Humph ...

Remember this, from last week?

And this?

This is 5pm today, with more expected overnight.

.

'Nuff said.

Vernal pools, egg clusters and trillium

This afternoon I spent 2+ hours on a nature trek. At Town Meeting, a Brookfield resident who works for The Nature Conservancy in Montpelier announced that he was interested in hosting several "field trips" within Brookfield, and asked people to sign up, so I did.

I missed the first walk because the email had a strange subject line and was from someone I didn't know, so I deleted it. This hike came with the subject line "Brookfield Adventure Group", and it was a trip way up on the Chelsea side of Brookfield (very close to the middle of nowhere). Two members of the group live up there on 50 acres, a good deal of which is very unusual forest wetlands, and 8 people gathered there to go exploring, guided by the owners.

A vernal pool is a wet spot (and it can be very wet indeed) that dries out in the summer. We went to what the hosts believed was a vernal pool, but it had lots of plants growing in it, and tadpoles swimming. "Not a vernal pool", said Jon from the Nature Conservancy. "A marsh".  Vernal pools do not have vegetation growing in them. However, not much further, there was a Classic Vernal Pool, with wood frog egg clusters and (I believe) salamander egg clusters. There were mosquito larvae swimming merrily (looks like a bad skeeter season), and water striders, and a tiny frog.

These egg clusters are surrounded by a very thin permeable membrane which fills with water when the eggs are laid. On the right is a cluster of (I think) spotted salamander eggs, which are always hitched to a twig. In fact, salamanders look for twiggy pools. On the left is a cluster of wood frog eggs, about 5" wide. PLEASE click on the picture, to enlarge it.  Take in those incredible colors. People who know their insects, for instance, Kate, will see Caddis fly larvae. (Sorry about the branch.) 

Spring flowers were starting here - it's several hundred feet higher and therefore colder. We saw Spring Beauty (too hard to get a picture), Dog-Toothed violets (not in bloom yet), blue, white and yellow violets, and Red Trillium. Most of the trillium in my neighborhood got washed away with West Street. But on the way home I noticed some by the roadside. The trillium (left) in my yard are just up, too, along with a tiny little struggling Spring Beauty. My Bloodroot are flourishing.

The highlight of the afternoon was the sighting of a woodcock, a bird which I had never seen.  It's a medium-sized, squat, brown bird that blends in perfectly with dried and dead leaves. 

If it hadn't moved, we wouldn't have seen him.  It walks strangely, bobbing back and forth with every step.  According to our hosts, they are all over these woods.

Our group was a real bunch of experienced nature-lovers, all out of my league. The organizer is Director of Land Protection for the Nature Conservancy. Our landowners are very active in local conservation movements. One man captures local moths and butterflies, breeds them, and lets them go. One woman works for the Vermont Land Trust, and another is a board member for the North Branch Nature Center. The last member of the group is an "outdoor educator" at a local private school.  I was afraid I was out of my element. But no! I knew the dog-tooth violet by its leaf, and was the first to identify the Spring Beauty.  Everyone else seems to know trees and birds. Of course, the Nature Conservancy guy know everything,  and is really delightful.

Jon and Jen are planning one outing each month. I'm really looking forward to the next one.

Spring in Brookfield, Part 1 of ???

My oh my, I do enjoy Spring. My daffs are often the first ones out.

Daffodils by the brook.

Daffodils by the house

Rhubarb!  Rhubarb!

And the true harbinger of Spring-Is-Here-To-Stay

The first violets

Part 2 of ??? another time ...

It was certainly spring in Montclair, Glen Ridge and Bloomfield, NJ. As I drove south from Vermont, pale greens emerged and grew brighter. Buds became furled leaves. Then those leaves unfurled. Finally the spring outburst of flowering bulbs and trees was complete. It had been so hot in NJ the previous two days – one day in the 90’s! – that many of the trees had begun to go by. Most weeping cherries were pale and dropping blossoms like flies. I didn’t have time for many picture-searching detours, and this is the best magnolia I could find.

The crabs were in full flower.

Then there were the redbuds.  The blossoms erupt from the stems, and the leaves come later. So all you see is branches wrapped in pink and white.

Thundercloud cherry is another of my favorite trees, and they were at peak as well, and I didn’t have the camera. First to appear are a cloud of small pink single blossoms, joined by deep purple leaves that produce such a dark background for the blossoms that the origin of the name is obvious. It’s a wonderful spring tree without a bit of green on it during flowering time, and is a wonderful contrast to all the other shades of green in the yard and on the street. I really regret having no pictures. There are good pictures here and here.

About the only time I heave a heavy sigh about living in Vermont is that I am unable to grow either a redbud or a Thundercloud. If either were hardy in Zone 4 they’d be growing around here.

I returned to Vermont today and Spring found its way here! The daffodils are up, more have buds, many are blooming, and there are lots of little blue chinodoxia. Pictures maybe tomorrow, if the sun is out, but I’m tired from a long drive on an upset stomach. Ernie, by the way, seems to have enjoyed his stay at Thelma’s but was very happy to get outdoors.

Easter parade

A parade of spring shoots - the temperatures zoomed to 70 on Friday and 78 on Saturday and plants shot out of the ground.

Here's some sedum, in the rock garden.

Bleeding Heart, by the living room door

Lupine, by the living room door

Daylilies by the driveway

Lilacs in the back yard.  They'll be light purple and the leaves will be dappled green and white.

The rhubarb is peeking through, as well as iris, golden glow (a tall yellow flower that I have a large clump of), the bachelor's button, the pulmonaria, violets, and a solitary columbine.

I'm very excited about going to NJ at the end of the week, and seeing my sweeties and my good friends.

Uncivil discourse in America, 2010

I am appalled at the turn political discourse has taken over the past several years. By political discourse I mean how people of any stripe air their political views.

Years ago the public was shocked when abortion opponents turned out to picket and demonstrate against abortion providers. Laws and regulations were enacted that allowed those folks the right to express their views but allowed unfettered public access to the clinics. Unpopular though those rules were, protestors abided by them. Words were exchanged, but being present was what counted, on both sides. It was civil.

Then abortion providers began to be murdered, and abortion clinics began to be bombed. Less civility, and the first real step into violence as a solution.

Early on in the health-care debate US Senators and Representatives went home to conduct "town meetings" on the subject. Many were met by constituents (and perhaps some instigators) who believed that name-calling and hurling expletives were appropriate ways to express their views. Far less civility, plus some thinly-veiled threats were issued, bringing us another step closer to violence as a solution.

I have believed that inflammatory, demagogic, declamatory political radio and TV talk shows (Limbaugh, O'Reilly) were to blame for the decline in respect and civility. Now I believe that the Internet should share the blame. As we all know, the Internet allows us to find "people like us" without ever leaving our own homes. That's how I found my knitting blogs. It's how we find Facebook friends.

But what does "people like us" mean? Every member of a virtual community (I include myself) has complete control over how much personal "stuff" the community knows. There's a famous cartoon where one dog says to another, "On the internet, no one knows you're a dog." Unless I disclose it, no one can judge me by my looks or by my age or by the clothes I wear or by where I live or by what I do. The lure of virtual communities is "All over the world there are people just like whoever you say you are, whoever you claim to be."

Internet communities don't have to tolerate the dissenter, or accomodate the "local strange person", or decide how to deal with a community mischief-maker or even wrong-doer. Internet communities can simply cut those people off. No longer do we have to alter our views or our behaviors or our prejudices to find a place in a community. Internet communities never demand that we learn anything about the people who are "not like us", and in so doing the Internet makes real-life communities difficult or even unattractive.

In a real-life community, people who are not like us remind us that the community is bigger than ourselves and our own desires and preferences.When we don’t have to engage with people who are not like us we can easily cease to value them as fellow citizens or even fellow human beings. Instead of doing the hard work of building community for all the community, it's so much easier to say "My way or the highway". 

It's a short step from "people like us" to "Us vs. Them".

Now that an inadequate-but-better-than-nothing healthcare bill has been signed by the President, US Senators and Representatives are receiving real death threats. Their local offices are being vandalized. Some of these politicians are concerned, legitimately, that their homes and families are next to be threatened.

We seem to be entering an "Us vs. Them" world, where physical intimidation and violence are actually becoming the solution of choice to disagreement. Not enough Congressional and political voices are saying that violence is unacceptable.

Read this blog about a recent event. Regardless of how your legislators and congresspeople feel about the healthcare bill, insist that they speak out about respect and civility and community.

It's official

Today, March 20, is the First Day of Spring.  It has been as warm and breezy as Spring should be, but not very sunny. I'm not going to quibble about that.

The day was full of spring sights.  Alberta, my next door neighbor, took her mare out for a ride. Ray Churchill let some cows out on a very small piece of dry pasture. Ferns have leafed out in the woods. My hellebores have sprouted (see a picture here.) Someone was enjoying the first four-wheeler ride on Ray Peck's fields, and everyone's dogs are racing and romping.

I have honored the day in several ways:
 
  1. I put the snow shovel and the roof rake away.

  2. I picked up my new lawn mower from Sears. So much of the snow disappeared so quickly that I can get to the shed, to put the mower away. I even read the Owner's Manual, and learned several new things.

  3. I hung the laundry on the porch clothesline with the expectation that it would dry without freezing.

  4. I opened not only Ernie's porch window, but the small crank-outs, to fill the porch with fresh air.

  5. I raked all the driveway gravel (moved to the grass by snow-plowing) back into the driveway, and threw grass seed on the raked spots.

  6. I prepared a raised bed for growing lettuce. I've been looking forward to planting lettuce since January. Guess what I forgot to buy. Of course, lettuce seeds. I'll do that tomorrow.

We know this is just one day. The temperatures will drop tomorrow, and cold weather will return on Monday. But it doesn't matter. Spring has stopped teasing us. Today Spring made a statement.