Category Archives: Books

Trout lily X 4

Another find from the brookside trail. I walked past these at least twice before I noticed them, and then I saw patches of them everywhere – most weren’t blooming yet; only their purplish-spotted green leaves gave away their presence. Ther’ye tiny things and easy to miss at about six inches high.

I’m trying to teach myself wildflowers, and it seems half the exercise is in finding them, never mind identifying them! I have to get my head out of the clouds and my eyes off the treetops and look down at my feet for a new perspective on the natural world.

The few wildflowers that I recognize I know only from books and I’m finding the wildflower ID guides to be fairly useless this early in the learning process. Reminds me of what it felt like when I was first learning to identify birds – the field guide only confuses and frustrates. I’m having better success with with a few books by Hal Borland. Who else? One, A Countryman’s Flowers with photographs by Les Line, was a gift from my father a few years ago. I’m sure it’s out of print, but you might find it online with some searching. What I like about it, in addition to the photographs, is that the flowers are grouped by habitat, helping a beginner like me to know what flowers to expect where. Of course a standard wildflower ID guide includes that info, but it’s buried with all the other confusing stuff that makes my eyes glaze over. The categories are basic – the dooryard, the roadside, the old pasture, and brookside and bog and the book only includes 85 species, but I figure that’s enough for someone just starting out. The book also features Borland’s delightful essays; one for each species and includes info on growth and flowering habits as well as a bit of folklore. Of the trout lily, he writes:
“If you don’t know this flower by this name, try dogtooth violet, or yellow adder’s tongue, or fawn lily… The names trout lily and fawn lily come from its time of blooming – late April and May, when trout are biting in the brooks and when does are dropping their fawns in the woodland… Dogtooth violets mean May Day to me. As a small boy I gathered them for my May baskets, simply because they were one of the few flowers that always were in bloom by then.”
This book is almost as good as having someone along with me, teaching and telling stories. Does anyone make May Day baskets anymore?

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Now that I’ve finished ruminating on trout lilies (lol!) I’m off to finally finish up my income taxes. All that’s left to do is recopy them in nice handwriting and make photocopies, and stuff the envelopes. Think I might’ve waited a bit longer?
My husband is off with a fireman friend evacuating nursing home residents in another part of the state. Here on the coast there hasn’t been any significant flooding, but inland to the west is another story. I’m proud of my DH for doing this. I guess we all have our sense of duty – me to the IRS and him to something a bit more valiant.

Water lily

How significant that the rich, black mud of our dead stream produces the water lily; out of that fertile slime springs this spotless purity! It is remarkable that those flowers which are the most emblematical of purity should grow in the mud.
– Henry David Thoreau, from a journal entry

I felt like looking at water lilies today, so I’m posting this pic from last summer of one that grows in my little pond. I’ve forgotten the name, but water lilies tend to be mislabeled when I buy them anyway. It’s beautiful, that’s enough!

My guilty pleasure for the day was going to a bookstore during my lunch hour. I bought a charming book of nature quotes, poetry, short essays, and watercolors called Meditations on Nature, Meditations on Silence published by Heron Dance Press. Their books are beautiful and I snatch them up whenever I come across one. Heron Dance also has a website that you might like to explore.

Just the thing

The past week at work has been crazy with holiday parties, cookies and fattening goodies everywhere you look, and coworkers bearing gifts for one another. In the midst of so many distractions I’ve been trying to get my desk cleaned up so that I can have a week’s vacation without feeling too much anxiety about the state of affairs I will return to after New Year’s. So far I haven’t made very much progress, but I hope at least that my office phone won’t be ringing off the hook the whole time I’m away from my desk.

The small group of people that I work directly with has a gift-giving routine of one sort or another each year. Some years we do a grab bag, but the last few years we’ve been doing a Secret Santa where each person draws a name and buys a gift for a particular person. This year each of us included a wish list to help with purchases and that seemed to make everyone happier about the gifts they received.

Some of us also exchange gifts more privately, and that’s the point of what I want to write about tonight. I bought Julie Zickefoose’s book, Letters from Eden, for two of my coworkers. For Anna, I thought it might be something of a stretch; a gift given more to reflect my interests and share some of the passion that I feel for nature. For Kathy, I knew it was just the thing. Or at least I had hoped so.

I’m really terrible at buying gifts for people and struggle to come up with ideas. But this gift, this book, is perfect for her and I knew it as I watched her flipping through the pages this morning when I gave it to her. She was admiring the artwork and kept returning to this page and the illustration of the bullfrog and hummingbird. That was sort of a surprise because I had expected to see her pouring over the turkey vulture drawings because she thinks of tv’s as her totem, but no; it was this page and an opossum in another essay that caught her eye.

I wish that I knew more people that I could share this book with, it is just so beautiful. I say that without even having really allowed myself to read it yet. The artwork is so wonderful and lovingly drawn. It was just the thing my friend needed this day.

Thank you, Julie, for putting a smile on my friend’s face.

Snow fun

Passing along a suggestion for a fun little book for the snow lover in your life: Snowmen: snow creatures, crafts, and other winter projects includes instructions for making more than twenty creations from snow and easy to find materials. Why make a traditional snowman when there are so many other possibilities for sculpture!

The snowbugs at left are made with wooden skewers, pine needles for antennae, raisins for eyes, twigs for legs, and snow spots colored with dry tempera paint. Just the thing to brighten the winter garden.

I bought this book a few years ago for my husband who likes to play in the snow when he’s not out plowing it. One year he made a big teddy bear holding a bright red heart colored with food coloring on our side lawn – very cute! Mostly I’ve used the ideas in the book and really enjoyed making the porcupine, although those long pine needles were hard to find in the neighborhood. The authors suggest using a layer of leaves instead to make an armadillo.

If you have kids or a sense of whimsy yourself, I think you just might enjoy this one. So far, there’s no snow for me to play in, but I know some of you have had a fair amount already. Get out and have a little fun!

Note: All photos are scanned from the book and weren’t done by me.