Three Rocks a Day
I’m going to build rock wall. That’s what I decided, three years ago. A long rock wall along the foundation of the house and another alongside our beat-up old garage. It will look scenic, rustic, picturesque. Classic New England, Robert Frost and all that. I love rock walls, and they’re easy to build, right? After all, how hard can it be to pile one rock on top of another? I started out one bright fall day with a pile of flat stones and a lot of enthusiasm. After ten minutes, things were still going pretty well. After twenty minutes I’d dropped a rock on my finger and...
Read MoreDoorways in the Grass: Funnel Web Spiders
Trailside, on a damp October morning. Circles of diamond dew-drops, magically suspended above the ground in neat circular patterns. I had to look closely to see the threads of web that held up the water droplets, and even more closely to see the funnel-shaped door at the top of the circle. The home of the funnel web spider. I’ve always loved the sight of these dainty webs, like lace handkerchiefs strewn across the ground. And sometimes I can’t resist the temptation to tap one with a finger and watch the little spider dart out to see if dinner has arrived, and then vanish back...
Read MoreDark Shadows
Hanging around with a young-at-heart old friend, in the parking lot behind the Emerald Cinema in Amsterdam, waiting for a movie to start. The lovely evening of a clear fall day, not a cloud on the sunset horizon. Our shadows loomed ahead of us as though we were a hundred feet tall–giants on stilts.
Read MoreVirginia Creeper: Blood Red
Now there’s a scary name for a plant. The Virginia Creeper. Sounds like something you’d want to stay away from around Halloween, for sure. It’s a native American plant that’s common in wooded areas, and it grows so prolifically that you’d think it would be easy to encourage it to grow in your backyard, but like all wild things, it’s tricky to domesticate. Wildings have a tendency to grow where they darn well choose, living life on their own terms, ignoring humans’ best efforts to pamper them. I’ve tried to lure the Creeper up my trellis, get it to drape...
Read MoreFunkins
Funkins. These are not only artificial pumpkins. They are artificial pumpkins that you can carve. You carve the plastic shell with a knife, and make a face in the plastic side of the plastic pumpkin, and then I suppose you light it with an electric candle. What is our nation coming to when our youth can’t muck around with sharp knives, play with matches, and get slimy with pumpkin guts? No seeds to roast. No sharp smell of smoke as the candle burns the top of the pumpkin lid. No chance to watch the pumpkin slowly decompose during the week after Halloween as the smile turns into a...
Read MoreViper’s Bugloss: Snake in the Grass
This lovely snake is not a viper, far from it–a more harmless and gentle little creature never lived. It’s a grass snake, also known as a green snake, who crossed my path on a hiking trail in New Brunswick, and obligingly posed for photographs before melting into the ferns on the side of the trail. Funny, when I parked the car at the trailhead, I noticed a beautiful blue plant lurking next to the garbage can–viper’s bugloss. A strange name. It’s a Eurasian import, and “Bugloss” has ancient Greek roots meaning ox tongue, which probably refers to the...
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