Rose, Spider, and Camera


An unaltered photo of Grandma's tea after an accidental flash exposure.


The glowing magic spider after the same.


How it was meant to look -seductive in its own right. I'm hoping that my next camera can process the hot pinks/magentas better than my current Canon A80.


And here the spider I found today when I went to cut some parsley. I noticed a fat thread connected to the climbing hydrangea, which led my eye to the web. I've never seen a large spider like this in this garden. I expect to see these in the woods, under an eave, near the night light. I must remember it is there, tomorrow, when I go to cut some sage.


Sheffield Madness


I am still not sure if I like the color of these Sheffield 'Pink' chrysanthemums. But they are going crazy right now.

Sheffield with the milkweed seedpods, millefolium yarrow, and salvia elegans leaves.

There is something almost artificial about the apricot-like color. What color is this?

But there is also great variability in the colors. These yellow-tinged petals of the same plant.

The flying, nectar seeking creatures are mad for the Sheffield.

Unknown flies.

Every morning flies, lots of green flies on the flowers.

Bees too.

House flies.

Carpenter bees.

Butterflies.

And beetles.


November Blooming




The Monkshood (Aconitum) is blooming now, but never quite lives up to its potential. Its top-heavy and flounders low to the ground and I am too lazy to support it!


Grandma's tea is blooming once again, probably the last time this year.




Shadow Farming


This is the vegetable garden now. It gets 20 minutes of sun each day.

The old broccoli looks swell.

Love the pearly droplets on its leaves.

The young broccoli probably won't make it. Saw a cat sitting on it the other night.

Basil is hanging in there.

Oregano and Thyme are doing well.


And parsely quite good as well.



Leaves Adrift



As I ran out the door this morning to pick up the laundry I was reminded of dreaded winter winds.

On my way back I enjoyed the swales of maple and sycamore (plane) tree leaves drifting over the sidewalk.


I thought of the unison of winds and plants -wind pushing and plant stems collecting leaves.


What's Been Going On?


Well, its autumn in NYC. I've been busy. This morning was the first in a while that I was able to get into the garden and see all that is happening there. That post to come later.

There are a few things I've been working on. One is my art website, made in the oldest version of iweb and uploaded this week. Took me more than a year to do it. I will add the link (oh, horror- my full name!) to my side bar should you ever want to see what painting or project I am up to. There may be bugs to be ironed out, but you know this.

I did some consulting for the National Park Service regarding artist-in-residence programs recently, and was also named a Future Leadership fellow by National Arts Strategies, who partnered with NYFA. The fellowship entitled me to a full day executive class at the Brooklyn Museum on financial management for non-profit organizations. It was taught by a great teacher, Greg Reilly, Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut School of Business. He made it real simple for us arts folks.

I've also been involved curating an exhibit of painting, drawing, and sculpture called 'reaganography'. The opening next sunday and the card image is below (click on that image for a larger view). The gallery is in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and is called NoGlobe.


click for larger image


Forget Garden Beds...


Oh hello. I have just thought of a brand new use for my blog. Ahem.

I'm trying to buy a new mattress for me and my wife. The internet is full of scammer comments and opinions, biased sites, and what else. I went to a sleepys in Bay Ridge today, and what a routine the salesman did for me. And I followed it through to leaving a small deposit on a mattress I know nothing about that cost more than I really can spend.

You are gardeners, so occasionally your back hurts from too much digging. You probably value a good night's sleep on a good mattress. What kind do you have and where did you buy it?

Oh, I hope this works.

Mushroom Maze

If you have the time, read on. This is my largest post ever, with 64 photos.


My brother had lured me to a new county park, called Manorville Hills (sounds like a subdivision and probably was eyed as one, once). It is part of a 6000 acre preserve of NY state lands and Suffolk County park lands in the Pine Barrens region of Long Island. The sign above says it all. This is probably one's best spot on Long Island to get away from 'it all.' A wilderness zone, the Pine Barrens, our glacial landscape, the maze. The air was crisp on Sunday morning, scented with the autumnal decay I tend to associate with upstate NY, but there it was making us feel alive.


I had recently purchased the Long Island Greenbelt Trail Conference's map set. Thinking, of course, that this is all I needed to make the magic happen. My brother wanted to begin at the county park lot, the one with the empty sign. There were no markings, no signs, no trail blazes. We opted to start on a road, one which we could reasonably locate on our map. The road we took was called Hot Water Rd. Not sure if it was that anyone traveling it would be getting into hot water or that nearby Brookhaven National Lab was making some hot water. Either way, I began wishing the LIGTC maps were made of Tyvek, like the well-made NYNJTC trail maps. After the day's folding and unfolding, it began to fall apart.


There are a lot of roads in the Pine Barrens. In this landscape, roads, paths, footprints die hard. Many are easily over 100 years old. One of the first thing anyone unfamiliar with the area will notice is that your path, road, or trail is, um, well below the natural grade. This image is the side of Hot Water Rd, a few hundred yards from the shot just before it. You can also see that the road is 'sunken in' in that shot.


This trail, er, road, er, canyon is a good example of how easily this region is damaged by human activity-caused erosion. Our hiking did it no favors, but the ATVs, dirtbikes, and trucks have really done most harm.


The pine barrens are, well, barren, for a few reasons. People had difficulty farming the sand that lies just beneath the extremely thin topsoil. It was far enough from NYC to avoid major development pressures until the last decades of the 20th century. Preservation and open space movements had begun in earnest in the late 70s and by the generally well-off 90's, it became politcally sound to do so by both Republicans and Democrats. And, it appears, that Long Islander's interest in hiking and mountain biking the barrens had grown along with that movement. So what was once our version of a swamp -a useless dumping ground, became an ecological niche to be explored by all.


There are some farms to the north, south and east of the glacial moraine's kame and kettle landscape. In fact, Hot Water Road passes this farm and compost pile. But here is where things started to get tricky. Our map had indicated a number of roads and paths along Hot Water. But by our count, we had passed at least twice as many as were indicated on the map. We had no clue how far we had come, if at least understanding where we were relative to the 6000 acres: south side, near the private property north of County Road 51 also known as 'the farm.'


I was in charge of direction, map reading, and getting us out of here in one piece before sundown. The craziest hike I had ever done was in Hell's Canyon, Oregon -a three day, lousy hiking partner, map-less, compass-less, run-out-of-water, snow-on-top, desert-on-bottom, excursion over 4000 feet of elevation when I was 25. Can I say with comfort we are not getting lost 5 miles south of the Long Island Expressway?


Our trail conference map offered only one major color-blazed trail in the region, the Paumanok Path - a white blaze. I didn't want to double back for the return trip, so we devised a route from Hot Water Road to the PP. We were looking for a blue-blazed trail, marked on the map, that linked with the white-blazed PP. This we would take back west toward the parking area, with only a couple of miles off of a color-blazed trail to the car. I forgot my compass, but being near equinox, it was easy to keep track of our direction relative to the position of the sun.

Hot Water Road was supposed to turn sharp, NNE, at the mapped turn a foot path extended past a place called 'Bald Hill' -but this did not happen. Hot Water seemed to have been freshly excavated and extended where there was once only a foot path. Finally, I spotted a blue blaze! We turned northward. There were so many trails, foot paths, and roads connecting to this blue-marked trail that were not on our map, we really had little use for it. There were also blue-blazes all over the place, turning left and right, some on the bottom of trees, some with white. If it were a cloudy day, without compass, it surely would have been a maze. It's not exciting to everyone to use your sense of direction to compensate for maps, but I enjoyed the opportunity to put myself to the test.


We finally linked with a white blaze, the Paumanok Path. With it to follow, things were much easier. It was still hard to figure out where we were on the map or how far we had walked, but I was getting better at estimating distances. The trail is sandy, but easy to walk. Only on some hills did the sand bog us down.


The landscape of the barrens is not the familiar wilderness. It offers no promontories, no bodies of water, no vistas or streams, no moments of grandeur or big sky, nor any obvious landmarks. Hills climb to 300 feet, but once atop you cannot see much through the leaves. Its understory and canopy seem unchanged for the length of it. For those who would describe it as boring, I simply offer that you are not looking close enough. The true beauty of the barrens is in the details, the moments.


Its middle autumn, the leaves are still on the trees, the understory dappled with low, diffuse light. The canopy of oaks mingle with occasional pitch pines, most not very tall so that it is never very dark in the woods. The evenness of light in union with the glacial hills, kames and kettles, flattens distance. You feel you are within, as in a body of water. Each rise gives expectation of a vista, but only offers a new bottom land to descend into.


The trail cuts through heath -mainly ericaceous plants. In this woods there is canopy and low understory -nothing between. Occasionally, noticeably, in small clusters, the heath grew three times as tall as it ordinarily had and was still bright green with no obvious answer why.


Pitch Pine stand.


Mossy bottom land.


Sassafras, roadside.


More moss.


Small glacial erratic.


Large.


The road we ate lunch on. Ticks are an issue when hiking here. On a sandy road, it should be of no concern, but the trails are often brushy footpaths. A quick leg check every 15 minutes is my solution and has become my habit after my experience in the Connecticut woods. We wore no repellent. I had shorts and found no ticks after 7 hours in the woods. My brother, on the other hand, had light-colored pants and we found two ticks crawling up on a particular stretch (grassy road) late in the day. The ticks were black and I feel comfortable IDing them as male black-legged ticks. We both had a spell with a swarm of very small mites on the front of our shoes/pants' ankles. I tried to see how many legs they had, but then I recalled stories of pant legs brushing larval tick nests and them having six legs and boom, destroy all monsters! Unlike hard adult ticks, these squished easily.

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Now, without much wordy interruption, the mushrooms of Hot Water Road, the Blue Trail, and the Paumanok Path, autumn 2009. Please click for a double-size image, and leave your ID tips.


I found a lot of Indian Pipe.




Closeup -Indian Pipe.


To my delight, the relative of Indian Pipe I saw at Weir Preserve: Pinesap, Monotropa hypopithys. Its red color is outstanding. Of course, neither or these are mushrooms, but they don't photosynthesize -so I put them here.


Closeup.






















This turned into those below (looks like not-fully popped corn).






















Rotting shrooms.
























And at the end of our day, heading for the car, some asters...






I saw about five individual feathers, hawk I think, throughout our 12-mile hike. This one I took.


A Burial At Ornans

In Courbet's painting "A Burial at Ornans" he speaks, metaphorically, of the death of Romanticism and the rise of Realism.
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This is the soil profile at the Fort Tilden community garden. I grew up with this soil, with one great exception: the topsoil was about 2 inches deep instead of 10. Beneath it -pure sand.


Its easy to fall into a lazy romanticism regarding a place like this.


Its forlorn weediness, bleached wood picket, tattered rags on string.


Everyone one I ask, gardeners here and the park officials running the place, say its active.


But I see few signs of any real activity, real work, real commitment.


This corner has the most activity. Every time I visited, this corner had a gardener present.


The same corner hosts a poke. Behind it, a manure pile.


By the time we rap this corner, forlorn once again.

I asked where the compost pile was.
Oh, we had that removed.
Really, why?
Rats.
Really.
Did you see them?
We found nibbles on our beans.

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I have added my name to the wait list for a plot at this community garden. I'm told there are many ahead of me. Yet, despite their insistence, I find little evidence of committed activity. They, respectfully, disagree -you're seeing it in October after all. It looks like people plant some basil and tomatoes and never come back. I'm hoping a well-placed phone call will land me a spot. Won't this be most interesting...


Last Hurrah




The last of the 'Black Russians'. The last of this year's tomatoes. Except for that pile of green ones I pulled from the pulled plants. Still have herbs and broccoli growing. I suppose I could do greens. Very little sun over in the side yard now. Next year, only herbs. Something new?


Goings On In The Garden


The Aster Potschke is blooming full.


Someone or something smashed my Salvia elegans. When I stuck my hand in there to pull it up a cat jumped out and I got stung by a honeybee (all over the aster which had gone down with it). I had to tie up the sage and aster, wait for the sting to settle down.


All the activity startled this mantis out of protective hiding.




Off Season


Ever since I could get about on my own to near distant places, like beaches, I've enjoyed going off-season. The beach is wonderful for swimming and cooling in summertime, but its great for gazing and relaxing in autumn or even winter. A weekday at Jacob Riis Park is pretty empty, water sparkling, wind often from the north or west (less blowing sand), and big ships lining the horizon.


I couldn't be absolutely sure that the scent on the breeze was from the seaside goldenrod, Solidago sempervirens. But it was the only thing in bloom everywhere. It was musky, like certain spring white flower scents I'm not sure I like close-up, but from a distance just fine. Not attractive, but certainly respectable. The monarchs prefer close-up, thank you very much. They were everywhere too.


The grasses are spectacular with their tufts of pubescence illuminated by the low sun.





Pizza Sukkah


Yesterday, I took the bus down to Avenue J, on my way to a bus to the Rockaways. As I strolled down the avenue, I noticed many Orthodox Jewish men selling the sprigs of a plant. I decided to ask what kind of plant it came from. It looked a bit like Oleander to me, sensible to my mind knowing that it is native to the middle east and Mediterranean. But no, the man told me he thought it was willow. He was a little suspicious of this camera wielding gentile, and I was asked to disclose my purposes!

I was well aware that it was the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, and everyone who has lived near or in Orthodox neighborhoods is aware of the temporary huts or booths that sprout up at this time of year. Sukkah, the singular, means booth. Sukkot, the plural, is a holiday of pilgrimage and feasting, coming as it does at the end of the agricultural season. The willows belong to a group called the Four Species. Read those linked Wikipedia articles so I don't have to write about it here, pretending as if I know what I'm talking about.

My purpose on Avenue J was a pilgrimage of sorts, however secular. I certainly had feasting on my mind, and was prepared to enter the ramshackle booth of Di Fara pizza to do so. Much has been written and said about this pizza and pizza in NYC in general. I will not get into it. I was happy to arrive just after opening; there were seats and no line. His prices have risen again, to $5 a slice. No one should pay that for a slice of pizza, but here, every so often, yes. I ordered a slice of round (regular) and square (Sicilian), my usual no matter where I go. The round was regular Di Fara and good. The square, which I had to wait for, was phenomenal. The sauce was meaty, rich, and anyone who knows pizza knows the sauce on Sicilian must be different from the round. Two guys came in, ordered a whole square, uncorked two bottles of wine, and feasted.

I hesitate to order pies and bring them home, they need to be eaten right out of the oven. But the place is a dump, which is okay by me. Dom De Marco has always understood that renovation can destroy the work. Kahlil Gibran wrote that work is love made visible. I go to see this man work as much as for his pizza. Its a privilege to see and enjoy his work, his love.

My grandfather, Carmelo Di Maio, who I didn't know as well as I could have, making pizza 40 years ago.

After my pizza feast, I ran across the street to get some Challah. Then to the bus to the Rockaways. The only people on the beach were Orthodox families celebrating Sukkot with an outing -allowed on this holy day because it does not belong to the category of work. May I assume that this work is work not of love, but distaste?