Building A Name

Part of our love for our place in the woods and wetlands is a desire to share it. I already do this with writing and photography in this journal, but we are working towards doing more, particularly with artists, possibly writers and researchers over the coming two years by forming a non-profit residency program that offers time and space in the woods. This complex undertaking begins with what appears to be the simplest of things -a name.

It has made the most sense to run with Prairiewood because I have been blogging under the domain for years and because it describes our environment in the simplest terms. Betsy and I like it and easily imagined our wooden sign out front. However, in this age one needs both a name and a domain, and sadly, prairiewood.org is parked in some profiteer's portfolio. Although Prairiewood feels right, feels like home, the unavailable domain is just one reason to look elsewhere. There are three for-profit or non-profit Prairiewoods in Kansas, Iowa, and right here in Minnesota. To be expected -its an easy name where prairie meets the woods. The Kansan place is a retreat center, the Iowan a Franciscan spirituality center, and the Minnesotan an environmental learning center. So, prairie wood or woods is out.

Naming an organization can be a challenge, especially a young non-profit whose mission may shift or identity change as it gains its legs. The name needs to reflect place and be open to the mission of the organization; it needs to be able to capture its potential audience and be capable of absorbing shifts in identity.



Our place is 60 percent wetlands and 40 percent sloping woodlands, both of glacial origins, in the far western edge of the North American Eastern Forest known as the Big Woods in Minnesota. Our woodlands are a combination of different communities that encompass lowland cottonwoods, red maple-ash swamp, maple-basswood slopes, and oak uplands. Our wetlands are combination emergent marsh, willow-dogwood swamp, and wet meadow.

Just to our southeast is the Minnetonka Lakes region of our county, although Minnesota has more than ten thousand of those. No more than half mile to our east is Painter Creek (or Painters, depending on where you look) that drains into the Minnetonka Lake system. It is not, however, part of our watershed. We are the headwaters for a string of wetlands that drain into Dutch Lake which then drains into the Minnetonka Lake system. This watershed is all part of the greater Minnehaha Creek watershed.


To our south, again not more than a half mile or so, is Little Long Lake. It is not part of the Minnetonka Lake system, nor the Minnehaha watershed. Technically it is part of the Pioneer-Sarah Creek watershed that drains to the Crow River which makes its way to the Mississippi well north of Minneapolis. Little Long is an isolated glacial lake, with an esker to its western edge and a glacial lobe to its east. I don't believe it has any drainage and is maintained by groundwater and runoff from its own limited watershed. Little Long is the metropolitan region's only grade A lake, meaning it has high water clarity, low eutrophication due to nutrient loads, and lower than typical chemical contamination. It is not a motorboat lake and has few residences on its shoreline. Wild rice grows there. You can swim in it (take a pass on the Minnetonka system). Finally, the esker land making up its western flank has recently been bought by the park system to preserve its natural state in perpetuity.

From these features we can extract names that, if not identifying our exact place, exemplify the region's best qualities. PainterCreek, LittleLong, EskerWoods (the glacial feature), Dogwood (Red Osier), Waterleaf (Virginia Waterleaf), CattailWoods, WoodsMarsh, MapleMarsh (is marsh a positive?), GlacierWood (sounds cold), EphemeralWood, EphemeraWood, VioletWoods, WetlandWoods, possibly anything 'Wood.' I'm usually fairly clever in this wordy arena, but outside of Prairiewood, not much has expressed the essence of our place. Maybe I'm coming at it from the wrong direction? Maybe the cultural aspect is more important?


Our idea is simple and grew out of our experiences at artist residency programs, which for me came most acutely from my month at Weir Farm National Historic Site in the Southwest Hills region of Connecticut. We believe that time away from ordinary distractions can open us up to the creative process, can be regenerative, can free the path toward insight. This doesn't have to be time in wilderness, in fact it can be anywhere that is away from the everyday.

Closest to my heart is the time to explore, to reflect, time to think without disruption in the midst of nature. I imagine a landscape of woods and wetland clearings, gardened to enhance the native understory but with an understanding of the altered ecology, the mixture of humanity with nature. Ecological preservation is a goal of the non-profit because it will enhance the experience of our residents in a region that is rapidly converting its remaining woodlands into housing developments and being over-run by a monocultures of buckthorn, garlic mustard, and reed canary grass. The resident can navigate the woods-wetland edges on trails laid out by Betsy's father, Rex, in his fifteen years here. Building on his work, our goal will be to construct wetland boardwalk trails that bring one out of the woods and into the sunshine. 

The core benefit of our non-profit is to the program residents -artists, possibly writers and researchers who've shown through the quality of their work that they've earned some time to be inspired in a beautiful setting, away from daily responsibilities and distractions. We also strive to cultivate an interest in the arts in our community by introducing our program artists to audiences locally and in Minneapolis via artist talks and possibly even school groups who visit our site to explore the trails and meet the artist in their studio. Of course, we have a lot of work to do before we get there. A studio will need to be built, as well as relationships with partner organizations. And most importantly, we need a name.






The Eagle Has Landed

While working on a proposal for Franconia Sculpture Park, I heard a continuous calling just outside the attic windows that, to my mind, sounded like seagulls but I knew that couldn't be right. No, the high pitched call was an eagle being harassed by red tail hawks.


I do not know much about large raptors, nor specifically Bald Eagles. There were several sightings over the last four months and Betsy said there were three others at the time I photographed this one. Are they passing through, southward or northward? Do they come for an easy meal on the edge of the woods, wetlands, or lawn?



The woods has resident Red Tail Hawks -I see them scanning the edges regularly. Although I've witnessed the bald eagle and red tail hawk calmly, quietly circling together last autumn, I now see that these two raptors do not always get along.



The eagle extended its wings and squealed whenever the hawk engaged in a harassing fly over. Another hawk perched in a neighboring tree.



After forty five minutes or so, baldy finally gives in to the harassment of the hawks and moves on.


We support the red tail hawks and the regular, necessary work that they do. Yet, because bald eagles were rare in the regions of my life, I'm glad to see them here. It adds yet another level of ecological complexity to our place at the edge of the old, Big Woods.


*You can click on the pictures for much larger images.




Morning Flock


One cloudy, and warm (for Minnesota), morning a flock of Cedar Waxwings appeared, alighting on a small ironwood tree just outside the window. Windows and screens make for difficult photographic filters, but I managed to salvage what you see here.




Cedar Blush

The foggy morning was a prelude to the storm that just ended. Blue sky, something we've had little of this winter, is now in its stead. It is these weather events that make a cold climate tolerable, just rewards for what can be hard.



Moisture riding the push of warm advection crystallizes on cold twigs and grasses.



And sumac not yet pecked by the birds.



I love the cedars that grow here; reminding me of those that break the monotony of old fields on Long Island. They, of course, are the same species, and aren't truly cedars -Eastern Red Cedar, Juniperus virginiana. These are tough trees, can be over nine hundred years old, tolerate drought and wet, cold, and the poorest soils. While deer browse your expensive arborvitae hedges, by the looks of the Eastern Reds around here, they hardly touch them. There is gin, of course, and the aesthetics which, to my eye, are some of the best an evergreen can provide.

There is a moment every autumn, usually middle to late, when the cedars turn bronze, red, mauve, blushed or however you may see it. This change requires a loss of some of chlorophyll's green and the development of red anthocyanins and the two, together, create this bronzing effect. This is painter's stuff, mixing reds and greens to create blacks more green or more red. The dark bronze contrasts with the white of aspens and snow and plays well with ochre field plants.

Like so many plants you love, someone, somewhere lists them as invasive. How can this be, you ask, after all it is a native in its range! Well, I rationalize it this way -Eastern Reds grow readily in farm fields and get a bad rap for its ability to grow readily from bird-dropped seeds in these fields. The other reason is the loss of fire as a control agent, but this is our fault, and we shouldn't be blaming the cedar. Finally, because we plowed under so much prairie that there is less than one percent of it left, managers curse the Eastern Red for colonizing what's left that isn't being managed by fire. Given these rationalizations, I still wouldn't blink if I had the opportunity to plant one on our land.  I may well have that chance in one of the many clearings created by downed large oaks or bass that have given rise to another accomplished colonizer -common buckthorn.




A Bench In Winter

Have you seated yourself on a bench shaped this way? Probably not for long as they're terribly uncomfortable. I came to the Como Park Conservatory to escape the cold and do some planning and writing, but instead I'm thinking about this bench. The way it is designed requires us to lean forward to be comfortable, our rears are cradled by the curvature. Leaning back as the rear is cradled our spine arches sharply and uncomfortably.  Here, then, the benches are mostly for looks or to keep us moving, not at all for winter's thinking and writing in a a blessedly warm and humid environment.




Downstairs Upstairs


The other day, while in the studio, I spied this large raptor up in the tree overlooking the little, north wetland.



I had to run downstairs to get my camera and zoom lens, then up to the attic to attempt a shot.



 But nobody likes to hold a pose for too long.



An Insider's Garden

Winter has gone and done it. We're rising above zero for the lengthening daylight hours, but descending to negative teens deep into the long night. The sun is low, brilliant reflected off the snow, and surprisingly warm at your back.  

Brought on by a concern for agave and prickly pear cactus we were given while visiting New Mexico last April, I've chosen to be a better house plant care giver. As a gardener, most people are surprised to hear I don't care much for houseplants. I prefer plants that take care of themselves and felt fairly confident that the desert succulents would survive outside as long as they were protected from moisture and cool temperatures, in essence -the damp. With all that has been going on, our gardens were not quite ready for such attention to detail, so we brought the potted agave and opuntia in, situating them under the south-facing windows, where only the tree trunks get in the way of their much needed light.


With our extended summer and then autumn, I was able to pot up parsley and cilantro well after a hard freeze. These herbs are tough, out of doors, but inside they have become languid. There isn't a window in the house that could give them all they want.



Betsy had potted Lantana out in the yard, and brought it in. I balked as it dried to a crisp, and then, in utter darkness, new leaves sprouted. Me and my balking. Afterward I recollected all the weedy Lantana growing street side and hill side in Florida during the dry winter.



Rosemary came in, growing as it's snipped, and preferring more sun. The Norfolk pine, Araucaria, somehow, can hardly believe it, survived a move from a sunny-ish window in humid Brooklyn to a dry, very dry west-facing window in our house with only some crispy golden needles as casualty. The purple Oxalis, reaching for the window, has been with me for nearly 20 years. It's been dead several times, or so I thought -a little water brings it back to life. Asparagus fern is in there too, came in from the cold, and is as carefree as the one I had in a pot on a landing in New Mexico. Finally, I should recuse myself from speaking about the Cyclamen because a) this is not my favorite kind (I prefer the gloriously scented variety) and b) I bought it at the Home Depot (never buy plants at the box store). Almost immediately its leaves began yellowing, although flower production kept up. Undoubtedly due to atmospheric conditions in the dry home but maybe light and let's just call it seasonal affective disorder. I think it is unsure what season it is, or not, however we can agree that the Cyclamen is pretty but moody.



We cure ourselves of that kind of difficult with this kind of easy -a hanging planter filled with spider and pothos, Epipremnum aureum. The pothos was ripped from the painted wall of our apartment in Brooklyn, wrapped in damp paper towel. stuffed into a small water bottle, and forgotten in the cab of a truck somewhere in Illinois, overnight, nearly snuffed out from freezing temperatures, then left in a bottle of water for 9 months, until planting it in this hanging basket. The pothos is one tough plant.

All that is required now is to build a proper shelf to support our collection of tough and finicky. Like many things these days, I will think it, and several months later it will happen.




Winter Mind


Winter has finally come to us. Temperatures below 20 degrees F, snowfall, car doors frozen shut with the last freezing rain, the clinkeling of ice crystals shed at forty five miles per hour. Despite this wintry attitude, we here at PrairieWood have work to do. The new shop is now standing with roof and ceiling. It never occurred to me that I would work into the night, outdoors, at just a handful of degrees above zero, but I did just that last Sunday so that we could get the wiring in before the ceiling closed out our access.

While I've been able to put most house projects on hold until springtime, one thing is still weighing heavily on my mind -the woods. What once went concealed by countless leaves is now made obvious by the contrasting wet bark and newly fallen snow. If I could sum up its appearance in one word, it would be diagonal. What is it about a wood of slanted trees that is so disturbing? Is our sense of order satisfied by horizontal ground and vertical columns of trees? Is the removal of angled wood a goal of a "clean" woods? 

What we need here is a plan, a forest plan, to guide us in the care of these woods. But wait. Why do the woods need our care at all? Isn't that awfully anthropocentric? Couldn't the woods take care of itself as it has for thousands of years?



Why is it so hard to look at the woods and see ourselves in it? We entertain the woods as a medium of passage. We experience the woods, but are not a part of it. Our aim is to be out-of-the-woods. We are beasts of clearings where a few selected trees may stand sentry. Why not the woods? Is it a blow to our ego to be among such large beings? Or is it the inherent danger of a sustained presence in the woods, the mashup of life and limb? Maybe this is the most practical tack, that a life in the woods is a life fraught with falling timber. Even among the trees there is danger. No elderly tree gives way without taking or scarring those around it. The falling of a great old tree reverberates through the forest, destroying the order, remaking communities, providing opportunities for well placed upstarts. 



I've realized how easy it is to make a metaphor of the woods, but the questions are more difficult. In our short time here we've had to ask many, and no answer is quite right. Any intervention is yet another question, or string of questions. We cannot extract ourselves from the story of the woods; people created it and we are living it. 



I regret to speak so abstractly, but somewhere in this line of thinking is a better perspective that may be teased out in writing. I understand intuitively that we have a role in this mess, that we are the aliens among the trees, roadsides, and fields. We cast dispersions on the plants and animals that take advantage of sensitive niches, but were it not for us this would hardly be the case. We are the aliens, the agents of drastic change. We project it onto others (plants, animals) while claiming our place. There would be no buckthorn, no garlic mustard, no barberry or burning bush if it weren't for our own invasive nature. Can we make it right? Can you take it back? Can you undo the done? 



This is a defining aspect of our culture. We invade a place, instigating the consequences that we see all around us and then tell ourselves that it is the others' fault, it is their doing that has created the mess and maybe, just maybe, we'll commit resources to cleaning it up, and it will be ongoing, forever perhaps. The productive citizen looks away; it's just easier that way, isn't it? We can spend a life throwing resources at a problem that traces back to exactly where we stand. Is it rational to label plants and animals invasive and yet completely ignore our responsibility for it? 



In the woods I see the paradigm of our conflict, one as much with the natural world as it is with other human beings. I am left asking you if an answer, one that can never be fully right, is to look away or to commit the resources to try to correct the damage, forever, perhaps. And what to make of the trying, because trying isn't necessarily accomplishing anything other than assuaging one's conscience of total responsibility. 



I don't mean to be melodramatic. It's simply that so much of what appears to ail us today is hindered by our unwillingness to take responsibility, or at the very least, to understand our responsibility. I am not personally responsible for the rampant buckthorn in the woods, but I sure can see how it came to pass and how I've benefited from our ancestral migration to this place. 



Ignorance (in the sense of not knowing, but also ignoring) leads to bad decisions, or self-centered ones, and consequences difficult to ameliorate. For instance, water holds in the middle swale, in the back woods, and leads to ponding, mosquitoes, and to water-logged roots which can bring an untimely death to the trees there, fallen timber, more sunshine, and then faster buckthorn spread. I considered trenching a drainage so that the captured water could drain into the great wetland. Autumn came and I saw that some trees at the center of the middle swale remained green-leafed long after the rest went yellow.



Upon investigation, the bark and leaf, below, spoke. These are silver maple, Acer saccharinum, the fast growing, brittle-wooded tree of wet areas in the Eastern Forest.



I can only guess that silver maples living at the boundaries of its range put the species under pressures not necessarily found near its core. So I came to an understanding of this middle swale. I will not dig a trench to help drain it, yet I will dig deeper into what else is growing, and dying, in this area, and attempt to understand it before acting or, quite possibly, not acting at all.



The questions of how to act and what sustained gestures are both possible and effective, are for our winter mind. What can be done that limits the rampant buckthorn and doesn't undermine the fragile species under threat from its able fecundity? We spent a quantity of time pulling garlic mustard from the drainage stream connecting the northern, small wetland to the great, southern wetland. Our work was effective, but it also appeared to me that there was a significant reduction in jewelweed in the very same area. I'm working on memory, now, but I thought it was more prolific in that region in past years. So I wonder, was it the garlic mustard that reduced the jewelweed population to nearly zero, was it natural swings in population due to unusual temperatures or flooding, or was it our trampling feet that inhibited its seed from sprouting? 



Every action has consequences, so many of which are unknown. I recall how, as a child, certain people were inclined to spray pesticides into the tall oak trees to bring down gypsy moth caterpillars. Our camp director screamed, during lunch, that by God he was not going to allow those trees to die! Our neighbor brought in a pump truck, unannounced in summer time, and sprayed his trees. I am still haunted by the overwhelming bitter smell of the pesticide, the sticky residue dripping from the trees, the dead birds and squirrels on the ground. His trees didn't die, nor did the camp's, but then, neither did the vast majority of unsprayed trees.



Each of us who is responsible for a part of the woodlands at the edge of the prairie has to choose for ourselves whether to act, or look away, to spray herbicides and trample, or do nothing. There is no mandate, we operate independently of our neighbors and yet nature cares little for these arbitrary boundaries.




I am inclined to act, yet feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of what is necessary to be effective. We hesitate to spray herbicide, usually in two or more applications, but pulling is incredibly time consuming, physical and often, incomplete. Should we adjust to the new, simpler woods, make peace with the knowledge that we brought this thicket on ourselves? Could there be a middle ground where buckthorn and garlic mustard and all the others are accepted to a degree, where we do not look away but effectively manage the woods?



*all photos are from October, showing yellow-leafed sugar maples along with the green understory of buckthorn -low growing, young plants spread north while the large shrubs reside on the south facing slope.





Time, Luck and Weather


It was a couple of days before Thanksgiving and I still had not planted the garlic. In New York City and region, this would be of little concern, but here, well I was pushing it well beyond ordinary pushing it. 


The week before it had rained, really rained, so much so that our excavation had completely filled with water (a story for another day, if ever). Then, not two days later, it froze for thirty six hours ensuring that the wet earth had become a solid block. Digging was out of the question. The swimming pool, above, became an ice rink.


A week later, the Monday before Thanksgiving, temperatures were climbing, yet again above forty. And the gravel came. It kept coming until there were two hundred tons of gravel, nearly one hundred a fifty cubic yards piled inside and outside the pit. 

Meanwhile, there was garlic to be planted, the Xian Turbans were sprouting, and the cloves would need at least a few weeks without frosted earth to settle in, but what could be anticipated after such a quick, deep freeze just a week prior? I wheeled out the seldom used, 30 year-old Troybilt tiller, filled the always flat right tire with compressed air, set the throttle, lifted the choke, removed the spark plug, poured a cap-full of gasoline into the chamber, replaced and hand-tightened the spark plug, yanked on the chord, bah the the the the, repeat, and then again. Throttle off, fully tightened the spark plug, dropped the choke, throttle on, yanked the chord, then bah buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, pop, and the old Kohler engine was humming.

It wasn't easy to break the semi-frozen, wet earth, nor the lawn which floats above it. The tiller is a beast, requiring strength to maneuver, patience on turns, and knee-jerk restraint as it rockets forward when hitting solid soil. I made several passes, bottoming out at six or seven inches on the lawn's compacted clay bed. I curved these new beds to match the Hydrangea transplanted from the south side of the house to edge the boundary of the lawn and driveway, leaving just enough room for the mower to pass between.


Although our garlic grew pretty well this year, experience told me I wanted compost tilled in, but I wouldn't have anything to do with buying the bagged stuff. The city of Minneapolis collects organic yard waste, which it sells to a composting company that happens to have a site in our area. I think I paid ten dollars for what would easily be well over one hundred dollars of bagged compost. These places are worth their weight in black gold.



I tilled in about two inches of compost and made the most of tight quarters by removing any chance for walking rows (I'll regret this later). In two beds, about five feet by twelve each, I planted roughly 350 cloves, or about 3 per square foot. 



I had more cloves, of course, and tilled a row from last season's planting bed for those.



Although it was the day before Thanksgiving with much to do, I chose to make another trip to the compost facility so I could place something over the indents made when the cloves are pushed in. The soil isn't very soft or deep; I felt this could help to keep the cloves from freezing too soon. 




A light snow had fallen, which can act as an insulating layer, but more was needed.



Out back I had been saving an old hay bale that Rex had stored under the playhouse we gave away last summer. It was just the thing I needed to insulate now that temperatures were plummeting (a week later I placed even more insulation -oak leaves from the woods, and just before the next snowfall).




This is the spot the straw had been laying. Even though the ground all around was frozen three inches deep, this spot was still unfrozen.



In fact, there was a lot of unexpected activity in the heat generated by decaying straw.



Pill bugs, Armadillidiida, also known as wood lice.



And this pale sprout.


Since the week of Thanksgiving we've had more days over thirty two, some well over, than those under it. Most nights have been relatively mild, staying well above twenty eight degrees.  In a year where I've often been behind on what needs to be done and with weather the spearhead of possible defeat, I think I may have gotten lucky getting the garlic in this late.



But I'm not having any luck keeping the turkeys off the mulch.



 It seems they're quite the lovers of gardens.





The Birds


I have to keep it short, today. We have been blessed with much and are thankful beyond the sentiment. As I worked diligently in the studio, the turkeys enjoyed the old garden (that finally received the garlic, yesterday).



Our dinner's bird came from here, the Gale Woods county park. Despite losses of millions of poultry birds to a severe outbreak of avian flu at Minnesota's mega farms, small farms like Gale Woods didn't lose any birds. It's hard to imagine how we could decentralize the production of food animals at the scale that we produce and consume them in this country, but I am thankful for this park and its mission, and that it provides for our meals of pork, beef, lamb, chicken and turkey, and finally for the Gale family who well understood years ago that this kind of farming was losing ground and needed to be preserved by imagining it as a park.

Happy Thanksgiving.




Winter's Gift


Storms came through with significant rains, and November thunder, and wind. It happened this way and was expected after such a long and pleasant autumn. Now, it is not rain, or sprinkles or mist, but flurries or squalls of snow. The ground is not yet frozen, nor could it be, but unstirred water is now ice.



The change is apparent in our behavior, the humans, the deer, the bluejays and crows. Bald eagles and red tail hawks circle together, coyotes climb fallen trees, chipmunks vanish.



The turkeys march daily, on their chirping and pecking tour. They are fond of our place where there is little to concern them, and after the rains the eating is good.



So many tasks left unfinished, and others that must go on despite the turn to below freezing temperatures. If I were to list the whirlwind of projects I've accomplished since May, it would be long and dull and yet one must consider that a life worth living is full of unsung activities that bolster the praiseworthy. Now that we have returned to frozen, I can look forward to the limits set by it, and push those limits at times; limits set more so by people unaccustomed to the relative warmth inherent in temperature than the temperatures themselves.



On days with high winter temperatures of thirty or more, I can fix on the plank repair for the bridge across the great wetland or cut dead wood for trail edging, and if the wood chips are not too frozen, spread them along the trails.

It is this trail work that Rex loved. Fitting, then, that on this day, the one year anniversary of his death, of his willingness to let go, as I sat in his rocker in the adjacent room, that I consider his work my work, that his work was accomplished and praiseworthy and that so much of what becomes praiseworthy goes unsung, including the gift, the conveyance of appreciation, from one human being to another, of value.








Autumn Creature Feature


This is the best view we could get of a Wood Duck that inhabited the back pond (I don't know what else to call it now, it's beginning to suggest permanent). About two months ago the ducks began congregating, yet I was so busy I didn't realize what was happening. A few weeks later, while felling trees, we noticed on the ridge a steady stream of walking ducks. It went on for minutes, there must have been one hundred! They are extremely skittish and do not let you get close, but I had been listening to their squeaky swing set sound for weeks. It wasn't until the parade that I understood we had a large congregation. One day, a week or so ago, they began flying over the house, rounding back to land on the lawn. Then they were gone.



Last year I did my best to save the frogs from what I thought was a frog trap. But now I'm beginning to think they want to be in this pit -the soil cut and retained around our basement, code required, egress window. I count at least thirteen in this portion of the pit, but there are more. You may also see the blue-spotted salamander to the left of the blue, roofer's trash. Next summer this pit will be excavated, probably retained with a galvanized steel, and a new, rot-proof, egress window installed. What will happen to this amphibian paradise?



Apparently, in autumn, the best house painting days are also the best days for lady bugs to seek out their death chamber. By the thousands on a warm, breezy day, a couple of weeks back, they swarmed the house. On their backs, stuck to the paint I eagerly applied, they became such a nuisance I had to quit. Several left defensive trails, "reflex bleeding" as it is known, on the paint that had dried. Once in the house they strive for light, which tends to be the light fixtures on at night. Look up at the plastic lens to see all the dark splotches of recently passed Coccinellidae. Don't bother cleaning it until winter sets in. They are stubborn too. When you try to coax them into your hand or onto a piece of paper they hunker down or, just as frequently, as they climb walls and windows, they simply drop to the floor, sometimes spreading wings to fly to another location. While gardeners love ladybugs, I have entered a new relationship to them that is, well, a little bit more complicated, and I well-learned not to paint the house after labor day.



Squirrels. This one had no idea I was standing there, silently waiting for Wood Ducks to come by. They didn't. Look at how auburn it is -for a gray squirrel. The posture resembles a man in a Godzilla suit, and by most people's reactions to them, squirrels may as well be Godzilla. Me? I still like them, they do not bother us or the house, we don't feed birds so I have no self-interested reason to despise them, and I'm pretty sure they're having more fun in the woods than any other animal. There is one thing I have learned. I always thought it was squirrels dropping all those acorns in the back yard. It's not. Bluejays. Autumn is the season of bluejays. They knock the acorns down and then do their level best to stuff them in their mouths, then fly away to stash them. Even though I grew up in an oak forested area where gray squirrels and bluejays were the most common animals, I never recognized this behavior until this autumn.




The Apple's In The Bag


We harvested many large green heirloom tomatoes before the freeze.


A brown bag, three overripe apples, two days, and ripe! Grandma taught me the trick, but I don't know if she understood that it was the ethylene gas put out by ripening fruit that spurs further ripening. Apples pump out a good amount, and at the right time for green tomatoes. If you want to keep your fruit from ripening, you should keep them away from other fruits, especially ripe ones.




The Truth About Gardening


Today is Halloween, and fortunately these plants you are about to see were put into their pockets last weekend, or was it the weekend before I went up to Duluth to help install an art project? Truth is that I cannot recall, but at the very least, when I look outside, now that our long summer has changed to autumn, I see that someone has put these plants into the ground.



I like buying plants in autumn because they're usually discounted, if a bit root bound from a summer in a pot, and since I have no trouble keeping plants alive I rarely lose one to a root bound condition. It is winter that I am worried about. Egged on by continuously warm weather, I allowed these potted plants to sit around as I wondered whether this warmth would hold out. I used the time on more pressing housework, notably siding and windows. Meanwhile, the vegetable patch looked like August and it was October.



Although finally, while I was in Duluth, a light freeze made an appearance, yet the weather hadn't really changed. We are about to go into the sixties for several days. Gardening is out of the question, the idea needed to be put to bed. Rather, I'll be using a two part epoxy resin to harden rotted brickmould and jambs, waiting over night, then filling these pockets with a two part epoxy putty, waiting over night, and then priming and painting them.



I'll be using the best paint possible, and fortunately Sherwin Williams sent me a customer appreciation coupon for 30% off, starting tomorrow. The best paint available is expensive, over seventy dollars a gallon, but windows are way more expensive. Your contractor will tell you it is three thousand a hole and you are surrounded by holes; we all like a picture of the land on our walls. A window is the conceptual preamble to landscape painting, so I do not underestimate its hold on us. Yet a cold of twenty below zero is a phantom that makes sieves of our aesthetics and the rot in a jamb exposes the carpenter who refused our only defense -that apotropaic, pink spun glass.



It may be unfathomable to those in warmer corners, but I welcome the oncoming cold as a return to interiority, away from the outdoor projects I thought I could accomplish last spring. These will have to wait. There are indoor projects to be sure, but there is studio time, professional development, and even this journal to attend to.



There is a landscape project I wish to accomplish, at either a sculpture park or county park. Details to be worked out, but this Swamp Milkweed, Asclepias incarnata, is the seed of it. And I've yet to plant the garlic. Soon, maybe in a week's time. And painting, too, of course, there are several running in the studio now and an exhibit in Milwaukee for next fall. I will be teaching my course, once again next summer, at Art New England.



Bugbane or Cohosh, Cimicifuga racemosa.





Autumn Dogwood


There is a dogwood tree, I'm not sure of the species, that grows atop the mesic south-facing slope of the great wetland. It angles upslope, toward what light it may find on the northern side of neighboring large oaks. It is just off the front porch. It takes on a lovely color in fall, as you see here complementing the yellows of maple and bass. The leaves dropped well before the oaks had shifted to their autumn colors.




Felling and Bucking



This, nine months ago, seemed a good spot for my garlic patch. It's gently sloping, south facing, and clean. Trees would need to come down. The garlic has been shipped, a bit late I think, no doubt due to the raging fires surrounding the garlic growing regions of Washington. One of my favorite suppliers had nothing to offer this season thanks to drought and fire.

What made this spot the obvious choice for my growing also made it the obvious choice for an outbuilding. At the Minnesota State Fair we spoke with a manufacturer of these buildings and they came out to the site. Last Friday, we signed. This January they start building.

My job is to make sure the site is cleared and excavated, plans and permits submitted, and the extra components -gravel, concrete, electrical and heating all get done in a coordinated fashion.

Whether it be garlic or a structure, felling trees is necessary. It's is not something we take lightly. Betsy's dad never cut a live tree, but he never had too. His old property was sculpted long ago and this new one is a work in progress.

A chainsaw wielding neighbor has done all the trees larger than four inches. Together we chip the branches and pitch the bucked logs into his truck. Dragging sixteen foot long leafy branches to the chipper, tangled as they are with other branches, over ankle twisting logs and stumps is rugged work and physically draining. Most I can do is three hours at a time.

Nothing shall be wasted. The black cherry and hickory limbs have been chipped for smoking meats. The firewood logs are partial payment to the chainsawing neighbor. We've saved several eight to twelve foot logs for lumber: hickory, black cherry, sugar maple, red oak, ironwood, and basswood. The Minneapolis College of Art and Design has a furniture program with a saw mill that goes relatively unused. We are affiliated with the school now and may take advantage of this idle tool. 


Basswood, Tilia americana, are weak-wooded trees that can grow to great heights. In other words, fairly dangerous for buildings and even people. I had one come down right in front of me last March, on a perfectly still day. I lucked out -the sound of trickling water distracted me from my path. Then, snap, and a sixty foot tree leaped from its trunk, landing just were I would have been had I not been the type to be distracted by burbling freshets. This one was, and two others will be, cut to prevent any interaction with our new building. With hesitation we are sparing a very tall cluster between the back yard and the new building because it provides some shade and screening between the house and the outbuilding. Are we sparing the monster?



The Vermeer. It eats wood for lunch.












I did all that I could to figure a way to spare this sexy red oak, Quercus rubra. These trees have strong wood, and stand for years after they have died. And they are dying, thanks to the oak wilt fungus, Ceratocystis fagacearum. Our woods is a chaos of wind fallen trees and branches, woodpeckers and other bark boring birds and insects. This damages the oaks (and other trees) and makes them susceptible to the insects that carry the fungus. The trees, once infected, die rapidly -usually a month or two, and it's dead by July. Felling trees must happen in the cool season or winter, branches chipped or burned. The logs need to be bucked and split for firewood. Drying them apparently puts an end to the fungus. Yet, we're not fooling ourselves -the red oaks are dying and we won't be able to stop it.



I didn't know there were small patches of hickory in our woods, but since identifying this one, I've found two clusters of more substantial trees. I haven't yet discerned whether these youngish trees are shagbark or bitternut, but I will let you know. The branches of this hickory have been chipped for smoking, a log saved for milling, and the rest went to firewood.



Sling the rope over the top.



And pull in the direction you hope it will fall.



Finally, there is limb work outsourced to an arborist with a cherry-picker. 



He will also tackle a couple of wilt-dead oaks from a few years back and this dangerous limb hanging from a very old sugar maple.


Later, maybe, we'll get to the several large oaks and basswood that have fallen throughout the woods in 2015. It appears to me that all the older trees are dying; a changing of the guard. What will these sunny clearing produce? Multitudinous sugar maples from the north, invasive buckthorn from the south, and whatever it is we have to say about it.