prairie point

the long emergency

A few weeks ago, the price of oil ratcheted above fifty-five dollars a barrel, which is about twenty dollars a barrel more than a year ago. The next day, the oil story was buried on page six of the New York Times business section. Apparently, the price of oil is not considered significant news, even when it goes up five bucks a barrel in the span of ten days. That same day, the stock market shot up more than a hundred points because, CNN said, government data showed no signs of inflation. Note to clueless nation: Call planet Earth.

It has been very hard for Americans -- lost in dark raptures of nonstop infotainment, recreational shopping and compulsive motoring -- to make sense of the gathering forces that will fundamentally alter the terms of everyday life in our technological society. Even after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, America is still sleepwalking into the future. I call this coming time the Long Emergency.

Read the full article in Rolling Stone

vultures

Vultures never are on anybody's list of cute & cuddly, or even on the list of admired animals. But Rob MacGrogan has some good words for them in a blog called Spruce Pine Cottage.

Actually I am kind of on the same page as Rob because I have lately been learning to appreciate vultures myself. There is a huge roost of them on the cliffs below our lake cabin. I have counted at least fifty as they start gathering just around sunset. It can be a bit intimidating to see that many of the big birds circling over you. They look graceful in flight. Not at all like the caricatures I am used to from cartoons or stories. And they really are big too. It is something just to hear the rustle of their wings as they settle in for the night.

Most of the lakedwellers don't like them and try to run them off with loud noises. But they just move on to the next property.

Did you know they are a protected species? I suppose because they perform a useful service, keeping the roads and countryside cleaned of rotting flesh.

But I want to say a few more words about Spruce Pine Cottage because it also has some good profiles of native plants. Even though we are not in the same state we have most of the same native species here.

bambi

I found these bones along the south fence. It's a young deer who probably got its foot caught in the top of the fence and didn't make it. There is a small herd of about seven that we see quite often.

This morning I was planting near the house when I felt some eyes on me and turned around. There was one watching me at the edge of the woods about 100 feet away. Making a mental note I am sure to come back when I wasn't around. They eat or pull up just about anything in the vegetable family. Saturday I replanted a dozen iris bulbs they had pulled up and scattered.

Yes, they are cute but it does not bother me to find the bones of one who did not make it. Their natural predators have all been run off or exterminated, and there seems to be an over-abundance of them in these parts. Last month I saw a pair grazing next to the access road of a busy interstate.

space flower

Astronomers have discovered a flower in the Ring Nebula.

snow

We had snow here this afternoon! Yes it is pretty, but then I had to drive home on the icy overpasses. Should have left work early.

Tonight the temperatures will be in the upper teens. Good thing we got the furnace going again. Yesterday it stopped working. Tricia did not notice until late afternoon. I went up into the attic to check it out after I got home. Sometimes when we have strong winds there is a little door that will blow open on the front of the furnace. It won't work with the door open. But that wasn't the case this time and I ran out of ideas. So we called a repairman this morning and paid $70 to learn that the battery in the thermostat needed to be replaced. Thermostats have batteries? Who knew?

moody weekend

The weekend was the kind of damp, moody fall days that I love. Cloudy and rainy weather seems to bring out the colors of the fall leaves best. Unlike some people I enjoy a little cold and damp. I like walking outside when it is just cold enough for a sweater or a jacket.

Saturday Tricia and I returned to Reverchon Park. We wanted to collect a few more of the burr oak nuts we had seen there before. We explored more of the park this time and found more of the trees.

The park is in a valley and one hillside has an intricate web of stone paths and stairs built in the 1930's. On our previous visit I had been intimidated by the groups of young men hanging out along the paths. This time it was earlier in the morning and they were not out yet. Tricia did not want to climb the steps because of her bad knee so I left her to saunter down by the creek and set off on my own to see where they led.

There are picnic tables back in the woods too and old stone fireplaces which have been stopped up so that you cannot use them anymore. And lots of stone benches set into the paths.

Coming down from the hillside we followed the creek for awhile. We had this part of the park all to ourselves. We found one of the big burr oaks back there with lots of the nuts and filled up a canvas bag. I have promised to trade some for some other seeds and I will keep some for myself too.

Ever since my father's death I have felt like I have been acting out scenes in a play. It's a familiar play and I know the scenes but I have not played this part before.

It keeps you busy for a few days, making all the arrangements and then gathering with friends and family. Then suddenly all the scenes are played, it is all over and mysteriously someone is missing. Just like you knew it would be.

choose your climate

I've been getting mail and comments from readers in the northern climes who are perhaps a little jealous of the fine days we have been having here lately. Snow is already starting to fall along the northern border.

It all balances out I suppose. They have their winters and we have our unbearable summers. I spent a winter in Chicago once long ago and I am not sure I could go through that again. I remember wrapping up in layers and fortifying myself with strong coffee to trudge down to the El station in the mornings. I was exhausted by the time I arrived at my destination.

I've also spent many summers in Houston, with rain every afternoon followed by triple-digit temperatures that made it seem like I wsa in a steam room. When I moved to North Texas the air felt so dry I had to use moisturizer on my skin but it makes the temperatures more bearable.

You could be like my father-in-law and live in South Texas in winter and Missouri in the summer. He lives in an RV though with no garden to call his own.

If you want to garden you have to stick to one place and live through all the seasons there. There are probably some places with perfect weather all year. California or Hawaii maybe. But most of us will probably have to choose either terrible summers or terrible winters.

burr oaks

In one of the mailing lists I am on, someone wrote in about burr oaks in Reverchon Park with acorns the size of baseballs. Of course I had to go over and check this out.

I had never been to Reverchon Park although I had passed it many times. One of my many unfulfilled ambitions has been to hike all along Turtle Creek from Reverchon Park to Armstrong.

The park is in a kind of small valley with WPA-built stonework steps and balconies on either hillside. My first impulse on getting out of the car was to go scrambling up these. The intricate pathways are a natural trysting place however and besides I realized that the biggest trees were down in the valley. In the center there is a modern pavillion surrounded by huge pecans and oaks.

We soon found some burr oaks and collected a bag full of acorns. We did not find any quite as big as a baseball but they are rather large. The largest one came from beneath a huge tree at the far end of the valley. It was the only intact acorn we found beneath that tree. The other two trees we found had a great many acorns.

uncertain

According to Indian legends Caddo Lake was formed by an earthquake. Historians say it was actually formed by a huge logjam on the Red River which caused the waters to seek a new current across the northeastern part of the state. Some people think that the logjam could have been created by trees toppled in the gigantic Missouri earthquake of 1811, so maybe both stories are true.

The only "natural" lake in Texas, Caddo Lake receded to a swamp after the Army dynamited the logjam to clear it in the late nineteenth century. In modern times dams have been built to build it back up to its former level.

At one time steamboats plied their way up through the cypresses and alligators from New Orleans to the town of Jefferson, which was an early center of commerce in Texas. The town declined after the lake receded and then railroads replaced steamboats, and now it is just a tourist attraction. The nearby town of Uncertain got it's name because early mapmakers weren't sure what was there so they just labeled it "uncertain."

Tricia and I were in East Texas to attend a symposium for the Native Plants Society. We arrived a little early on Thursday and went out to Uncertain for a tour of the Caddo on this replica of an old wood-burning steamboat.

The average depth of the lake is only nine feet. The joke was, if you fall off the boat, just stand up.

beautyberry

wild vision

Did you know that you can use yucca leaves to make short strings that are useful in the garden for tying vines to stakes. Just take the yucca leaf and split it lengthwise with your fingernail. It's a snap to make eighth-inch wide strips that are strong enough to use as ties and hardy enough to last a season before they deteriorate.

That is just one of the interesting facts I learned from Royce Milam who spoke at our garden club tonight. He has spent a lifetime learning about plants and wildlife, including time spent with the Indians of South America. Now he runs a home-based business teaching others about plants as well as installing wildscapes.

Once native Americans and pioneers knew things about plants and animals that are completely lost to most of us today. Royce had us tasting all kinds of plants that are edible, such as greenbriar and wild lettuce and honey locust seeds and sumac berries. The sumac berries weren't bad - extremely tart like some of those sour candies.

spider web

While I was photographing the cenizo, Tricia found this spider web between the arm and the seat of our porch swing and asked for a picture of it. I was skeptical since I had never attempted a shot of a spider web before. I gave it a try though and it turned out better than I thought it would.

If you want to see some really great pictures of spider webs, go see Fred's collection.

as seen from mom's nursing home

cool weather

We are getting a good rain tonight while I sit inside and listen to John Edwards. I've been waiting to experience first-hand his speech-making talent and I'm not disappointed.

The rain tops off three days of mild weather. The high today was only 83. I wish I could say that I took advantage of the weather to work more in the garden but that's not the case. I did spend more time outside than usual, and we've had the windows open every evening. But I've been lazy. The garden is languishing.

Perhaps the rain will pick things up. At least it should make it easier to weed if I find the energy for it.

the year of losing trees

This has been a season of tree loss.

In the big wind and rain storm of last month we completely lost a small oak near the house whose trunk was split about five feet up from the ground. More significantly we lost several large limbs from the big cedar elm that sits near the front walk. That tree dominates the front yard and provides a great deal of shade and cooling not only to the yard but the house in the morning as well. It's a nicely shaped tree also, with a tall straight trunk and a well-shaped canopy too. This weekend the cedar elm lost another big limb to high wind, further enlarging the hole in the canopy.

A couple years back the utility company dug a trench in their right of way through the yard which went through it's root structure. I worried at the time that the tree might suffer as a result. Although the limb loss is obviously the result of wind it might not have been as severe if the tree had been healthier.

We also lost a huge limb from a pecan out back over the weekend. On top of that the trunk of a cherry laurel split and the tree probably cannot be salvaged.

The pecan limb split off about twenty feet up and fell with the top resting across our power line and the base of the limb still hanging by a thread to the trunk. After studying it a bit, Tricia and I decided we could bring it down by ourselves. I tied a rope around the limb as high up as I could reach and then pulled on the rope to swing the limb out as far as it would go. Then I let go and let it swing back. After the third repetition of this, the top of the limb let go and slithered down the trunk, while the top of the limb glided out along the power line. As the limb attained a horizontal position the base crashed down to the earth pulling the top off the power line, without damaging it.

I spent the rest of the Sunday afternoon with the chain saw, cutting up the limbs and the remains of the cherry laurel.

water balloon fight

rain, rain

Awoke today to the sound of rain. This makes six straight days that we have had rain and the weatherman is promising more for the next two days. At least this means we probably won't have water rationing this summer.

malcolm beck

About 60 people showed up Thursday night to hear Malcolm Beck talk at our Native Plant Society meeting. It wasn't a big crowd but those that showed got a treat. In person Malcolm turned out to be an extremely entertaining speaker.

He is known as the founder of Garden-ville, a manufacturer of compost and fertilizer, and as the author of several books on composting and organic gardening. But when he starts spinning his yarns he comes across more as a homespun humorist or a folklorist.

Most of his stories are contained in the little book The Garden-ville Method. In my opinion it is the best of his books, much better than the later collaborations with Howard Garrett. I picked it up about ten years ago when I happened to see it on the shelf at the local farm store where I buy my compost and fertilizers. It relates his experiments with organic methods on his small family farm back before organic was fashionable. You can read samples from the new edition of it here.

rainbow

The bad weather has persisted. More rain and high wind. The home of our friends was struck by lightning and the chimney was destroyed. This weekend the tree men were busy trimming and removing damaged trees all over the neighborhood. Last night hail and then this.

natural disasters

About nine o'clock last night we suddenly got a tremendous sound and light show. I was expecting a little rain, but then the power went out and I looked out to see a major limb off the big cedar elm. During the lightning flashes I could see that it was totally blocking the road and that there were several smaller branches down in the yard as well.

Several cars came along and then had to back down the street until they could turn. After an hour of dramatic thunder and lightning the rain subsided enough that I could get outside. A fire truck came roaring up the street with siren screaming and plowed right through. Other people were in the street by that time too and a couple of us managed to get the limb off to one side enough for cars to get through.

I took a look around and realized how lucky we were. Next door there was half a tree on the roof and further down a huge oak was uprooted and was laying against a house. It looked like a window was gone. The owners had just moved out and luckily it was vacant and for sale. Someone had called them and they were in the driveway now to take pictures for the insurance. Neighbors gathered around. It had been a magnificent oak with multiple trunks.

I was reminded of my student days in Houston. It was common for the streets to flood in big rains. We would gather outside in the aftermath and it would feel like a party. Complete strangers would stop to talk about what it was like up the street or in the next neighborhood over.

I never found where the fire truck went. In the morning light most of the damage seemed less severe. Our cedar elm had a big vacant spot in the canopy but maybe it would fill in. Except for the vacant house there was no pernament damage. The electricity was still off when I headed off to work, leaving the tree debris in the yard for later.

wildflowers on request

Okay you asked for it. More pictures of wildflowers as requested by my readers. On the left is winecup for Jenn, and the one on the right is Indian blanket for Mary Lou. I threw in the middle one of primroses, because there are so many of those right now.

The Indian blanket photo is actually an old one from my archives. We saw some from the car last weekend but I did not get close enough for a shot. Click on any of the thumbnails for a bigger image.

field of bluebonnets

the return of riki

After several days of teasing we finally got a rain tonight. Tricia went out and sat in the porch swing in the dark to enjoy the air and listen to the rain. The splash from the eaves released the fragrance of the salvias planted between the rose bushes. I sat inside doped on allergy medicine watching La Dolce Vita on the telly.

When she came in later Tricia had some surprising news: she had seen Riki, crossing the front lawn heading straight toward the back yard. I was incredulous, but she was sure because of the characteristic limp. I turned off the kitchen light and peered out the screen door in the back. Sure enough there was a raccoon eating cat food. I spoke her name softly and she looked in my direction. I could not be sure she saw me through the screen even though I was only two feet away.

Almost a year ago I wrote about Riki in these pages and even then it had been months since we had last see her.

Riki was an injured raccoon who got friendly enough to follow me around in the yard and even followed me into our house on more than one occasion. She had a terrible limp, possibly from an encounter with a car. We saw her less and less as she got well and finally we didn't see her at all.

Had she been here all this time without our knowing, or had she wandered off and finally made her way back? Animals sometimes make a circuit through their territory. We had just assumed that she had met some terrible fate with a dog or a car or animal control.

Now we will be looking for her again. It surprises me how much animal life there is all around us in spite of all the adversities of human civilization.

a less-traveled path

Sunday afternoon I joined a group for my second foray into Dogwood Canyon. It was very windy and there were threats of showers but the temperature was pleasantly in the low seventies. And once we got into the canyon the wind was no longer a factor.

The more I see of this property the more I am amazed by it. It gets it's name due to having the only known stand of naturally occurring flowering dogwood in Dallas County. Dogwood is common in East Texas but normally does not prosper in the chalky soils found here. Some of the trees in the stand here are believed to be over a hundred years old, so it is unlikely they are runaways from someone's back yard.

But that is really only a small part of what makes the property unique. In spite of being right outside the city limits of Dallas it is practically unspoiled. There is no sign of privet or honeysuckle or any of the other common alien invaders of the forest.

The property is being saved by the local chapter of the Audubon Society. It was actually slated to be reduced to a housing development and in fact there are houses on the perimeter of the property. Once you go a short distance into the woods though there are no visual or audible signs of civilization.

I belong to several environmental organizations but I have never been a member of the Audubon Society. It turns out that they are a lot more than just a birders club. They have an ambitious plan to develop nature centers around the country, including one on another property adjacent to Dogwood Canyon. Our guide on Sunday's hike, who is an Audubon employee, admitted to being more interested in insects than in birds.

Unfortunately we just missed the flowers on the dogwoods this year. We saw the flowers all right, but none were on the trees. They were strewn all over the forest floor. We knew going in that it was past time for the blooms, so we weren't disapointed.

trees reflecting the setting sun

getting involved

For several years now Tricia and I have been members of a local chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas. Tuesday night we got together with a few of the leaders of the group to plan activities. I was invited because awhile back I volunteered to redo the chapter website. Up until then the website was just a small page with no graphics which got updated about once a year. At least it has more information now, but I have the responsibility to keep it updated.

We usually have a "big event" about once a year. Last year we had William Welch and the year before that Jill Nokes, both authors of books about Texas plants. This year the featured speaker will be Malcolm Beck, who is more of an organic soil person. I first heard of Malcolm years ago when I picked up one of his books at the farm store where I buy soil amendments and stuff like that. He told some interesting stories and I am looking forward to his talk. Read what he says about Composting Yourself.

Our last two "big events" drew over 200 people even though it was pouring down rain both times. It's several months away still, but there is already planning started for a space to have it and publicity and all kinds of other details. Luckily someone besides me is in charge of doing these things. I would probably never even think of arranging for a space until after someone happened to ask me where it was going to be.

the snow maiden

Last night we went to see a production of Ostrovsky's The Snow Maiden at a local college. We saw an "updated" version but the basic story was the same.

Like some classic plays this one, at least the updated version, begins with the world being out of kilter; the environment is messed up. In this case it is the result of a dispute between the seasons. A romance between Father Frost and Spring has produced a love child, the Snow Maiden. This has made the sun angry and he has withheld summer for 15 years. In the original folktale the snow maiden had been created out of snow by a childless peasant couple who kept her hidden from the sun.

valentine's day

There is still white stuff on the ground this morning but it will be melting fast. We had quite an adventure yesterday. Valentine's Day was one of the best snows I can recall in this area. It started before daybreak and by late morning the accumulation was really thick. I was sipping Earl Grey and finishing up a book while Tricia curled up on the couch with one of her mystery novels, when we heard a loud crash outside.

The top of a small live oak outside the study window had snapped off from the weight of the snow. It lay alongside the side of the house, having missed the window by just inches. It had broken at a "V" about four feet off the ground. The smaller side is still standing but two-thirds of the tree is gone. The live oak had only been about 20 feet tall, but it was a favorite of everyone. There were always birds nesting there and the cats loved to watch them from inside. For now it will have to stay as it is. I am not going to saw it up or haul it off until it clears up a bit.

I went out to investigate and shake the snow off some of the other evergreens before we had some more broken limbs. When I came back inside I found we had lost our electricity. The phone rang and it was one of our neighbors with the same problem. She gave me the number to call to report it. At first I wasn't going to bother but then changed my mind. The woman at the other end kept insisting I was not a customer but eventually took my address anyway. Later I realized she was right - I am not actually a customer. I had switched our service to Green Mountain Energy when deregulation had come in. Of course Green Mountain has no utility trucks or even any service lines. But apparently the way it is suppose to work is that I should call Green Mountain customer service and then they contact the local utility.

At least I did better than my neighbor. She came over later to tell us that she had been answered by a man with a "heavy foreign accent" when she called the problem in. Suspecting the service department had been outsourced off-shore somewhere, she asked where he was located. When he replied that he was not allowed to give out that information, she informed him that she was not going to tell him where she was calling from unless he told her first where he was located. He refused to budge and things were left at that stalemate.

Tricia and I went back to reading our books while we waited for the service to come back on. It is amazing how quiet things can be without the heating system and all the other little electrically-powered noises around the house. About one o'clock we decided to put on our coats again and walk down to Angela's, our favorite little cafe. When we returned two hours later it was still snowing but it was now melting faster than it was coming down. The snow was turning into slush. It made really good snowballs though. We hurried back inside. The electricity was back on and we stayed snug inside for the rest of the day.

a new field guide for trees

When it’s too hot or too cold to garden I can often be found passing the time with a book on gardening or on plants. In fact a book on either of these subjects is usually a good bet for a gift for me. That is how I recently came into possession of Trees of Texas by Carmine Stahl and Ria McElvaney.

It’s essentially a tree identification guide but it has it’s own unique twists on the genre. Some plant identification books rely on photos and others feature drawings or watercolors. Each has its advantages but I generally favor drawings, because the artist can bring out more of the unique features that you really need to make an ID. Photos are great for showing how a plant fits in its native setting but usually not so good at showing detail. This book uses photos but they are all black and white and they are of individual, life-size leaves, nuts and twigs on a white background, much the same way that an illustrator would have depicted them. There is a whole page for each tree and they are arranged so that similar leaf shapes are grouped together.

The pages are 8 by 11, which is fine for showing leaves full size, but rather awkward to carry on field hikes. I think it will turn out to work best for me if I break off the leaves that I need to identify and bring them back home for comparison. There are both native and non-native trees depicted, most of the ones that I am likely to run into either in the wild or on suburban lawns around here.

As for the text it is what you would expect in a book of this type, mostly discussing the range and related species. Not really a book for fireside reading but one I will likely find useful the next time I find myself asking “what kind of tree is that?”

spring?

Yesterday I was basking in the sunlight and photographing the bees around the quince blossoms. Tonight I am shivering in a stiff wind. By morning it is expected to be in the mid-twenties here. There is even a rumor of snow.

This time of year Texas is a land of extremes. There is an old saying, "If you don't like the weather, just wait till tomorrow."

But at least we do have some nice days this time of year. And I feel especially fortunate when one of them falls on a weekend like it did yesterday.

adios

The Rio Grande Valley today is a land of palm trees and trailer courts, sugar cane and citrus groves. But that's not at all what the area looked like before the twentieth century.

In his book Adios to the Brushlands biology teacher and newspaper reporter Arturo Longoria laments the continuing destruction of this small and unique ecological region. Longoria learned to love the area as a boy, growing up on ranches on both sides of the river. Walking by the side of his Papagrande, he learned to identify the plants and studied the ways of the birds and animals.

The late afternoon walk was what both of us looked forward to. Thin trails weaving between the arthritic limbs of ancient mesquites, circling clumps of red-flowered prickly pear cactus, then edging motts of emerald-leafed coma and grey-leafed purple sage; the diaphanous fragrance of yellow huisache flowers whiffing through the air; the sky etched with chalky clouds; Papagrande leading, I ambling behind. Silence. Each step placed carefully, avoiding brittle sticks, sidestepping thorns and spines, eyes intent on the ground but always aware of the skyline. Papagrande gesturing at the tracks of a deer or a javelina, then examining the diminutive nest of a blue-grey gnatcatcher. ”Cuidado con las viboras,” he would whisper, as he indicated a clump of dry grass.

To get a firsthand experience of the original landscape we visited Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge. A ranch since the days that it was part of Mexico, this land had been kept close to its natural state. There are hiking trails and a seven-mile tram tour. We took both. Mostly it resembled a jungle, almost tropical. As we loaded up for the tram tour, our guide told us that an ocelot had been spotted the day before, so we were on the lookout. Jaguars had once roamed these lands too. But we didn't see any cats. We did see some unusual birds though - chachalaca and green jays.

I thought of Longoria as our tram rounded a curve in the trail and suddenly came out of the woods onto an embankment that ran along the fenceline of the preserve. There on the other side of the fence was cleared and plowed land, bare dirt for miles with an orange grove in the distance. No habitat for a jaguar. We rode along the embankment for a short distance while the contrast sank in, and then plunged back into the jungle for the final leg of the trail.

That image flashed through my mind again this morning at my breakfast table as I sliced into one of the delicious ruby red grapefruits that we had filled the trunk of our car with as we left.

snowbirds

We've been visiting with Tricia's dad in his motorhome down in the Rio Grande Valley.

Actually his story sounds a lot like a Jack Nicholson movie. His wife was the one who looked forward to retiring to a life of traveling the country but she passed away from cancer just months before her intended retirement. Tricia's dad (whose name is also Bill) bought the motorhome anyway, but he does not really travel much. Back and forth between Missouri and south Texas once a year. Last year he did not even do that, electing to spend the summer in Texas.

Thousands of other so-called "winter Texans" do the same thing. The RV park where Bill is staying has room for 800 rigs and it is just one of many in the area. Some of them are motorhomes; others are traditional trailers or "fifth wheels" which attach to a saddle mounted in the bed of a pickup. Each has their advantages.

The license plates on the cars reveal where the people are from. Mostly the states directly north of Texas. Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Illinois, Minnesota, on up to Ontario and Quebec. Not that many from the east or west coasts. Mostly they drive huge diesel pickups if they pull trailers. The ones who have motorhomes wind up having to tow small cars behind them so they will have a way of getting around once they park. Otherwise they have to unhook the electrical and sewer connections and maneuver around a 60-foot vehicle everytime they need to go to the grocery store.

Like migrating birds they tend to come back to the same park year after year. Some of them eventually get tired of the driving and just park their rigs permanently. They might decide to live there year-round or else drive back and forth in a car or take the plane, in which case the trailer just becomes a small vacation house.

It's amazing how much can be packed into one of these things. It has a full kitchen with a sink, stove, oven, refrigerator and freezer; a bathroom with tub and shower; two televisions; even a washer and dryer. There are little built-in storage places everywhere. It probably seems roomy for one or two people. With more it reminds me of a puzzle - you can't move from one place to another without someone else having to move first to get out of your way. Therefore you need to be pretty sedentary to stay inside very long.

The park is like a small retirement community on wheels. There is a recreation center with classrooms and organized activities, a swimming pool and a gym, shuffleboard courts. There are dances in the rec hall on Saturday night and church services on Sunday morning. Inside the park people get around on bikes or golf carts or else walk. All the accomodations are small so people are forced outside. Everyone seems to know everything about everyone else. This time of year especially, when many are still arriving from the north, the air is filled with gossip and everyone is exchanging stories about what's been going on since last year.

South Texas is comfortable this time of year. Temperatures were in the 70's this week although a jacket was nice in the evening. Not a cloud in the sky. I thought it was just about perfect although a little windy. We sat outside with Bill or sat by the window inside watching a steady stream of people on the street outside, going to and from the rec hall or just out for a stroll. He would tell us the name of each person as they passed and something about them - where they were from, what lot they were parked in or what kind of rig they drove, maybe even a story about their personal life.

One thing they all had in common was that they were old enough to be retired. We never saw a child or a teenager. Mostly in fairly good health, for this is not a life style for somebody who needs to be under a doctor's care.

South Texas is a fairly inexpensive place to live and Mexico is just a half hours drive away with even cheaper shopping. Everyone goes across the border for their prescriptions. You can park and walk across the bridge or drive if you don't mind the wait it takes to get back across these days.

winter solstice

Tricia and I went last night to a Winter Solsticelebration. There was music and poetry, Buddhist chanting, and an "Egyptian fire dance," among other things. We participated in a ceremony of extinguishing and bringing back the light.

The winter solstice (which is really December 22 this year) is the shortest day of the year. After the solstice the days steadily lengthen and the nights get shorter until the summer solstice arrives.

This is the eleventh annual celebration put on by this group, although it is the first one we've attended. We were even surprised to run into some friends that we had not expected to see there. I think they were equally surpised to see us.

It was a great reminder of what the holiday season is really all about. These events have been observed by humankind for thousands of years. Whatever the purpose of Stonehenge, it is aligned perfectly with the Summer and Winter solstices.

The ancient Egyptians had a twelve-day celebration at this time of the year and the Romans had their Saturnalia. The Emperor Constantine moved the celebration of Christmas to December 25, some say to blur the distinction between different faiths by having multiple religious holidays at the same time.

I've always had a hard time reconciling the religious aspect of Christmas with the way the holiday is actually celebrated. When I think of it as a winter solstice celebration it all makes sense.

is environmentalism a religion?

Recently Dan has put up several posts about global warming over at North Coast Cafe.

It was rather interesting to see the comments he drew on this one. Quite a few people don't believe in global warming I take it. That's certainly all right. I'd like to hear their reasoning and their evidence though, instead of name-calling and conspiracy theories.

Now he has a new post pointing to a speech recently given by the novelist Michael Crichton likening environmentalism to a religion. It brings up some interesting points that I would like to think on a little.

Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.

There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.

collecting rainwater

For every 1000 square feet of roof and one inch of rainfall you could collect almost 625 gallons of rainwater, according to Vaughn Usener of Raincatcher Rain Water Harvesting.

Actually, it is not quite that easy to figure out much rainwater it is possible to collect. For instance, you need to know whether the one inch of rainfall occurs all at once or in several events. Some of it may evaporate or or be lost to leaky gutters before it gets to a storage device. Also you need to realize that 1000 square foot means the area under the roof, not the actual area of the roofing material.

Vaughn makes it sound a lot simpler than I ever imagined. The water is just collected in ordinary PVC gutters and piped into a storage tank. A simple roofwasher system collects any solids coming off the roof. In the picture below the system is mounted on a workshop. The rainwater is used in the workshop and also is piped out to a nearby drinking trough for the owner's longhorns. It works on any kind of roof. You can learn more about it at Tank Town.

Setting one up for our own house would be a lot more complicated just because our house isn't a simple rectangle but juts out in all directions. Plus it has a lot of gables. However I have been trying to figure out a way to set one up on at least part of the roof.

time-lapse photos

Watch these time-lapse movies of plants and flowers. The ones of the flowers opening are especially amazing.

selah

Thirty years ago David Bamberger bought what he describes as "the worst land in Texas" and set out to restore it, inspired by a book by Louis Bromfield which he had read as a boy. The result is Bamberger Ranch.

He revitalized the land by removing much of the cedar and the deer population and planting native grasses, as well as trees. As a result of the conservation methods water began to flow again in the dry creek beds.

The tour there starts out with a stop at a "memorial" to man. The sentiment expressed on it may sound pessimistic but the ranch is actively doing what it can to prevent it from coming true through its educational programs. Thousands of school children and adults each year visit the nature trail and the other facilities on the ranch.

interlude

Tricia and I took a break from our usual responsibilities this past week and visited the little town of Fredricksburg in the Texas Hill Country. This is our second trip there and we stayed at the same comfortable B&B as before, while attending the annual symposium of the Native Plant Society of Texas, doing a little shopping and enjoying some great German food and drink. We rekindled some old friendships and made some new ones.

We joined plant society tours to nearby Enchanted Rock State Park and the Bamberger Ranch. On the way home we veered a little to the west where we were priviliged to join a plant identification walk at the Mason Mountain Wildlife Management Area, a beautiful spot ordinarily open only to hunters. We mostly saw ferns and grasses there, both plants I want to learn more about. I always thought of ferns as growing in the forest, but it turns out they like rocks.

We were on a busy schedule the whole time but it was still very relaxing and stimulating as well as being a lot of fun. I didn't want it to end, but I am glad to see my cats again. Sapphire ignored us for a whole day when we got back, but now she has forgiven us.

them ole cotton fields back home

The only way I have ever seen a cotton patch is through a car window, but I grew up with stories of children pulling sacks of cotton through the fields in the "good old days. Cotton was once a primary crop here on the Blackland Prairie and we saw a lot of it this weekend as we drove through the countryside.

But what I remember from my childhood even more than the fields are the gins with their distinctive smell that used to be in all the small towns.

nature and place

Author Sandra Cisneros reflects on the influence of nature and place:

I was one of those children who felt more at home sitting in a tree reading a book than with another child. I felt when I was a child that trees could talk, and I understood what they could say. I could talk to the trees. And because of their age and wisdom, they told me to persevere, to "keep, keep, keep." They were also sympathetic and kind and friendly in a way that human beings were not; and they laughed and nodded a lot. But most of all, their lesson was one of patience.

interview with Bill Moyers

Via ::: wood s lot ::: this excellent Grist interview with Bill Moyers on Republican anti-environmentalism:

It stuns me that the people in power can't see that the source of our wealth is the Earth. I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a capitalist. I don't want to destroy the system on which my livelihood and my journalism rest. I am strongly on behalf of saving the environment [in no small part] because it is the source of our wealth. Destroy it and the pooh-bahs of Wall Street will have to book an expedition to Mars to enjoy their riches. I don't understand why they don't see it. I honestly don't. This absence of vision as to what happens when you foul your nest puzzles me.

my church windows

The assignment was to pick something green to photograph for the Ecotone photo topic, but it was hard to choose. We are surrounded by green (even though the heat has already turned much of it brown). Green is also my wife's favorite color which means we have quite a bit of it inside as well as outside.

These windows however came with the house. Although I like the colored glass I don't know that I would have picked green. To me they've always seemed like church windows. Because they frame the back garden view that seems appropriate, since Nature is surely divine.

the largest pecan tree in the world

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and we just felt like getting out of town. I had read about a garden in Weatherford that was open to the public and we decided to drive there and see it. With time on our hands afterwards we drove back through town and found a tourist center at the edge of downtown. It was open and we walked into a small room with a counter and an assortment of brochures and guidebooks.

We found somethng interesting. It was a photo-copied page with a black and white photo of a tree and a brief paragraph headlined “Largest Pecan Tree in the World.” There was a little map that showed it was just 3.5 miles north on Highway 51. The guy behind the counter had never been there, but Highway 51 was right outside the door. I pulled the car out of the gravel lot and headed north through the farmland, measuring the miles on the odometer.

I have always been happiest in the company of trees. When I was a freshman in Houston I used to take my books out to a grove of pine and oak in a forgotten corner of the campus and sit underneath a tree reading in the warm afternoons. Sometimes I would pace back and forth and read my essays out loud. I cannot recall ever seeing another person in that grove. Except for the squirrels and birds I had it all to myself. Years later I think I remember the trees better than the books I was struggling to understand. I would stay there until the light played out and then head back to my dorm along sidewalks set between parallel rows of oaks drenched in Spanish moss. In the waning light the trees seemed dark and mysterious and at the same time compelling.

Maybe my affinity for trees comes from having grown up in a forest. The property I grew up on southeast of Fort Worth was part of the Crosstimbers, once an impenetrable forest of trees with wood so hard that it was called the "cast iron forest." I did not realize that it was a forest until years later after the property had been sold. The trees were post oak and blackjack oak, what some call scrub oak because they are small and scrawny. Of course they had been thinned out to make room for suburban housing. My parents planted their own favorites - crepe myrtle, redbud and two tall pines in the front yard - but it was the small oaks with lichen-covered bark that I played under and learned to love. I have driven by the property recently. The pines now dominate the street, but the oaks all still seem to be about the same size. They are probably much older than their size would make them seem.

We passed a small sign by the side of the road that said “big tree” and had to double back. We saw a small farmhouse with a driveway, but we were reluctant to turn in there. The paper we had picked up warned that the tree was on private property but said the owners welcomed visitors. A couple hundred yards further I turned the car off onto a dirt road between a ploughed and fenced field and a pasture. The road wound past a barn and then toward a clearing in a line of trees. That looked like the destination.

But as we passed the barn I saw in my rearview mirror a man waving his arms. Apprehensively I stopped the car and got out. It was the farmer who owned the place. He knew we were looking for the tree but sure enough he did not mind. Although it turned out we were heading the wrong way and he would prefer that we park the car and walk before we got it stuck. He pointed the way and we set out across the field. We crossed a dried-up creek on a footbridge and passed into the woods.

The trunk of the pecan was huge and gnarled. It’s enormous branches dipped low to the ground. Tricia and I stood at each edge of the canopy and tried to guess how far apart we were. The literature said the tree was 91 feet tall and over 200 feet across. It was believed to be over 1000 years old. We looked for pecans underneath and found a few but they were old and broken. It was not the right season.

A grove of trees always seems like a special place. Prairie Point is such a place. Over 150 years ago pioneers established a church there in a grove of oaks. The church closed its doors long ago but people from all over still gather there every year in July for a picnic. They bring food and set it out for everyone to eat on long boards nailed between the oaks. After they have eaten and socialized most head for the cemetery beyond the fence where they have friends or relatives.

Groves were some of the earliest sacred places. My ancestors worshipped the spirits of trees in ancient European forests, as have people of many other cultures. Maybe they were on to something. Touching the trunk of the big pecan it was hard not to feel that there was a consciousness there that transcended our own.

We walked back to the car and drove to the farmhouse. We signed the guestbook on the front porch and petted the dogs and then got back in the car and drove back the way we had come. We stopped at a farmers market and bought a watermelon. Weatherford is famous for its watermelon. Back home we sat outside in the warm evening under our own much younger grove of pecans and ate watermelon and spat the seeds onto the lawn.

This is part of the discussion on "trees and place" at the Ecotone wiki.

green calculator

Like to take quizzes? You can estimate the amount of carbon dioxide you generate with this calculator at the National Wildlife Federation site.

I came out about average. Hope you do better.

tree bark

cedar elm

hackberry

juniper

I have been trying without success to put captions under pictures. I am sure somebody out there knows how.

Update: Thanks to Kathy of Cold Climate Gardening for the instructions for the captions. See the comment.

milkweed seeds

a visit to a plant museum

This morning I drove to Fort Worth to join a tour of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas, or BRIT.

A few years ago they published a massive tome called Shinner's and Mahler's Flora of North Central Texas. Despite the high price I bought a copy and I've been glad I did. Ever since, I have wanted to learn more about the place.

BRIT is one of the largest herbariums in the country. A herbarium, as I learned today, is a kind of special museum or repository for plant specimens, which are pressed and dried, then mounted on sheets of 11x16 paper. BRIT houses over a million such mounted specimens. They are used by botanists for plant identification and classification, who either go there to view them or request that the specimens be loaned to a closer herbarium.

New species are still being discovered fairly frequently. When that happens the specimens become especially important. The first specimen establishes the definition for the species, and later specimens are compared against it to see if they are different or the same. Each new species must also have it's description published in Latin.

Anyone can submit a specimen, although most come from botanists or research assistants. BRIT has so many specimens waiting to be mounted and catalogued that they estimate it will take them 76 years to catch up at their present rate. And I was worried that I was getting a little behind at the office! Most of these specimens are not new species however, but familiar species found in a new location.

They also have over 75,000 books on plants, including many rare and antique volumes. We saw a copy of the 1836 British journal in which the Texas bluebonnet was first identified and named. Assistant director Barney Lipscomb, who showed us around the library, is something of a showman and has an amazing ability to make his profession seem fascinating.

It was an entertaining and educational visit.

the cast iron forest

As the traveler proceeded westward across the Blackland Prairie in the nineteenth century he encountered a dense forest of ancient stunted trees. Here is how Washington Irving described what he found in 1832 in A Tour of the Prairies:

I will not easily forget the mortal toil and vexation of flesh and spirit, that we underwent occasionally, in our wanderings through the Cross Timber. It was like struggling through forests of cast iron.

A finger of this forest extends between Dallas and Fort Worth on a sandy soil much different than the black clay I live on a few miles away. Though a modern traveller might not even recognize that he is in a forest so much of it has been cleared and developed, there are fortunately remnants, such as the one in the backyard of Richard Francaviglia, a Professor of History at UTA, and the author of a book I have just finished reading called The Cast Iron Forest.

The trees of the Crosstimbers are a mixture of blackjack and post oak. Although small they are apparently hundreds of years old. There was never a solid forest but a mosaic of forested areas and open prairie. At the same time it was once dense enough to represent a barrier to westward migration.

Growing up in Texas I frequently saw maps with the region marked. I always thought the term defined a geologic formation or a soil type, which it also does, but it never occurred to me that there was a real forest there. Partly that is because the trees are small and partly because so much of it no longer remains. After reading this book I recognize it now along the eastern edge of Fort Worth, where it adds immensely to the beauty of many suburban yards.

The book describes the natural environment of the region and also the role that people have played in transforming it. What amazes me is that a natural feature of the environment that was so important 150 years ago can be virtually unknown to most inhabitants of the region today.

hedge parsley and other weeds

One of my native plant enthusiast friends likes to say that "a weed is anything that you don't want in your garden." The point being that if you like a plant it is not a weed, no matter what category someone else might put it in. I had a relative who thought dandelions were pretty and let them grow in her flowerbeds. Of course dandelions were originally brought to this country as an edible crop, anyway.

One plant that I consider a weed is hedge parsley or Torilis arvensis. We've got a corner where it has become quite a pest. A few years ago I sowed a wildflower seed mixture there. I sometimes suspect there was hedge parsley in the mixture. That may not be true. It may have spread there some other way. At any rate when it first came up I assumed it was part of the mixture because it has a fairly attractive flower, like Queen Anne's Lace. The obnoxious part is the seeds which appear right about now. They are like velcro and stick to your pants leg and shoe laces. They make a tangled mess in the cat's fur and sometimes have to be cut out.

I was surprised to see a site on the Internet with an action plan to deal with the decline of hedge parsley in England and western Europe. Every plant of course serves some useful purpose. All I can say is that I wish this one were declining in my yard instead of over there.

rio grande drying up

For the first time since the 1950's the Rio Grande has gone dry. According to the Alpine Avalanche there are only pools of water where the once-vigorous river once flowed through Mariscal Canyon in Big Bend National Park.

"It will have momentous consequences to the resources we are charged to preserve," park wildlife biologist Raymond Skiles told the Avalanche. He indicated that similar conditions existed along the entire four-mile stretch of the Rio Grande that he and others hiked on May 9.

The river runs along 118 miles of the southern extremity of BBNP, and Skiles said that pooling conditions without flow were present for about two-thirds of that length, with the lower canyons most intact from a water-level standpoint.

Severe drought conditions, both in the immediate area and throughout the West and Southwest, have contributed significantly to the decreased water level. For the past eight years, the Big Bend region has experienced about 11 to 12 inches of rain annually, compared with a normal average of 12 to 15 inches.

In addition to the drought, irrigation, commerical and business use of water has contributed to the problem. Biologists are predicting dire consequences for fish and wildlife that depend on the river for their existence.

more riki

My story about the crippled raccoon who spent a winter in our garden is included in this weeks' Carnival of the Vanities.

Meanwhile I dug around and found this photo of Riki. I guess all raccoons pretty much look alike, huh? Actually if you look closely you can see that her hind leg juts out at an extreme angle.

I have pictures of her with the pups too if I can find them.

riki's story

Most of the people I work with would say I live "downtown", or at least in the "inner city." But there is still a lot of nature left here, and actually not as much concrete as there is in some of the new suburban developments. Partly that is because there is a good size creek not so far away along with some estate-sized wooded lots.

One day as I was approaching home at the end of the day I saw a red-tailed hawk on my neighbor's lawn with a squirrel in its talons. I pulled on in to my driveway and rushed inside for the camera, but as I went running back the hawk flew away still holding the squirrel.

On a winter night a couple years ago we looked out the back door to see a raccoon gobbling down the cat food Tricia had left on the covered back porch. With the light on inside we could stand close to the glass and watch unobserved. We saw that the raccoon was terribly injured. The right back leg was splayed out at an extreme angle and it walked very slowly. Every few steps its bad leg would give way and it would go sprawling. I have mentioned before what a soft heart Tricia has for anything in distress. Of course there was food out every night after that.

We wanted to help the raccoon but we did not know how. We contacted a rescue site we found on the internet but they wanted to put it down. They thought the symptoms sounded like a disease, and in any case it was a poor candidate for rescue. By this time the raccoon had been named Riki and we were feeding it with the back door open. The cats and the raccoon seemed not to mind each other. The cats would walk out the back door without a glance and Riki would not even look up from its dish. As it got colder Tricia fixed up a place for it to stay warm on the back porch.

I am usually the first to get home in the afternoon and Riki got to waiting for me in the front garden. Once or twice I would leave the door open as I went in and Riki would follow. The cats did not like that however. That was crossing into their territory. Riki grew plump and almost tame.

Then we started seeing less of her and realized that she had some pups somewhere that she was nursing. She would arrive just at dusk for food and then hurry off. Before long she started to bring the pups with her, and all that spring we watched them grow. There were four of them each with its own personality. There was a really friendly one whom Tricia dubbed Rascal who would eat out of her hand. There was a big male who liked to arrive by climbing over the roof. There was a small female and a shy one with a very white face. It was funny to watch them all follow Riki because with her limp she was the slowest of them all.

As the summer wore on we got to seeing less and less of them. They didn't always show up together and often did not show up at all. By Winter we were not seeing any of them. Of course we knew that wild raccoons had been living in our midst all along but we had become emotionally attached to these and we worried about them. Some of our neighbors did not look as benignly on them as we did, and there are a lot of other dangers for them, cars and dogs in particular.

In early Spring Tricia called me to the back door again. There was a raccoon on the back porch. She thought it looked like the small female. I wasn't as sure. We did not see her again. But it made us feel better.

earth day

Today is Earth Day, although you would hardly know it from the amount of news coverage it has generated. Environmental issues seem to be less and less important these days. To be fair timing is not good this year. Supporters usually plan events on the closest weekend and this year that would be Easter.