Snow Fall



I left New Hampshire behind this past Monday, but before I did I made one last commute down the snowy road. Sunday gave us a full on snow storm, which lasted into the early hours of Monday morning. The trees were heavy with the kind of powdery snow that falls when temperatures are low, which they have been. There's the silence of the land blanketed in snow, excepting the under boot squeaky on the road. But the most charming thing after a snowfall like this -the snow fall that happens after the storm has passed.


As the sun appears from behind the clouds, the snow on top of the evergreens begins to melt, weighing the snow down on the boughs. Eventually it gets too heavy and a when a breeze develops, clumps of snow drop from high above. These clumps hit lower boughs heavy with light, powdery snow creating cascades of snow fall. Its fun to watch, and if you are inside with a view out, often you just see the lightest, glistening crystals wafting in the air.


The road to my studio


Look to the right and you see the gazebo. This landscape does not create focus on the VIEW, meaning the sight towards Mount Monadnock. Its the highest peak in the region, but this landscape minimizes your visual access to it, affording us a sequestration from the desire for distance, daydreaming, or simply imagining we are the people on the hill, on top of the world -which we are, of course, but why think about it, look inward.


Much of northern Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire suffered many tree breaks from the December ice storm. There were roadways I traveled where it seemed every other large or small tree had been snapped off 15 feet up its trunk. Many large limbs were snapped too, like this pine. Birch trees everywhere were either bent to the ground or snapped twenty feet up. Its gruesome. This image barely touches on the enormity of the damage.


My studio after the snow, last morning.


Snow fall.

Thoughts on a Winter Landscape

New Hampshire in the winter-time is beautiful, but it is more than that. It goes deeper, because it struck me today that New Hampshire in the winter-time is the landscape that I would draw as a child. It is a dream, the essential winter landscape. It is snow covered evergreen boughs, white birches in a field of snow, crystal night skies with bright stars and moon-light to read by. Homes glowing with incandescence, chimney stacks with lazy smoke, snow-covered trails that invite walking, wind high in the hemlocks, icicle-fringed rooftops, glistening snow crystals floating on air. This is the winter scene I drew as a kid, the stuff of dreams and Currier & Ives prints.

My daily commute


Its Winter, Let's Act Like It

Here in New Hampshire we are having a winter. I am here for a residency, working on my art and even blogging a bit. As a matter of fact, I learned of the ease of blogging right here in NH, in summer of 2007. A friend, a writer, Tayari Jones, showed me the ins and outs of such things that very summer. So blog in hand, I'm here for the winter -really, meaning gimme some winter. Oh, the generosity.

The southerly view, out my studio window


Mountain Laurel outside the library -at night

MulchFest

Don't forget to bring your clean tree to one of several locations around every borough to have your
Christmas tree chipped by the parks department. Some locations are offering free mulch, some are just drop-off locations.

Dates: January 10th and 11th from 10 am to 2 pm.

The Ghost of MulchFest Past

Oh Tree, the Ghost of Post-Christmas Told Me to Mulch Thee



NYC Department of Sanitation Christmas Tree Pickup will begin tomorrow, Monday January 5th, 2009 and run through Friday, January 16th, 2009.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Release # 08-67
Monday, December 29, 2008
Vito A. Turso/Matthew LiPani

Sanitation Begins Christmas Tree Recycling on January 5th

Sanitation Commissioner John J. Doherty announced today that the Department will begin its annual Christmas tree curbside collection and recycling program on Monday, January 5, 2009. The program will run through Friday, January 16th.

Residents should remove all tree stands, tinsel, lights, and ornaments from holiday trees before they are put out at curbside for removal. Trees must not be placed into plastic bags. Clean, non-bagged Christmas trees that are left at the curb between Monday, January 5th and Friday, January 16th will be collected, chipped, and made into compost. The compost will be processed and subsequently spread upon parks, ball fields, and community gardens throughout the city.

In January 2008, the Department collected over 160,000 discarded Christmas trees.

"The Department is very pleased to offer this special recycling service. Providing collection and recycling options for residents is environmentally valuable and benefits our neighborhoods. Working in conjunction with the City's Parks & Recreation Department allows residents to take part in the recycling process and permits them to even reuse their composted Christmas trees to fertilize for the spring. Compost is a natural fertilizer and is an excellent soil enrichment that promotes the healthy growth of plants and grass," said Commissioner Doherty.

The Parks & Recreation Department will be hosting Mulchfest 2009 on Saturday, January 10th and Sunday, January 11th from 10 A.M. to 2 P.M. at more than 80 sites throughout the city. To find citywide locations, visit the Parks & Recreation website at www.nyc.gov/parks. The citywide service allows New Yorkers to drop off their holiday trees at designated parks for mulching and event attendees can pick up free mulch. All lights, ornaments, and decorations must be removed from the trees prior to drop-off.

For more information on Christmas tree collection and recycling and/or Mulchfest 2009, visit www.nyc.gov/sanitation or www.nyc.gov/parks or call 3-1-1. 

Talk Turkey to Me






First there are a few


Then there are several


In no time there are many


Then they flee


Over the past few years I have been seeing turkeys roam through the woods and marsh (in winter). Its amazing to see the turkeys fly up 60 feet to the tree tops to roost. If caught unaware, turkeys flapping their wings can give you quite a startle.

Winter Path

Amidst our winter visit , our first woodland walk. Starting at the trail head, we take a little jaunt on the southerly wetland edge trail.





Bundles of fallen twigs accumulate along the trail.



One of the several foot bridges spanning wet ravines. This one crosses a temporary brook that issues from a tree's roots a few feet from the bridge. The brook drains a wet basin that is just a few feet higher in elevation. Notice the larger twig pile in the background.


One of many animal trails in the snow. This is a good place to learn winter animal tracks.

Leaves of some understory trees hang on, golden, warming the view.



The long bridge comes into sight, crossing one point of drainage into the big yellow-grass marsh (that's what I call it, as I tend to see the marsh in winter, full of ochre grass.) This location has less grass than the rest of the marsh, can hold water in wet times, dry out in drought, and is shady-what a gardener's complication!


Crossing the long bridge. Its made with tree log cuts for legs and pallet-like dock laid over it. Remarkably hardy, the docking sheds water easily -resisting decay.


Resting on a boulder under matchbook tree, on the hillside trail facing east.


That Snow Rose

We are having our second snow of the season today, and what appears to be over the next several days by the weather reports I've been viewing. But its lovely on the New Dawn rose.



But how bout this. Is this not the most Santa Clausian freeze-dried Knockout rose with snow on it you ever did see? He's got little stunted legs, a mop of white hair and beard, one red arm close to his chest with a little white cuff and another arm and white cuff raised in the air. Sware it, I didn't notice it until I downloaded my photos. This may be my most Christmas-y garden photo ever; red, white, and green and Santa too!


HO HO HO

Tree Fairy

I woke up today, looked outside the window, and there they were. New trees. I didn't hear the jackhammer, I didn't hear the concrete saw, I didn't hear the trucks, I didn't even hear a shovel hit the dirt. So must've been the Tree Fairy in the middle of the night. Two trees right across the street. Another down our short block, and then there's another on the corner. Wait, around the corner there's another six trees! That's 10 trees dropped in the middle of the night, while our neighborhood slept. Maybe there's more on our little four block quadrant.




Thanks Tree Fairy, though not that we're not deserving. After all, the Tree Vortex stole many of our older trees two summers ago. That nasty Vortex.

Tree cut in two on Church Avenue by the Brooklyn Tornado of 2007

First Snow and the Camera Returns



Its not unusual, but always noted, and inspired me to pick up a Christmas tree on my way home from work. We don't always do it, and we're leaving in a few days for Minnesota, but how could I resist with the snow on the branches.



The garden is taking it well and so is my Canon A80 -back from the rehabilitation center. I'll remember this customer service, Canon, when it is time to invest in a new and better camera.

If You're This Kind of Gardener (I am)

Now, and really for the whole month of November into December, is an excellent time to get deals on bulbs at retail nurseries. I went to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden the other day to check out what they had. Less than last year, but I still picked up some Allium Sphaerocephalon bulbs at 50% off. There are always bulbs left over from the selling season. Intrepid garden shoppers can get out and help clear those bulbs from the shelf for a discount. Yeah, its cold for planting -but not too cold to plant those bulbs.

Sale rack at the BBG

Often available are the stalwarts of the everyday garden -tulips, daffodils, hyacinths overstocked by the retailer. But the BBG had some different Alliums and a species tulip or two. So, if this is your kind of gig, stop by your local nursery and help them unload some of those bulbs. But don't do it unless its at a discount. Planting in the cold is only worth it when its backed up by a solid bargain. The nursery should be eager to let those bulbs go. And as long as your soil isn't frozen, and here in NYC it is not, you can get those bulbs in the ground.

Allium Sphaerocephalon


Long Live the Christmas Tree

When I worked for a NYC garden designer, it was a matter of business to be putting up Christmas trees and holiday decorations after the last frozen impatien was pulled out of the soil. I hadn't understood that holiday decorations were a gardener's business until then, or that it was in Manhattan, on certain streets. I thought, until those under-lit December days, that a family would be spirited into selecting their own tree, hanging their personal decorations with the kids, and generally enjoying the spirit of the moment. But for some, selecting and mounting a live-cut tree is a gardener's business and happy is the gardener to take in some extra cash before the long dry spell of winter.

J&L Landscaping, my local nursery, has brought in the post-Thanksgiving selection of cut Christmas trees. I like to smell them as I pass to and from the subway. It tells me what time of year it is, should I forget for not hearing 24 hour Christmas tunes on the radio. There were quite a few years where I felt I was a live, uncut Christmas tree kind of guy. Despite my feeling for this, it was largely a theoretical notion as I have never actually done this. Nor is it practical in the city or anywhere, really, as the tree will suffer going from a cold exterior environment to the warm, dry of the house and then back out again into the freezing landscape. I think I could keep it alive, but not without complete devotion.

Recently I heard an npr radio announcement for an ad man who wants to modernize the image of Christmas, noting with particular difficulty the modernizing of the "overly 19th century Santa Claus." I think the plastic tree, for a while anyway, lent the flavor of modern to home adornment during Christmas. Yet, I think the reason Christmas lands so squarely in the nineteenth century (or earlier) is, of course, the sentimental nature of the holiday. But isn't it also because the 19th century is a time far enough away for it to have the tone of simpler times -but close enough for us to be able to relate? Somehow, too, images and thoughts amount to 19th century life as closer to nature despite industrial realities and major resource depletion of, say -trees. Our live Christmas tree brings us closer to an image of us in spirit with the natural world, connected. Even if collecting our Christmas tree is a bit of ritual theater, the symbolism is overwhelming and might even be superstitious if it weren't so abstract, so truly distant from our lives.

My wife and I go to Minnesota to her father's place every Christmas. He goes out to a tree farm and cuts a grand tree every year. Its always set up by the time we arrive. We do not always get our own tree because we are never in our house for the holiday. But some years, we do head around the corner to J&L and pick out a short balsam or noble fir for our apartment.

My family has teetered between plastic and live-cut trees and have now comfortably settled into the "don't have to go shopping for a tree and don't have to vacuum needles" option that is the plastic tree. I don't complain.

I recently came across the National Christmas Tree Association Tree Types web page. Who knew there was an association for the Christmas Tree? And why not? I guess it would be more responsible, but less spirited, to have called the group the National Christmas Tree Growers Association. Anyhow, on their page they list the 10 Myths of the live cut Christmas tree- according to them.

Most of what they state seems reasonable enough, but in our urban world distaste for pesticides, fungicides, and the like is pretty strong. So the only myth they might not have succeeded in debunking is that one, in my opinion. Problem is that no-one wants bugs or unhealthy trees in their home, but don't want the residues of treatment either.

What of the environmental debate: which is better, the fake or the live?

The Council on the Environment of NYC has a local grower's list for pickup at NYC farmer's markets.
The Brooklyn Botanical Garden Christmas tree identifier.

Some different types of Christmas trees available locally:

Some images courtesy of the NCTA

Noble Fir


Fraser Fir


Balsam Fir


Colorado Blue Spruce

A Year Without Acorns or "Squirrel Nuts!"

Recently there has been a million posts here and there about the missing oak acorns. I can say with some certainty that most of these posts and threads grew out of this Washington Post story. It spread like post-Thanksgiving wildfire, popping up on every other person's blog. Like its some kind of signal of the Armageddon.


But I hadn't noticed a decline in acorns. I hadn't noticed them at all. Probably because oaks are not widely planted on my neighborhood's streets and because I haven't been in Prospect Park lately. And the squirrels, are they thin and attacking everything? No, they have plenty of goods to eat in our fair city. This is the city where squirrels will come up to you for a snack. Garbage is not off limits either, and neither is your garden. So the squirrels seem to be hanging in there- at least here in NYC.


As a child I grew up with acorns; all our trees were oaks. I cannot remember when they would begin to fall, but I especially prized the longer ones that held onto their caps. We would have so many that I would collect them in pails; have pails full. I had some idea that this was a good practice, saving the acorns. It was the only thing I had a lot of anyway and I like collecting them. Maybe I intended to be squirrel-like, though I don't remember my reasoning, pure speculation.


But I think I know where all those acorns went this year. All the banks are now on the acorn standard. Yep. The acorn standard. Now all your deposits are backed by the full faith of the oak forest. Yep. Sorry squirrels. Acorns now as good as gold. Maybe you should have saved more, maybe you should have been prepared, maybe a little less shady dealing Mr. Squirrel.


A vault at JP MORGAN, filled with the acorns. CITIBANK, tower of acorns. WELLS FARGO, Conestoga wagons cartin' those acorns west. Worth more than the dollar. I should have saved all those acorns from my childhood; just that I liked them green so much more than brown.


bronze cast acorn caps

Casual Camera Casualty

What's casual in a casualty -I suppose that its a matter of chance. My casual camera, the Canon Powershot A80, was suffering psychedelic visuals. By casual chance I noticed that the company was offering rehab for cameras that were suffering symptoms just like my camera's. My camera being a casualty of not so good engineering over at Canon, I sent it off this week for rehab. They say they can help.

By chance I located, hidden in a drawer, a really cheap digital video camera that also takes stills. A brand name I certainly do not recognize. Its images are quirky at best. Poor contrast control and blurred edges. Difficulty focusing. Not very dynamic. You'll see this in all my recent photos.

My Canon will be missed. Please return safely, and soon.

Sometimes a camera works so poorly that it does magical things. I have a compact 35 mm film camera, a Ricoh AF40 with 38mm lens, that's like this. Actually, the Ricoh is a decent camera giving excellent results in certain situations. This digicam, however, is just bad, yet it still took these photos that I find to be fantastic. In the spirit of all cameras' quirks, I offer these dreamy photos taken by my nameless digicam.





These shots make sense now, a dreamy warmth out of step with that bluster outside.

My Brain is Frozen

Well, it must be because I was outside today wrapping up my broccoli starts as if they were going to make it. I mean I know I am too busy when I am wrapping for the freeze 5 days after it struck. They may have made it if I got to them by Wednesday. But now?!

It looks spooky, like some kind of phantom cradle. Its an apparition. So's my broccoli.



Lone tea barely freezing, hanging on, still scented


Salvia elegans succumbs to nasty black death, but that lone, wallside branch not giving in.


The asters hanging on, their oily leaves more resistant to the cold.