Bottled Up

Bottling cider wine

Today I bottled up half of last fall's harvest of cider wine. It had been in the 5 gallon oak barrel since early August, when I noticed that it had stopped fermenting in the carboy. Bottling is relatively simple. I wash out a couple of dozen used wine bottles and let them dry, and then about a half hour before bottling I submerge a couple of dozen #9 corks in a cooking pot, bring the pot to a boil and then let it cool to lukewarm by bringing it out the porch. I then bring the barrel up from the cellar and set it on the edge of the porch, take out the bung cap and insert a piece of plastic hose that serves as a siphon into the bottles which I place in containers on the ground below. After the barrel empties into the bottles--it's important to stop filling each bottle at about the place where the neck just begins to widen, so there's enough air for the cork to displace when it's inserted--I bring the bottles up to the porch. I have a hand-operated corking device that compresses each cork and inserts it into a bottle placed on a platform for the purpose. Cork about a couple of dozen and it's all over for now. I did taste it--last year's batch was flavorful and more alcoholic than usual, which means that among other things it will keep longer in the bottle. 

Bottled up

Bottles are back down in the cellar now, awaiting hand-made labels, while I took the fermented cider out of the second carboy and re-filled the oak barrel, again using the plastic tube siphon, capped the barrel, set it on its crade in the cellar, and will wait a couple more months for it to age in the oak and then bottle another couple of dozen, getting altogether about four cases. The bottled wine can be drunk now, but it's tastier if you wait about six months to start in on it. I can't wait to share it with those who helped pick and press the apples in the fall of 2011. Luckily there are two cases instead of one, because this year there were so few apples on my trees at harvest time that there was no point in trying to make wine.

Apple Report--2012

This was an unusual year for apples, and the result was no fall harvest or cider-making. In September the trees did have some apples on them, but not as much as usual. Somehow by early October most of them were off the trees, which looked about as they normally do a month or so later, the leaves drying up and falling. There had not been a frost or freeze, and yet the year was a month ahead of itself in tree behavior. Besides, ravenous whitetail deer and a few porcupines took care of the remaining fruit and by Columbus Day, the usual time for harvest, the trees were almost bare.

Skunk Cabbages Reborn 2

New skunk cabbages grow from the old, Sept. 13, 2012

On October 11, 2011 I posted an entry showing the re-birth of some of the skunk cabbages, a puzzling affair in which new growth appeared out of the old, not in the spring as one would think it would, but in the fall after the old growth had died. Today I observed the same thing, a few weeks earlier than I had done last year. Above is a photo of the new growth, which is green. The decaying old growth is purplish brown, and the blackish spadix can be seen near the center of the photo, decaying as well, the white center open to the air.

A late August update

August is drawing to a close, and once again garden stock-taking is at hand. As last year, this year the deer made an incursion into the garden by the old store, even though this year beans, which most attract them, were not growing there. The tomatoes attracted a doe to jump over the 7-foot fence and browse, around the 10th of August. Soon after discovering the damage, I covered the tomatoes and cucumbers with agribon, and after that the deer left the garden alone. They will not push the agribon aside to get at the growth underneath. This would have caused a problem with mildew had the weather been damp and rainy, but for most of the past few weeks it has been dry, very dry, to the point that once again I have to be careful with the water in the well. The tomatoes, planted late, have been harvested for a couple of weeks now, chiefly the Jetstar variety. The late blight on the tomatoes has been exacerbated by the dampness under the agribon, for although it has rained little, this remains a humid environment especially at night--the humidity is around 85% even when the days are dry. Later this week I intend to harvest and process the first batch of paste tomatoes--all Roma this year. The summer squash have been in for a few weeks now, and are still going strong; the deer left them alone. Lettuce and other greens have gone by, cabbage has headed up and I've started lettuce for a fall harvest and for wintering over once again, under the agribon, where it sits under the snow cover and then revives and grows in early spring for an early harvest in April and May. The cucumbers, also under the agribon, are suffering some from the mildew and, of course, the lack of rain. The apple crop is below average but if the usual September rains come, enough will size up for eating, if not cider wine. Half of last fall's cider wine is aging in an oak barrel now, while the other half will go in when that comes out to be bottled, in early October. Because of a full fall schedule this year, and the small apple crop, I doubt that I'll do a pressing; but if my friends in Brooklin want to harvest the apples here for their cider-wine making enterprise, as they've done in the past, they'll be welcome to do it in mid-October. 

Skunk cabbage spadix in decay, August 2012

The birds have begun their fall migrations, and during the next six weeks or so most of those species who visit here in the spring and summer will be off for warmer lands. The skunk cabbage leaves have at last decayed, leaving the stalks and exposing the spadices. This is a time of browning in the fields, as the grass falls over, and is a bed for the deer who forage for apples that have dropped to the ground. As usual, I have seen only does and fawns, never bucks. And yet the fawns multiply; the bucks do not show themselves, while the fawns and calves evidently forage with their mothers and each other. For the most part, they come out shortly after dawn and at dusk; but I have seen them foraging in the fields at any time during the day, and I've heard them snort and stamp in their movements at night. They seem to know that they are safe in this season, while in late October through November they retreat, as that is hunting season. In some parts of the state of Maine deer are scarce, I'm told--the central and western parts--but here they are abundant and, for the gardener, troublesome. I've seen them come right up to the house here to eat fruits and leaves off bushes. 

A few weeks ago I saw another young hawk perch in the hawthorn tree in exactly the same spot as two years ago when I took a photo of it and posted it to this blog. The cries of ospreys and the chick-a-dee-dee of chickadees are the chief noises from birds at this time of year, while the clucking of the red squirrels is a constant whenever they are disturbed or excited. I have heard the pileated woodpecker a few times in the last few weeks. No owls yet--they don't seem to hoot until the cold weather. Listening to the recordings made in Maine by Donald Borror, I've come to realize that one of the warblers I've heard often but seldom seen here is the parula warbler--but have not heard one for several weeks now.

A sea of mown hay

I mow the fields here chiefly to keep them in hay rather than let them grow up to woods. Most years I spread the hay as a mulch and poor man's fertilizer below the branches of the apple trees, out around the drip line. Mowing here is difficult on account of the rough and hilly terrain, and the large rocks in the fields. A four-wheel tractor would tip over, but a two-wheel, walk-behind tractor is relatively stable and, with a sickle bar attached, does the job, although it is jarring and tiring. 


In some years when I want more hay I mow twice: once in mid-June, and once in late August or early September. Lately I've been mowing once, in August. It's best to do this on a relatively mild day, but one does it when one can; and so over the next few weeks I will mow when I get the chance. I started today on the field in back of the house. Although it was relatively mild, in the high 70s, it was also very humid, and by the end of it I had perspired through my t-shirt and my long-sleeved shirt over it. (Long pants and long sleeves prevent the hay from rubbing the skin and irritating it, which is much more uncomfortable than sweating through the shirts.) One of my colleagues at Brown remarked to me this spring that she imagined I never sweat. I may be cool in the classroom, but not mowing in the fields.

The sea of mown hay, July 28, 2012

The grass was up to my waist in most spots, and up to my eyeballs in a few, on account of the spring and early summer rains; but the recent dry spell, coupled with the natural tendency of the grass to dry out, made much of the grass into straw for the mowing. If it doesn't rain tomorrow I will do more. The photograph I took today shows what it's like to be in the midst of the sea of mown hay. And after the mowing comes the raking into wind rows, and then into stacks, and then the spreading around the drip lines of the apple trees. 

A late July walk

The recent hot, humid weather has caused me to take a different route on my walks for the past couple of weeks. Besides, I had some visitors last week filming me as an expert for a documentary they were shooting, and then earlier this week I visited some friends in Eastport and Indian Township. But today, having re-grouped some, I went back on my old route through the woods. Birds were singing as they had for the last couple of months; I heard the black-throated green warbler, the white-throated sparrow, and the hermit thrush. Deer flies and mosquitos were flying around making it a bit unpleasant. A small tree had fallen across the path. I pulled it back into the woods on the right side.

Last year I remarked on the heal all self-heal plant that is common along this walk. It has been in bloom for at least six weeks now, and the flowers are in a diminished mode at present. I photographed a little patch, and then a closeup of one of them, from the top. A photograph of the plant in more abundant bloom is in my blog entry for June 8, 2010. 

Heal all is a remarkable medicinal herb, wild-growing throughout temperate climates in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. It is antibacterial and can be used in a poultice on a wound, or as a tea for internal infections such as gingivitis. It shows promise in treatment of AIDS and allergies. The whole plant may be used. It may also be eaten in salads, raw.

The skunk cabbages at this time of the year remain large-leaved, with some leaves as much as two feet in length; but the insects have eaten and damaged parts of the leaves. The skunk cabbage grove now shows the other plants, especially grasses, that have grown in while the rains have slowed down and the swampy area has become much drier. 

Jack-in-the-pulpit is widespread along the path. Not all grew large or well enough to form seed pods, but this one did; this pod is still in the green stage and in a month or so will turn red. A red pod from an earlier plant is barely visible at the upper left in the photo.

Heat wave? What heat wave?

The massive thunderstorms coupled with the heat wave that has struck the mid-Atlantic coast and the Midwest return me to an old theme of this blog: how unprepared for disaster the modern way of life has rendered the so-called developed world. There is irony but no comfort in realizing that one hundred years ago rural Americans were not so dependent on electric power for heat, light, and the many electric appliances that keep our food cold, keep us from sweltering in the heat, cook our food, and so forth. Those who were hell-bent on development and modernization promised, along with the electricity with which we would power our lives, prosperity from a rising tide of unlimited growth that would lift all boats--improve everyone's living standard. But, as Enrique Leff pointed out recently (please see my other blog, on Music and Sustainability, at http:sustainablemusic.blogspot.com), the environment, nebulous as the concept is, resists rationality; and it resists our attempts to control it.

I have written here earlier of how the ice storm of January, 1998 knocked out the power to rural Maine. Many were without power during that period for a week or even longer; we lost ours for three days. If you have no other source of heat for your dwelling than something dependent on electricity--and that means not only direct electric heat but also oil and natural gas heat dependent on electric motors and thermostats (which covers most of the developed world)--when the outside temperature goes below freezing you are in peril. In rural New England one hundred years ago folks heated chiefly with wood in stoves and fireplaces, and some with coal and kerosene not dependent on electricity. Today the wise rural New Englander in an older dwelling maintains a wood stove capable of keeping the house above freezing should the power go out, along with a supply of wood, even if one heats with oil or gas most of the time; and in a newer dwelling passive solar is the wisest choice. Others keep electricity generators at the ready, though these are rather expensive to install properly. 

This summer, though, the complaints from my friends and acquaintances in the mid-Atlantic states emphasize how uncomfortable it is with the temperature near 100 degrees and no air conditioning. One government official, angry at the power companies' inability to restore electricity quickly, declared that the length of time it was taking was "unacceptable," as if electric power somehow were the natural order of things. That government official might have wondered how Thomas Jefferson must have fared at Monticello without air conditioning, or how Abraham Lincoln could have managed to stay in the White House during a heat wave. Possibly that official's ancestors owned slaves during the antebellum period. Imagine a slave coming up to one of that official's ancestors cooling off with a mint julep on the veranda, and saying, "Master, it is too warm, whether my family is chopping cotton in the hot sun or sweltering in the cramped and stuffy slave hut. We find these conditions unacceptable." Fat chance.

Another one of my acquaintances writes, "Alas, I am without power and my house is sweltering. It is hard to find a quiet place to communicate and the libraries are closed and the cooling centers are jammed… We are in quite a disaster down here in [Maryland]." I would like to believe that someone who writes "Alas…" would have backup heat in winter, and be aware of the irony of the current situation; but irony is, as I say, no comfort. Given the effects of global warming, on which this and other increasing weather-related disasters such as the High Park, Waldo Canyon and other wildfires in the West are blamed, we can only expect situations like these to occur more frequently. NPR's Morning Edition excerpted an interview with a climate change expert who affirmed that although global warming is the cause, it is impossible to predict exactly when and where these events will take place--only that they will do so more often, and with more severity (please see my blog entry on complex systems for July 27, 2011, at http://sustainablemusic.blogspot.com).

Of course, it gets quite warm at times here in East Penobscot Bay, but very seldom does the temperature go above the 80s. For the past three days, while the temperatures in the Atlantic Coast and Midwest have ranged around 100 degrees, plus or minus five, and in southern New England it's been in the 90s, the high here was 82. But that, too, may be changing. Certainly there's been an increase in the number of violent storms here, summer and winter. As Yogi Berra once said, "Boys, the future is all ahead of us."

Baby Sparrows in the Grass

This afternoon while mowing the lawn I noticed that a couple of baby sparrows (white-throated sparrows, I believe) were hopping about in the as-yet-unmowed portion of the grass. They had gotten out of a nest that was hidden on the ground inside the rose bush near the back of the porch. Whether it was the noise of the lawnmower that scared them out of the nest, or whether they had gone out exploring before the mower started on its rounds, I don't know. But the noisy lawnmower caused them to hop away (they could not yet fly) whenever it came close, though I kept my eye on them and would not have run the mower over them if they had foolishly gotten in the way. The thought crossed my mind to stop mowing because the noise must have been at best unpleasant for them, and possibly worse than that--so I did; and after a while I got back to mowing, thinking they must have gone back into the nest in the meantime. But not so--the mower went round and they hopped about whenever it got close. I have sometimes seen toads do the same thing, but they almost always hop away. These babies stayed on the island of tall grass that was gradually shrinking as the mower kept on around the perimeter. I was going to stop again, when one of them figured it out and, instead of staying in the taller grass, where there was presumably more protection from predators, moved onto the shorter, cut area and then hopped back over to the nest. Soon afterward, the other baby did the same.

Although it's possible that the mower shook the ground some, I'm fairly sure that it was the noise that scared the birds and agitated them. The noise disturbed the natural soundscape they were used to, and it upset them. That is another reason to use a hand mower, besides the carbon usage and exhaust in the atmosphere, but with a lawn this size--it takes an hour and half of steady mowing to complete it--that would not be practical. Better to find something other than a lawn that needed cutting and plant that instead. I know some people have deliberately done that sort of thing, and so I think I'll investigate the possibilities.

Garden Update, Mid-June

For the last month the weather has been cool and damp. I was able to get tomato and pepper seedlings planted on June 2, but the ground was too wet until a couple of days ago to get my dry beans in. The tomato seedlings that I grew this year were set back too far by the cold weather (and my carelessness in keeping them outside in temperatures around fifty degrees), with the result that for the first time in as long as I can remember, I had to purchase tomato seedlings and be satisfied with what was available. For paste tomatoes I prefer Bellstar, but the only paste tomato seedlings I could find in the places like Agway were Roma, which are subject to late blight here--and which all ripen at about the same time, which can be inconvenient. For slicing tomatoes I was able to get Jetstar, which I grew last year from my own seedlings and which did well. I'm nursing along a few my own seedlings of Sungold and Polbig in hopes that if I plant them this weekend they may grow large enough to bear and ripen before blight or frost. 

This year's tomato seedlings were a double embarrassment. First, I'd agreed to swap some with a friend; and when I gave him my puny little Cosmonaut Volkov a month ago, I had to make many apologies, especially as I received a large and healthy Black Krim in return (sitting in the garden now). Second, I was embarrassed in the Agway store buying the seedlings, but somehow the clerk who took my money didn't notice. I trust they won't be a triple embarrassment going forward--we'll see.

The spinach and lettuce is growing well; if slowly; the early broccoli plants I set out in mid-May caught a hot spell shortly after I set them out and immediately brocolated, sending up edible but small shoots which I harvested earlier this month. I set out others a couple of weeks ago and they've been growing more normally, along with cabbages. No brussels sprouts this year--the deer were too much attracted by them last year. The potatoes practically drowned in the rains and cold, with a spotty stand--only about 2/3 of the seed potatoes came through the soil a couple of weeks ago. It's possible a few more may pop through in the coming week or two, but soon it will be time to hill them. The onions and shallots are growing well. The Progress #9 peas did fairly well, but the Sugar Sprint had a very poor stand. They are blossoming now. 

This weekend, with the weather warming, I'll plant squash and cucumbers. It's about two weeks later than usual for that, but the soil wasn't warm enough before now. And a couple of days ago I managed to get in the dry beans, after rototilling the soil even though it was still damper than I'd have liked. For a main crop I'm growing the usual Black Coco, Jacob's Cattle (the so-called gasless variety), and Light Red Kidney. In addition, to keep the seed going I planted out partial rows of Red Mexican, Maine Surprise, Dot Yellow Eye, and Montcalm Red Kidney. For snap beans I planted partial rows of Black Valentine, Slenderette, Provider, Indy Gold, and Masai. I had a few Levi Robinson seeds left over and planted them as well, hoping to keep that fine variety of snap bean going. About four years is as long as I can keep a bean seed before it will not germinate. 

The smaller apples in the cluster will
drop off this Liberty apple tree 

And as for the apples, the blossoms have long since fallen and it's time for the June drop, which I've written about here before. The rains and damp weather probably induced more scab than usual, and usual is not much. I receive email bulletins from the University of Maine's Extension Service for apple growers, and these are given over chiefly to strategies for combatting insects, scab, and other disease. I am content to live with the little damage that these antagonists do here, and I truly believe that the more one attempts to kill the insects with poisonous sprays, or to set back the scab and other diseases with other poisons, the more one needs to spray in the future. That is because the killing sprays unbalance the ecosystem and while they may temporarily prevent the bad in so doing they also kill the good; and the following year the bad is back tenfold. It is the same with mowing the tall grass in the orchard. Leave it alone, I say, and let the bugs dwell there instead of in the apple trees. Which they are content to do. Then mow in mid September when the lifecycles of the insect pests are in a more dormant stage. 

Now ready for the June drop, it's the same
cluster shown with its blossoms, just below

Each year some of the vegetables do well and others not so well. But different ones do well in different years, which is why mixed farming is a better bet, a hedged bet, than specializing in a single crop--unless, of course, the government pays you not to grow it, or rewards you with a lump sum if your crop fails. 

Mid-May Garden and Orchard Update

Liberty apple blossoming out, May 12, 2012

The apple blossoms buds have started to flower out. In the orchard behind the house planted by George Eaton many decades ago, the Rhode Island Greening is full of bloom. In the orchard by the road into the woods, the Liberty and Prima that I planted some 25 years ago, and the old mystery tree that most recently I've called a Shiawassee, also are filled with bloom. The Liberty (pictured above, two days ago) buds were then just out. The Baldwins are bare of bloom; the Golden Russet is late as usual and so it's impossible to tell what kind of blossoming it may do; the same is true with the Winesap and the Kingston Black. A few of the unidentified old trees also are full of bloom. Overall, it now looks as if it may be an average year for apples--not nearly as poor as I'd originally thought. The cider pressed from last fall's apples has gotten back to fermenting once the cellar warmed up above fifty degrees. I must keep an eye on it and see when the fermentation stops so that I can put half of it in the oak barrel to age for a few months before bottling. And that reminds me that I must get the bottles ready also. If I do it gradually instead of the day before, it won't seem to take me away from other pursuits.

The Shiawassee apple tree was identified as such first by the pomologist Herbert Wave about 25 years ago, based on a couple of ripe fruits and a description of the tree. But a few years ago John Bunker, the apple expert who works at Fedco, tentatively identified it (based on a few ripe fruits that I took to the Common Ground Fair) as Fameuse; and again last year he made the same identification. Looking over the descriptions of Fameuse and comparing them with Shiawassee, I agree with John and from now on will refer to that tree as Fameuse. About 20 years ago I grafted a couple of "volunteer" trees over to this Fameuse variety, with the result that I now have three of them. 

As usual, the vegetable garden is very slow at this time of year. The heavy rains last week washed a dozen or so of the onion and shallot sets out of the ground, and puddled up in the trenches where I'd planted potatoes. When the ground had dried out enough--yesterday--I stuck the sets back in. A few of the other sets had already started so send up their green shoots. The peas are growing, and the greens continue--slowly, with the spinach the most advanced. Three lettuce plants that overwintered under Remay (deliberately this year after last year's accidental discovery) have started to grow again and should be ready to eat in a few weeks. The tomato seedlings I planted are growing very slowly in the cool, damp weather. 

My neighbor Ken Kraul returned the pole saw I loaned him last winter. I saw him trying to dig out thistle from his lawn and we spoke a little while about such efforts. It's good to see such optimism in a young man. Next week I'll have to start reinforcing the fences. This year I may try some rebar as fenceposts to get added height against the deer. 

First Pink

Pomologists name the various stages of budding out for the blossoming apple trees. Today I noted the "first pink" stage in the most advanced cluster of Liberty blossoms. In a year that still looks as if there won't be very many blossoms, Liberty's annual bearing habit is welcome. I took a picture of the "first pink" stage (left) and predict that despite the warm early spring, the blossoming (such as it is) will come at the usual time, on account of the recent cooler weather. I did find a few blossoms on the Prima tree, but it's an off-year for this one, as it is for most of the ones on this land. I recall reading somewhere, years ago, that after a winter unkind to producing blossoms, the trees had a tendency all to go on the same off-on biennial cycle, which was not desirable--it meant a large harvest one year (too large for me) and then a paucity the next.  

In the orchard at this time of year, before the grass and weeds grow up, wild strawberries blossom. Some years I can find them before the birds and other creatures do, and they are quite delicious, confirming what Thoreau said about the superior taste of wild fruit over the domesticated kinds. In the photo at left, the yellow pollen is visible; in the background, another strawberry blossom (blurred in the photo) is just opening up. The earliest flowers, Thoreau wrote in his journal, were the simplest or most primitive in structure, blooming (he wrote) in the least likely places; but apart from the skunk cabbages that is not the case hereabouts. On my daily walk I saw one or two quaker ladies (the flowers), the vanguard of what will be a ground cover for a few weeks along the road soon enough. Leaves of other flowering plants are pushing up now, also. The warblers seem to be in retreat at the moment--the cooler weather may be holding them back. I'd hoped to hear the hermit thrush this week but will probably have to wait until Sunday when it's supposed to warm up. I'm hoping to get a good recording--and Sunday evening is a good time to try, as there'll be less noise from motorboats and other vehicles in the far distance.

The skunk cabbages continue growing in the night (photo above; compare with the photo from April 30). Thoreau remarked in his journal at the end of April in 1852 that he saw skunk cabbage leaves six inches across. Most of those that I see are not that far advanced, but I did take a picture of one that had flattened out from its curl and was about nine inches across, this afternoon (right). 

This work (all photos) by Jeff Titon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Spring Planting Update

Now in early May, I'm glad to have gotten in the peas, spinach, beets, lettuce, and mustard seeds during last month's warm and dry spell, because the weather's turned cool and damp, typical for this time of the year. Everything planted on April 13 and April 20 has emerged, save for the beets, which usually are slow to show themselves anyway. But all are slow-growing, also typical for this time of year. This afternoon I hoed the tiny weedlings on the sides of the rows of the emerging seedlings. Then I planted out a couple of thirty-foot rows of onion and shallot sets, enough to eat through the summer and most if not all of the autumn. The onion sets are the Stuttgarter variety, an excellent keeping variety, but variable in quality from Fedco, and this was not one of their better years. The shallots the same--some had rotted, others were mildewed--but I got enough of the two shallot varieties (Picasa and Yellow Moon) to plant 3/4 of the row, and filled in the rest of the row with red onion sets (sweeter, milder, but they don't store well). As an experiment, because the soil looked good, I decided not to put any compost or organic fertilizer into the rows. I may regret that.

Every year it gets harder to scrabble around on my knees for this planting, as the sets need to be placed (not dropped, as with seeds) just so, and the soil mounded around them just so. Knee pads help some, though it won't be until tomorrow that I can feel whatever I may have done to my knees this afternoon. If I overdo it, they can feel spongy or painfully twingy. Probably this is arthritis, combined with accelerated wear due to old damage done from competitive downhill skiing when I was a youngster, part of it in the days before safety bindings, when twisted knees and pulled ligaments were my rewards for bad falls. Luckily, I had no broken legs then, but I can remember an occasional cast anyway, and lots of Ace bandaging. I recall having trouble getting up the stairs one particular day when one of the schoolteachers who didn't know of my problem thought I was dawdling and got behind me and commenced yelling at me and pushing me along, which I didn't appreciate and must have told her so. At any rate, I wound up in the principal's office; but after my explanation, along with a note from my parents, the principal determined it had been a misunderstanding, advised that I should get started early when I needed to use the stairs, so I wouldn't be late for class; and much to my chagrin informed the entire school of my temporary disability over the intercom during homeroom period. At that time I had a crush on a sandy-haired girl who spent most of her free time sitting at her desk and drawing horses, and guessed that I could not expect any sympathy from her--and I was right. I might as well have been a horse with a lame leg for all she cared. 

Cabbages Grow in the Night

It was Thoreau who wrote "Corn grows in the night," a statement both foolish and profound. Writing about Thoreau, the head of Amherst College's famous freshman English program, Theodore Baird, had some fun with this sentence. Corn grows in the night--well, of course, and so what of it? To Baird, who terrorized students and untenured English faculty at Amherst for more than four decades, a sentence like this was too close to the kind of themewriting drivel he despised. My own freshman English teacher, Bill Coles, would also have disliked it, had it occurred in a freshman English paper. He'd have called that kind of sentence "bulletproof." 

But if you are a farmer, or a naturalist, the fact that corn grows in the night is meaningful. In the daylight on one particular day, this stalk, this ear of corn looks this big; next day you look at it and it's bigger. It must have grown in the night. You may think that because of the darkness you can't see it growing then. But you can't see it grow in the day either. You can only mark a difference in size; it grows too slowly for you to see the process, day or night. 

Skunk cabbages grow in the night as well. The leaves are pushing up fast in the night, and day, and all I can do is mark the difference. Last Saturday I was out to visit them pushing their leaves up in the swampy area by the road well back of the house. If you look at the photo above closely you can see dozens of them. And the leaves on the one I've been following this spring are much larger now, dwarfing the spaethes and spadixes. It the first photo below, the relative size of its leaves now is clear; in the second, at the lower right the spadix can be seen still inside the spaethe. Soon the leaves will unfurl and move horizontal to the ground as they grow upward and outward.

This work (all photos) by Jeff Titon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Reading Landscapes and Books

The warm, dry spring continued through last Friday.  I planted out some more lettuce and also some mustard greens. The hermit thrushes have taken up residence, their songs the most interesting and beautiful of them all. They prefer to sing at dusk, letting the other birds have the dawn hours. They're very difficult to see; I'm hoping to see one this year--but then I say that every year. Back in 1998 I made some recordings of the hermit thrushes hereabouts on the island, and then a few years later I was able to include a short segment from a song on a CD recording accompanying a book about the music of the world's peoples. The thrush is not one of the world's peoples, of course; its song was there to illustrate something about the boundaries between music as humanly organized sound, and the musical sounds of the natural world.

On my walk I noticed a warbler and tried to get a close look through binoculars. By the way it flitted about in the lower branches, I thought it must be a warbler, here a little early but then it's been an early spring. Unfortunately by the time I got my binoculars to my eyes and focused, it had flown. It may have been a black-throated green warbler, but as it was not singing--and I've not heard the black throated green's song yet--I suppose it was another one, perhaps the magnolia or yellow-rump. The skunk cabbages had exposed their spadixes fully and were sending up green leaves. I didn't see any insects going in and out of the spathes, even though it was plenty warm--near 60--and would have been warmer inside the spathes. 

On Saturday I had to run some errands on the mainland. With some sadness I've noted that bookstores are closing up--that is, the mid-size and large-size chain bookstores can't compete with the Internet bookstores and eBooks. The small, neighborhood bookstores with eccentric owners and developed relations with readers have a better chance. One that closed near my territory was Borders, the large chain store where one would shop chiefly to get a better price or larger selection--but nowadays one can shop from the computer and what is paid in postage is saved in auto wear and gas. The other was a small chain called Mr. Paperback, which had populated the small shopping malls and did not have very much to recommend it besides a reasonably large selection of magazines and quality paperback books along with the usual popular romances and mysteries. The clerks earned minimum wage, owners were absent, and I saw no evidence that anyone much cared to cultivate readers. The going out of business signs symbolize the chain's bland imagination. 

An antiquarian book dealer I'm acquainted with, Bill Lippincott, closed his storefront a few years ago and now works entirely over the Internet, I believe. In a neighboring town one of the small bookstores, complete with eccentric owner and cultivated readers, remains in business. There is much to be said for browsing in a bookstore, for the serendipity of finding books you hadn't known existed (and would not have looked for on the Internet), for the superiority of being able to hold them and read in them before buying--or not. Interestingly, the Internet sites have tried to duplicate those features of bookstores, and offer the computer-generated half-dozen selections supposedly like the one you searched for, along with that one--but invariably these are uninteresting; and the sites also offer the chance to take a virtual look inside--usually to an irrelevant page.

I wonder about the impact of the bookstore closings on the local public libraries. In hard economic times such as we've had since 2008, their funding is cut, and some don't survive. In East Providence, RI, for example, two of the four public libraries are going to close. But this is a funding issue, not the result of competition from the Internet. And yet it may be an indirect result, for as more readers use mobile devices such as iPads to download and read popular and classic books, public libraries become expendable. University libraries, which I'm familiar with, face their own series of problems from the Internet, but they are transforming themselves into electronic portals for research on the Internet, and will survive in that form, along with their collections of hard-copy books. But most people don't use college and university libraries--they use public libraries, and these, too, are becoming Internet portals where librarians can offer good advice on how to use the Internet for research.

Certainly the Internet is the harbinger of an information revolution. Fifteen years ago my students and I went to the library to do most of our research, where we checked out books, read journals and their back issues, and borrowed what our libraries had, and borrowed the rest on interlibrary loan. Although it's still possible to do that--and I continue to do it as much as before, as I still prefer the object, reading from a hard copy book or journal more than reading from a screen--the generation of students born about 1980 and afterwards has learned to use the Internet for most of its research, and as a result college and university libraries are not as busy as they once were. Even the reserve readings, which used to be very much in demand in hard copy, are now easily available behind password-protected Internet pages, and are accessible at all times. With so much sophisticated searching and copying options available now--I can get most of the scholarly research articles I want, now, as pdf files from my university library portal--I wonder whether students and scholars are reading more than before. Probably not, but we are liable to find things to read which more closely bear on our research topics, and more of them.

The warmth of an early spring

   As it was two years ago, so it is another early and warm spring, though this time with far less moisture in the ground. Today it was sunny and the temperature in the mid-fifties, though with a stiff sea breeze that tossed the clothes on the line as they dried. It will be a bit warmer tomorrow, as the wind will shift and blow from the southwest. As a result, two of the gardens were tilled today, and peas planted--snap peas and edible pod peas. I grow Sugar Sprint and Progress #9, both dwarf varieties, which will be less attractive to deer on account of their height. 

   The tractor engine was not drawing gas through the line when I tried to start it, so I removed the hose and cleaned it with some good puffs of air and wiped down the inside of the carburetor and fittings; and after putting it back together it started on a single pull and ran better than it had at the end of last year. It's a little early to be tilling much, but the ground is as dry now as in a normal late May. 

   The earliest apple trees were at the red and green bud stages last week (photo at left of the Prima tree), and today the buds are just pushing out (photo below). On the same tree, some buds are far more advanced than others. After heavy blossoming last year, I expect relatively few blossoms. Most apple trees are biennial; also, last winter lacked the long deep freeze blossoms like.

   The birds seem a little earlier this year, though no warblers yet; still, the usual birds are here (black capped chickadees, robins, nuthatches, bluejays, crows, goldfinches, purple finches, ravens, ospreys, and gulls). A phoebe has been flying around from perch to perch; usually one arrives a little later, checks things out, but the nesting pair go elsewhere. A song sparrow has been singing every early morning, a varied song with buzzes, whistles, rattles, and trills. Usually I see and hear these closer to the ocean, so this is a very pleasant diversion around the house. I will try to get a good look at this bird, and will take a photograph of it soon--if I am fortunate.

Birdsong, a chainsaw, and the acoustic niche

Yesterday I began to think again about the acoustic niche theory, the idea that animal and insect species communicate by making sounds in distinctive niches according to frequency, timbre, and time. This supposedly enables them to communicate with one another, and without interference from the sounds of other species. Out on my (almost) daily walk, I'd heard a bird whose song reminded me of the yellow warbler, but I knew that it would be highly unusual for one to be here at this time of year. Trying to make a recording of this bird’s song, I got annoyed when two crows began cawing and interfering with my clear recording of the mysterious bird (who was, also, out of sight). And in the far background I heard the occasional whine of a chainsaw in the act of cutting; I could scarcely hear it when it was idling.

The mystery bird seemed to begin its song in the silence, but before it was over the crows began to caw, almost as if they meant deliberately to interfere with my recording, if not with the bird's song. I thought they might decently wait for a moment of silence on behalf of one of their fellow creatures, if not for me, and then begin their cawing—but they didn’t wait. Out of about 90 seconds I was able to get only one clear recording of a song from the mysterious bird, lasting about three seconds. 

I wondered, then, whether the birds might have been disturbed by the chainsaw, which was sounding continually, although softly when idling. Bernie Krause's recordings of the sounds of tropical rain forests reveal that after an airplane flies overhead, the soundscape is altered. That is, before the airplane, the sounds seem to repeat in cyclic equilibrium; but after the airplane and its noise has come and gone, the sound equilibrium is no more, and it takes a few minutes for the creatures to get back into it. Or, perhaps, the mysterious bird sang long enough to communicate what was necessary, and that the crows coming in over the end of it—much more loudly—didn’t really interfere. (What could interfere with a crow’s cawing, I wondered?)

I recalled certain times of day in spring, such as dawn and dusk, when many birds sing more or less at the same time. The acoustic niche theory cannot possibly hold that birds take turn filling the silence. I suppose it is enough that each species can identify its kind by close listening to song melody and timbre. But I wondered, still, about the chainsaw.

Early skunk cabbages 2012

Out for a walk this early afternoon. The pileated woodpecker and smaller woodpeckers have been boring holes looking for bugs in a dead spruce tree down near the skunk cabbages that are coming up again anew this year (photo, left, taken this afternoon).

It's been unusually warm in this late winter, and now that we're in early spring it's cooled off some, but not a great deal. Without much snow, yet there is still a good deal of moisture in the ground, though I imagine it may dry out earlier. A few chickadees are about, along with a red squirrel and plenty of crows. The grasses remain mostly brown, the trees bare. According to Glen Koehler, author the Apple (Growers) Newsletter, published at the University of Maine, Orono, this could be a record-breaking early year for blossoming. Thus far it's at least as early as 2010, though the trees are not yet at the green bud stage here. I will keep watch.

The spaeth colors are never more saturated, particularly the maroons, at this time of the year, before the spadix emerges. Spaeth, enclosed spadix and leaf appear to emerge from a white membrane, as in the emerging cabbage in the foreground. Thus the green leaf that will enlarge after the spadix has been pollinated may be seen at this stage as well. I took this skunk cabbage photo above ("Waking Dream Skunk Cabbage")  this afternoon, March 24, 2012.

"Waking Dream Skunk Cabbage" by Jeff Todd Titon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at None.

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Living in the Margins

    A recent journalist reports the laments of Wall Street bankers in the face of limitations on their annual bonuses. That average of $250K the bankers' family is spending annually for their home mortgage, taxes, and upkeep, combined with another $200K for their second home, $50K per youngster per year in private schools, plus another annual $150K for household staff, not to mention $50K for vacations, means they need at least $700,000 per year just to keep their heads above water. And with their bonuses now limited to $60K, as many are, they have to cut back. Pity the 1%. "They say, 'I deserve this and I deserve to live in this house and send my children to that school and maintain this standard of living,'" but they know they're going to have to get by with fewer vacations, a smaller household staff, and maybe some other changes. ("Wall Street Lament: They Shrunk My Bonus," Wall St. Journal, Feb. 18-19, 2012.). What they are really afraid of, according to another article in the same paper, is being pushed away from a life of wealth, influence, and power--being pushed to the margins. The margins, the article goes on to say, is where the unimportant people live, the ones who don't count, who don't make a difference. Of course, the article continues, there are some who choose to live in the margins--artists and poets and college professors are listed as examples--but these folks are powerless, and their activities don't matter.
    Really? We artists and poets and college professors must be deluding ourselves, then, that those young men and women whom we encourage to learn, and those who are touched by art, are unmoved--even those children of the rich who are attending those $50K per year private schools (as, for instance, Brown University, where I teach). We must be mistaken in our belief that changes in worldview, revolutions in public consciousness, such as, well, environmentalism or Christianity or the idea that citizens are entitled to liberty instead of being subject to kings and dictators, come from the margins. Hmm? But where else can they originate? in the establishment?? Not likely.
    And many who live in the margins don't choose to live there. It is a luxury for artists and poets and professors if they do have a choice (and some do not--it is our calling; we are compelled). On this island are some professors and artists. We have chosen, as Sherman Paul wrote, to "free ourselves from the luxury economy and thereby pursue . . . creative ends"; but he also acknowledged that "Life in the woods is not an end in itself: you must have a life and want to live it there." This is more than a little arrogant and self-serving, but it characterizes "the leisure of the theory class," as one post-structuralist wag put it years ago.
    At best, some who deliberately live in the margins, whether in the woods or in the cities, are endowed with a kind of "marginal possibility," Paul wrote, a "marginal way of thinking--until now a sort of counter-theme in our history, so far always subordinate to the theme of exploitation, but unbroken and still alive. This is the theme of . . . nurture. Yes, American [cultural and literary] criticism . . . speaks from the margins and is a marginal way of thought. It talks at the boundaries between Nature and Culture, Wildness and Civilization. And it reminds us that not in wildness alone but in margins is the preservation of the world" (For Love of The World, University of Iowa Press, 1992, pp. 10-12). 

   Paul might have considered others who live in the margins: the criminal world is filled with them. So are the prisons. And it was Woody Guthrie who wrote (in his song about the outlaw "Pretty Boy Floyd"), "Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen." The margins are a lot closer than many think.

The Second Gilded Age

   "They raped a continent and often left an irremediable natural ruin behind them. They mounted monstrous swindles and indulged in stock-robbery that, over and over, left millions of people bankrupt. They suborned public officials, they infected the White House, they bought Congressmen like sacks of potatoes, . . . stole public lands and embezzled public funds, ruthlessly attempted to suppress the aspirations of labor, made the very idea of democracy an obscene mirth, and brought the rule of law into general contempt." (Cleanth Brooks, R. W. B. Lewis, and Robert Penn Warren, American Literature: The Makers and the Making, Vol. 2 (New York, St. Martin's Press), pp. 1205-06).

    Does this sound like the rhetoric of the Occupy Movement, describing the 1% running roughshod over the 99%? Indeed it does; but it was written in 1972 and describes the American historical consensus about the United States in The Gilded Age, 1876-1915.