First Haibun

I'm awake late this morning as usual, and I open the blinds to converse with the sun. A sliding glass door keeps me in, but the sunlit view floods into my dining room like an old friend in no need of an invitation. Delighted with the company, I stand and enjoy my good fortune. My full coffee mug warms me, but my bones ache at the sight of the cold beauty in front of me. Everything is just where it was yesterday morning, but today's visitor is unlike any other.

surrounded by wood
frozen and snow-capped in line
nails in a bare deck

Haiku in my Journal

climbing trees with friends
playing king of the forest
young poison ivy

hurry up!
white clouds race across
the blue sky

the red leaf defies
the inevitable fall
clinging to life

loud and indignant
the crow protests my presence
as if I can't hear

Sweet Song

how sweet should he sing?
what lyrics would fill his tune?
little hummingbird

A Sunday Stroll

It was a beautiful morning for a stroll last Sunday. The dogwoods were blooming everywhere and bathed the landscape in white, with a few touches of reds and purples from our arboretum specimens. We drove over to the visitors center and started our walk from there. On our way to the Two Ponds Loop area we stopped to visit in the new neighborhood of fairy houses at the bottom of the hill. These are a must-see if you haven't yet and a great thing to recommend for families. Then the ponds offered lots to see. A hatch was in progress, probably craneflies, and more than a hundred cedar waxwings were furiously flying patrols from nearby trees over the water to feast on their good luck. The resident family of Canada Geese (with 6 new goslings) were out for a swimming lesson, oblivious to the activity overhead. At the bridge a red-eared slider came over to see if we were going to set a table for him. A rather large specimen, he was a beauty to observe.

We next walked around the Two Ponds Loop. Chipping Sparrows supervised our visit to their neighborhood. We could hear a Common Yellowthroat, but he stayed hidden. And a male and female Song Sparrow announced the location of their nest. The survivors from the carnage over the ponds were scattered around, resting on the grass. One bug spotted by an NIT is pictured on our website (a photo from last year). He's a common sight near or in the prairie. Butterflies also came by to say "Hi"; Sulphurs, a Cabbage White or two, and a Viceroy (?). We were rather surprised to see that most of the hollies still have their berries. I had thought they'd have ripened and been eaten by now. We noticed the different colors of berries on different specimens.

With time to spare, we decided next to stroll down the new Nursery Loop. There we saw the leaves of Bloodroot and Twinleaf, though neither were in bloom. Some Bloodroots were sporting seed pods. There was lots of Rue Anemone, including some particularly large specimens. Dwarf Larkspur was in abundance, and young enough that the color of the flowers was deep and rich. Violets added their hue of the color too. White violets were also seen, but the exact species escaped us. Sessile Trillium was also abundant. A flower with buds not yet opened might have been White Blue-eyed Grass, and a trip soon to double check would be in order. (This would be a new species for me.) Some Mayapples were seen but were not in bloom. And there was also Solomon's Seal, but again no blooms yet. A good spy by one of the NITs was the leaves of a young Canada Moonseed. Even Butterweed demanded us to notice it. We shortcutted where the loop converges near the middle and made our way back to the visitors center. The sun was already getting hot and the cool of the building was welcome.

Coo -- Coo

lonely song
of the waning day
mourning dove

the peering

snow glows all quiet
like the peering of a deer
in the darkish night

Nature Poetry Worth Remembering

The bright moon lights the path
through the gray woods
From the unlit depths of the hollow
comes the soft sound of broken water
A faint brightness
or is it a low cloud
within the eastern sky
The earth is hushed

Harlan Hubbard
from his journal entry for February 2, 1953

On My Deck

ice is all abloom
on dead chrysanthemum stalks
Winter is reborn

The View Through My Railing

snow stacked up neatly
icicles hung in a row
Winter brings order

The fall of Winter

frozen flecks of white
on fallen color swatches
autumnal snowfall

Storm

thunder warns the dark
lightning exposes the night
wind blows sheets of rain

Waxing and Waning

dropping down into
waning colors of sunset
waxing crescent moon

The Shadow's Crow

the crow followed his shadow everywhere
and when his shadow disappeared
the crow sat down and rested

My Lady's Washbowl

Today I read Hal Borland's essay about bouncing bet, which he mentions was prolific on this day of the year as he wrote. The article brought to mind a skit I've seen explaining the confusion of multiple names that can plague a naturalist. Saponaria officinalis, soapwort and fuller's herb also made the top 4 in the acted-out story. But I was intriqued as I read that the habit of women to wash their hair (or intimate clothing) with the herb inspired another name: my lady's washbowl.

Being unable to resist, I set about to find as many more names for the plant as I could. Here's what I found (just including names in English):

boston pink
bouncing bess
bruisewort
buryt ?
chimney pink (belongs to pink/carnation family)
crowsoap
dog's cloves (scent said to remind of cloves)
flop-top
goodbye summer
hedge pink
lady-by-the-gate (or lady-by-the-garden-gate)
latherwort
London pride (for the ability of the scented blooms to mask the stench of London's gutters)
mock-gilliflower
monthly pink
old maid's pink
ragged sailor
saponary
scourweed
scourwort
sheepweed (referencing cleaning wool, as in fuller's herb)
soapberry
soaproot
soapweed
soapwort gentian
sweet betty
wild sweet william
wood's phlox
world's wonder


Can you add more names to the list, or find explanations for any of the names?

for all of us that saw it

naturally friends
rose and yellow and purple
in a shared sunset

Weather and the 4th of July

Hal Borland notes that on July 4th 1776, the day the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress, Thomas Jefferson bought a thermometer and noted the temperature was 73.5 degrees at 9 pm. Though weather watchers and historians now wonder how to reconcile this seemingly cool reading with the sweltering heat often noted on that occasion, Jefferson’s simple purchase began a lifetime of recording weather patterns. Borland also notes that Jefferson bought a barometer 4 days later to take home with him.

On a day that Jefferson was focused on independence, his purchases ratified the idea that an independent man is dependent on nature. Of course, today’s dependence on all manner of technology, while making us ‘independent’ of nature, might arguably be said to interfere with our independence from other men.

I think this same Jeffersonian understanding is evident also in the writings of Thoreau. A weather watcher himself, he moved into a cabin hand-built on land owned by Emerson on Walden Pond on the 4th of July 1845. Thoreau embarked on a journey (chronicled in Walden) to find out what was really essential in life, and to eliminate from his own that which was not essential. One assumption he began with was that dependence on other men for the means to live was not essential (though companionship certainly did turn out to be handy occasionally).

And thanks to Jefferson, we know the work of two other great weather observers and naturalists, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. July 4th 1803 brought Lewis the news of the Louisiana Purchase, his signal to depart for Pittsburg, which he did the following day. July 4th 1805 found the Lewis and Clark expedition at the Falls of the Missouri. They celebrated Independence Day with the last of their whiskey. But a thunderstorm ended the celebration around 9pm.

So what better day than the 4th of July to start a habit of observing and recording the weather? What better day to embark on a study of phenology? What better way to celebrate our independence?

To read more:

Thomas Jefferson
http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/Weather_Observations
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/feature/revolutionary-minds/4
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mtj7&fileName=mtj7page059.db&recNum=054&itemLink=/ammem/mtjhtml/mtjser7.html&linkText=6

Henry David Thoreau
http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/almanac/arc2002/alm02nov.htm
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/walden/

Benjamin Franklin
http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/doctor.htm

Lewis and Clark
http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/70669.pdf
http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/history/lewisclark1.htm
http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/magazine/lewis_clark/welcome.html
http://www.lewisandclarktrail.com/section3/montanacities/greatfalls/history5.htm

Phenology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenology
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/citizen_science/budburst/
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/phenology.html

lightning strike
the approaching promise of
summer rain

A Quote for Today

"It occurred to me that perhaps this writing is all that I will ever do, and I should make the most of it, being careful to record every word or idea."

Harlan Hubbard, Payne Hollow Journal

Today is the Day!

My redbud has begun to open!

And my crabapple too!

Thanks to Cheri, this beautiful poppy is blooming in front of my house!

Spring Thoughts on Trees

With redbuds just opening around our area, we are once again threatened with the possibility of an untimely freeze. I'll be anxiously looking each morning for the next couple of days, afraid of seeing damage from the temperature going too low. It does seem to me that some blooms are running later this year, perhaps because of late frosts the last two years.

Spending a day at Bernheim gave me a chance to do a little reconnoitering. I spied the precious catkins of the river birch. I'm reminded that even with so many trees in bloom right now, that so few are even noticed individually. And how pressed even someone who thinks of themselves as a naturalist is to identify a tree by its early bloom. Now is when a guide such as "Trees and Shrubs of Kentucky" by Wharton and Barbour really shines. Color photos of the blooms of many of the trees (and in some cases, photos of the fruits which will come later) precede the black and white photos of the trees that cause many to shun the book.

Some may have heard me yammer on about the color of bark on trees (bark is almost never "just brown"). Wharton and Barbour point out that the bark of young branches on the river birch is "pinkish tan". I must admit that I didn't notice that color, so I'll have to look closer on my next visit. The same book notes that the bark of the tulip tree is gray, though I see younger trees with a distinct pink or rosy cast. Though I don't have a copy, the Audubon guide to trees features a photo of each tree's bark. And I find it difficult to leave the visitor center gift shop without perusing "Tree Bark: A Color Guide".