Fresh Pond Native Plant Party

Red Admiral, Sweet William and Queen Anne—all the celebs are making the scene at Fresh Pond Reservation this morning! It’s a quietly riotous party. 

The robust shuttlecocks of purple coneflower ought to be festooned with butterflies by now. Not sure where they all are, but it seems we have more swallowtails and admirals in Ohio right now than I'm seeing in Massachusetts. 

I’m surprised to see Joe-Pye weed already in bloom. It has yet to come out at home, though we’re considerably farther south in latitude. 

Much as I love its wifty plumes and the way it sings with chicory, white soapwort and QAL, I can’t say I was happy to see the first early goldenrod coming into bloom. My associations with goldenrod and autumn are far too strong. I sigh and decide to accept it, if not celebrate the headlong rush toward the end. After all, September and October are among my favorite months.

I’m happy to see the yellow buttons of tansy teaming up with chicory and QUAL for another salute to Sweden. Tansy is a pretty plant, and smells so good when you rub it on your arms. It’s said to repel ants and mosquitoes. We don’t have it in Ohio. Whoops, Googling it on a slight suspicion that it's not native, I find it's considered yet another noxious weed from Eurasia. Gawrsh. All three of these are considered such. 

Sometimes I wonder when we will just lie down and accept that we have a global flora, a global fauna. Even as I fight tooth and nail against Miscanthus grasses and Japanese stiltgrass, wisteria and ailanthus and Japanese honeysuckle, garlic mustard and creeping Charlie. Never, I guess. I freely admit to a bias for the pretty ones. I'm dumb that way.

Hodge and I find four young Canada geese stranded and looking longingly out at Fresh Pond from behind a low chain link fence. The gate is closed and locked or we’d open it for them. A terrier mix, running off lead, rushes in and starts to snap at their tails, totally ignoring the yells of his owner. Hodge and I rush to stop him. Grrrr. Come on, woman, get control of your durn dog. The geese seem unable to fly over the three-foot fence; perhaps they’re in molt. Their wings look fully feathered. Hmm. Perhaps they’re just having an attack of the dumbs.

photo by K.H. Macomber
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 I sidle up, stand next to them and make clear pictures in my head of me helping the geese over the fence. I ask their permission to help them. The nearest bird allows me to reach down and grab it with little protest. I hoist it up over the fence and toss it into the air, expecting it to plane down into the water, which is about 3' below the concrete berm on which they stand, gazing out longingly. Then, I figure, I'll quickly toss the other three over the fence to join it. It flies out over the water and immediately doubles back to land with its friends again on the wrong side of the fence. Thank you, but no thank you; I don’t want to go without them. Because there’s no way I can catch and toss all four at once, I give up. We go inside the nearby visitor’s center and Hodge leaves a sticky note for the park ranger, asking that the gate be opened for these poor, seemingly witless birds. Knowing how intelligent Canada geese are, I can’t help but think that there’s something going on here I don’t understand, something to do with the fence height and the fact that the water level is too far below the berm for them to feel comfortable dropping into it. Much as I want to help them, I can't.

I like the little lost mateless shoes. Liam left a trail of those as a babe.

 Thus ends our visit to the spectacular native plant showrooms of Fresh Pond Reservation. Workers and volunteers, I salute you! Thank you for showing us what a moist prairie meadow looks like. We’d almost forgotten.

Fresh Pond Reservation: Native Wildflower Showcase

Handy by Cambridge in Arlington, MA lies Fresh Pond Reservation, a reservoir of drinking water ringed by a tonsure of forest and flowers. This is just one of myriad places that has changed immensely for the better since I left in 1981. A vigorous effort to restore this place to native vegetation is underway, and on this bright twenty-third morning in July 2015 I am floored by the results.

My first sighting is of a black French bulldog wearing a life jacket, and that kicks the walk off to a charming start. Though his deep chest, short legs and shorter face would normally keep him from being able to swim at all, he is swimming with the big dogs. He seems to know that this is a very special thing, and joy shows all over his face. Mine, too.

Hodge and I walk on to a spectacular show of Bidens cornuta and Daucus carota, tickseed sunflower and Queen Anne’s Lace, respectively. You’re never going to get rid of all the non-natives, and I have to say that they are additive here, the lacy doilies of QAL waving prettily amongst the stouter stems of tickseed sunflower.

A bumblebee snores on a buttonbush inflorescence. Cephalanthus occidentalus (the genus name means "head flower") is a nice wetland native shrub that you don't see all that much. I like to find bumbles before they go to work in the morning, sleeping off their nectar drunk like insect winos.

Ratibida pinnata, or gray-headed sunflower, has charmingly reflexed petals, making the happy pale flowers look like they are blasting off to a distant galaxy.

At this point we are behind a retirement home. I have to think that it’s cheering to look out on this head-high mass of beauty. I’m not sure what they’re feeding these coneflowers, but knowing Cambridge, there’s probably some community composting going on. Wow. They’re well-nourished and thick as thieves.

Same goes for the wild bergamot, Monarda fistulosa. I feel like rolling around in the tangy, turpentiney scent of its leaves. It’s hard to convey the masses of bergamot they’ve planted here. The pale lavender doesn’t carry well in photos.

And the entire field of bergamot:

I play with my iPhone6 and am astonished again and again at the way it handles brilliant sun and shade, somehow managing to strike the correct balance so that shaded flowers in the foreground show up in their true colors, and the brightly lit sky and forest background are treated fairly as well. I remember my frustration with my Canon AE1 film camera. I despaired of capturing any shaded foreground color or detail if I exposed on the clouds and sky, and the sky was burned white if I exposed on a shaded foreground. Somehow the iPhone6 figures it out, and I am forever grateful for that. It seems to see such scenes just as my eye does. To me, who struggled with film cameras for years before digital swooped in and saved me, and then having found the iPhone6 camera to be quantum leaps ahead of any digital camera I've had, this seemingly simple feat is every bit as amazing as putting a man on the moon.

 

Feral chicory cuddles up to native coneflower. I say you GO, girl. I do not begrudge you a square inch of American soil, if you put on a blue like that. And may I say that the iPhone has captured your blue? Who can do that? Who has ever done that? Only my favorite blue in the world.

Speaking of begrudging space…Silphium perfoliatum is a native prairie plant commonly called cup plant, for the water reservoir made by its perfoliate leaves.  Perfoliate means "punctured by the stem." It is a plant of titanic proportions; these were easily 10’ tall and still growing. I do not think that I would necessarily have chosen to plant it here, where space is a bit limited. 

It’s spectacular, but it seems to me it is taking over. I’ve been offered cup plants by native plant gardeners who’ve found themselves overwhelmed. My rule of thumb as an older, wiser gardener is not to take free plants unless I already want them and know their disposition. Usually, you’re taking extras of something that’s proven itself an invasive thug. Beware the garden club plant giveaway! I’m digging ditch lilies and blue hosta out of my front bed this fall, by gum, making room for things I like better. Like Lucy’s bleeding hearts.

Homage to Sweden—chicory and tickseed. This color combo makes me think of my dear friend Ann from North Dakota, and a certain wedding a few summers back.

Red Admiral, Sweet William and Queen Anne—all the celebs are making the scene at Fresh Pond Reservation this morning! It’s a quietly riotous party.

I recorded these images, and looking at them I can't quite believe I saw all that. The blue sky, the crisp unbelievable colors. But I did, and I had to share them with you.

How to Start a Good Day

It's taken Liam awhile to get into the swing of summer training for cross-country, but I can see him starting to look forward to his morning run. It helps that it's been miraculously cool here, overcast but bright. It helps that the fields smell absolutely Elysian after the recent haying. Like his mother, he is a creature of the senses. 

We left together, but it wasn't long before I had to stop for a bouquet. He kept going, saving the music I find obnoxious for when he was out of earshot. He's a considerate boy. I can't imagine having any music but the birds and insects when I'm running. I am in the minority, I know, but I'd as soon run blindfolded as stick plugs in my ears that would drown out the hum, buzz and rattle, the warbles and twitters; the music of the summer fields. 

It wasn't long before Liam was but a red dot on the hill. Thanks to their superior speed and youth, I've never actually been able to run "with" my kids. That's OK. I'm good alone. If I need to talk, I'll talk to the dog. 

Or the cattle. I am very taken with this year's crop of calves. This is such a handsome and unusual boy with his white face and rich brown body. 

I love getting to know the new calves. The little bull on the right has just gotten up and is stretching. See his dropped chin and raised tail?

The cow I call Whitey (I know, not very creative) has an all-brown calf this year! How do you get an all-brown calf out of such a flashy, beautifully marked mother and the classically marked Hereford father?

This is Bully, the putative father.  I don't know. Maybe Bully isn't this calf's father. I need to ask Bob. I love the little white rings around the base of both Bully's ears. He is a very nice bull in every way. He's steady and kind. Bulls always look so round, so firm, so fully packed. They haven't got calves draining them dry all day, after all.

I go a little farther and see Liam hunkered down well ahead in the road. I wonder if he's looking at an interesting roadkill, and decide not. He's way too squeamish to hunker down next to one the way I do.

I figure out what he was up to when I get closer.

These kids, they light up my life. No boy could be sweeter than Liam. In an answer for him to find on the return trip, I send an arrow through his heart with pebbles. By the time he comes back, though, the Sunday morning church traffic has smooshed and scattered our correspondence. It's the thought that counts.

Thrilled to see Bob has let the milkweed meadow go this year. I'm unused to seeing such ripe hay around here. Then again, it's been so wet he may not have gotten a chance to cut it.

We have our own little Fourth of July fireworks going on.

 I can hardly run for all the things I'm seeing. I enjoy it all so. I got to thinking this morning that my life would seem impossibly austere to many people. I don't drink, alter myself with any substance, go out at night, go to movies, go to malls; I don't hang out at bars unless we're playing in one. I wear 25-year-old clothes, supplemented by the occasional Eddie Bauer outlet binge. I go to the grocery store and the bank once a week.  I don't go much of anywhere unless I'm giving a talk or leading a field trip.

 My life is geared to have the maximum opportunity

 to do 

exactly

this.

I think about the last shot I took, sort of hard and spiritless, and swing around to get some sidelight on the same milkweed plant. That's better.

I see a spiny cucumber vine climbing the ShadowBarn, something that never would have been allowed to happen when Lester and Linda lived there. My neighbors have both long gone to their rewards, too early. Both of them chainsmoked, and I saw it coming probably long before they did.

It feels funny to have outlived anyone, but that's what happens when you live somewhere for 22 years.

Such a pretty vine. I rip spiny cucumber vines off my raspberries every day. It grows a mile a minute, throwing curly tendrils on everything.

Looks like it went into the barn for a few days and then thought better of that.

Came back out into the light, it did.

Around the side, I find the same plant climbing a hapless chicory. Chet bombs the photo, pauses while I shoot. Atta boy. At this point he knows I want him in every shot. Of course I do.

I don't know what I'll find around the south side of the barn until I round the corner. 

And it takes my breath away.

Sure, chicory and field daisies came here from Europe, but so did my grandparents. 

Today, we're all true blue Americans.

I'm so deep in my right brain I have no idea I've just shot a red, white and blue tableau until several people point it out to me on Facebook. Oh! Aren't I clever. Not. All I am is dazzled by the perfection of these rough-sawn boards, the paint weathered away everywhere but the saw grooves, and this impossible, shivery blue lavender flower that I love more than almost any other. And barn red? The perfect backdrop. Is it any wonder we painted our house exactly this hue?

Today, the rose of Sharon "Satin Blue" is out full as full can be. 

I love this plant so, so much. Even though it throws leggy babies all through my gardens. Look at those deep green leaves, those thickly clustered blossoms, that growth habit. It's a real improvement on the old-fashioned plant. That color!! It's almost as nice as chicory blue.

When we were deciding on the house color I put color chips behind this plant and picked the one that set it off best. Think I got it right this time. 

Another alien gone native, another perfect summer bouquet. 

Someone has planted little cemetery flags on the corner of Best Hollow Road. I approve.

When they get old and tattered and faded I gather them up and bring them home and hang them in my studio. I think they're so much more beautiful that way. Maybe it's because I'm getting a bit weathered too.

We go to the old farmstead, and find the wet year has made a bumper crop of crabapples. These are delicious little things when ripe, yellow with a red blush. I love sour things and eat them by the handful in September.

The well gives up its coolness to us. The water's still moving from Chet's lapping, but he doesn't let me catch him drinking.

I inspect the Concord grape that feeds me so well in autumn. Oh my gosh there are banquets everywhere a-coming! I've never seen such a year, fruit hanging heavy everywhere I look.

The vine clambers over stacks of pipe in the mouth of an old shed.

I can't wait to photograph these when the grapes are blue and the leaves are yellow.

The open window of the old house beckons, but I won't be shinnying in there to explore today. 

I like to have company for such a venture.

The last time I went in I found the most marvelous things. I placed an old dinette chair just inside the window to ease my passage for the next time, so I won't have to land on my hands on broken glass and nails.

I'll tell you about that excellent adventure soon. Please note awesome 40's wallpaper.

A wild turkey tailfeather. I always find turkey tracks, feathers and poop on this unusued lane. 

I stop to examine it, and it tells me things.

This feather came from a year-old bird. Not this year's poult, but 2014's.  I can tell it's a young bird by the uncertain and indistinct black barring. The little white fault marks on the shaft mark interruptions and surges in growth, typical of young birds. Perhaps there are those who could tell the sex of the bird from this feather, but I'm not one of them. This bird is molting its central tail feathers in the late-summer molt. New longer ones will grow in, and that will give its fanned tail a distinctive uneven outline--a bump out--at the apex of the fan. That will persist through its next spring and summer. You can age a wild turkey that way. Young birds have protruding central feathers in the fanned tail. When the bird molts and replaces all its tail feathers, the fanned tail will have an even outline, so you'll know it's older than two.

We move down the hill and I find the mystery slip has slipped further down the face of The Toothless Lady.

If I really wanted to, it's low enough now that I could snag it and try it on. I might just take it one of these days, when it falls. I don't understand how it's still hanging on after all these months, but it hasn't been a very windy summer.

I laugh to think of how I'll look in it, and whether I'll be bold enough to post a photo.

Something to look forward to for the easily amused.

Headed home now, and there's that chicory again. The light is hard now, but it's not getting too hot. This summer is a gift.

Chet stretches out in the shade on our road, and I sit down beside him to let him rest. He notices the scabs on my legs from all the brush clearing I've been doing, and tenderly cleans me up.

I always think of how Gomez kissed Morticia up and down her arms on The Addams Family when Chet does this.
He has this special lick he does when he finds a bleeding scratch that's very soft and tentative, very tender. I just love the notion that a dog could empathize, be so careful, and know what hurts. His breeder Jane Streett used to tell me stories about Chet Baker as a little puppy before we came to pick him up. She said he used to chew on her toes as she worked at her computer. When he bit too hard with his tiny milk teeth, Jane would yelp, and Chet would immediately switch to licking her toes.

Ten years later, he is still the sweet boy.

Waiting in a nest box along the driveway: new bluebirds. The cycle comes around again.

This is how we start a good day.