Tag Archives: trees

Sunrise Calling

Posted on by

Screen Tent UpThe dawn wakes me up at 5 a.m. even though I went to bed after 11.  Part of me cries, “No! I’m tired!”  I’ve been weary and out of balance since my father died.  But then I remember that the morning is my proper habitat.  I remember that the dawn is full of magic.  So I get up and go outside, and finally set up the screen tent that functions for me in summer as a place of meditation and prayer.

The tent is getting old and faded–this might be the last year before it falls apart.  But it is a place I can come to in rain or shine, protected from mosquitos, a little sanctuary.  This year I set it up near the fire circle, and enjoy the feeling of that area taking shape as a circle of spirit and connection.  On the other side of the fire circle is what will eventually be a pond.  The old white pine is nearby.  And the hammock.

This place grounds me.  I water the vegetables and new plants with water from our rain barrels.  I pray for the mulberry tree which is still a stick–but are there tiny green buds just beginning to show?  It is our question mark tree–will it come to life or not?  I learned from Fedco that mulberries can be late bloomers, so we’ll give it a few more weeks.  I go round to bless the blueberry plants–both of them had had damage to one of their two branches the other day–little animals breaking them off?  It hurt to cut them off below the break, so that the plant could recover.

I water the asparagus plants–which although planted within a foot of each other, emerged at different times, with different strengths, some tiny and weak, others big and bushy–may these fronds give strength to the roots so that they can return year after year.  The other day I transplanted the licorice bush into its spot.  I made a little bed with cardboard over the grass, then compost, some coffee chaff, some soil, wood mulch on top.  It needs to grow for a few years before we can dig up the roots to use in medicinal teas.  I had to think about where to place it, but finally decided on a spot near the sea kale and turkish rocket plants, which are in full bloom right now.  I put a little fence around it to protect it from random water hoses or accidental mishaps.

Dear mother earth, dear trees, dear home, bless our human lives.  Bless this world with its many troubles.  Bless the parents who are being separated from their children, the children being separated from their parents.  Bless those who struggle for justice, for dignity, for the water, for the people, for the planet.Licorice sea kale rocket

 

Just Be

Posted on by

Hammock View

My birthday isn’t until the end of June, but Margy gave me a wonderful free-standing hammock as an early birthday gift.  With all of the working in the garden, it is easy to forget to just BE–to just lie there and watch the sky and the trees and the birds.  It is large enough for both of us, and on Friday afternoon Margy and I were just being in it together.  Several little birds came to check us out in the trees close by–a tufted titmouse was singing, so much louder than one might expect from its small size.  Catbirds, cardinals.  “What is this new nest in the back of the yard?” they seemed to be asking.  “What new thing are you humans doing here?”

But we weren’t doing anything.  We were just being, watching, enjoying, listening, seeing.  On Saturday, I came back and tried again.  I especially like the symbolism of this gift, since this summer I will be retiring from my work at the church.  It is a bittersweet time, because I have loved my work at the church, and I will miss the people there.  But I like to imagine that in retirement I will have more opportunity for just being.  The hammock is a reminder to take that time–to not get caught up in all the projects I might be doing in the yard or the house or out there in the wide world–but to be still and spacious, to relax, to observe, to delight.  Thank you, Margy!  I love this gift!

Asparagus Beds

Posted on by

Asparagus BedOur plants from Fedco are being delivered some time today!  And, I still have to dig the beds for the 25 asparagus plants.  I started the other day, by turning over the soil behind the house, and getting rid of any weeds there.  Saturday I dug a trench, and then put some compost in the trench.  It still needs more compost!  I also got rid of a no longer used drainage area filled with small stones and dirt–I moved the stones and dirt to under our water spigot.

Aparagus Bed part 2My understanding is that for asparagus crowns, you make a mound in the middle of the trench, and then position the roots around it, each crown about a foot apart, and cover with a couple inches of soil, gradually filling the trench as the small plants grow, keeping a couple inches of shoot exposed.  This particular bed has room for about 12 of the plants–so today I will try to dig another bed near the garage.

I am feeling a little bit panicked and excited about all the plants to plant:  along with 25 asparagus crowns, there will be an apple tree, a peach tree, two blueberry bushes, three hazelnut bushes, (those garden beds have been ready since last summer).  Also a mulberry tree which we hope to put further back in our yard.  Also a licorice plant, and 3 golden seal plants which will go into pots until frost danger is past.  Our friend said we could put them in her greenhouse for a few weeks.

So, not much time to write, but I wanted to make a log of the garden’s progress. Now out to dig for a while before going to the office.

Boundaries

Posted on by

Boundary

[The side boundary two weeks ago.]

Boundaries in land are something of a legal fiction.  The land can’t really be owned by anyone.  But they do matter, because we can only protect the land that is within the boundaries identified as “ours” by pieces of paper.

The other day, a neighbor who lives to the side of the back of our yard mentioned that they might want to put in a fence.  We were alarmed that they might cut some trees, but then they said they were not planning to do that.  But they got a little riled by our asking about the trees.

The thing is, we didn’t get a chance to say this, but we had thought that the trees between our properties were on water district land, because our deed identifies our boundary as bordering on water district land.  [You can see the line of trees and bushes behind our compost bins in this photo from two weeks ago.]  But today I did some research and discovered that their deed in fact includes at least some of the water district land, and perhaps might come right up to ours.

It is all both explicit and very vague on our deed, especially in reference to the back half–because it refers to the old Portland Gardens plan.  For example, where that part of our land begins is stated to be about 99 feet across, while the back line of our property is stated to be 161 feet across.  But it is unclear exactly how and where it is anchored or where it expands–it doesn’t correspond to what was mowed as lawn.  (And it would cost thousands to get a survey, we were told.)  And if you look on the current tax map, the water district land seems to be 53 feet across between the properties.  But I don’t see how there are that many feet between us, even if all the “hedge row” is included.

However, the deed for the neighbor’s yard cites an iron pipe at the corner boundary next to their road, and then “83.31 feet to an iron pipe and land now or formerly of the Portland Water District.”  The wording is odd–but I found an earlier deed that ceded some 56 feet of PWD land (on that side) to that parcel–and it makes sense, they couldn’t have built a house on the land without it.  Then it angles back to a narrow point further back.  Sometimes I wonder if it is all something of a fiction–maybe the plan for Portland Gardens didn’t really match the actual land, and nobody actually has the number of feet listed.

But all day today I have been worried about the trees.  The black cherry and the cedar.  The ones I haven’t learned the names of yet.  We love the trees for themselves, and also for the privacy they create in this place during the summer.  Margy has spent a lot of time cutting down bittersweet from these trees.  And I’ve been wondering where the boundary really is.  There is too much snow right now to hunt for that iron pipe.  But I surely will as soon as enough has melted.  It all feels so vulnerable.

Turkeys Visiting

Posted on by

Turkey on Garage Roof

Yesterday, I looked out a window and saw a turkey in the driveway.  When I went on the deck to get a closer look, it flew up to the maple tree in our neighbors yard.  But then I looked up and discovered two turkeys on the garage roof, another roosting in the pitch pine, more in the spruce and small maple on the other side of the house–we were surrounded!

The one on the roof seemed to enjoy our conversation–it was looking at me so intently as I spoke.  I wonder if this is the same family that visited often during the summer and played in the dirt in and near our future pond?  They were younger then, of course.  But maybe? If you look closely you can see two of them in the photo below, from their visit in September. This morning on my walk, they were out walking too.  Perhaps the deep snow has disrupted wherever they were hanging out during the winter.  But they look very fat and healthy.  A visit from wild neighbors always makes my day!

Turkeys in dirt

So much beauty

Posted on by

Snow sun beauty

When the sun rises on the day after a snow storm, there is so much beauty everywhere.  The light, the lines of branches highlighted in white and gold, the patterns… and the songs of birds, which don’t show up in a photo but fill the air with more beauty as I walk along the city streets. I don’t usually like to post more than one photo but I can’t resist today.  After my walk, I arrived home to find a flock of robins in the maple tree next door.  Those berries in the photo are Asian Bittersweet–the invasive vines Margy is working to get rid of–but they do serve as a food source for birds in winter.  The robins were singing too.  How can anyone fail to appreciate such beauty as this morning’s sunrise brought to our world?

Robins

Red Oak

Posted on by

Red Oak Leaves AcornsThe mild weather has revealed old oak leaves and acorns all over the ground on the trail by the brook, as well as the back of our yard.  The trees in our yard are young, but there are many old ones in the neighborhood.  In the fall there were literally thousands of acorns underfoot all along the streets and the trail.  It got me thinking about acorns as a food source–roasted and ground into flour.

Unfortunately, I finally learned that all of these neighborhood acorns are from the northern red oak, whose Wabanaki name referred to its bitter acorn.  Acorns from the white oak and the burr oak were much preferred for eating because they are sweeter.  Still, I am thrilled to know their names.  All this from the book Notes on a Lost Flute, by Kerry Hardy, including a helpful diagram of the shape of each type of leaf and acorn.  After seeing the pictures, I paid attention to all the oak leaves along my walk–all red oak.  Simply put, the red oak leaves have pointed edges, while the white oaks have rounded lobes. Sometimes it helps to simplify–there are actually about 600 oak species overall, and 8 in Maine.

Researching further, I learned in A Short History of Trees in Portland, that there are stands of white oak in Baxter Woods and Deering Oaks park.  Now I am delighted to imagine walking there in the spring to see if I can find those trees.  In the meantime, another storm is on the way, and it will soon all be covered again in a foot of snow.

Counting Tree Rings

Posted on by

Cut pine

During the construction for the new Hall School, they have cut down acres of trees.  It truly breaks my heart.  Especially when I saw a stack of huge pines from the front of the school.  This one I measured at about 33 inches in diameter–just about the same as our beloved old white pine in our yard, though I didn’t have a way to tell how high up on the trunk it would have been.  Why do people cut down the old ones?

I tried to count the rings using my photos–and determined that it was at least 120-125 years old, if not more.  That means that this tree was around back in 1897, when my grandmother Yvonne was born.  It also might mean that our white pine, if it isn’t 162 years old as we estimated by circumference is likely at least 122 years old.  I would guess that there were similar circumstances for all of these pines in the neighborhood.

IMG_5008You see, I have been walking around the neighborhood looking for any other large pines I can find, and measuring them.  I haven’t found one larger than ours yet. Yesterday near the brook and the school, I found one that measured 102″ in circumference–just like ours.  It was wrapped in caution tape–does that mean leave it alone?  It is right next to an access drive of some kind next to the school. I hope the tape means leave it alone.

There are two more white pines in yards at the crossroads of our street that I want to measure when I get a chance, plus one right next door that rises a few feet away from our garage.  I think these might be similar in age to ours.  It would be easier to measure with two people doing it, plus I feel a bit awkward about going into people’s yards without a conversation.

What the close-by pines say to me is that when someone was building houses in this neighborhood in 1967 or so, they decided not to cut down these special old trees.  I am grateful for that.  But are they the remnants of a much larger family?

 

More White Pines

Posted on by

White Pine near Capisic

There is another old white pine that I see on my morning walks, next to the the Capisic Brook near my home.  Even as the old white pine at my home sent me on a search for the history of this land, so both of these pines lead me into a search for their spiritual meaning.  Maine is called the Pine Tree state, and the White Pine is the state tree.

When settlers first came to this land, they found old growth forests with white pines being the tallest of the trees in the east.  Many of them were cut down to use as masts on the English ships. In fact, any straight tree over 24 inches in diameter was marked for use by the king, but people often ignored that marking.  I read that the old-growth trees were all cut by the mid 1800s.

In the same article, they identify two old pines found in Acadia National Park as 154 and 147 years old.  That made me wonder if the method I had used to date the white pine in our back yard was accurate–if that pine was actually 162 years old, it should be on the EasternOldList.  On the other hand, if the land was undeveloped for a hundred fifty years, (just a blank space on the map) perhaps it would not be so impossible that it should be counted among these old ones.

Pine needles are full of vitamin C, and the inner bark was also edible–made into a kind of flour by the Wabanaki people here.  Among the Haudenosaunee, the white pine was the Tree of Peace–symbol of their confederation of nations, the five nations symbolized in the five needles in one packet, and the agreements they made to keep peace among their nations.

Modern science has discovered that pine trees release compounds known as phytoncides, airborne chemicals which protect the trees through anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties.  These compounds also support the “natural killer” cells of our human immune system.  So walking in the woods has actually been proven to be good for our physical and mental health.

While searching the internet for the meaning of the white pine, I found that another blogger The Druid’s Garden posted this:

In my experience, these trees retain their roles as peacemakers for us today in order to rebuild human-land connections. Often on damaged lands, even if no other spirits or trees are open to communication, the White Pine will be the intermediary.

Since my purpose in learning about the trees on my land is to rebuild our human-land connection, I may see if our white pine is willing to offer that mediation.