A Flower for November

 

 I woke to another dull, dark, gray November morning today. Well, they're all dark, because I wake up so blinkin' early, but then I wait, knowing better than to even look out the window hoping for stars here in the mid-Ohio valley in November.

I got suited up to take a hike and somewhere in between thinking about persimmons and cottage cheese for breakfast and filling the feeders with raw trembling hands, I lost heart. I looked at the weather forecast and decided to write a blogpost instead, and hope that the sun might show its Garboey face sometime later on this afternoon. Hope's fading, it's noon, but you never know.

November forces me to wait for better weather. And when I don't feel like waiting, it makes me go anyway, and appreciate what I'm given. I decided to write up my last hike on November 14, down my beloved Dean's Fork. It's the best example of a November hike you could come up with. It had lessons on flexibility, going with the flow, and watching for miracles.

First lesson of November hikes: Go anyway. You might be surprised. The light was awful, but this witch hazel in full bloom glowed through the darkness. As frustrating as it was to try to get a photo that conveyed its beauty, I tried, and failed.

 

OK. So we'll go for the close-up. Its lobed leaves still clung the the twigs. Its gentle, fresh mimeo-ink scent tickled my nostalgia centers, sending me back to test day in elementary school, when we all huffed the still-wet sheets of purple-blue ink that our teachers had just run off on the enormous crank-powered machine in the lounge. 

 

 

 

  This contemplation of witch hazel gave me to wonder why on earth a plant would flower at a time of year when its petals can be frozen solid, as these were. What pollinators could it be trying to attract? Clearly, with its strong, sweet, strange scent, it's after something.

It was Vermont naturalist/writer Bernd Heinrich, who as usual is walking well ahead of me down the wooded trail, who wondered the same thing. Heinrich figured out that the pollinators of witch hazel are doing their work under cover of night. They're owlet or winter moths, of the family Noctuidae, who are able to generate heat by shivering, and doing so, they get the job done. And being Bernd, he wrote it up for a scientific journal, for those of us who wonder later to find and cite.
Heinrich, Bernd. 1987a. “Thermoregulation by Winter-Flying Endothermic Moths.” Journal of Experimental Biology 127 (1): 313–32. 
My thanks to Venerable Trees blog for answering a question that popped into my head on the hike. Blogging isn't dead. It's just screaming, deep under all the Facebook water. Thanks to those of you who can still hear bloggers.

From there, I went on to visit a sycamore I've been admiring for many years. The tree, to me, is an eloquent standing metaphor.

The left side was clearly once a huge hollow tree, most of which rotted out and died. But a living sheath of bark remained. For years, the trunk it sent up put out leaves and appeared to be prospering.

 

It's the trunk to the right in this shot. It died last year, and has dropped its twigs. But never fear. The trunk to the left, which takes off from the right-hand base of the hollow part, is going for broke, even as the hollow old sheath breaks and rots.

 

 This keyhole window in the original trunk reminds me of the terrified little character in The Scream by Edvard Munch. 

And the old hollow trunk isn't dead yet. It's sending sprouts out from the base of the "dead" trunk. Which clearly isn't dead just yet. I know, it gets confusing. There are so many little deaths and rebirths in this one tree.

 

 

I love the whole thing, the whole complex mess of it--hollow sheath of old tree; dead trunk; live trunk; shoots off the "dead" half. So I keep watching. That tree just won't throw up the white flag. It keeps going, keeps living the best life it can.

To me it speaks of re-invention and rebirth after trial and tribulation. If that sycamore can keep sending up fresh shoots, what's stopping me?

Well, there's quite a bit that can stop me. I forded two rather deep crossings after all the recent rain, laughing at myself the whole time,  and shivering as water splashed through the fine filigree of my shoes, but I finally met my Dean's Fork Waterloo here at Bobcat Crossing.

No way across it without going in over my shoe tops. Even if you do it really fast you get to enjoy wet freezing feet all the way back. This happens to me every year when I try to "run" with "running shoes" down this muddy, stream-crossed road. Dang it, Zick, give up. Just put on your waterproof hiking boots and walk fast.  You'll see just as much, and you can bring the big camera, too. Duh! Kick it into winter mode already.

Forced to turn around before reaching the Ironweed Festival Grounds, I was delighted by perhaps two minutes of weak lemony November sun. Please click on this to see the creek traveling along the right side. It's one of my favorite vistas.

The trot back home was beautiful, with the light coming up at last. It wasn't going to be a sunny day, but it was brighter, and that was enough. 

I was nearing my car when I saw what I thought (please forgive me) was an expanded tampon in the leaves. Chuckling as I write. I did. I thought it was a tampon, and I didn't want to touch it, but logic and curiosity conquered my initial 21st century response to this novelty. 

Internal Science Chimp conversation: It's a tampon. No it's not. Yes it is. It's just expanded. No, you idiot, it's snow-white. Well, it got rained on. Who drops a tampon on Dean's Fork in November? And if it's a tampon, why is it attached to a plant stalk? Touch it. Ugh. No. Oh! It's brittle! It's made of ICE! Wait. So what's going on here?

With the two little Science Chimps sitting on my shoulder, one adventuresome and one not, I went from Eeew to What the Heck is That Thing? in about 2.5 seconds.

And I realized that it was a flower. A frost flower. The little green leaves are part of a recently deceased aster top. The stem has been broken and shattered, but the plant's roots keep pushing out water to a top that's no longer there.

And that water comes out the broken stem and hits the freezing air, and makes a flower for November.

The more I looked at it the more delighted I became. Would there be other frost flowers waiting for me?

Yes. But only if I looked for them.

That's November for you. She's not the nicest teacher, and she can sometimes be dull, old and gray, but if you listen to her, she'll give you the best secrets.

Speaking of flowers of November, Liam is home, and still asleep, as far as I know, in his own bed. Having my boy back for a nice WVU Thanksgiving break is divine, even though I'm already chewing on him for strewing his things around and having altogether too much hair on top. It's all I can do not to go jump on him and wake him up so I can feed him Eggos and sausage.

And Phoebe is living her best life, maybe ever, on La Gomera. She cracks me up daily, and only WhatsApp and Facetime stand between all of us and death from terminal Phoeblessness. Catch up with her at her sparkly blog,  Canary Current
 

It is, my darling. On you, it is.

On My Own Two Feet

I'm home from Wisconsin and happily painting blue jays and eating leftovers in the quietest of quiet houses, deliriously glad not to be huddled in a corner of some gray airport. Written while on the road:

I like travel. Even though I'm writing this as I'm finishing a 7-hour airline stranding in Detroit, and it's pushing 10 pm, and I have another four hours to go before I collapse in my own bed, it's usually good. There are a few things about travel, besides airport strandings, that I'm not crazy about. One of them is being stuck so I can't go wherever I want. As in: being deposited in a hotel without a car. In those cases, I look around for places with trees and meadows and head out on foot to find them.

 

Early Sunday morning, I had three hours before I had to be back at the hotel to catch the airport shuttle. My room was beautiful--huge, modern, well appointed. But I wanted OUT of this glass and granite box, so clean and sterile that a spider in the shower elicited an exclamation of wonder from me. How in the world did it get there? How could it survive? I peered out my second floor window and eyed a long low ridge that in Wisconsin is referred to as a "mountain." Well, OK, thought this Midwesterner-turned-Appalachian-hillbilly. They can call it whatever they want. It's a rise. It'll do. The ridge was covered in forest, except for some ski runs cut down its flank. Got a rise? Put a ski resort on it. I figured I'd walk to it. There should be access or maintenance trails that run under the ski lifts.  Then I'd walk up the trails and get a view from the top.

I figured right. It took me about an hour to get to Rib Mountain Ski Area, but by gum I got there. And there was a wonderful trail that went right up the mountain. I met two women who were walking two doodle-crosses and a friend's Boston terrier named Willie. He was beee-utiful. They said Willie was on his third home. And he was so well-behaved and sweet that all they could think was that he was surrendered because he farts so much and so badly. Well. I know all about THAT. I told them to put his food dish on a paint can, so he wouldn't gulp so much air as he eats. And to put a couple tablespoons of canned pumpkin in his food every day. They were so excited to learn all this, and promised to pass it along to Willie's owner. It made me feel good to offer help, but not as good as it felt to run my hands over a Boston terrier again. Willie was only the second Boston I'd encountered since Chet had to leave me on August 30, 2017. He seemed puzzled that I wanted to touch him so badly, but being a perfect gentleman, he suffered my attentions. And I hope my advice changed a few  lives for the better. Being a good Boston, he'll still fart, but maybe it won't be as potent.

Farther up the trail, a woodchuck flowed out of the weeds and stopped to look at me. I took it as a very auspicious sign. I love woodchucks and always try to pass them mind-pictures when we meet. He's the dark loaf on the right of the path.

 

 There were harebells on the way up, and tall bellflower on the top.

At the top, I was a bit more than 2.5 miles from my hotel, much of it in a climb. In this photo, my hotel is the long black rectangular building on the far right, below the lake.

It felt pretty amazing to have gotten myself that far away, with only the power of my two feet.
To be up among the migrating indigo buntings, Swainson's thrushes and yellow-rumped warblers, and out of earshot of the damned freeway.
To have exactly an hour and a half to get myself back to get on a bus, then a plane. It was time to turn around, as much as I wanted to explore the next thing I discovered: Rib Mountain State Park! Trails everywhere! None of which I had time to take!

In this photo my hotel is the black rectangle. I'm gloating that I'm in a high meadow and not in it.

I thought to myself that more people should try and see where their own two feet can take them. Big granite and glass boxes are fine for a little while, but they aren't my habitat. On a beautiful day with three good hours to spend, I'll go outside every time.

It's not just for exercise and health. It's for my mental health. I figured a lot of things out on that hike. I saw my path forward just as clearly as I saw the dirt trail under my feet. I saw where I should and shouldn't be spending time and energy. I met myself on the trail. And you know, that happens pretty much every time I put a few miles behind me. 

As I descended into the subdivision, I could hear the freeway roaring again. A small, lithe whitetail doe burst out of a backyard and crossed the wide quiet street in front of me. I could hear her hooves tickering on the hard surface.

She stopped in the scant cover of tree shadows between two houses and hesitated. Her ears were swiveling and her tail was switching. I stopped still to give her as much room as I could. She thought for a little while then wheeled and galloped right back the way she'd come, crossing right in front of me, headed back to Rib Mountain.

Oh how I longed to follow her! I had to go back and start my 15-hour journey home. I didn't know it was going to take that long, but we aren't given to know much in the wonderful world of commercial aviation.

Back to the big glass and metal box. Collect your stuff and go.

 I wouldn't soon forget that hike. I closed out the day with 18,000 steps on my Fitbit, about 12,000 of them happy hiking steps in pellucid September air.

As I rotted in Detroit, writing blogposts to pass the time, I was so thankful that I'd chosen an adventure for those three Sunday morning hours.

If I ever find myself in that hotel again, I'm going to head straight out and climb Rib Mountain again.

Crystal Visions

February weather is all about whiplash. I know a lot of people hate it, but I really like February. When it comes to mind, I always think of woodcocks and spring peepers, swelling red maple buds and daffodils coming up. I'm not usually such an optimist, but knowing something about the massive changes nature effects in February definitely shortens the winter for a naturalist. 

It helps to live in southeast Ohio, say, and not the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. 

However. I want to get some ice up here before the weather turns warm for good. I know the cold and rotten weather will come back; the wood frogs and spring peepers know it too. I've gotten so caught up in the incredible typhoon of the last warm front, with frogs and woodcocks and killdeer and coy-wolves tuning up, that this February 8 ice storm seems like a distant memory. 

Ice storms are tough for birds. The broken tail of the middle dove attests to that. Worse, ice covers all their food. Birds have to get very creative to find enough food in ice storms. Many of them seem to think my yard is the best resort. They may be correct. 

The ice hung on the trees and grasses for three full days, the temperatures never rising above freezing. I watched the sun play peek-a-boo with thick clouds, and every time it peeked out I ran outside and took photos. 

Don't miss the starlings flying across the left hand path. Click on this one!

Even dead pokeweed looks awesome encased in ice.

I was in a kind of aesthetic panic. I knew that, once the sun came out, the ice would last a matter of an hour or two. 

As beautiful as the meadow was, I needed more sky, a bigger vista. I geared up and jumped in the car, driving about a mile. Speed was of the essence.  I had to get myself to a better place to appreciate all this splendor. 

The treetops were all a-glisten. 

When the sun finally peeked out, the big hayfield turned into a crystal expanse. (Click on this one).

Every blade was coated, but wouldn't be for long. 

I knew I wouldn't have much time to record the last gasp of all that ice. It had reigned for three days.

I ran over to the red barn and made its portrait with the broken beauty of the sky behind it. 

The sun was quickly melting the snow off its west-facing roof. The joyful sound of dripping water filled the air.

But I had another barn in mind. I trotted as fast as I could to a hilltop where I could see one of my favorite views. The light would be right. It would be amazing. I was so glad to be here, in this spot, for this light and ice event. These are the events that plan my days for me from time to time. I strive to live so as to be mindful of them, to be able to take advantage of them. They have nothing whatsoever to do with the world of people, politics, or finance. They have to do with light.

I had to get to the Toothless Lady. The light would be amazing.

The ice was still shining on the treetops. Good! I shot as I came up to the barn, but I knew I wanted to get up above it. I was hustling.

There. The trashy ailanthus tree that grew up beside her would never look more regal. I marveled, looking at this, at how much siding--how much wood! the barn has lost since I first started making portraits of her. 

Reduced and ragged as she is, I don't think she's ever been more beautiful.  I was gobsmacked by the blue sky showing through her bony back, by the collapse of her upper floor. She is deliquescing before my eyes. 

I left her and climbed higher. Oh my. I hadn't realized her roof was still covered with snow on the north side. 

This, this. This is what I came for. For the ragged clouds, the snow-covered roof, the black maw of the Toothless Lady, for the snowy road stretching off into the distance. That road that I walk, the distance I cover without even thinking about it. It's that distance, the miles I put on the chassis, that gives me peace of mind. And I get to look at this in the bargain. 

It's quite a deal. 

Higher and higher I climbed. 

Walking these Appalachian hills is a bit like flying. You can get so high above a scene, you're your own drone. 

I expect to always be my own drone. 

You might have to click on some of these to truly appreciate them. Go ahead and run through them all. I'll be here when you get back. 

Glistening sassafras tops. 

And looking into the sun? Dazzling, ravishing. I was a kid in a candy shop, with something beautiful at every turn.

As per usual, I took so durn many photos they wouldn't all fit in one post. This one, written on planes bearing me to the spectacular San Diego Birding Festival. And I've only just grabbed the time to edit and post it. Stay tuned. And thank you for seeing.