being produced (and possibly more).[19] The persistence of the seed bank and suppression of mycorrhizal fungi both complicate restoration of invaded areas because long-term removal is required to deplete the seed bank and allow recovery of mycorrhizae."



And above, another reason it's so pernicious. Like the monster in a movie, just because you gave it a good whack doesn't mean its dead! All my piles of garlic mustard turned their growing tips upward after a day or so, continuing to flower and set seed! You cannot compost these unless it is well before, well before, flower formation. Don't think chopping them up is good either, and stay clear from the weed whacker if you find yourself falling behind -it will just distribute the very viable seed. I found that even picking up piles created great opportunities for the seed heads to get stuck to my muddy shoes and transport elsewhere.

I am no fan of Monsanto, nor pesticides of any kind. That said, I am considering the use of glyphosate during a dry period of early or late winter when there is no snow and the garlic mustard is green. It is about the only thing that is up at the time and from what I understand (considering how everyday the use of this product is on our food crops) it will have little obvious effect on plants dormant at that time. I will test this theory, and be considerate as can be.

I am sad to say I did not get to every major patch of garlic mustard growing this year. The back swale comes to mind, and everything over the bridge was completely untouched by us. Now that the woods are summering, the mosquitos prevalent, and the seed heads likely to break, I may just leave the thousands that remain until autumn.


Endeavor

Rosmarinus officinalis 'prostratus' -ink on paper, 1999


My blog has served many purposes for me over the last seven years and 1855 posts. Now, we are in a time of transition -not only of place, but also our work and identity as artists. One of the things I would like to do here is bring the artist to the fore whereas previously it hummed in the background. This means I will write more about my projects and exhibitions, but it also means I will seek to contextualize my actions as art. I think my readership is open-minded and will welcome this. 

On July 26 I will be giving a presentation in New York City at a salon called Presenting at 17. Presenting is orchestrated by my good friend and fellow artist (and Italian-American!) Elise Gardella. The salon is open to any and all guests, albeit standing room only beyond the fixed number of seats. My goal for this long awaited moment in time is to recalibrate all my experiences, productions, and insights into a string of connected actions -a life of curiosity and the land. Expect me to utilize this blog as the forum to stitch different ideas together, many that will be pulled from prior posts. I may publish the presentation here simultaneously, although without the effect of my physical presence and voice, a hot NYC room in late July, and a dozen plus sweaty bodies.

I will be teaching my intensive week long course in Vermont this summer at Art New England -2nd year running and with greater enrollment! I will develop this class each year it is taught, eventually branching it into different courses to be taught elsewhere. 

I have seven(!) paintings in an artistically diverse exhibit, Arcadia: Thoughts on the Contemporary Pastoral. My good friend and fellow artist Steve Locke curated this outstanding and provocative collection of art for the Boston Center for the Arts Mills Gallery. I will be there for either the opening (Friday, July 10) or the roundtable discussion (September 18) or both if I can swing it.

There will be reminders about these events as they near and, as always, journaling my experience of the land. Posts may be less frequent as I enter this very busy time. It is summer, of course, so we're mowing lawns, evading mosquitoes, and absorbing reflected green wavelengths while sipping cold drinks.


Rosmarinus officinalis 'prostratus' -pencil, gouache and watercolor on paper, 1999



The Bad Bath

We're not much for bird baths and although usually filled with rain water, I can't say I've ever seen a bird washing up. I'm going to hazard the assumption that bird baths are a thing out of drier climates. Out of place here and with a swath of moss removed to plant ferns given to us by our neighbor, I reinvented the bath as dish of moss.




The Little Wetland







I have many favorite spots at our place, but this one is high on the list. It is hard to fathom that we are stewards of such a place. The lower photo reveals a deer trail entering the wetland. I am considering a plank walk so that we can experience the wetland from within outside of winter.


May Flowers



It is the season of the oak gall wasp, bungeeing caterpillars, and relentless paper wasps. At night its June bugs bouncing off screens and, tonight, the first lightning bugs. We have been miraculously without mosquitoes -no one's complaining.



In the woods Red Columbine, Aquilegia canadensis, bloom.



It's a bit regal



In its dusty crown.



The first sight of the Woods Geranium, Geranium maculatum, is always a surprise in the shadowy under-canopy.



Geranium grows throughout the woods, but only one here, two there. In the area I call the council circle (laughably and yet to be introduced here) the geranium grow profusely.



Virginia Wetleaf, Hydrophyllum virginianum, has been in flower for over two weeks now.



It's pale purple mass of flowers create glowing, floating dollops wherever it grows (and that is nearly everywhere).



Open Season Fungus

These morels were brought to us by our hunter. He foraged them from our woods after a couple hours of chainsaw work clearing old timber fall on the trails. We dried them for future cooking.

Now that it is raining, mushroom season opens in earnest. Oysters and jelly fungus are appearing, and soon enough there'll be chickens on oak timbers.

The lilac in the back has been blooming for a few weeks now, for about as long as we've been busy getting the estate sale ready. Now that is done, the weather was perfect and we sold quite a few of Rex's old things. The dealers and collectors, they came early or last, buying up Americana for upselling or decorating their homes with wood, fabric and cast iron. Our place, hidden from the road as it is, wasn't great for pulling in customers, although those brave enough to turn in were treated to woods normally seen from without and at a distance.