Winter Minutia

There is something very crisp and healing about a winter hike. Even here, in the land of very little snowfall the winter woods feel cleaner and peaceful. All the inhabitants of stream and leaf are sleeping deeply or gone away all together and everything from bud to burl is snugly folded for the resting season.

The palette is a simple: khaki, bone and taupe, so that every little snip of color shows up like a blinking sign in the even landscape. Its good to be outdoors and to feel pure solace, no chance of meeting other hikers on the trail, and hear only the hoot of your own voice or the echo of a raven's call in the distance.

Its time for little things to have a small moment to shine: the dark maroon purple of a wineberry leaf, the chartreuse carpet of moss under rusty oak leaves, the glint of mica in a trailside boulder. There were no bird's nests this hike but I always like to look for them once the leaves are down and all the occupants have flown off to other habitats.

 Away from highways and crowds and busy activities you can finally hear the drip of water off the spruce tips and the scuffle of a squirrel over the next rise and the rattle of the dead beech leaves in the wind. Small beauties, little things...but good to remember. All these small things are there, under the momentous importance of our busy lives if only we will take the time to bend down and see them.

How to Identify Trees

View up the trunk of a Tulip Tree.

Do you think trees are beautiful but feel clueless about how to tell them all apart? Maybe you didn't grow up in a "naturey" family or maybe you learned a few by osmosis in childhood (maple, oak, birch...etc.) but feel unimpressive at that level and stumped about going further. Maybe you're a homeschooling mama like me who wants to teach her kids the names of the trees she doesn't even know. Don't despair! You can do it!

American Beech meets the ground.

I am always teaching my little boys about how to identify trees. I think A gets a little annoyed sometimes by my, "Hold on! Look boys...what's this?" bunny trails when we're hiking or walking the neighborhood or on our way from the house to the car. The man deserves credit though....he keeps his mouth shut and lets me keep on with my perpetual, nature pop quiz.

Underside of a fallen White Oak leaf.

I love trees. Who doesn't really?!?  They feel important and warmly beautiful and they demand our attention.  Learning their names is a good way to feel like you're genuine friends. I often have people watch me identify a tree and then sigh and shake their heads, "That's amazing." they say... "I could never do that."

Truth is, they could. And so can you. Here are five steps. 

1. The best way to start is to pick one specific tree to learn. Choose a tree you have on your property or in your neighborhood, something you see all the time will jog your memory, give you more practice and help your new knowledge stick. I think the best way to learn a new tree when you're starting from scratch is to ask someone you know who knows about nature. Either have them pick one tree and show it to you or show them a tree you've selected. Its not cheating to have someone tell you the answer....its learning. That's how you start when you don't know anything yet! Use your network with no shame.

American beech leaves, all bronze after the frost.

2. Once you have the name of the tree...google like crazy! I use the internet all the time now for plant i.d. There is all kinds of information out there now and its all just waiting for you to use it! Type the name of the tree you found into Google and read about your tree. Type: "tips for identifying ___________" and fill in the blank with your tree's name. Read about the special things unique to that tree. Write down the list if you wanna be really comprehensive, if you're feeling fast and loose, try to remember one or two of the things you read. Some of the sciencey words used to describe the tree parts might be off-putting and unfamiliar...don't be cowed...google those too!

Nib sniffing leaves he found on a hike.

3. The next time you see "your tree" again stop for a minute and look at it for the special characteristics that you read about. Notice anything else you missed before. Look at the tree like its a person. Pretend you're a kid...generally fool around: notice how it feels and how it smells and what its shape is like. Smush up a leaf and notice the sap and the scent of the smashed greenery. Snap off a twig and put it in your pocket to look at later. Kick around under the tree and see if you can find any seed pods from it to bring home. If you think of it, take pictures.

Fallen, autumn Ginko biloba leaves.

4. Teach someone else about your tree. This is where kids are fabulously helpful. If you don't have kids...teach your grandchildren or a neighbor boy or a kid at the bus stop. Teaching other people passes on the knowledge that we have (very few people know how to identify a tree...most people will be impressed and will want to know what you tell them) and it is also the very best way to cement your own knowledge in your mind.

Tulip Tree seed pod.

5. Do it again! The more times you learn a new tree and go read about it the more technical, descriptive words for tree parts you will absorb and eventually you will be able to find a tree in the woods, type the characteristics into Google (deciduous, opposite leaves, glaucus buds, palmate leaf shape) and you'll have figured out the answer to a puzzle on your own! Its a tremendous feeling. Until then, remember:

• Practice makes perfect.
• There's no shame in making mistakes....its how we learn.
• Celebrate every victory! 

 Go be a nature genius! You've got it in you.

Sugaring Festival

Image via Wikipedia

We drove a great deal this weekend and managed to get all the way up to the top of the state to the part of Connecticut where there is still snow. Far away, up there it is still the end of winter and the maple sap is flowing. A generous farm decided to host a local sugaring festival for free for anyone who wanted to come celebrate. We had a grand time.

There were pony rides (Ru was a very smug fan. I wish I still could fit on a pony.), there were sap and syrup tastings, there pancakes hot off the griddle, there demonstrations of maple cookery and a big evaporator steaming up the attic of the sugar house with the effort of cooking down the farm's arboreal takings.

And then they made sugar-on-the-snow, just like in Lara Ingalls Wilder's story about sugaring off in Little House In The Big Woods.

I've never actually seen it made or tasted it, although I grew up in a family that made maple syrup. I totally get why it is described so fondly in the book. Wow.

The syrup turns into this lovely, moist taffy stuff that is a glowing gold as it spins on your fork (you twirl it up off the snow after it is ladled out) and it mixes with the cold crystals from the snow and ice and gives you this warm/cold feeling as you eat it. So great.

We left remembering just exactly how fond we both feel of this local, American product and decided that next year, maybe we'll try tapping the  maple trees by our house. There are two that would be unobtrusive to tap, in our back yard and then if we got brave we could tap the two others along the street in the front yard. Do you know any stories of urban tapping?

Books and Birds and Buds

There is a pair of hawks swooping around our block lately. They shriek together while they soar high over the convent next door and in the morning I often watch them preening in the tops of the very tall maples across the street. I stand in tadasana and then swan dive down towards my yoga mat while they shift and ruffle feathers and the wind silently blows their tails in chill flutters. I hope they will decide to nest nearby. I'd love to see a nesting pair of hawks raise their young. I've never seen birds so big so familiarly. And maybe the local feral rabbit count will go down too which could be good for my vegetable garden, eh?

I am slowly getting bits and bobs of the house together. Today I moved some of the rugs and art work around and yesterday I figured out how to hang a mask I wanted to display. It's all stop and go and a painfully slow process but I feel like at least the motion is forward. And I know that soon...I'll be all outdoors minded and it will be all that I can do just to make myself wash the dishes, hang the rest of the house.

View into the sunroom/studio

Ru and I are reading aloud the rest of The Little House books again...we have worked our way through the first two and are beginning the third and A is reading Farmer Boy at night. I am not sure why I use the phrase "work through" the right label is "burned through" or "tore explosively through" or some other wildly manic phraseology. It is all I can do to keep the reading sessions down to an hour at a time. He's so thrilled to listen that he will beg and beg for it continue no matter where I leave off. If only I didn't want to sit there reading all day long myself. Heh. I don't know where he gets it.

The last of our snow, in that little sloping pile behind Dee.

The latest garden plan at the moment is a standard, tree-form wisteria. I was ready to give up the wisteria dream. All garden types say it is absurdly invasive and no matter the heartbreaking beauty of the plant it is evil and it will send four million runners all over your lawn and worm a thousand robust fingers up your gutters and then beginning to tear lustily at your siding.

Promising looking buds on our forsythia!

Yes, but I do love it and I have dreamed of having wisteria for years and years and A says I shouldn't live so safely. Claim a dream. I'm thinking that the grafted tree form varieties I've read about seem safer...less prone to runners and wildly unkempt habits than their vining relatives. How does this one look? The next question is: "Do I have to keep it in a planter in order to survive co-habitation with said plant? I wouldn't put mint in the ground to save my life...am I insane to consider plunking a wisteria down?

Related articles

• 13 Reasons to Grow a Vegetable Garden. (frugalupstate.com)
• Hawk's Nest (wvcabins.wordpress.com)
• My Hawk Friend (40dreams.wordpress.com)
• How is a hawk's nest different than a blue jays (wiki.answers.com)
• Yep, the FDNY rescues hawks, too (nydailynews.com)
• Proud to Read Aloud (thereaderonline.co.uk)

Snapshots of The Big Storm 2010

Big local road....kinda occupied.

View of the average road shoulder at the moment.

 

Road itself....not a dilapidated bike path.

 

Our small local stream...well flooded beyond it's banks.

But on the upside...all this spring rain means the 

miniature daffodils by the front door are blooming!

50-60's all the rest of the week! Wooohoo!!!

Closed Off To The World

Saturday night we went to dinner at my aunt's house, driving across the state in pelting rain and lashing wind...watching the trees bending and the sea frothing as we drove along. We cozied down in the den together when we arrived and had a snug evening chatting, eating and watching the small ones push plastic dinosaurs and hot wheels along the rug under our feet.

And then, after all that nestled down warmth in various forms we arrived back at our own little condo unit to find the whole complex dark and our next-door neighbor packing his wife, baby and dogs up to take them off to someplace with electricity. We've been without power now for well over 24 hours and it looks like it will be a couple more days. The most generous estimates are saying Wednesday evening we might have our lights back on but, we are expecting a more gradual return than that.

It was quite impressive on Sunday morning when we got up and tried to drive to church to actually survey the damage from the storm. Trees are down everywhere...powerlines strung like spaghetti, tree to fallen tree and splintered limbs and bark littering most roads in the area. We saw many trees that were far to large to wrap arms around that had fallen across roads into yards and even one that had gone through the roof of a local town. We never did make it to church...every road we tried was closed off by downed trees and broken utility poles and sloppy loops of electric wires flung this way and that. And then this morning when I tried to take A to work, we gave up when we ran into multi-tiered stripes of yellow caution tape, and whorls of orange traffic cones cluttering all the roads in to the main drive. I parked the car and waited with hazard lights blinking as close as we could manage to drive in and A hiked the rest of the way in, just for extra merit badge points and then hiked back out in the spitting rain. One more day together after all.

I have never seen a storm like this in my life, honestly. The mayor of a local town sent every resident an automated telephone call the let them know that help was coming to aid in power return, road clearing and the like as quickly as possible but that the residents should know the work would be significant...this has been, he said, the worst storm in 50 years, no small potatoes to remedy. A nearby family lost their home when the fire department couldn't reach their address because of too many of the roads were impassible. Rivers are all flooded beyond their banks, fences have blown away like so many kites and lawn furniture is drifted in piles where the wind left it. Its not the right time of year for this to technically be called a hurricane but, it sure seems to fit the text-book definition.

So, we have no light or power or heat...this afternoon we're here, at the library to charge up our phones, communicate with the outside world a bit and make sure that we're snowed under by email however long this power out keeps up. Handily, the outages aren't everywhere and the library is still lighted and warm. Its awfully nice to have laundromats, hard working power company employees and friends who are willing to lend a little fridge space for our orphaned food (shout out to Nutmeg!).  This afternoon we picked up another bundle of wood for the fireplace kielbasa and a wedge of Gruyere to have for dinner, toasted over the coals and then eaten on A's good homemade bread. Should be a cozy end to the day.

Just a little trip back in time for a few days, a slower pace of life. I don't much mind. As long there's a laundromat around the corner.