Orientation

We begin here, in the dark of night, on the eve of spring. 

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I will be at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, once, twice, sometimes three times monthly for the year to contemplate how art can address the ecological problems we face, how and why nature functions in art, and riskily, question the role played by science and research in shaping both our view of nature and nature, itself. Time will be spent with researchers and their projects, to ask questions, document their work, give insight when possible, explore, and witness this unique environment contextualized by ecological science and the people who practice it. This unusual opportunity and challenge to picture the creation of knowledge, to give image to what is ordinarily conceived of as "data," to process what is years, or decades, in the making in a sixtieth of a second is quite a thrill.

As much as I wanted to present an image of ecology science in action, of nature preserved, or in need of help, what have I but an image of the depths of night lit by past science applied to commercial technology in high pressure sodium red and metal halide green.

Waking for the first time in a structure designed by architecture students for the 2009 Solar Decathalon, in an old field turned prairie, in a place nine square miles in size, snow falling lightly, it is the sun, a faint and hazy circle barely visible above the oak trees, that allows any orientation. The kitchen window, I now see, faces directly east on this vernal equinox and the long wall of windows, faces to the south, as does the solar roofline of this Cedar Creek home.

Snow still on the ground, still falling, the echoes of Sandhill Cranes above the low clouds emerge like prehistoric bugling, a trumpeting of arrival easily heard from over two miles away. Spring doesn't announce itself in this moment, but arrives as an extended passage of a multitude of individual actions and reactions that collectively pronounce spring in the mind and body of humanity.

The whispers of spring were colored by children in bright jackets and knit hats. There were adults, too, but enthusiasm among adults is often restrained in comparison to kids who engage the world with fresh eyes and quick fingers.

In what resembles a partial scene from early Netherlandish painting, kids and adults are pointed toward oak leaves and given the language to identify the trait of clinginess found in some deciduous species -marcescence. This connection to the painting of Northern Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries may not be as superficial as it appears. The refinement of the lens, its use in art and science, the growing secularism of images in response to the iconoclasm of the Reformation era, and the growth of landscape as a genre of art have influenced an image like this.

Jan van Eyck, 1432, detail of his Ghent Alterpiece. The compression created by longer focal length camera lenses mirrors the symbolic compression of space in painting. The squinting and devotional gazing resonates with the expressions of children in attention to oak leaves.

Jan van Eyck, 1434, detail of The Arnolfini Wedding. The blending of symbolic and visible detail, the marriage of secular and sacred, and emergence of the earthly and supernatural qualities in art. While we tend to get wrapped up in the transfiguration of form through painting, in this digital, mechanical age, can we not also find transfiguration in the photographic? Note the convex mirror in the background. It resembles a lens, suggests an eye, and adds a level of intellectual complexity not yet seen in portraiture. All pictures in this post can be clicked for a larger view. Alternatively, click the link for a much larger view of these paintings.

The glacial lake deposit of sand known as the Anoka Sand Plain is the foundation of a unique environment that contains 30% of Minnesota's threatened species despite having only 2% of its land area. Cedar Creek's boundaries lay within the sand plain limits and has had much of its nine square miles preserved for decades. European settlers established farming in the area, although prior to modern agricultural technology, the poor soil (sand) limited productivity. Twentieth century oil-based fertilization advanced agriculture in the region, but much like agriculture near cities elsewhere, it is slowly being displaced by housing and commercial development. In many ways the place reminds me of my sandy roots, another glacial deposit with oaks and displaced agriculture called Long Island, NY.

Naturalist Megan explaining that ants have created a prairie micro-environment that is warmer, more fertile, and diverse than the snow covered surroundings. The recognition of ecological relationships within this fairly limited biota appear to be accessible. Can insight gained from study of this phenomena scale up to the entire earth? Are we the ants of planet anthill? Questions like these make room for the sacred and supernatural in divining our relationship with this world. Presumably we wish to inhabit it with greater sensitivity to the well being of the whole. If not, we can always look toward the art of Hieronymus Bosch for guidance.

Related Posts

 Next: Blinded Me With Science

The Woods Today

Back in NYC I might take a walk from time to time, but more often than not it was for the purpose of getting somewhere that I might find myself on a walk. Today, after gaining some ground on research for my (other, new) summer course Shipwreck of the Minotaur at the Mayapple Center for the Arts and Humanities, I chose to take a walk through the woods with some purpose in mind, but mostly to get out of doors for an hour. I did need to check on the sap buckets, as cooler weather has extended our sap season, and also to check on my Easter day's garlic mustard eradication project around the back slough.

I've kept my eye on the Tradescantia spp. that I transplanted from Brooklyn last year in a new garden where the old lilac used to dwell. It looks to have survived. The same garden is now home to the old Brooklyn 'New Dawn' climber rose (a rose that has seen four different yards over its years), a sedum I found growing here in the woods, Dicentra eximia from Brooklyn too, and whatever else was growing there that we've decided to allow (and hopefully not that horseradish I did my best to dig out).

In the front yard, all varieties of garlic are now soaking up the sun. Incidentally, these are not German Hardy, but an artichoke variety, possibly with 'giant' in the name, that were shipped gratis, likely because of poor size thanks to drought and fire in the garlic seed producing region. There are as many commas in that sentence as garlic in this row, but my point is that the sign is a stand in.

I headed into the woods, although the wind made for a biting chill and a hazardous walk through the ready-to-fall. So much dead wood squeaking and creaking like a brig on the open seas, I hesitated to pause for the earliest of ephemerals like Virginia Waterleaf, Hydrophyllum virginianum or the mystery plant, below, that caught my eye as I hiked off path to navigate a significant enlargement of the water line in the back slough.

I was motivated to get back to the slopes of the slough to check on the garlic mustard that I chose to spray with a low percentage mix of glyphosate and water last Sunday. Spring is the time to deal with garlic mustard, particularly March and the earliest of April. Virginia Waterleaf, ramps, some rosa species, a few asters, and other early, less pernicious weeds are coming up and I have no desire to affect those in the act of ridding the woods of garlic mustard. In these zones hundreds, probably thousands, of garlic mustard seedlings are sprouting from the seed bank. It was not an easy decision to spray, especially within a yard of the slough's water line. And I am frustrated to report that after six days the results were not significant. Most leaves were mottled, but the plants were not in the state of distress I would have expected. I've considered that I may need to apply a second course, although I am not happy about that. It was necessary to do so, even with a much higher percentage of glyphosate, on the buckthorn "hedge" growing alongside the garage pad. What I have to consider is the compression of the wet soil in spring. It appears to me the less foot steps, the better, especially after the frost heave has done such a nice job of loosening, aerating, and draining the soil surface.

In the past I thought garlic mustard didn't do well in flooded soil, and maybe it won't if the slough remains flooded. However, what I've seen is that in early spring the ice melts and freezes and this heave extracts the garlic mustard from the mucky soil. It then floats, roots and all, in the spring melt water, preserved in a cool water bath until conditions improve. At the water's edge the leaves and stems of garlic mustard are bluish gray to the deepest purple and often hard to spot against the dark water. The garlic mustard a foot or two away, on drier land, have some purple to the stems, but the leaves are quite green. So green, in fact, that it is a little painful to pull or spray at this time where you find yourself longing for the green of spring.

So what happens to this water's edge garlic mustard? Does it die? I don't think so. Many of the plants, some of which I simply scooped out of the water and some which were easily pulled from the muck, had the biggest roots. Garlic mustard is a biennial, so last year the seedlings emerged and grew strong, despite the waterlogged soil, and this year they are ready to grow and set seed. I'm not willing to wait for the sake of observation, yet I am sure many will escape my vision or reach, and I will be a witness to their success.

As I make my way around the slough, eyes to the ground, I think much about what good the garlic mustard could be doing. What species make use of it for cover or for food? Does it stabilize the soil on the wooded slopes? Is balance achievable? Is garlic mustard simply symptomatic of a woods so degraded by other culprits (err, humans, for instance)? In other words, how necessary is the work I've begun, and am I causing more harm than good? And, you know, I like questions.

If you would like to see more photographs of the woods, follow me on Instagram @frankmeuschke where I post regularly under the hashtag #thewoodstoday.

Winter Mind

Winter has finally come to us. Temperatures below 20 degrees F, snowfall, car doors frozen shut with the last freezing rain, the clinkeling of ice crystals shed at forty five miles per hour. Despite this wintry attitude, we here at PrairieWood have work to do. The new shop is now standing with roof and ceiling. It never occurred to me that I would work into the night, outdoors, at just a handful of degrees above zero, but I did just that last Sunday so that we could get the wiring in before the ceiling closed out our access.

While I've been able to put most house projects on hold until springtime, one thing is still weighing heavily on my mind -the woods. What once went concealed by countless leaves is now made obvious by the contrasting wet bark and newly fallen snow. If I could sum up its appearance in one word, it would be diagonal. What is it about a wood of slanted trees that is so disturbing? Is our sense of order satisfied by horizontal ground and vertical columns of trees? Is the removal of angled wood a goal of a "clean" woods? 

What we need here is a plan, a forest plan, to guide us in the care of these woods. But wait. Why do the woods need our care at all? Isn't that awfully anthropocentric? Couldn't the woods take care of itself as it has for thousands of years?

Why is it so hard to look at the woods and see ourselves in it? We entertain the woods as a medium of passage. We experience the woods, but are not a part of it. Our aim is to be out-of-the-woods. We are beasts of clearings where a few selected trees may stand sentry. Why not the woods? Is it a blow to our ego to be among such large beings? Or is it the inherent danger of a sustained presence in the woods, the mashup of life and limb? Maybe this is the most practical tack, that a life in the woods is a life fraught with falling timber. Even among the trees there is danger. No elderly tree gives way without taking or scarring those around it. The falling of a great old tree reverberates through the forest, destroying the order, remaking communities, providing opportunities for well placed upstarts. 

I've realized how easy it is to make a metaphor of the woods, but the questions are more difficult. In our short time here we've had to ask many, and no answer is quite right. Any intervention is yet another question, or string of questions. We cannot extract ourselves from the story of the woods; people created it and we are living it. 

I regret to speak so abstractly, but somewhere in this line of thinking is a better perspective that may be teased out in writing. I understand intuitively that we have a role in this mess, that we are the aliens among the trees, roadsides, and fields. We cast dispersions on the plants and animals that take advantage of sensitive niches, but were it not for us this would hardly be the case. We are the aliens, the agents of drastic change. We project it onto others (plants, animals) while claiming our place. There would be no buckthorn, no garlic mustard, no barberry or burning bush if it weren't for our own invasive nature. Can we make it right? Can you take it back? Can you undo the done? 

This is a defining aspect of our culture. We invade a place, instigating the consequences that we see all around us and then tell ourselves that it is the others' fault, it is their doing that has created the mess and maybe, just maybe, we'll commit resources to cleaning it up, and it will be ongoing, forever perhaps. The productive citizen looks away; it's just easier that way, isn't it? We can spend a life throwing resources at a problem that traces back to exactly where we stand. Is it rational to label plants and animals invasive and yet completely ignore our responsibility for it? 

In the woods I see the paradigm of our conflict, one as much with the natural world as it is with other human beings. I am left asking you if an answer, one that can never be fully right, is to look away or to commit the resources to try to correct the damage, forever, perhaps. And what to make of the trying, because trying isn't necessarily accomplishing anything other than assuaging one's conscience of total responsibility. 

I don't mean to be melodramatic. It's simply that so much of what appears to ail us today is hindered by our unwillingness to take responsibility, or at the very least, to understand our responsibility. I am not personally responsible for the rampant buckthorn in the woods, but I sure can see how it came to pass and how I've benefited from our ancestral migration to this place. 

Ignorance (in the sense of not knowing, but also ignoring) leads to bad decisions, or self-centered ones, and consequences difficult to ameliorate. For instance, water holds in the middle swale, in the back woods, and leads to ponding, mosquitoes, and to water-logged roots which can bring an untimely death to the trees there, fallen timber, more sunshine, and then faster buckthorn spread. I considered trenching a drainage so that the captured water could drain into the great wetland. Autumn came and I saw that some trees at the center of the middle swale remained green-leafed long after the rest went yellow.

Upon investigation, the bark and leaf, below, spoke. These are silver maple, Acer saccharinum, the fast growing, brittle-wooded tree of wet areas in the Eastern Forest.

I can only guess that silver maples living at the boundaries of its range put the species under pressures not necessarily found near its core. So I came to an understanding of this middle swale. I will not dig a trench to help drain it, yet I will dig deeper into what else is growing, and dying, in this area, and attempt to understand it before acting or, quite possibly, not acting at all.

The questions of how to act and what sustained gestures are both possible and effective, are for our winter mind. What can be done that limits the rampant buckthorn and doesn't undermine the fragile species under threat from its able fecundity? We spent a quantity of time pulling garlic mustard from the drainage stream connecting the northern, small wetland to the great, southern wetland. Our work was effective, but it also appeared to me that there was a significant reduction in jewelweed in the very same area. I'm working on memory, now, but I thought it was more prolific in that region in past years. So I wonder, was it the garlic mustard that reduced the jewelweed population to nearly zero, was it natural swings in population due to unusual temperatures or flooding, or was it our trampling feet that inhibited its seed from sprouting? 

Every action has consequences, so many of which are unknown. I recall how, as a child, certain people were inclined to spray pesticides into the tall oak trees to bring down gypsy moth caterpillars. Our camp director screamed, during lunch, that by God he was not going to allow those trees to die! Our neighbor brought in a pump truck, unannounced in summer time, and sprayed his trees. I am still haunted by the overwhelming bitter smell of the pesticide, the sticky residue dripping from the trees, the dead birds and squirrels on the ground. His trees didn't die, nor did the camp's, but then, neither did the vast majority of unsprayed trees.

Each of us who is responsible for a part of the woodlands at the edge of the prairie has to choose for ourselves whether to act, or look away, to spray herbicides and trample, or do nothing. There is no mandate, we operate independently of our neighbors and yet nature cares little for these arbitrary boundaries.

I am inclined to act, yet feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of what is necessary to be effective. We hesitate to spray herbicide, usually in two or more applications, but pulling is incredibly time consuming, physical and often, incomplete. Should we adjust to the new, simpler woods, make peace with the knowledge that we brought this thicket on ourselves? Could there be a middle ground where buckthorn and garlic mustard and all the others are accepted to a degree, where we do not look away but effectively manage the woods?

*all photos are from October, showing yellow-leafed sugar maples along with the green understory of buckthorn -low growing, young plants spread north while the large shrubs reside on the south facing slope.

Brave New Habitat

I could hardly believe the words coming out of my mouth -mosquito h a b i t a t. Yet that's what I said to the young lady in hot pink sweat jacket (ahem, hoodie) that loped out of the north (formerly little) wetland after I announced myself with a stern good morning.

The Metropolitan Mosquito Control District makes regular, unannounced visits to survey the mosquito load of our wetlands. I have yet to be unsurprised by their presence or put in other words: they do not knock, call, or in any way let you know when they are there (unless you see their truck; in this case it was parked on the road). I asked her to let us know when they would be present with a simple knock on the door, that they need to be careful of falling limbs or trees, and by all means -please use the trails instead of trouncing the understory. 

This was the second time this spring that I've asked them not to spray. Things need to eat I say, and they eat mosquitoes, and even more so -the spray kills indiscriminately. When I ask why they are spraying, this is mosquito habitat after all (there it is), they toss up the usual suspect -West Nile Virus. To which I've got a handful of retorts, and they then see that I am less than hospitable to this "public service." 

What we have here is a major home to countless frogs and toads, dragonflies that we love, bats, birds, and so much more. Mosquitoes bother the humans, don't get me wrong -I am thoroughly annoyed by them, but there are maybe 20 humans around these wetlands. West Nile Virus is not deeply concerning to me (maybe you, I can't say) but it is to me a "worrying tactic" used to nudge people into being agreeable to spraying. The truth is, or rather my truth is, that I believe they are spraying because mosquitoes are a nuisance and people just wish they were gone. 

Great. Now I am a proponent of mosquito habitat. I probably just broke the Fox News whacko meter. 

The helicopters fly just over the tree line in order to dump BTI, Bacillus thuringiensis subspecies israelensis, into the wetlands. I accept this practice as a compromise measure between myself and the mosquito-agitated public, although it seems an exorbitant use of funds for such spotty coverage. I can't say I've noticed a difference between post-BTI spread periods and untreated periods (but then, I'm biased -science please!).

The spraying of adult pesticides is done via backpack by day and likely by truck fogger at night (you may have seen this in NYC). I've continually asked surveyors to report back to their managers that we do not accept spraying on this land, even if our neighbors do. Apparently we need to get onto some sort of "do not spray" list. I have yet to find out how to do that, but I will, eventually.


O wonder!
How many godly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't.

 —William Shakespeare, The Tempest

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I've begun posting on Facebook, at MOUND, and if you click the link at the upper left it will take you to my new page. Consider following me there, too, because I have begun using it for all the short form pictures and posts that never make it into this journal.

Ramp On

Ramps! I'd forgotten about them, curious as that is because I did have plans to plant them at some point in the future. As with any forage, I questioned my instinct, and kneeled down for a leaf tear. Unmistakable onion scent, however more, um, woodsy, earthy, funky even, with the slightest floral essence.  The taste? Mild, earthy onion and exceptionally sweet (especially after the 30 degree nights). Our ramp is Allium tricoccum var. burdickii, a contested species or variation of the Allium tricoccum found at ramp festivals of Appalachia and farmers' markets of the North American east.

I stood admiring my patch, how wonderful the woods can be, until the creaking timbers above my head urged me on. As I continued my walk I discovered another four or five small patches. A number low enough to recall each without resorting to markers or maps. Consistent preference for slopes (prompting Betsy to humorously suggest it as another origin of its name) and well-shaded, summering sites suggested that they should have blanketed our shady, sloping woods.

The next day, cool and damp after a decent rain, I stepped into a woods of rain softened, pliable leaves under foot. I floated. Squirrels and chipmunks went about their business unaware of my approach, but wary were the ducks that fluttered into flight the moment the chorus of frogs went silent. No matter, I wasn't out in soft shoes and sweater to see the ducks, I was out to collect a few ramps for dinner.

I began to spot more and more ramp colonies, in all corners of the woods, although mostly out back and along the south-facing side slope. They grew under most species of trees, often near the trunk, nearly always on a slope, yet in one instance on a flat near the great wetland. In all cases an abundance of leaf litter, and in none was there any garlic mustard (although prevalent nearby in at least a couple of locations). There are so many patches that I, like a squirrel forgetting his buried nuts, can hardly remember a portion of them. This is for the best, as there is plenty for the two of us, and we must ensure the continuance of the species.

Our ramps belong to the variation burdickii. The common ramp grows in dense colonies, with relatively large leaves, and most strikingly shows red or purple coloration just above the bulb along the lower stem. A variation burdickii colony shows fewer individual plants, has somewhat shorter, more slender leaves, and does not show purple coloration on its all-white stem. Burdickii flowers significantly earlier than its counterpart and is also more likely to reproduce from seed due, in part, to the colony's open habit.

Along with the popularity of ramps in restaurants and home kitchens, they have become abundant at New York area farmers' markets and on foragers' tables. New York State has declared Allium tricoccum var. burdickii as endangered, placing it on its protected native species list. It cannot be legally wild-harvested, although Allium tricoccum is still open to harvesting (for now). Given the rarity of burdickii, it is unlikely that you will find much of it in New York, but if you do, don't harvest.

If you find yourself salivating over a patch of ramps, check for a dense colony habit, then pull away some soil to look for purple coloration on the lower stem. If you're sure you've got the harvestable ramp, only pluck a few whole plants from each colony, or better, just clip a single leaf from several plants. Ramps take several years to mature, and several more if the colony is severely depleted, so please contain your harvest zeal. The bulbs may be four inches below the soil surface, so dig deeply with a long, slender trowel without disturbing or severing several neighboring bulbs. Do not trample ramps or other plants on your way to them and be mindful of seedlings along the edges of the colony. Finally, beware of causing soil erosion on the wooded slopes ramps prefer.

In our woods we will tread lightly, doing what we can to minimize competitors like garlic mustard, Alliaria petiolata, and take a measured harvest. Tomorrow I'll cut a few new leaves to eat with eggs. Sure, I cook, but here's a local chef with the real ramps recipes.

The Backwoods

At the western edge of the land, just before it rises up toward the old gravel pit slash horse farm, there is a topographical depression, what I will call the swale. Although its origin may be artificial, it is one of the more interesting features of the land.

I walked out to the swale to investigate bark-stripping that, as far as I can tell, is only happening here.

Stripped clean from the base well up the tree, with no broken branches, so it isn't deer rubbing or eating the bark.

Several feet away I spotted this mess and a hodgepodge of prints.

Above it, more stripped bark. An animal that climbs, or flies. Hmm, I'm going with climbs as birds at the base of a tree seems to put them at risk of predators. Probably a rodent, maybe a squirrel.

I see hanging material, which at a distance I took for lichen, on many of the upright twigs. On closer inspection I recognize it as the dried remains of duckweed. Ah, an excellent indicator of the depth of the past summer's vernal pool, which looks to have been nearly two feet in places.

Trees fall easily here, succumbing to the wind and saturated soil, a soil made visible by the exposed root mound of a fallen tree. I wonder how it is that it holds much water at all, as it feels crumbly and porous. This, and the spring which emerges from the base of a tree about two hundred feet from here, reveal a complex hydrology that I've yet to fully understand.

Toward the back and upslope lay an assortment of aggregations; what looks to be concrete, dumped by the gravel mining operation that long ago operated just over the property line.

The aggregations have weathered, moss clings to it now, and one day I may make aesthetic use of this waste. 

An old, plastic six-pack in the swale.

Beyond the swale, up and quickly down again to the edge of the large wetland, a sign painted and hung by Rex. It read "American Trash Museum."

This neck of the woods, at the bottom land of a ravine just beyond our property, is full of cast-off appliances. Some go back fifty or more years. The dump exists at an intersection of what farmers would consider three "wastes" -a ravine, a wetland, and a woods. Well, the woods held some value as a woodlot, and the cows could roam them for munching on all kinds of under-growth (which probably helped the buckthorn get a foothold), but the other two were rarely looked upon kindly by farmers and country men. 

Looking southeast you see the wetland. Where there is little to no grasses there's visible snow, revealing where water is most likely to stand in wetter periods. Here the ravine drains its steep-sided slopes.

Up the ravine, littered mostly with old washing machines, but also empty fifty-five gallon drums and five gallon pails of mostly unknown chemicals. If you live in a second-growth forest that once was part of a farm, on or near a farm, you can probably find this kind of dump, or what remains of it. 

At the top of the ravine, a two hundred feet or so off our land, looking toward the adjacent horse farm and the steep incline of the old gravel pit. 

Trash comes in many forms.

And offers its warnings.

Heading back, one of Rex's many brush piles, consisting mostly of fallen branches. There are ten or twelve of these around the woods, and more could be made, should one choose to.