Photos – Page 48 – Via Negativa

November 22, 2007September 23, 2012 by Dave Bonta

A bearable Thanksgiving

What’s there to say about a Thanksgiving that was disrupted by a six-and-a-half-hour power outage? Only that, like the Pilgrims at Plymouth, we made the best of it, and filled our bellies in the end.

Fortunately, we hadn’t planned a large gathering, and so were just able to fit around my sister-in-law’s table in town.

It was a day that began with a fat porcupine squeezing under my front porch — which is something that never looks quite possible even while it’s happening — and ended with a very full toilet bowl that just barely managed to flush. And in between I got to see a black bear cub climbing a tree from only 100 feet away through a tangle of wild grapes. Both of us were too busy stuffing ourselves with grapes to notice the other at first. Then it started to rain, the cub went down the tree, and I closed the distance between us just in time to see the mother’s rear end disappearing into a thicket.

This was the fourth time we’ve had a power outage on Thanksgiving or Christmas, and also the fourth time we’ve seen a bear on a major holiday (the others were on Christmas and Easter). I guess I’m thankful to be living in a place where power outages are still rare enough to be remembered, but even if someday they become a routine occurence, the chances are good that we will still be sharing the mountain with bears and porcupines — and for that I am truly thankful.

November 19, 2007 by Dave Bonta

White space

Snow is a harsh editor, bringing out the most dramatic details and burying the rest. This black gum sapling grows less than ten feet from a trail, but I’d never focused on it before: an antelope in mid-leap, looking back over its shoulder.

From almost nothing in the depths of the hollow, the snow grew thicker on leaves and branches as I climbed the side of the ridge. A hundred yards beyond the “antelope,” I surprised a doe that had been bedded down under white mounds of mountain laurel. For once, her tail matched the color of the woods, and it was the grayish-brown of her winter coat that flashed alarm.

(Best viewed at larger size)

What begins as erasure, a laudable minimalism, becomes positively rococo as every last detail is freighted with a burden of white space.

Witch-hazel blossoms are capable of self-pollination when cold prevents the late moths, flies, and beetles from visiting. Is it possible that an early snow like this could also do the trick, if it were to soften and slide down a branch just so, from one flower to another? Well, probably not. But I like the idea of snow as a matchmaker, for some reason.

Going back along the ridgetop, I relished the silence and the fact that, for once, I didn’t break it just by walking: the fallen leaves were as muffled as those still clinging to the trees. From time to time a leaf-sized clump of snow would plummet to the ground, making a leaf-shaped print, like a promissory note.

November 14, 2007 by Dave Bonta

Junk shop

Not all falling leaves go to the same place. Trapped under the peeling skin of a dead chestnut, the oak leaf fades from blood red to bloodstain brown,

while an orange and scarlet maple leaf peeks like an insurrectionary flag from a crevasse next to a bulge of scar tissue on an ancient oak.

The November woods are a little like a junk shop, full of discarded treasures.

Be sure to send your tree-related links to Larry Ayers — larry (dot) ayers (at) gmail (dot) com — by November 29 for the next Festival of the Trees, this time at Riverside Rambles.

chatoyance

[photo]

Outside a junk shop,
a quilt, the bars of a gate —
wandering shadows.

the cassandra pages

Behind the plate glass, behind the empty outside baskets and washed blackboard, tomatoes shine in red pyramids and leeks stand at attention like sailors. White mattresses in dormitory rows already sleep under all-night lights while men in black suits discuss the day’s receipts. Outside the Intermarché the man with the tattooed face eats something rapidly, seated on his blanket […]

Empty sandwich board.
The man with the tattooed face
wolfs down his supper.

Somewhere in NJ

I don’t think I could ever tire of watching sanderlings and was glad to see such a large group huddled together against the wind. Have you ever seen sanderlings hop on one foot before the surf, rather than running like they normally do? Funny – that sight was my delight this morning!

A windy beach.
Sanderlings hop on one foot
when the surf comes in.

November 5, 2007 by Dave Bonta

A Canadian visitor

My friend and co-editor at qarrtsiluni, Beth Adams, has yet to visit Plummer’s Hollow. But other part-time residents of Quebec fly over twice a year, and sometimes they drop in for a quick bite. This one did, and got a bit more hospitality than she bargained for. See the complete story here.

It looks taller, now,
that little pine where the eagle
straightened her feathers.

November 3, 2007 by Dave Bonta

Cow tool

Do you ever get the feeling, after waking up in the morning, that you’ve just been dreaming somebody else’s dream? I found this metal implement, or piece thereof, in the corner of the field this afternoon, and suddenly remembered that I had been acting as an informal advisor to President Bush sometime around 6:30 this morning. I had been trying to get him to shelve an anti-evolution statement he was preparing to make at an upcoming press conference, and feeling some considerable disgust at myself for the tact with which I chose my words. “You must understand, Mr. President,” I said as gently as I could, “that if you express your true feelings about this, right or wrong, that will forever color history’s perception of you as a leader. You will be subjected to derision and ridicule at home and abroad.” His eyes darted back and forth as I spoke, and it was clear he wasn’t listening.

What’s truly bizarre is that in the dream, I felt pity and even affection for the man. Well, I suppose it’s possible: emotions do have the property of changing shape according to the space they’re trying to fill. And later that day, as I turned the rusty piece of metal over in my hands, I was reminded of Gary Larson’s famously misunderstood cartoon picturing a row of amorphous objects — Cow Tools.

The “cow tools” were supposed to be just meaningless artifacts — only the cow or a cowthropologist is supposed to know what they are used for.

The first mistake I made was in thinking this was funny. The second was making one of the tools resemble a crude handsaw — which made already confused people decide that their only hope in understanding the cartoon meant deciphering what the other tools were as well. Of course, they didn’t have a chance in hell.

When I got back, my parents were sitting out on the veranda with my brother Steve. The amorphous pink object on his chest and shoulder is my niece Elanor. They were watching birds of prey migrate south along the ridge — redtails, a turkey vulture, and a golden eagle — along with enormous white sailplanes, which whistled as they flew. Elanor slept for three hours, passed from shoulder to shoulder. In the middle of supper (spaghetti with venison marinara sauce), the phone rang, and Mom said, “I’ll bet that’s Trish calling to say she’s caught an eagle.” It was.

A tale of horror

1.
I always have a hard time sleeping this time of year, when the nights grow long and cold and the crickets stop chirping well before midnight. It’s been raining, too, preventing me from going to work for most of the past week, so I’ve had to cut back on meals, too.

So let’s just say I was in no mood to be awoken this afternoon — much less to have my bed jolted violently and turned on its side. I’d heard this place might be haunted, but I never expected anything like this. “Hey!” I yelled. “Leave me the hell alone!” The next thing I knew, an enormous white face was looming over me, with awful staring watery eyes as big around as my head, and a mouth that emitted deep rumbles I could feel in my chest.

I screamed.

2.
I needed to move my woodstove about six inches to the right, and decided that the easiest way to accomplish this was by picking up one end and shoving an iron pry bar underneath it, propping both ends of the bar up on concrete blocks, then rolling the stove across the bar. I think if you live in the country for any appreciable amount of time, concrete blocks begin to seem like an all-purpose solution to otherwise insurmountable problems, kind of in the same league with duct tape and WD-40. The steps into the shed where I went to get the pry bar, for example, consist simply of three layers of stacked blocks — a temporary fix some 25 years ago that somehow never got an upgrade.

Our main supply of blocks is in the lower part of the barn, inside the second set of double doors. It’s cold and damp and dark in there, and I couldn’t really see what I was doing, but that’s O.K — I could find my way around this place with a blindfold on. I grabbed two blocks from the top of the pile, but after only a couple of steps, decided maybe I’d be better off carrying one at a time, instead. Besides, one of the blocks had begun making high-pitched noises, halfway between a rusty hinge and a shriek. I noticed something small and dark a few inches from my arm, and quickly set the block down on the bench outside the door. BAT!

I ran.

…To get my camera, of course.

I snapped a few shots, but almost immediately began to feel guilty about the trauma I must have been causing this poor little beast — most likely Myotis lucifugus, “mouse-eared fugitive from the light.” I put its block back on the pile, snapped one more photo, then grabbed another block and went out. When I returned to check half an hour later, it had disappeared — probably by climbing deeper into the pile. I wished it a good night, and figured it could take that any way it wanted.

See also this post.

October 20, 2007 by Dave Bonta

One window

One window, two window, red window, blue window…

October 18, 2007 by Dave Bonta

Invasion of the swamp things

Red maples are one of the few tree species capable of becoming grotesque at an early age. In a way, their highly malleable forms reflect their superior adaptability: they are at home in wide variety of soil types and exposures, and though a first-succession species, can also take advantage of relatively small gaps in the canopy. They are, however, not long-lived trees, so unlike oaks, for example, they must start producing seeds at a young age. It makes sense, therefore, that they would evolve a mutable architecture geared toward short-term reproductive success at all costs.

The one thing red maples don’t tolerate very well is fire, being thin-barked and shallow-rooted. Oaks and hickories, by contrast, are good at isolating fire scars and preventing them from becoming an avenue for infection, and their roots go deep. A hundred years ago, small, low-intensity ground fires were a relatively common occurrence in the drier parts of the eastern forest, and as a result, red maples were rarely found outside of really wet areas. But with widespread fire suppression, the oaks and hickories lost their competitive advantage and the maples, being faster growers, were able to dominate natural and man-made forest openings such as blow-downs and clearcuts. It doesn’t hurt that the over-abundant white-tailed deer seem relatively unenthusiastic about red maple sprouts, and acid rain apparently doesn’t affect them much, either. So what was once a creature of the swamps has virtually taken over the state, and studies of forest composition show that it is now our single most common tree.

That’s scary news to anyone who cares about natural forest ecosystems. Maple seeds aren’t nearly as popular with wildlife as acorns and hickory nuts, possessing only a fraction of their nutritional value, and my insect-collecting brother Steve informs me that dead maple trees don’t support anything like the diverse invertebrate communities that populate dead oaks. It’s a good bet their decay doesn’t contribute much to the soil, either.

So if you’ve been around for more than a few decades, it’s not your imagination: the fall foliage really is getting more spectacular with every passing year. Whereas oaks are fairly temperamental, going straight from green to brown as often as not, and being fairly monochromatic by species when they do color up, you can count on red maples every year for an array of bright reds and oranges as variable as their architectural forms.

Knowing what I know, how can I still admire their colors and their grotesque shapes? But I do. Hell, it’s not their fault they’ve become so goddamn numerous. I love red maples the same way I love people, come to think of it.

Don’t forget to submit links to the Festival of the Trees by October 26 for the special Halloween-themed edition.

And yes, I have written about red maples and fire suppression at least once before, so Google informs me.

October 17, 2007March 6, 2014 by Dave Bonta

After

Remember this?

The fine craftsmanship of Mike Nicely, general contractor. These particular bookshelves will soon house my poetry collection, but first I have one day more of touch-up work, including a final coat of varnish on the floor. And I must admit a certain reluctance to move all my stuff back in — or even the bare minimum of stuff necessary to make it habitable: chair, table, footstool… The room will never again seem as starkly beautiful and as full of possibilities as it does right now. Or as echoey.

[audio:http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/1/5/600283/Reelin.MP3]

Direct link to the MP3

October 15, 2007 by Dave Bonta

Living large

I went for a walk this morning along the portion of the property line that runs straight down the Bald Eagle Valley side of the mountain. A scrim of cirrus softened the contrast between light and shadow without actually blocking the sun, and thinned out as the morning wore on.

Just off the crest, a 15-foot-tall, fire-scarred white pine snag glowed in a private sunbeam as if spotlit, and I stood admiring it for several minutes. The longer I looked, the more impressed I became, until finally I had to back away: this thing had power.

I avoided the open talus slopes as much as I could, though the wooded portions of the upper slope are just as rocky. The thin soil is enough to keep most of the rocks from tipping underfoot, though. I renewed my acquaintance with several outlandishly crooked rock oaks.

Why go to all the trouble of picking my way down to the base of the mountain? Well, for one thing, this corner of my parents’ land contains the largest rock on the property. It’s about five feet tall and ten feet long, and forms a cluster with two smaller companions. They’re probably the remnants of a single boulder that calved off the ridge crest during the last glacial epoch, as a result of the intense freezing and thawing that also gave us the open talus slopes.

I sat with the boulder for a long time, trying to block out the roar from the other side of the property line. There’s a reason why I don’t come down here very often.

No matter where you are in America, a Wal-Mart truck goes by every twenty minutes. I’m convinced of it.

A hundred feet up-slope from the biggest rock on the property stands the biggest tree. It’s a red oak, well over 200 years old, I would guess, and close to five feet in diameter at breast height (sorry — I never remember to pack a tape measure). At one time, there was a small grove of giant oaks here in this corner — maybe eight of them in all — but the line wasn’t surveyed very well, and our neighbor to the south along the mountain laid claim to most of the grove and put it under the chainsaw about fifteen years ago. The one other giant on our side was split down the middle in an ice storm, though the standing half still lives.

It’s a bit of a mystery how such big old trees could’ve survived, given that they adjoin an old charcoal hearth and haul road dating back to 1815. I can only surmise that some early settler had fenced the area for pasture, sparing it from the collier’s axe, and left a scattering of oaks for shade. That would also explain their big, spreading crowns, which are atypical of forest trees. The grove might also have been much bigger before the construction of the highway in 1970; we didn’t move here until 1971, and didn’t acquire this portion of the property until the mid-80s.

The lower flank of the mountain is dotted with small seeps and springs, so even though it faces northwest and doesn’t get much sun, trees grow a lot bigger down here than up on the dry ridgetops. Running northeast of the corner, paralleling the highway, there’s a ten-acre stand of mature oaks and other hardwoods that would seem pretty damn big if they didn’t suffer by comparison with the last of the giants.

See the whole photoset from today’s walk: Down in the corner.

UPDATE: For the conclusion of the story, see the next post.