Among the Trees: Finding Solace in the Light

 On my first day back from California, I took myself for a walk at Colonial Park.  New Jersey has had a mild Winter and there were signs of Spring everywhere. 

Since I’ve been home, I’ve kept an eager eye out for additional hints of green and warmth.  When I see them, I feel a tiny surge of hope.  

That’s nice, because it’s been a bit of a hard patch for me.  I’ve had a bunch of small challenges in the past two weeks.  My head knows that they are small in the big scheme but my heart lets the hurts add up and that finds me doubting myself, my worth, and my place in this world.  

I know the remedy:  rest and time outside.  With Spring Break starting at the end of this week, I’ll have the time for both.  There are people who depend on me and people who love me and I know and feel this.  I plan to lean in to the support.  I’m a regular champ at self-care and I have a list of small treats for the coming weeks.  I know the light can be found and I’ll be looking for it in the coming weeks.

Climate Reality

My corner of New Jersey is about one inch above the water table on the best days and on Wednesday evening, as the remnants of Hurricane Ida washed through, we were reminded again of that fact.  This storm caused flash flood destruction everywhere and it was only by good luck and the fact that we never lost electricity that we survived largely unscathed.  For most of the night on Wednesday, our basement pump was running every three minutes, just staying ahead of the deluge.      

We’ve spent some time this weekend helping folks who weren’t as lucky as us and everywhere I look in my town is evidence of enormous water damage - wet basement items (including washers, dryers, refrigerators, furnaces, and hot water heaters) emptied onto the curbs of our town; houses moved off their foundations; ruined cars covered in the remnants of dirt that show how high the floodwaters rose.     

I vote on behalf of the planet and I believe in the Green New Deal.  So do the people around me who experienced devastation on Wednesday.  I grow weary of a nation of people who thinks it’s their right to ignore Mother Nature’s urgent call for help and I fear that the continued failure to take heed will bring even more devastation in its wake.     We cannot claim that we weren’t warned. 

The Path Ahead

In the last two years, I’ve taken to making pictures of the trails and paths I have been walking on.  There is something about the path forward that engages me, especially when I find a quiet patch in the woods, as I did a few weeks ago when I was at Kittatinny Valley State Park.

I expect it’s the uncertainty of the last few years that has made this project appealing to me. I know the pictures bring me happiness.        

These days, that’s reason enough to stop and make a picture of the path that lies ahead.

Lily Pad Season

Two of the ponds in the places I go for walks have been wet enough in the heat of Summer to sustain flowers on the lily pads.    

I find them magical.   

In year when so much has felt difficult and worrisome, I have appreciated the splendor of Summer more than ever.    

That’s happy!

Fading Hostas

The summer’s heat has begun to take a toll on my hosta plants, an August development that I am accustomed to.  But there is still beauty to be seen in the vivid colors of these leaves.

Even as they begin to fade, they make me happy.

Monday Garden Update: July 20

Things are coming along nicely and I sense warm tomato sandwiches and zinnia bouquets in my future.

Summer always satisfies.

Hydrangea Blooms!

There is a splendid hydrangea bush next to the gate in my backyard and I enjoy watching the leaves emerge each Spring.  Most years, I don’t get flowers.  I’ve read about pruning and fertilization until I am nearly blind and I remain rather confused about what it means to trim the old growth (or even whether my hydrangea is the sort that expects its old growth to be trimmed in order to bloom.)  Thus it is that blooms are rare on this hydrangea.

But when they do emerge, they are unfailingly splendid.  

A gardening friend reports to me that it’s a good year for hydrangeas and perhaps that explains my blooms.  That’s better explanation than my confused pruning efforts and offers hope for lovely blooms come next Summer.

Mother Nature Marches On: Your Weekly Dogwood Report - April 22

Spring has been its usual moody combination around here with days of sunshine and warmth followed by days of clouds and storms.  Today is beautifully clear sunshine but cold and windy because Spring makes her own rules.

Day by day, the warmth and light are showing the dogwood a path forward.  It’s a path of pretty flowers followed by fresh green leaves.  That’s happy!

Mother Nature Marches On: Your Weekly Dogwood Report - April 15

My backyard dogwood tree is just outside the kitchen pantry window and it’s a welcome sight each morning.  In the backyard, the tree itself is in the shadow of Old Man Tree, the giant red oak tree that is just off the back deck.  Even in the shadows of that noble old tree, the white flowers of the dogwood stand out.

The blooming season is here and in this morning’s sunlight the dogwood is standing tall.

For the next few weeks, as flowers and young leaves emerge, I will post a picture of the dogwood on Wednesday.  It’s a reminder that Spring and Mother Nature march on, even as we stay home under the shelter and shade of the dogwood.

Sunrise

The sky over the prairie is enormous and splendid and even when there was 40 miles per hour sustained winds or a tornado-alley storm, the Nebraska sky was often splendid.  

Though I had surely been awake before sunrise on many an occasion, it wasn’t until the first year I lived in Nebraska that I paid attention to the look of the sky at sunrise.  I can still remember the day that I first looked up at sunrise.  I was up early to attend an event in Lincoln, more than 150 miles away.  I was traveling with some other faculty from the school where I was a professor and we left before sunrise.  We were heading south and miles and miles of open prairie were to the east as the sun came up over the horizon.  It was one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen.  In the 8 years that I lived in Nebraska, the daily prospect of a splendid sunrise and sunset became normal.  To this day, more than 16 years since I left the midwest, I can still see that beauty in my mind.

I thought of all of this on Thursday morning when the sunrise painted the New Jersey sky with a lovely pink glow.  These days, I am often awake before the sunrise and I enjoy the chance to spy a look at the horizon as the sun comes up.  It’s no open prairie but rather a busy horizon filled with trees and houses.  But it is often lovely in its own way.

Winter sunrise light is one of the treats of this cold season and the view I spied on Thursday was a splendid reminder of Mother Nature’s beauty.  

Dogwood Monday: October 22

After a warmer than usual September and early October, sometime last week, Fall took firm hold of our days.  Sweaters came out in abundance as a decisive chill took hold.  I turned off the air conditioner on Tuesday and turned on the furnace in the same week, an unusual development.  The dogwood’s changes have really taken off thanks to the cool nights in the past week.

These pictures were made this morning, in the dim sunlight.  Each day features a bit less sunlight and as we march toward the time change, I look forward to the sunlight in the morning, the only consolation for the dark afternoons that are coming our way soon.

There will be some leaf-raking in my future, likely plenty of it.  I don’t mind because Fall means hot tea, homemade soups, cinnamon apples, pumpkin everything, and cozy blankets.  That’s happy!

The Slow Spring Thaw

In agonizingly slow days, Winter’s cold is loosening its grip.  My neighbor’s south-facing front yard has a line of brave daffodils and tulips, while my own blooms are taking their time.  Spring seems to be in sight, though its warmth is so-far elusive.  I long for warmth and sunlight and find myself looking at pictures from last April to remind myself that blooms may not be here until mid-month.  And then I find myself in front of a calendar, silently counting the days, knowing that blooms will arrive on their own time.

Winter rolls in a slowly as well.  I’ve spent many a November day ready to wear a thick cardigan sweater only to find that it’s still too warm for that choice.  But warm days in the late Fall feel like stolen pleasures as the world sinks into Winter’s starkness.  After the first bunch of Fall color has fallen from the trees, crunchy dry leaves remain on many trees, waiting for cold winds of Winter to shake them loose.  As we wait for the first snow, I contemplate the cozy and homey days to come.

By April, the leaves are long-past gone and empty tree branches seem stark and miserly in the cold.  I know that there are tight buds waiting the burst open; I know they won’t be rushed.  And yet I’m weary of the chill and want to hurry them into being.  I swap out my Winter wools and corduroys for Spring linen and cotton well before the temperatures warrant such things.  I joke that my pride and willpower will keep me warm.  

To ease my impatience, I buy $6 worth of tulips from the grocery store.  I cheer on the chirping birds as I drink warm coffee in the cold kitchen and watch the sun rise in the eastern dawn.  Last weekend, I put out my spinning bunny sculpture.  Eventually, this corner along the fence will be the land of my fairy garden.  For now, the bunny spins around and around, looking in vane for Spring.  I remind myself that Mother Nature has her own stately time table.  

But it’s clear that I don’t quite believe it.

Old Man Tree: December 1

As we approach the Winter Solstice, Old Man Tree is stately, with stark bare limbs, ready for the cold season.  As our daily share of sunlight fades, during the weekdays I most often see my tree in the dim light of sunrise or the darkness of twilight or beyond.  These pictures were made just after sunrise.

I’ve yet to finish all of my Fall chores; there is some leaf collection to be completed and a few more tomato cages to gather up.  The garden catalogs are pouring in and I’ve set them aside for the first snow storm of the season, when I will curl up under a blanket with a warm mug of tea and daydream of the flowers and blooms that will arrive in the Spring.  

The garden that is and the garden that will be both grow under the watchful eye of the tall limbs of Old Man Tree.  Though he’s not in the physical center of the yard, he is the spiritual center.  As I drive home each day, I can see him tall above my house before home itself comes into view.  When we look out the windows, he’s there.  He’s solid and true, Mother Nature’s witness to our lives and the world around us.

Old Man Tree: March 1st

Clearly, February brought no progress in my plan to tear the ivy off the trunk of my tree.  There are signs that we’ll have an early Spring, so I’d best get cracking in the next few weeks.  Happily, Spring Break is later this month and I fantasize that break will provide me some time for this chore.

I always love Spring’s arrival.  It’s a season of tempting promise, with more and more warmth and bits of verdant green that have me dreaming of the lushness that will soon follow.  I’ve garden catalogs with dog-eared pages that fuel my planting daydreams.  There are bulbs with green tips peeking out of the soil.  The amount of daylight is steadily increasing and the coming time change is means a lengthening of the twilight that is my favorite part of the day.  

Though I am anxious to get Spring started, Old Man Tree will move at a more stately pace.  For me, that’s a welcome reminder of the value of patience.  Old Man Tree reminds me that Mother Nature is powerful and enduring, an idea that I find profoundly comforting.

January 1: Old Man Tree

Since she moved into the neighborhood in late 2011, the neighbor in the house to my immediate west has complained to me about Old Man Tree, the splendid red oak tree that is the centerpiece of my back yard.  Her complaints have taken on an array of concerns, each growing more nutty.  She doesn’t like the leaves it drops in the fall; she’s convinced its responsible for the poison oak in our yards; she’s complained that it may lose branches and fall on her children while they are playing in their backyard; she’s worried that it will fall and land on her house while her children are sleeping.  I’ve repeatedly reassured her that the tree is no danger but all of that has been to no avail.  Crazy neighbor continues to request that I cut down the tree.  I’ve explained that’s not necessary and repeatedly said no.  In October 2016, with no warning to me, she reported my tree to the township inspector claiming that it was a dead tree and was therefore a danger.  

The inspector left a notice at my house requiring tree inspection.  I was furious with him and my unreasonable neighbor.  I was also afraid that the cranky town inspector would require removal of the tree, which I dearly love.  Within the week, an arborist arrived to inspect the tree.  He declared it sound.  The summer’s uneven water supply had stressed the tree and the result was some leafless branches and smaller leaves, as the tree conserved its energy.  But Old Man Tree is healthy and well, the arborist declared.  At over 90 years old, the double trunked gem is one of the oldest red oak trees in central New Jersey and likely to live many more years.

The arborist arranged for the tree to be trimmed; I had the major overhead branches cabled to provide additional strength.  The town inspector approved and I explained the plans to my crazy neighbor.  Overhead branches were thinned and the tree was made more secure.

Thankfully, Old Man Tree is here for 2017.  He is alive and well and stands guard over my house, an amazing display of Mother Nature’s strength and beauty.

Old Man Tree remains the anchor of my backyard and each day his noble and enduring strength make my heart sing.  

For 2017, I’ll celebrate Old Man Tree on the first of every month.  In his majesty and endurance I find hope in a year that badly needs it.

That’s happy!

Dogwood Saturday: Week 3

For every one of nature's seasons, I find there are a few weeks where we stand between one season and the next, not quite ready to make the complete transition, with the changes slow in comparison to the pace of the days.  Those days are filled with promise and they inevitably yield to an explosion of seasonal change.  

We’re at that point in Spring.  After a rainy and cold patch last weekend, each day in the past week has featured a bit more warmth to go with the increasing sunlight.  The forecast for the week ahead is even more warmth and sun and soon enough Spring will have come on full blast.  My dogwood is looking to lead the way.  

Well, half of the way; the branches that get less shade from the house are the advance guard of Spring.

Closer to the house, the branches in the shade are a bit slower to grow their flowers.

The glory of Spring is everywhere I look.  That’s happy!

Mother Nature Runs the Show

After a mild Winter, the first day of Spring dawned with temperatures just below freezing.  By the time the sun set, there was a whirl of snowflakes in the air.  A few stayed for this morning, mixing icy snow and early blooms from Old Man tree on the table on the back deck.

In the front yard, the crocus blooms felt the chill.

The tulips and daffodils still on the way also had a taste of the cold.  Warmth and sunlight are on the way, of course, but it’s always useful to be reminded who is in charge.

Bird Nest

For a little while in May, a neighborhood robin made her home in the branches of a bush in my front yard.  Her nest was secluded from the wind and rain, easily viewed from the front porch, and mama robin used it to hatch up some chirping baby birds.

It was a lovely addition to the Spring finery.

The Exuberant Rhododendron

Once Mother Natures turns on the tap of Spring, the blooms and blossoms she generates are simply splendid.  Case in point: my front yard rhododendrons.  They had a bit of a tough winter, thanks to all the cold and snow.  But this Spring, they’ve come to celebrate the warmth.  They flank the front steps and are lovely.

Mother Nature gets to be garish and showy.  

With blooms like this, who can blame her?

Winter’s Rest

In my perfect world, happy endings always occur.  For this reason, I sometimes read the end of a book first, just to prepare myself for the prospect of an unhappy ending.  Of course, life doesn’t always offer happy endings and, even when it does, it may be that there is difficulty and sadness along the way.  To remind me to be patient with this uncertainty, I like to garden.

A garden demands some labor in exchange for a reward a few months later.  The growing season alone is a lesson in waiting.  Of course, I’ve also planted my fair share of seeds that don’t sprout.  So I know that gardening is not a guarantee of a happy ending.   But it is an investment in the idea that patience may bring beauty.  Seasonal change is its own reminder of constancy and on the coldest and darkest day of the year, the promise of a warm long day to come is as certain as life gets.

I thought about this last weekend as I got out my garden shoes for one last set of garden chores before winter.  I dug up my dahlia bulbs and stored them in the basement for next spring.  Tomato cages were put away for next season.  I ran the mower over the leaves on the lawn to mulch them up; this disposes of the fallen leaves and feeds the lawn over winter.  This particular chore also had the double  purpose of running the mower out of gas for the winter.  

Many of the leaves in my yard have already fallen and the stark beauty of winter has begun to take hold.  The peach tree has just two leaves left.

The apple and pear trees are not quite done dropping their leaves.

The garden had a few roses that had survived the cold.  I brought those inside for one last bouquet.

The cold temperatures that are settling in are a reminder that Winter’s season of rest is nearly here.  Gardening chores are shelved for a little while.  

On the front porch, a few pots have bulbs hidden in the dark soil.  These porch plantings will be the first sign of spring when it arrives in a few months.

Until then, Mother Nature has ordered that we rest.  It is a welcome respite.