The Wandering Naturalist Returns Home

Six weeks away.  In that amount of time spiders take over, reclaiming our house as their private property.  My husband was here but he had enough to do with work, the yard, and putting pots under the many roof leaks that appeared during the biblical deluge that hit this part of Texas while I was gone.  As I mentioned before, he and the vacuum cleaner have barely met.  So, as in other “first days back”, it was a black day for the many spiders whose webs were coating my vacuum cleaner head. As each egg sac contains hundreds of baby spiders, the “nursery” in my vacuum bag must number in the 1,000’s.

Being home means the mosquitoes no longer need to appeal to the blood bank for their meals.  I went out, foolishly without my whirring mosquito thingy, and acquired 25 bites (I counted them) in one session of filling feeders.  It is clearly my yard full of ivy that draws them to my property and my property alone.  To remove all that ivy would be to take away the year round green that drew me to this place to begin with.  And oh, the guilt of a naturalist that turns to sprays.  I have yet to do so; too many birds about.

All that rain encouraged the always willing weeds to go viral.  The rocky footpath that encircles the yard is sprouting weeds I have never seen before. Interesting, but they must go.  And as 30 minutes of weed pulling leaves me soaked in sweat, it might take awhile. 

It seems the wrens and the titmice and golden fronted woodpeckers have doubled their numbers.   

And a young phoebe was sitting out front shooting out for invisible bugs.  In the front we DO NOT have mosquitoes.  Wish I could I entice this bird to the backyard but maybe it doesn’t like mosquitoes either.  Actually, I read once that mosquitoes also get their blood meal from birds and mammals but only we humans react to what they give back by itching insanely.  

Squirrels are looking thin.  No corn for them when I am gone.  They were looking too “Diabetes 2” when I left anyways. And the buck that wanders down, receiving only threats from my husband for eating everything we plant, had already discovered I had thrown out some apples for them.  Uncanny how quickly they know the “food truck” is back in town.  His velvet antlers have doubled in size from the buds they were when I left.

About those apples, in the past three years there were very few and the birds got them all.  This time, with all the rain, they produced more, but not very tasty and it seems to me they would be enjoyed more by the deer than this New Englander who prizes crisp, juicy apples in the fall. 

My refrigerator however, is full of plums; hundreds of plums that my husband gathered. Not quite ripe but they do ripen up, so plum “kuchen” and plum jam will have to be attempted later in the week. 

Hummingbird feeders were black and nasty, but I see they were willing to try again once I cleaned them.  I was just watching, what seemed to either be a young one or one who got a mouthful of yuck the last time.  It was so tentative but then fed for several minutes.  As I write this I notice more have come; word gets out quickly it seems.

It was SUCH a wonderful trip though, covering thousands of miles, seeing so many old friends, being dazzled by more gorgeous vistas than I can recount and once again realizing that Texas is where I live, but New England is my home.  Hmm, that sounds like the Gertrude Stein quote,  “America is my country, but Paris is my home town.” 

When I am back among huge trees, forests of moss and ferns and chipmunks chipping from every downed log, it just feels right.  THAT is my preferred habitat.  It just is.  And Texans would tell you the same thing if someone suddenly transplanted them to New England.  They would miss the wide-open skies, their huge ranches that are beautiful and be shocked to find the roads so full of little cars.  I think I have mentioned that my tiny car finds shade among the trucks when it can. 

 

The roots of home clearly grow deep, deep enough to persist through 19 moves to different places. I hope YOUR summer finds you in the habitat you most love.  Or visiting your roots, which maybe also go deep in a place where you no longer live, but still call home.

June- A Wonderful Month to Learn Some Common Scents

*Note the spelling: S-C-E-N-T-S.  Anyone who knows me knows I am not exactly qualified to write on the other kind of common sense! 

In recent blogs, I mentioned I would be nomadic for the month of May and June and I have been.  The delight in that, is the chance to travel and tarry in many diverse regions, each one going through their own signature style of spring.

When I left the Hill country of Texas, just one step ahead of it’s being practically washed downstream, it was in the midst of one of the grandest spring flower displays in years.  I am straining the brain to think if I associated any “scent” with those many flowers.  Not really.  The scent of spring in Texas is that of burning brush.  A wet spring is the perfect time to safely burn up the piles of ash junipers that have been trimmed in winter. Once again my New England senses are thrown a curve ball.  In my mind, the smell of wood smoke conjures up images of snow-covered cottages with smoke curling out of chimneys.

In Illinois, so many of the deciduous trees were in flower that I could have walked down the street with my eyes closed and told you what tree I was passing.  The streets were often lined with Basswoods, a tree in the Linden family, and, although their flower is hardly noticeable, the scent they give off is intoxicating.   If you are lucky enough to live in the same region where they grow, then by all means, get out there and sniff while the sniffing is good. 

 

 And, if you happen to live in Berlin where the famous “Unter den Linden” (“Under the Linden trees”) are, you are really under the gun to get out there and inhale their perfume.  Sadly, those lindens are succumbing to the stress of warmer summers, colder winters and the compacted earth, caused by so many people strolling by, that they are thinking of removing them (!) and replacing them with trees that can better handle the climate.  Somehow, “Unter den Osage Orange” just doesn’t have the same ring. 

 The neighborhoods and parks where I walked the dogs daily often had several Sycamore trees. These trees are easily identified by their flaking bark but also by their spicy/ sweet smell in spring.  It seems to me that I remember it smelling like cat spray in the winter. Might be a faulty memory.  I did read somewhere that they had large “stinky” buds in winter.  I thought it was a typo but it also listed sticky, so large sticky and stinky buds are perhaps what I am remembering.

The bark that looks multi-colored is really white bark that peels off in large patches and it is those patches that are various colors of gray, brown or black.  It turns out the bark is more rigid than other trees so instead of just expanding with the trees growth, it literally bursts at the seams!

Lilacs are the signature scent of May in New England but in Illinois they grow a Japanese lilac with huge white, puffy flowers, that also are great to be downwind of.

My next stop was Rhode Island where my friend lives just blocks from the bike path that runs parallel to the bay.  This area provides the same olfactory delights that exist on the Cape in June.  Huge bushes of multiflora rose announce their presence before you round the bend and see them; the smell of the marsh, all salty and rich; the smell of pine needles warmed by the sun and, I think I smelled but did not see, the Swamp Azalea which floats its scent out for quite a distance.  Rosa ragosa (beach rose), common on the Cape, is common here too and invites you to bury your nose in its wide crimson flower.  All these scents tell me I am home and that the month is June. 

Wherever you live, they’re most likely is a signature early summer scent that you look forward to, making this the season to inhale life deeply.  Feel free to share what they are.  My hope is that before the season is over, we will all have expanded our common “scents”.