the cassandra pages

Ten Years Ago

Text from this blog, ten years and a lifetime ago; images from this week in Montreal.

We drove to central New York to visit my parents. Spring is just coming to the fields and farms, and the land was tender and beautiful: the first velvety green on the hayfields, the yellow tresses of the willows in the swampy hollows between hills, the cows slowly walking out from the barnyards, chickens roaming happily behind houses. Tractors plowed wide dark brown swaths across the valleys, and the entire landscape smelled sweetly of manure. Behind one barn, a middle-aged man followed his aged father out to the field, the latter in a cap and dungarees, walking strongly but bent, holding a long green stem of something in his hand.

Crows and geese and blackbirds and hawks were everywhere, and letting you know it; deer grazed - the occasional alert ears raised to face the road - in the edges of fields and turkeys brazenly pecked close to the road. A heron flew low over our house, on its way to some morning hunting of the spring peepers, maybe, who had been so vocal the night before, and just beneath the slightly rippled surface of the lake, four carp swam lazily, their backs to the sunlight. I dug a few worms and fished a little with my mother, in the same sun, and -- other than the jet trails in the blue sky far overhead -- it felt like we could have been in just about any century of the last four or five.

--

My mother died a month later. I've been thinking about her a lot lately: good thoughts, but I'm incredulous that it's been ten years without her.

 

 

Stalking Primitive Plants in the Laurentian Foothills

When setting off into the woods, our friends S. and G. always wear bear-bells and mosquito veils. We didn't see any bears during our stay in the near-wilderness two weekends ago (though bears regularly ransack our friends' bird feeders) but we certainly attracted a lot of hungry mosquitoes! I did OK with a netting over my neck and ears, long sleeves and pants, and a liberal spray of musk oil on my hat, wrists, and ankles.

This area, northeast of Montreal, is part of the North Woods in the foothills of the Laurentian Mountains. It's a mature mixed deciduous/coniferous forest containing paper birch, maples, aspens, oaks, mountain ash, pines, spruce, firs and junipers.

The understory is sparse except in clearings, where you find a lot of lichens, clubmosses, mosses, and some ferns. From the mix of species, you can tell that you're either getting up high or going north, and that the soil is quite acidic.

Redcap or "British soldier" lichens

I've always been interested in primitive plants: lichens, mosses, clubmosses, ferns. Lichens are very cool, because they are actually aren't a plant at all, but a combination of an algae and a fungi living together to form what's known as a "composite organism." As one website stated, "Lichen are pioneers in places that are too harsh or limited for most other organisms. They grow on bare rock, sand, cleared soil, dead wood, bones, rusty metal, and bark. They're able to shut down metabolically for long periods of time when conditions are unfavorable, and can survive extremes of heat or cold and long periods of drought." In Iceland, for instance, lichens and mosses are the first species to colonize new lava fields.

Growing among these lichens, I found several species of wildflowers, new to me, that are in the Pyroloideae (below). And when looking them up, I learned that these are both mixotropic plants-- they gain their nutrition not only from photosynthesis, but also from a symbiotic relationship with fungi.

 

This is a Pyrola, though I'm not sure which of the thirty species it is.

 

This one is (I think) Chimaphilia umbellata. The name means "loves winter" (from the Greek: cheima 'winter' and philos 'lover'); both of these plants have leaves that stay green in the winter. Chimaphilias were used by the Native Americans as a treatment for rheumatism, and it was thought that chewing the leaves warded off tuberculosis. Pyrola americana, or American Wintergreen, is another related plant (also found in these woods); wintergreen oil contains salicylates (like aspirin) that act as painkillers but can be toxic at higher doses.

 

Like the lichens, these Chimaphilias seemed to be thriving here: under some trees on one side of the clearing, I found a huge patch of them.

 

Mosses also thrive here. These are primitive, non-flowering plants that grow close to the ground and reproduce by spores (borne on the tops of the reddish-orange stalks you can see here.)

 

Clubmosses, or Lycopodiums, are some of my favorite plants. Like moss, they reproduce with spores. They're related to the earliest plants that had a vascular system for carrying water and nutrients up into the plant from the soil - an obvious prerequisite for the evolution of plants that can grow tall and bear specialized tissues such as flowers. The northeastern clubmoss species are relatively rare; local populations have been damaged by the overuse of endangered clubmosses in Christmas decorations. Lycopodium powder -- the dried spores of common clubmoss - was used by the Victorians in theater to produce gunpowder effects, because it burns brightly and quickly but without a lot of heat.

I love being in woods like these, and to prowl around and discover some of the reasons why certain species exist there. It's a harsh environment: the soil is acidic, the rocks are close to the surface, the winter temperature is very cold. Still, nature evolves, and the result is a rich mixture of species that are adapted to survive.

Verdant, Shining

We were in central New York for the past few days, visiting my father, staying at the lake where I grew up. Early on the last morning, a deer walked slowly across the grass near the house, on her way to the water's edge, stopping to graze now and then, lifting her head to sniff and listen. We hardly ever see deer so close to the house, so I was surprised and grateful. I had been feeling sad to be leaving, and this beautiful animal felt like a sign to me that all was well, all would be well.

A little while later I went out to see if she was still there. The deer had disappeared, like the apparition she seemed to be, but the morning light was extraordinary as the mist blew across the water.

Someone had already had their breakfast:

And thousands of miniature worlds hung suspended in the dew.

The day before we had driven to Cooperstown with my father and his friend, through the green hills...

...and fields where the corn was just emerging.

We saw a lot of wildlife. Flocks of geese in the fields, and on the water with many goslings. Delicate wild bunnies. Herons and hawks. Skunks and woodchucks. Lots of deer. Wild turkeys. And even a gloriously blue bluebird.

And here's Dad and me at our destination: that most American and summer-celebratory of institutions, the Baseball Hall of Fame, with a couple of pretty good hitters behind us.

It's hard to believe, but even though I've been in Cooperstown countless times - I practically lived there one winter long ago - I'd never been to the BHoF before. We had fun. And were sorry to just miss meeting up with Phoenicia author and good friend Marly Youmans, who lives nearby. Next time!

The Cold, Cold North

Abandoned farm near Lake Champlain.

Fort Montgomery, on the western side of Lake Champlain near Rouse's Point, built at one of the northernmost strategic points of the American part of the lake, to protect against an attack from British Canada (1840s-1870s.)

Snow drifts, eastern side of Lake Champlain near Rouse's Point.

Fat Tuesday

Fromagerie Fritz Kaiser, Noyan, QC

Since it's Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday...i.e., the day before Lent begins and traditionally the last chance to stuff ourselves with fat and sugar, here are some photos from Fromagerie Fritz Kaiser in Noyan, Quebec, where we stopped today after doing some errands.

This fromagerie has won many awards, and we agree: they make some of the best cheeses (from both cow and goat's milk) we've ever tasted. It's just north of the US-Canadian border, and we used to stop there often when visiting our family on Isle la Motte, the northernmost of the Lake Champlain islands. Recently, the fromagerie has built a new store on the front of the facility where the cheese is made. The barns and the cows are right beside it. The prices for the cheeses are much less there than in Montreal stores, and you can taste anything you want to try.

In the foreground, above, rounds of goat brie and chevrechon, a soft surface-ripened goat's milk cheese.

This is Le Douanier, which won the Canadian Grand Prix in 2004. I can't even begin to tell you how delicious it is. It's somewhat similar to Morbier; this is what Fritz Kaiser says about it:

A semi-soft cheese with a washed and brushed rind, Douanier is left to ripen for more than nine weeks. The edible vegetable ash layer that runs through the centre of the wheel symbolizes the Quebec-US border close to where the cheese is made. With its earthy aroma and organic flavour, Douanier tempts the palate with a hint of nuts and green apple.

OK. Now we're going off to the cathedral's annual Shrove Tuesday pancake-and-sausage supper. And tomorrow evening I'll be singing the Allegri Miserere, and the ashes will be on my forehead, not in my cheese.

Country

Lake Champlain from the western shore near Westport, looking toward Vermont, last winter.