The Scents of Summer

Going for one last dip in a nearby pond after a hot morning of cutting the grass, I thought, as I rounded the backside of the pond, that in summer, if you close your eyes and take a deep inhalation, you can almost tell what month it is without a calendar. The sweet air I smelled was thanks to White Swamp Azalea, which is in the Rhododendron family but smells so much like honeysuckle. It blooms along the edge of the pond and if you have some near you, you know what a treat it is. And with luck, it will keep perfuming the air from late June to August.



Swimming with the dog, laying on my back watching a Great Blue Heron pass over and, much closer, an unidentified lady dragonfly was touching her abdomen to the surface living a wee bairn here and a wee bairn there. But, also floating over the water, was the wonderful scent of the Fragrant Water Lily, likewise a June to August treat. This is the water lily that Thoreau marveled at, that something growing out of such muck could render such a sweet flower and ergo, even if our lives had some pretty mucky beginnings, they could still turn into a sweet smelling existence in the end. Ah, an emotional buck up from the edge of the pond.


Also, along the waters edge, and these are really common around here, is a stand of Sweet Pepperbush that is just now coming into bud. They also have a distinctly sweet smell that lets you know it is late July or August when you round a bend and this scent hits you. The coolest thing about this plant’s flowers is that you can take a handful of them, cup your hand in the pond water and then rub vigorously and, voila, soap! When this is in bloom I will have to give it its own little treatise, it’s such an interesting plant. You know, the water lily deserves its own blurb too, just that I am rushed for time at the moment.

There are scents galore, wherever you are. I am sure you have your own month-marking plants where you live. The parade of beauty goes on and on, and I am so anxious to see if in Croatia the “air is full of spices” as it is in Greece. And now, back to the tasks I am supposed to be doing! Keep your noses at the ready and enjoy each delightful inhalation, perhaps of something natural, perhaps of charcoal and grilled foods. Whatever, the warmth of summer carries scents like air-mail delivery gifts to us all. Enjoy, and hopefully I will have tales to tell when I return from this sojourn with our daughter. Till then, a happily scented summer to you all.

Crane-berries in Bloom

I have had that topic in mind for weeks, but with no time to come to the computer to write about it. The “crane-berries” of course are the cranberries, but their name derives from the fact that their blossom looks a lot like the head of a heron. And back in the day, herons were called “cranes” by the earlier settlers, hence the name.

About two weeks ago, as I crested the railroad tracks at the bog, I saw that the green leaves were overshadowed by a carpet of pink. Ah, the cranberries are blooming. Now, this morning, there are only patches of pink left and the flowers hopefully have been pollinated by the grower’s bees and will start developing into cranberries soon. If you have a bog near you, check them out soon and you will see how much like a bird’s head the flower really is.


Cranberries are native to the Cape, one of the few things that are, and the Indians and the early pilgrims would harvest them from the wild bogs that dot the area. It was in the 1800’s that someone realized you could clear the natural bog of its Atlantic Cedar and transfer sections of wild vines and start your own little agribusiness. Something that was the rage for awhile and sadly there aren’t many White Cedar bogs left on the Cape. However, after the hay day of cranberry growing, many a bog reverted to trees, but most often to Red Maple and High Bush Blueberry. Old bogs are easy to spot though, because the ditches that were dug around them to flood the berries at harvest are straight along the edge and 90 degree angle at the corners.

It is amazing how quickly the trees reclaim the land. I walk around another bog that is an active one, and either the man is being all natural and not using herbicide, or he just hasn’t gotten around to it, but there must be 100 young maple saplings just dying to take over. With straight sun and no competition they are up in no time. The grower who owns the bog I walk around has finished mowing half of the wildflowers down around the bog edge. Milkweed and Yarrow and Blue Eyed Grass are still there, but I think also, that he just hasn’t gotten time to finish the job. Always sad, but as I mentioned before, he isn’t making his livelihood selling Milkweed.

I also need to mention in this blog, which is hastily being written in between tasks I am trying to do cheerfully for my husband on Father’s Day, that we will be out of town for awhile. Way out of town, visiting a daughter in Germany whom is soon bound for Afghanistan and wants one last adventure in Croatia. Yikes, I can barely find that on the map! Between work and getting ready and then being gone, I think it may be a while before I put fingers to keyboard to regale you with what’s up in the world where I walk. You too, no doubt, are swimming in summer plans, and have little time to read them anyway.

Do enjoy summer, the baby birds are everywhere, pecking at everything, hoping one of these stabs brings up something yummy, plants are flowering and putting out their seeds already, the air is full of swallows and dragonflies and the roads are full of tourists. Enjoy everyone, and God willing, we will make it back from this little, hardly planned, fling and catch up with you and the summer world that will surround us all by then. Till then, happy nature spotting summer to you all!

Coast to Coast Beauty

What a miracle flying is. One minute I am on the East Coast and later, the same day, I am on the West Coast. May we never take this for granted, tipping our hats to those who went by way of the Conestoga wagon, spending months on the Oregon Trail, and oftentimes, never making it. Helps to keep the complaining about delayed flights to a minimum when you think that way. I was visiting my favorite cousins that I hadn’t seen in years. You can’t get much further apart than Portland, OR to Cape Cod and so, the visits are never as often as we wish. But this blog isn’t meant to be about my family tree and our times together, but just to share some of the amazing beauty that exits in their backyard.

The cousin I stayed with has a home overlooking the Clackamas River in the town of Oregon City, the actual end of the trail for those Oregon Trail travelers. In their home, every window offers a sublime view. Look one way and you see their geometric herb garden with a view over the river gorge to the hills that rise on the other side. Spiky pines that make wonderful silhouettes, especially when they are wreathed in clouds, fog and rain as they often are. Or on those mornings when the sun rises early, shooting sunbeams through their branches, the stuff of calendar art. Look out another window and you are likely to see a Mule Deer passing by, and their vegetable gardens beyond. Yet another, affords a view of the birds at the many feeders they have. No need to take a hike, nature is truly all around you. Better yet, view all this from their hot tub with a cup of coffee and Violet Green Swallows swooping overhead. A naturalist’s idea of Club Med if ever there was one!

What I love about travelling, is that whatever animal life is common in this region, is often uncommon to me. Scrub Jays replace our Blue Jays, Ravens trump our Crows, and they have a slightly different western race of Towhees. But the birds that made it seem so exotic, were the Grosbeaks. Black Headed Grosbeaks with bright orange bodies, yellow Evening Grosbeaks and an amazingly colorful Western Tanager. Bright red head with a yellow chest, a quick glance and a tropical bird would jump to mind. All seen with coffee cup in hand as the steam rises from the tub. Not my usual life style I can assure you!



They also were visited by a Pileated Woodpecker, which is a really large woodpecker with the red, swept back head that my cousin thought must be the inspiration for Woody the Woodpecker. And if you remember him, you would have to be of a certain age. This one was re-sculpting her grape arbor. They aren’t really the birds you want taking a fancy to your woodwork. If you have them where you live, you can see huge areas excavated in old trees as they ferret out carpenter ants. Thanks for getting rid of the ants, but at what price to your lumber, should they find them on your deck!


Here on the Cape we only have the Ruby Throated Hummingbird, making Id’ing pretty easy! In Oregon they have the Rufous Sided and, hmmm, maybe the Ana’s. I have forgotten but they came buzzing in and out of the arbor also seen from the hot tub. And with all this food about, she had amazingly slim and not overbearing squirrels. In my yard, they look as though they should all be worrying about diabetes. And mine multiply like crazy due to my Italian ways of feeding anything that looks hungry. But health conscious, Oregonians, seems to include squirrels too, for they all looked svelte compared to mine. Plus there was only a handful of them, not the herd I entertain in my yard.

Then the same magic that whisked me West delivered me back East. The first day back was such an amazingly beautiful day, that I had a little made up rhyme going in my head. “If the sky is blue, and it’s seventy too, you know what you have to do-Go Outside!” And as I walked the conservation area nearby, known as the Game Farm, I thought, I have just left the City of Roses, and now I find myself in a field redolent of the smell of roses. For our invasive Multiflora rose was still blooming, probably won’t be for much longer, but what a gift to breathe in that sweet air. So the magic of the trip extended itself to my own backyard. Coast to Coast beauty, for which I am very thankful to have experienced.

Blooms about the Bog

Heading off to Oregon last Thursday, I took a whirl around the bog before I left, and as happens each spring and summer, I am amazed by the continuous blooming that goes on in this basically, sand environment. Untended by man, no Miracle Grow boosting the growth, yet, there it is, lush and with a palette of color that Monet would be proud of.

The "lushness" is most evident around the edge of the bog, where jets of water, intended to nourish the cranberry plants, encourage this growth also. Sedges shoot up, dense rows of bracken fern, purple clover and now, a blush of blue, as the blue eyed grass appears. This is a delicate plant whose name is slightly misplaced. It is blue, but not in it's "eye". The center is actually yellow, and it isn't really a grass but is in the Iris family. But then, when you are wandering about just taking in beauty, who really cares that the name is a bit off.

I am also watching the milkweed start to form its flower heads, and here, I need to inject a bit of sadness, for although things are blooming now, the goal of the cranberry bog, as seen through the bog owners eyes, is to produce cranberries, not milkweed to feed the Monarchs, nor is he interested in how many spittle bugs are enjoying the yarrow that is also present. And so, already, I can see chlorophyll draining from the bracken and the milkweed. For the sad irony is, that the same plants that thrive by being in line for jets of water, also lose their life when those jets are laced with herbicide intended to keep the bog weed free. And where this always saddens me, I do realize, not much of an income is raised in the production of grasses and wildflowers. He is a kind man, the bog owner, and I wish him well. I thought about asking if I could dig up some of the milkweed and transplant it, but to where? My yard wouldn't have the sun it needs, and so, another patch of fast food for Monarchs goes by the way side.

Down but not out. It is amazing to me, that, although this battle is a yearly one, plants that spread by underground rhizome will be undaunted and spring back one more time later in the summer, and will surely be there again next spring. So now, I try to enjoy them while they are there, and take heart, to see that across the path that rings the bog, spittle bugs are foaming away on the yarrow and red clover that grows on the safer side of the street. Life, as we see again and again, thankfully finds a way.

So, how about those spittle bugs, are they grand or what? You may not know what I am talking about, but, have you ever noticed the foaming bubbles that appear on plants this time of year? And have you given any thought to what they might be? What you are seeing is the protective bubble layer of an insect who spends his formative molting weeks within the safety of this bubble bath. One it makes itself while standing head first on a plant stem. It inserts its beak into the plant, and the juice is then passed through its body, coming out the other end and is then whipped into a froth that cascades over his body, concealing it in a mass of bubbles. Within these bubbles it is kept moist and, on the one hand, out of sight of predators, but if you think about it, it is very much IN sight, for the bubbles are white and very evident. The thought is that the bubbles contain an irritant and that snurfling through them might not be so pleasant for other animals.

But here is a chance to exult in your human abilities. You don't have to snurfle, you just have to place your finger gently into the foam and scoop up some of it. Gently push away the bubbles and you will find the most adorable little green or tan nymph of a spittle bug who will, in moments, begin parading about on your finger doing a little bouncy, bouncy thing with his abdomen. Children love this, and to test their keen eyesight I have them look for the two red eyes that are just dots but visible and give the spittle bug its extra adorable look. They start out impossibly small, but with each molt of their exoskeleton, they grow, move to a new plant and make the bubbles all over again. Once they get their wings and are adults they are incredible jumpers and the need for spittle protection is gone. They are often known as frog hoppers at this point, not tree hoppers, for that is a different species.

Even their hopping is something to be astounded by. A few years ago, researchers in Cambridge decided to pit the spittle bugs ability to "leap over buildings in a single bound" against the flea, the one to hold the record for leaping at that point. And, as it turns out, the spittle bug won, hands down! Turns out they go twice as high as a flea, accelerate 10x faster, and do so at 400x the force of gravity! That's 400 G's! Take that, fighter pilots, wearing protective gear at 10 G's! In human terms their ability to launch two feet into the air, is equivalent to you or I leaping over the St Louis Arch! The next time you pass some spittle then, be sure to take a look and if you have a tiny trophy with you, feel free to present it with pride to the winner of most powerful jumping insect.

I see I have gone on a bit long here, including two topics rather than one, but I believe in your ability to handle that. I am in Oregon at a cousins at the moment, and not sure when I will blog again, so a two in one isn't a bad thing. Who knows though, with this life of leisure I am leading this week, blogging may be what I can do more often. From chlorophyll saturated Portland, a lovely day to you all.