The invasion is now in full swing. I am not sure if I’ll make it beyond tonight. You have no idea what I’ve seen out there. It began a few nights ago, though it was chilly then. The earth gleamed with moisture. There were fewer of them; the cold and the rain held them off, […]
Trees
I used to think there was something wrong with ponderosa pines. As a kid, their wild, asymmetrical growth bothered me. I wished they would just be conical, and be Christmas tree shaped, like the evergreen trees inside the stores. I wished they were more like the Colorado blue spruce, the state tree I learned about […]
This concerns the burned out hulk of a ponderosa pine that bears have taken an interest in, sculpted, really. I recently saw this smoldered-black tree on a backpack with two friends in Western Colorado. The walk took four days with no human trails to speak of, so when we arrived, we were well away from […]
In spring of 2022, I wrote about an edible plant walk. Plants! With food! They’re all around us! In early October I went on another plant walk with the same guy, featuring oak trees. Did you know you can eat acorns? You can. But first you have to process them, extensively, to get rid of […]
Behold this mighty tree! It’s in an unassuming bit of woods near my parents’ house in Silver Spring, Md. So unassuming, in fact, that this December 2021 visit was the first time I had set foot in that particular bit of woods, and my family moved to the neighborhood in 1985. The local parks folks […]
Last summer I wrote in this space about discovering figs. This summer I was ready for them. My neighbor with the fig tree started texting with progress reports in mid July. In August, they hit: Figs. Figs, figs, figs, figs. I’ve been on many fig-retrieval expeditions in the last two weeks. I arrive, bowl in […]
I wrote this essay two years ago. We had just gotten back from Japan, and I was still basking in the warm glow of the trip. Now, of course, the trip seems even sweeter. I also like this essay because the first time I posted it, I spelled ginkgo wrong throughout, as kindly pointed out […]
The last time I wrote for this blog, I mentioned the black walnut close to my window. It wasn’t the closest tree to my apartment – that’s a catalpa that grows long beans and screens the morning light for me – but it was the second closest, and the walnuttiest. I wrote: I just recently […]