Gravity won! Saturday, Apr 6 2013 

Uncategorized acairfearann 15:18

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The looming menace by the barn, an ancient, massive, and very dead sugar maple finally came down. Actually, it crumpled about twenty feet up, leaving a gorgeous snag. A good illustration of how dead trees fall over unexpectedly; when it came down (sometime between feeding the horse and returning home at 9ish) the wind had essentially died down and it was dry (and so it wasn’t waterlogged). Thud. Nice of it to miss the barn. Didn’t do the fence any good, but it needed repair anyway.

The photo was taken a few years back. It finally broke just above where the forked branch going over the barn is in the photo. The trunk fell quite nicely along the fence line, which did require a bit of jury-rigging at night with the aid of car-lights. The section of trunk between where it broke and the top fork in the photo is now neatly arranged under the fence line and all the rest (which was in the road) is picked up*, so the town can’t get wobbly about big old trees. I can’t say I will miss walking under it several times a day.

*The toy got its first real trial! It managed to move the trunk just enough so that it lies along the fence line, it can stay there for the next decade or so. 22 horses is not enough, however to pick up a sugar maple trunk of that size. Nor is the chain-saw hefty enough to get through anything other than the limbs. There is a reason it is called Rock Maple.

 

From a letter Friday, Apr 5 2013 

Historical Events acairfearann 10:05

In the 1870’s, when her four daughters were all nearly of age: Fanny and Carlotta variously working or caring for family members, Helen in Europe, and Lucy a teenager; Julie spent part of each winter in New Orleans with Morris rather than living in Hartford. New Orleans was clearly a very important part of their lives, yet it always seems to have a curiously insubstantial feel as captured here by a letter from Julie in 1875:

“One week from today I expect to set sail for New York…Already the orange blossoms and the pomegranate buds, and the thousand roses, and the Japan plums, and all the peculiar enjoyments of New Orleans begin to slide backwards into the part and I look forward to the hard work which awaits me at home.”

Julie clearly never saw New Orleans as a home. I strongly suspect that Lucy’s death in New Orleans a few years later ensured that any desire for a connection was entirely extinguished.
The distance was compounded in the next generation: Fanny, and Carlotta all spent a great deal of time in New Orleans, but Helen never did. Helen’s marriage to WWE ensured that the next generation was a solid part of New York City; and New Orleans faded into the past. It still pops up though, here and there in the house. Mostly in the artwork, sometimes in things relating to Fanny and Carlotta (whose letters I have yet to contemplate)

 

Rhipsalidopsis Wednesday, Apr 3 2013 

gardening and Modern Photos , acairfearann 21:49

Isn’t that a lovely name? Sounds horrid.  Also known as Easter or Spring Cactus.  I picked on up the other day, I actually wasn’t paying much attention…I saw it and grabbed because I have been looking for a replacement white Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera) and the buds looked to be the right shade to be a good white.  I admit, I was in a hurry and annoyed by not finding what I was looking for (good, healthy primroses in something that isn’t eye-popping neon)

The challenge is apparently to get them to bloom again, it needs rooms at 50-55 during the winter months…which is hard for most people; but it should be easy for us!

Here it is blooming:

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On juncos Tuesday, Apr 2 2013 

Uncategorized acairfearann 13:19

I don’t care to have favorites, with the implication of exclusion and rank; so I never played the ‘my favorite X is …’ game well.  Still, watching a flock of juncos yesterday, I had to admit a certain fondness for them.  We have many birds here in the winter months, gathered in flocks, so it is easier to observe them closely.  The bird feeders attract the usual suspects: chickadees, nuthatches, titmice, cardinals, white throats, all the woodpeckers, finches, etc.  They all have a certain unique charm and habit.

Of all of them the juncos are the least flashy.  No striking colorations, no loud conversant songs, no gymnastic manuevers.  Just a group of little, ground-feeding birds.  Yet, I would challenge one to capture all the nuances of a junco’s colouration.  They are described as ‘slate coloured’, a laughably useless descriptor, unless you know slate very well indeed.  Then it is quite accurate.  Purple, green, brown, blue, black, grey…not iridescent like a starling, but a subtle constant shifting of colour.  The white flash of the belly, tail, and the light edges of the wing feathers make them remarkably eye-catching in motion.  Somehow, they also have a gentleness that other flocking birds seem to lack.  I have never seen a quarrel in a junco flock, unlike the finches or starlings.  A dull coloured bird well worth the second look.

 

Forest Giants Monday, Apr 1 2013 

Modern Photos and Trees , acairfearann 14:56

New England doesn’t really have giant trees; but we do tend to have any number of large and picturesque ones.  What always impresses me is why some of them can continue to stand.  This one, on the lane, is a big ash.  Its days are probably numbered because of the ever expanding road and the combined set of diseases and insects that are killing ashes.  These are bigger threats than the rather major structural failure.  For more than thirty years it has had the cavity in its base.  A few years ago, the spiral crack, splitting from the roots and curving up and around developed.  It creaks in the slightest wind, so there is probably quite a bit of movement.  However, since that crack developed it has weathered two hurricanes, several vicious thunderstorms, and any number of gusty, sustained wind days.  Any number of other, seemingly structurally sound, trees have failed in these events.  Would it surprise me to look out one day and see that it had finally ripped apart? No.  But it doesn’t surprise me to look out and see it still there.  Of course, when it does go it will be quite spectacular; the forces on it must be tremendous.  (for scale that road is a car and a half wide there, the wall is about 3 feet tall)

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Photo of the day Sunday, Mar 31 2013 

gardening and Historic Photos acairfearann 15:15

Actually, quite an old one, and a scanned print.  The bedroom in Happy Thought, with daffodils. 

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Crocus chrysanthus Saturday, Mar 30 2013 

gardening and Modern Photos , acairfearann 12:11

Possibly ‘Goldilocks’IMG_0129

 

From the Guestbook Thursday, Mar 28 2013 

Historical Events acairfearann 09:47

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July 1876.  The caption reads: “Mrs. Carleton, Miss Nellie Yale, Miss Nellie Bunce, Miss Lottie Smith, and Mr. Morris Smith ‘get in’ uncommon good spirits!”

Once again the dancing bird is the author’s signature.  Perhaps one of the Carletons. Mrs. Carleton was the wife of Julie’s publisher George W. Carleton, and they often came out for weekends. Nellie Yale is Helen Ellsworth, Nellie Bunce was one of her friends, Lottie is Carlotta Smith (Helen’s older sister), Morris is Julie’s husband and the father of Helen and Carlotta.  Judging by the bottle, I suspect dancing was involved. Music (Carlotta was a pianist) and theater (Helen’s love) were also likely to have been part of the entertainment.

 

From small beginnings Wednesday, Mar 27 2013 

Trees , acairfearann 08:58

come giants.  A photo I ran across the other day that caught my eye.  Note the seedling Norway maple there by the trunk of the big Cucumber Magnolia.  Or, I should say, by a small buttress section of the Magnolia’s trunk…

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Google Earth Tuesday, Mar 26 2013 

Modern Photos acairfearann 13:46

Google has just updated its pictures for this area, the current shots are from late April 2012.  I know this because of the vegetable garden layout.  I can also see my horse wandering around in the field.*

The amount of information one can get from Google is really astonishing.  We can see the failure points of the tile drain in the field.  The horse’s regular paths are easily deciphered, changes in the fores cover, the actual alignment of buildings (and walls and hedgerows), what the neighbours are doing, etc.  At the same time, it is sort of a global Peeping Tom.  However, it will only become truly weird if they start updating on a more frequent basis.

That being said, Google definitely doesn’t have x-ray vision.  Because the shots were taken in April, before the trees leafed out, many things are visible that wouldn’t otherwise be.  But not everything, the reservoir building for example doesn’t show up, nor does the garden shed.  And of course, once the trees leaf out, many things will be entirely invisible.  Happy Thought, despite a bright red roof, is completely invisible from all aerial angles during the summer.*

I find it interesting that buildings, small ones, are generally less obvious in the trees than any sort of defined path.  Paths, never mind roads, stand out like neon road signs.  As do straight lines.  But, the thing is that in a forest (especially in New England where there are so many stone walls) there are a surprising number of entirely natural straight lines.

Clearly the take-away lesson for all paranoiacs is never take the same route twice, or something.

 

*For those that know the location, look for the brown blur about halfway down the field.

*I suppose if you came in on the deck from the east, you might get a glimpse of it.  But you would have to be well below 500 feet….which I wouldn’t recommend.

 

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