The end of one year, the start of another

2014 went by fast when you look at it in hindsight... swoosh! But a lot of interesting and good things happened, and some that we could have been without, as always.  My blogging was reduced due to other things, but here is a little summary of the things I never got time to show you earlier from the year that is about to pass on to history (2014).

WEATHER: There was a very cold and wintry beginning. Everybody learned the word 'polar vortex' with caused low temperatures and snow and ice.

FOOD: Many good Swedish-style breakfasts, which are like true mini-smorgasbords. Kalles Kaviar we have to get at IKEA here in the US. 

CRAFT and ART: Philadelphia and Baltimore Craft Shows, as well as Morristown and Peter Valley. Weavings by AA, trips to Grounds for Sculpture, and much more enlightened and enlivened 2014. This sculpture below by Brower Hatcher is one of my favorites at Grounds of Sculpture... it is really a place worth many visits.  Below that is a piece of one of Erin Wilson's many handmade, innovative artwork quilts, which we love. (The photo doesn't really do it justice, since it was taken with a smartphone.)

SWEDEN: a trip in March to the homeland, led me back to some places I hadn't seen for over 35 years, and Fiby Forest was a wonderful place to revisit. March is usually a cold and dreary month in Sweden, but there are wondrous things if you look closer, red beetles, green mosses, and colorful food (indeed, these days Swedish food is not just boiled potatoes, brown meat and sauce).

IDAHO: Summertime was conference travel time as usual, this time in Idaho, a new state. Up into the dry areas of the Bitterroot mountain range was an experience - hiking around Blue Lake, and being in all the alpine meadows with new kinds of birds and flowers, and views and vistas. I am going back!

PLANTS: Lots of work work focused on plants as usual, especially neglected weeds, lichens, and edible and urban plants. Beauty and wonder is everywhere...

BUGS: But there was also a lot of insects showing up wherever I was, and they too can be gorgeous. Looking at them this year and finding help online to identify and learn about them lead to a whole new world opening up.  I guess I have to learn more about fungi next year...

OPTIMISM: And now, it is the last day of 2014. And, I end with a quote by Cheryl Strayed from her book Wild, on what nature (and life) really is about:

“It had nothing to do with gear or footwear or the backpacking fads or philosophies of any particular era or even with getting from point A to point B. It had to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles with no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental.”

Fieldtrip to Payette River, Idaho

Last week I was on a day trip to look at mosses and lichens in the Rocky Mountains in Idaho, USA.  We drove up along Payette River, a clear-watered small river with many rapids that is beloved by kayakers and rafters (in inflated rubber rafts).  The river is surrounded by tree-less, browned grass mountains, but in the past there was a lot of trees around here.  Extensive logging in the last 200 years took down giant ponderosa pines, and cattle grazing by the settlers and onwards changed the vegetation to dry grasslands. 

We saw many, many lichens, and here is one of the most common one.  A striking yellow makes this one easy to identify, it is wolf lichen (Letharia vulpina).  It loves to grow on the ponderosa pine twigs and it toxic.  It is called wolf lichen because it was used as a poison to treat bait that was used to kill wolves.

Ponderosa pines against the clear blue Idaho-sky.  These pines are adapted to fire and survive it unless they are small seedlings.  Their bark insulate against hot raging forest fires that regularly comes through.

Wildfires were raging about 15 miles away, but didn't affect us.  Fires are common in these landscapes and part of the natural renewal cycle. 

This moss is an amazing little thing.  The left and right is from the same tuft of moss, and is the same species.  The left got a little water sprayed on it, and came back to life in a few minutes.  It is used to study cell biology, since it literally shuts down its metabolism in its dry state, and then can resurrect itself incredibly fast.

The rapids are very treacherous, and each year several people die here.  Rivers for kayaking are divided into categories 1-5 based on difficulty.  The North Fork of the Payette River (on this picture), is a number 4 I think.  We saw lots of kayakers including one that tipped under and then came back up.

And further down the river, where the ponderosa pine forest is gone, you could see the old logging and mining railroad from the late 1800s.  It is still in use but now it transports tourists. 

A little further down from the last picture is the little town of Horseshoe Bend, population 707. You know you are in a different part of the country when there is a plea for support to help a family's baby that was born with a heart defect, and the lottery prizes in the raffle they set up to help them financially with health care bills include three things: a chain saw, a new rifle with a spotting scope, and a large box of ammunition.  That would not happen in New Jersey.

Stamp of the Day: American Songbirds

I am back!  After a brutal spring when it comes to teaching loads, I am now back blogging.  There is lots to report; fun things I saw in Sweden in March, the species counting competition (our personal bioblitzing) and all the amazing things I saw as part of that, and a garden that right now is exploding with growing greens.  For now, here is a set of new US stamps with some of our great, beautiful birds.  Of these, I have already seen these year: scarlet tanager (unbelievable red), rose-breasted grosbeak, american goldfinch (they seem to be nesting on our property), white-throated sparrows (which now have left for more northern places I think), and of course the circus-like and flute-sounding Baltimore oriole.  Ah, birds are truly wonderful.  Having so colored birds around you makes you think you are in the tropics.

Stamp of the day: Foxes and coyotes

This morning I saw a young red fox that had been run over by a car. It was laying dead on the road.  Such a waste of a good life.

A few days ago LA and I saw an equally disturbing sight - along a rural road on a snow covered field an animal much larger than a fox was running.  It was a coyote, with big ears.  But it was so emancipated and its fur so thin that it looked more like a greyhound, and its tail was thin, thin, thin.  Mange, scabies, rabies, who knows, but something was afflicting it severely and you wondered how long it would survive.

We have had living visitors here too in the last week. A fat, ugly and white-faced oppossum occupied our porch for an hour one night and refused to leave.  They really do play dead if threathened.  It finally went away after LA stood on the outside of the porch railining poking it with a stick, hard and repeatedly. 

Racoons you mostly see dead too here in New Jersey, run over at night.  Grey squirrels do their thievery at the bird feeders or look for their hidden nuts that they can't find in the forests.  I saw another interesting thing today, an emu!    It is at a farm just a few kilometers from here. 

Deers are the absolutely most common wildlife mammal here, both dead and alive.

During 1 March to 15 May I am part of a personal bioblitz effort and challenge, where we will try to see as many species as possible of any living thing on Earth.  It started this morning and my first species was of course, Homo sapiens.  Second - blue jay, out the window :)

A giant miniature train place

When EH and her family were here last year we visited Northlandz, an amazing model train museum here in New Jersey.  Now there is a little movie about it and how they photographed it. Watch it.

Here are some photos from this great place.  Visit Northlandz if you have the chance, even if you have never liked model trains. (More photos from our visit here.)

Stamps of the Day: American Records

A few years ago the US Postal Service issued a series of 40 stamps highlighting the places, animals, and plants in the US that were the largest, loudest, tallest, deepest, fastest, oldest, etc., called Wonders of America.   They also made a puzzle featuring the stamps (in larger than natural size, of course), and it is one of our favorite puzzles here at home.  Tonight when I sat and looked through some of my stamp images to decide which one to pick to write about, I realized that it is actually amazing how many of these record places and organisms I have seen or been to after living in the US for nearly 20 years (yes, it has been that long, incredible).  

So, here it goes, the list of American records:

You can see these in Central Park these days, the peregrine falcons are back!  But one of the best observations I had was in Yellowstone National Park.
(FASTEST BIRD - Peregrine Falcon)

There is nothing like bumping along an old railroad track in the American west over vast sage brush areas (Colorado to be precise) after a vintage steam train and look out the window and see a couple of pronghorn staring at you.
(FASTEST LAND ANIMAL - Pronghorn)

Ancient ruins at the mesas in New Mexico, such as Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde, makes me wonder what kind of threats made people live like this - with the whole village only accessible by ladders.
(LARGEST CLIFF DWELLING - Cliff Palace)

Oh, Mississippi - I love the name of that river.  4 s's, and 4 i's and 2 p's.  And a single M, alone in the beginning.  The delta at its mouth might be as large as half of Sweden, or something like that. 
And New Orleans is of course set in the middle of it.
(LARGEST DELTA - Mississippi River delta)

Just a bit south of where we live, a few hours, is a giant bay along the Atlantic coast... the funny sounding Chesapeake Bay, once full of oysters, blue crabs and fish, but now overpolluted and overnutrified. It is still gorgeous, but it needs to get healthier again. 
(LARGEST ESTUARY - Chesapeake Bay)

Oh, the bullfrog's noises in the night wakes you up in the early mornings around here on the mountain... It is like a giant toad, fat and fleshy, and rather pompous in its behavior.

(LARGEST FROG - American Bullfrog)

Buffalo, bison, same thing.  I have only seen wild bison in Yellowstone, and there we saw them really close, actually too close for comfort when they suddenly changed direction and went straight in among the parked cars where we stood photographing them crossing the road.  I had to jump into the back of a minivan.  Nobody was hurt, but it gives you a lot of respect for these animals. 

(LARGEST LAND MAMMAL - American Bison)

Alligator meat is not bad.  It is lighter-colored than beef, a little fishy in texture, but not taste, more like chicken.  They can move fast too - I have seen 8-feet alligator lay still for 20 minutes and then be gone in 3 seconds with a giant splash down the bank to the water. Never trust a reptile :)

(LARGEST REPTILE - American Alligator)

I have only visited Rocky Mountains in bits and pieces, here and there.  New Mexico (oh Taos!), Colorado (wow, it was incredible), and up in Yellowstone, of course.  But this summer I think we will see the real thing when we visit Idaho and Boise.  This is something else than the Swedish mountains called 'fjällen'. A bit taller, steeper, fiercer, and younger. 

(LONGEST MOUNTAIN CHAIN - Rocky Mountains)

Speaking about mountains, the ones on the East Coast are the sister mountains to the Swedish mountains, same age, formed at the same geological time, and even if maybe taller in the US with the same feel of a bit worn-down, eroded landscapes, and with sequences of ridges and peaks blueing in the distance.  

(OLDEST MOUNTAINS - Appalachians)

In Hawaii, the mountains are so young they don't exist yet.  They are being formed, right now, tonight and tomorrow.  I have stood and looked at the spouting lava at the Kilauea crater in Hawaii, using binoculars since you weren't allowed very close.  Magic magma, lovely lava, and deadly.  

(MOST ACTIVE VOLCANO - Kilauea)

Here is a manmade record piece, which is something you see if you arrive in New York by boat from Europe - the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge connects Staten Island with Brooklyn over the narrow sound (The Narrows) that leads into New York City.  They are starting to grow oysters again under the bridge.  In the past there were lots of oysters here, more than people could eat, but then they disappeared because of pollution.  Soon we might have New York oysters again! 

(LONGEST SPAN - Verrazano-Narrows Bridge)

No records without the most amazing geysers of Yellowstone.  When I was a kid I used to look in books at my grandfather's house, and he had a book on Yellowstone.  I couldn't imagine the hot water spouts, sulfuric ponds, or bubbling mud pits, but they fascinated me, and I hoped that one day I would be able to see this crazy place.  Geology in action, of the most severe kind.  Well, volcanos might be a bit more severe, but Yellowstone is actually a giant volcano, and it is about to erupt at some point... About ten years ago I got the opportunity to visit Yellowstone during a workshop, and it was as crazy a place as I had imagined, or worse.  It is like a place out of a movie.  Moose grazing grass next to hot water springs that are deadly.  Geysers spouting giant fountains of water and steam on schedule.  Day and night. Incredibly.  I need to go back! (My grandfather's Yellowstone book is now in my house too.)

(TALLEST GEYSER - Steamboat)

When we drove up on Mount Washington in New Hampshire in June or July, they still had snow on the top.  It is the windiest place in America, this curved tip of an Appalachian mountain, and it felt like it.  It reminded me of the Swedish mountains, except our mountains in Scandinavia doesn't have giant weather stations on them.

(WINDIEST PLACE - Mount Washington)

And finally, another manmade thing, and this one is of utter impracticality and uselessness.  It just exist because someone had an idea, made it happen, and now everybody comes to see it. (Brilliant tourist marketing!)  I have never been up in the Gateway Arch in St. Louis by the Mississippi, but I have seen it from a distance.  You can take a little elevator inside to go up to the top, but if you are claustrophobic and or afraid of heights it is better to stay on the ground and look up.  

(TALLEST MAN-MADE MONUMENT - Gateway Arch)

Happy New Year! 2014 is here.

I can't believe it.  I am not ready for this.  I need another couple of months in 2013 to do the things I wanted to do that year, and now it is 2014.  As usual it will take me a few months to start to write the right year on the checks when I pay bills, but otherwise, things are just the same :) 

I like that it snowed both on Christmas Eve and New Years Eve with big lovely thumbnail-sized snowflakes even if they don't last that long.  This morning we woke up to severe cold and it is supposed to get down to 0 degrees Fahrenheit tonight (that is -20 C for those that use the-rest-of-the-world temperature system :).   The cats seem OK outside, and they are getting pampered with hot water bottles, hot drinking water and plenty of treats and insulating blankets.  They don't care a bit about dates, only about morsels of 'Tempting Tuna Flavor' treats.

So, 2013.  It was a year without giant weather events and storms.  Thanks!  I feel we needed that after 2012 which was horrible weatherwise.  Superstorm Sandy, the snowstorm in October one week after Sandy, the spring rainstorm that felled lots of conifers, etc.  So 2013 was calmer, a bit hot of course in these days of global warming.  Lots of canned tomatoes and homemade hot sauce ('Molten Lava' was one of them), two wonderful and successful kids in college, I learned how to use natural dyes for dyeing silk, wool, and cotton, and insect collecting in cold November with my Dad and sister were some of the highlights. And hundreds of great dinners with fantastic homemade and local food, thanks PP!  So, 2013 was a good year.  On to 2014 now...

But, it is still The Year of the Snake in the Chinese Calendar, and their New Year happens in a few weeks. Here is a US stamp showcasing the Chinese new Year celebrations.  Happy New 2014!

The downside with corporate positive thinking...

A great piece about why realism is better than overly positive thinking:

Seeing America sideways (from a long-distance train)

When you travel by train you never look forward, maybe a little backward, but mostly sideways. Quickly landscapes swish past, except at stations where speeds slow down.

 

You see the backyard of American lives, not the front meant for eye consumption.  What you see are the alleys, backyards, abandoned lots, weedy places and industrial parks far from the manicured front lawns of highways and city streets.

 

Bridges and tunnels provide structure and landscape channels - light or dark, over water or through rock.  Both have that sense of danger, non is completely safe, but fascinating and exciting. Better to be back on firm ground though. In the forests and swamps no people are present, their sometimes presence just marked by old, dried-out ATV ruts, a barely holding-together deer stand in a tree, or the remnants of a dock, long since gone. I imagine alligators and beavers in the lakes, but see white egrets and maybe a deer.

Through the backyards and hidden lives of Americans, from swimming-pools so small they are non-swimmable, to room extension after room extension built out back, maybe to fit ever-growing families.

Like an invisible snake  the polished train passes through, nobody, except some young excited kids that not have have learned to ignore, pays attention to the metal Amtrak tech wonder, pushed by electricity down the tracks.  Everybody else doesn't even look up, they go on with their business, be it hanging laundry, carrying groceries, running a red light, yelling at some kids, waiting for the bus with the headphones plugged in, or doing homework behind a dirty window...

Weedy plants are everywhere, covering up the empty spaces people left behind - an old parking lot, railroad sidings, ruins of factories with their hand-painted names that can barely be seen on the old bricks, and neglected yards.  Abundant green life everywhere. They are pretty, but uncontrolled - red leaves color the landscape in sunset colors in the middle of the October day.  Sumac, kudzu, virginia creeper, mugwort and tree-of-heaven... Each plant has a story and the humans have stories about it, all linked to human histories and miseries.

The train on its shiny steel tracks cuts through it all, relentless, just passing by on to distant places, different lives. Behind it are kids starting, pointing, and laughing, and maybe imagining jumping on, one day.

(Written after taking the train today from Trenton to Washington, DC, and passing through Wilmington, Delaware, and Baltimore, Maryland, and over Delaware River and Susquehanna River. All photos are taken from the train, many at full speed, so they are of course blurry, and therefore accurate.)