From our bedroom window it looked like someone had dumped plastic trash behind a big tree in the woods behind our house but I quickly realized it was a fresh batch of mushrooms. Down the road we spotted a really young fawn, so young it was wobbly, and it was all alone. We tried not to startle it but we did and it got up and ran around us like it wanted to play.
Steve Greive drove by in a brand new pick-up. He bought it on line and drove to Pennsylvania to pick it up. He told us the Town fixed a water break near the wetlands and filled their hole with crushed stone and covered that with top soil making a prefect setting for turtles to lay their eggs. He told us they lay their eggs on the full moon in June which was just a few days ago. Sure enough we saw a big one, maybe a foot diameter, dart in to the tall grass.
Just made it home in time to catch the opening of the Brazil Mexico game.
George Eastman Lillacs in Durand Eastman Park S. julianae ‘George Eastman”
These lilac blossoms in Durand Eastman make a rather late entrance but it is a grand one. There is a plaque next them with some history. We stood here for quite a while yesterday giving all our senses a workout. Here’s an abbreviated version.
“George Eastman, of Eastman Kodak fame, bestowed a gift upon the City of Rochester that in time became known as Durand-Eastman Park. It is a magnificent piece of property close to Lake Ontario, with hills, rivers and small lakes. If one were looking for a bit of the mountains and hills of China with their mirror lakes, he could not find a more ideal spot in which to plant some of the horticultural wonders of that land. Here Springtime comes gradually and winters are tempered by the great lake.”
Bernard Slavin, the Park’s first Superintendent (and “composer”), planted a number of lilac seedlings. Circumstances forced the widening of a park road and the lilacs were removed. Fortunately a cutting had been successfully rooted and grown in Medina, Ohio. It was brought back to the park and has naturalized itself from seed as lilacs on occasion do. Today it is known as S. julianae ‘George Eastman”.
“Liacdom is filled with circumstances of serendipity!”
So many masterpieces, so little time. As I see it you take them down, one project at a time for seven bucks, or you swallow the Gigunda package for a Benjamin. “Down Where The Bitey Things Breed” from Pete LaBonne’s 1994 “Mega Fig Leaf Man” was last weekend’s theme song for me.
We were spending quality time with Pete and Shelley and I skipped a few days of showers so by the time I spotted the tick on my chest it was engorged. That is bloated. We had exchanged bodily fluids. Peggi got a hold of him with our tweezers but snoot was still drilled down and hanging on. Weekend evening options are scattered about town but most were closed so we headed out to Webster to an Urgent Care on Barrett Drive, a street that didn’t even exist when I lived out there. It was named after Webster’s long time town attorney, the man who gave the commencement speech at RL Thomas when I graduated and the father of my buddy, Joe.
The doctor out there numbed my skin and used a small scalpel to remove the snout. I went home with a fourteen day supply of antibiotics. Hoping I don’t wind up like The Punk Singer.
The trillium, the trout lilies, the cut leaf toothwort, the mayapples and mayflowers are all up and soaking up the sun before the woods fills in. But don’t take my word for it, get out there. The Spring rush does not last long.
Pete LaBonne has come down from the mountain. He’ll be sitting in with us on the grand piano tonight. All of us will sit on the piano! The song below features Pete from last time he passed through Rochester.
“Dreamland” by Margaret Explosion. Recorded live at the Little Theatre on 11.06.13. Peggi Fournier – sax, Ken Frank – bass, Pete LaBonne – piano, Bob Martin – guitar, Paul Dodd – drums.
Skier on Durand Eastman Golf Course in Rochester, New York
Our ski path in the woods had been covered up overnight with additional snow and all that had drifted. Despite the fact that the meteorologists had given the “blizzard” a name and even parked a Weather Channel truck a mile away at the Sea Breeze bridge the storm was just more winter. And this has been a particularly good one. It doesn’t need the hype.
At the other end of the woods we used to ski across a fairway and head up to the lake on one of the trails around the small lakes but a couple of years ago they started grooming paths on the golf course. It can be brutally cold out there in the wind and kind of bleak compared to the woods but in full sun the golf course is surreal. As the guy in this photo whizzed up the hill toward us he said “Who needs Florida?”
Broken vessels in courtyard of cathedral in Jerez de la Frontera
There was barely enough snow to ski on yesterday so we put our skis in the car and drove to the park. Most days we ski in the woods but without a good snow cover you’re libel to trip over a branch or root and your fall is not cushioned. The flat open spaces in the park were especially thin though with all the wind. We hadn’t even looked at the temperature before we left so we unprepared for 8 degrees and wind. Where normally you warm up in minutes we froze and and trudged back to the car. Today looks better. I had to shovel a path to the mailbox so I could pick up our paper in my slippers.
Lake Ontario at Durand Eastman Beach during January thaw
The temperature was near 40 degrees today, the sun was shining and the woods was wet. This is what a January thaw looks like. We had to go all the way to the lake to see if the ice formations were still there. They were but the color was near brown with all the sand that has washed up on them.
Beech tree in Winter fog in woods near Durand Eastman Park
What do you think of when you hear the name “Freedom Industries?” Sounds vaguely patriotic. They’re the company that let their aging coal processing plant dump toxic chemicals into West Virginia’s drinking water supply and then didn’t warn the downstream residents of the peril. They had the freedom to let it go until they were found out. West Virginia is desperate for jobs and government regulations are a hinderance. This is why Congress continues to gut the Environmental Protection Agency. Regulations are a pain in the ass.
Who better to lead a ring that collected a $28,000 kickback from each of hundreds of police officers and firefighters who falsely claimed mental problems due to 9/11 than an ex-agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who once served as a senior Nassau County prosecutor. Who better than Facebook to expose the “injured” as bullshit artists after they successfully bilked the Social Security Administration of $21.4 million in disability benefits.
Today we learn Larry Staub, the Monroe County Parks Commissioner, is in line to take over as executive director of the Monroe County Republican Committee. I guess this move all makes sense. They have cut staff and funding of the parks to such a point that volunteers have taken over many of the upkeep tasks.
I like thinking about these things as I walk in the woods.
January seascape at Charlotte beach in Rochester, New York
The shoreline at Lake Ontario is so beautiful now. It is just other worldly. It doesn’t get this way every year and I can’t remember the last time it got this fantastic, maybe ten years ago or so. I hope you can find the time to go straight north from wherever you are in Rochester and see for yourself.
It felt like a blue Christmas, the whole lead-up, and then on Christmas day we learned Yusef Lateef had died. He was 93 and was still playing. I’m pretty sure it was Russell, the crazy guy that lived across the street from Steve Hoy and me on Driscol Drive in Bloomington, Indiana that first turned us on to Yusef Lateef, 1968’s “The Blue Yusef Lateef.” It was so exotic, so beautiful, we soon had our own copy of the lp and still do. Blue has always been my favorite color.
The sculptural qualities of the woods are in full display in the winter months. No foliage to camouflage the interplay of trunk and limb and most dramatically, the fallen trees and limbs, the tangled piles of branches and the wounded trees innocently caught in the path of a dying elder.
Peggi did a series of watercolors of portions of this birch tree. It has giant mushrooms growing on it now and white limbs scattered about. Where other trees lose their bark and dry out before falling, the bark on these trees, the same stuff Native Americans used to waterproof their canoes, seals moisture inside and the trees remain externally graceful even as they decompose inside.
I hear the town plans to thin the deer herd this year. Last year we heard the town didn’t have the money to fund the “bait and shoot” program. I don’t know if any of these things are true, they are just things neighbors talk about around here. The deer are gorging themselves on nuts this time of year and it is almost impossible to scare them off. I would not want to be the one charged with hunting or trapping these guys. It would be way too easy.
Most days our walk takes us into the park. Yesterday we walked to the park and then took a walk. We met a group at the kiosk on Zoo Road and took one of the Arboretum Tours that volunteers host. We’ve taken these tours many times but always learn something, mostly we learn things over again. No one knows how long the Dawn Redwoods will live or how big they will get because seeds from the species were only recently discovered. When telling conifers apart it helps to remember the cones on fir trees grow up and cones on spruce trees grow down. Hint: There are fewer letters in the the words fir and up. White oaks have rounded leaves (like the Matisse cutouts) where red oaks have pointed leaves. Hint: I forget what the hint was.
Patriotic Budweiser beer cans in woods of Hoffman Road in Rochester, New York
A distinctive can tossed in the woods would certainly whet the appetite of a thirsty hiker. And if the can design was patriotic it would resonate with our sense of freedom as well as enhance the brand. A win win situation.
If you took a Sharpie and lightly touched your skin with it the black dot would be about the size of the nymph deer ticks that Peggi and I picked off of each other yesterday. Peggi took one to her doctor last week and she had it tested for Lyme Disease. The tick was not carrying it and thus far there have been no confirmed cases of ticks carrying Lyme disease in Monroe County but it is probably only a matter of time.
The ticks are so small we’ve been using this battery operated loop, a lighted magnifying glass with a focus dial that we used to use to inspect the registration of the rosette pattern on four color print jobs, to verify that the tiny black spot indeed have tiny legs. I couldn’t get a good look at one on my arm and feared that it had already burrowed in so I dug away at the spot with our tweezers until it was a bloody mess. I either removed a mole or an age spot and then put a band-aid on it.
Leo Dodd presentation on Edmunds’ Woods in Brighton, New York
Cobbs Hill near the aptly titled Pinnacle Hill in Rochester, New York was named after Gideon Cobb, the quintessential pioneer and brick company proprietor in the Brighton neighborhood. Saturday was Gideon Cobb Day and about fifty people gathered in a lodge near Edmunds Woods for Leo Dodd’s presentation on the old-growth forest. The annual event was sponsored by Historic Brighton and a boxed lunch was included. The woods, an integral part of the old Edmunds farm, is now trapped between a suite of medical offices, parking lot, mosque, retention pond and expressway but it is a real gem with abundant wildlife.
The event started with a series of technical issues, first of which was helping my father find his glasses. They were in the side pocket of his car. My dad constructed the presentation in Keynote (Mac version of PowerPoint) and he transferred it to his iPad. The projector had a hard time recognizing the iPad so a restart was in order and then the wireless mic which my dad had charged up the night before wouldn’t work even though the red on light was lit. That turned out to be the “stand-by” position so that too was a relatively easy fix.
The first slide had an audio file on and I tried holding the iPad up to the speaker which only caused a screeching feedback loop. I was in charge of swiping the iPad to advance the slides while my father talked and I had a quite a time trying to anticipate when to swipe so he wouldn’t have to say, “next slide please” between each graphic. I jumped the gun a few times and had to go back and I clearly caught him off guard a few times as he looked back up at the screen and saw that I had already advanced the slide he was talking to. But the presentation was flawless on my dad’s part and thoroughly enjoyable. Afterwards he led a group out into the woods.
It has been weeks since we saw any bucks with a rack. Most have shed by now and they’re out there on the ground. Peggi and I went off in different directions as we worked our way through the woods today. We were both generally following the path but covering different ground in an obsessive search for racks. Weathered dead branches, shiny and void of bark look like racks in the leaves and everything out here is all shades of grey or brown.
We came back in eye contact with one another a few times over the course of an hour or so but then I couldn’t find her. I whistled as loud as I could and then hurried along the trail up to where it ends but still couldn’t find her so I hurried back the same distance thinking I must have passed her by. I couldn’t even get my lips to whistle any more. Still no sign so I headed toward the lake again and we finally met on the path. At least I had two racks to show for it.
We managed to stay off trail the entire way through the woods to Durand Eastman Park today. In fact Peggi was off to one side of the path and I was on the other – looking for deer sheds. I managed to disprove the adage that says you won’t find something if you go out of your way to find it. I found a rack yesterday or one side of a rack (is that a half rack?), a four pointer that and a really old Canada Dry Ginger Ale bottle, so now we have the bug.
Tryon Park trail with fallen tree, Rochester New York
We walked up to the Lake Ontario this morning along the trail on the west side of Eastman Lake. A bicyclist whizzed by us, all suited up in bike drag and moving too fast for us to say anything like “Bikes aren’t allowed on trails in this park.” We used to walk over to Tryon Park when we lived in the city. It was a neglected county park at that time and still is really, even though the county has officially reopened it They created a parking lot and put up a sign with Maggie Brooks and Larry Staub’s names on it and someone has already shattered the plastic cover on the sign and the trails are littered with Hawaiian Punch cans but it is still beautiful in a apocalyptic sort of way. ” I found this comment about the park on the RocWiKi page – “When I was a kid (in the 80’s) my friends and I loved to take acid and wander around here at night. Great place to trip.—SavageHenry”.
The 82 acres overlook the basin of Irondequoit Bay and lowland valley that extends south through Ellison Park. Unlike other county parks there’s old car parts in the woods and the remains of old concrete structures and decaying drainage infrastructure. We came across this fallen tree and at first thought it was the work of a beaver but then realized it was the handiwork mountain bikers trying to clear the trail. The park is now a test site for trail biking, the prefered sport of overgrown boys. There are bare trails everywhere sometimes six feet away from one another with exposed roots from ancient trees running through the paths. I’m not sure how long this experiment will run but the way it’s going if we return here in ten years I would guess the undergrowth would be gone, trampled or just washed away, the trees will have fallen over and the place will be a barren rutty hillside. Perfect for mountain biking.
Yellow flowers (Winter Aconite) in snow in Rochester, New York
I’ve spent the last day thinking about Rick Santorum’s observation that Obama has “a world view that elevates the earth above man.” I still going with the earth.
The coolest thing about a blog is the database. It is so damn organized. I use it to keep track of things. Every year we spot these little yellow flowers (Winter Aconite or Eranthis hyemalis) popping through the snow and since there has been a dearth of the white stuff this year the yellow flowers were up yesterday on February 19th. How much earlier is that than the last few years? I went to the db. The yellow flowers were spotted on March 9th in 2009 and March 10th in 2010.
Fragrant Witchhazel in full bloom in Durand Eastman Park, February 2012
The lemon yellow, non fragrant witch-hazel and orange sweet smelling witch-hazel are both in full bloom on leafless trees in Durand Eastman Park. We usually don’t see the yellow stuff until March but this is no usual winter here.
My painting show from the Little is all boxed up and today I took down my painting show at the Genesee Center for the Arts. So it’s time to move on and an excellent opportunity to re-evaluate what it is that I spend so much time painting. I am enjoying this process and considering wild alternatives like en plen air and abstraction.
In the meantime I was asked to paint a portrait for the Memory Projct. They sent me a photo of this kid, an orphan somewhere, and I did a few versions. The kid kid gets the painting. The one in the middle looks the most like him so I’m sending that off. Now what?
