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Baby Shade

Baby Shade

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The trees are sure of themselves now. Even the most timid have leafed out. The only outliers I see  are the crepe myrtles, and I get their reticence. They are in glorious bloom at the end of summer; they need to bide their time now.

Leafing trees mean a canopy between us and heaven. They are an aural presence, something for the wind to blow through before a storm.

And of course, they also mean shade. At this time of year it’s baby shade. Not the deep cool gladness of June, July and August. The shade of May is a winsome thing, still finding itself.

Come on, baby shade! You can do it!

Wild Cat

Wild Cat

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It would have been easy to blame Copper, but he hadn’t been outside yet yesterday morning when we noticed the cat up in the tree.  Not just any cat — a large, wild-looking one with a raccoon-striped tail.  And not just any tree — one of the tall oaks.

From what I could figure he was 30 or 40 feet up. The temperature was in the 20s, with a stiff breeze that moved the trunk from side to side. 
The cat had found a perch of sorts, and at times looked content, as if sunning itself. But the longer it remained, the more agitated it seemed, shifting position, making half-hearted attempts to claw its way down. 
Finally, there was real movement, a quick scamper, an impossible leap and — after a few heart-stopping seconds when it seemed as if the animal almost certainly hadn’t survived the fall — a glimpse of that same striped tail moving side to side. 
Within seconds, the cat had scampered out of the brush, under the fence and into the woods. 
Destination unclear, motivation unknown. It may not have been a wildcat … but it was a wild cat.
Morning Happens

Morning Happens

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When I work at home I can see the morning happen, can see night peel off around the edges.

No dramatic sunrise today, just steadily less dark. A lighter shade of gray and the tall oaks emerging from it, first the trunks, then the large limbs and finally a crowd of branches at the top.

Only now can I see the houses, three from this vantage point — gray, tan and brick. Only now do I notice the dark fringe around the horizon, the woods on the far side of the road.

But I keep my eyes trained on the sky, on the vast ceiling above us that finally gives way to day.

Holly Blossom Time

Holly Blossom Time

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I drive with the windows down now. Not just because I like the wind in my face but also because the air smells like honeysuckle and holly blossom.

The former is a well known harbinger of summer; the latter has taken me a while to recognize. It is subtle and tender, not as overpowering as honeysuckle but just as redolent of warm weather and freedom.

Here is the holly flower, blurry and slightly past peak. A blossom hidden under the canopy of this prickly, upright tree.

We think of the holly around the holidays but it’s just as important now, when it sweetens the air with its scent.

A Fluff Piece

A Fluff Piece

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For the last few days cottonwood fluff has been floating through the air. I think I know the source, a tree that’s half a block or so away. But every year at this time when the wind is right and the air is clear, I see its progeny.

So light, so fragile, yet tenacious enough to go the distance, it lodges itself in driveway cracks, leaf piles and sometimes even on the ground. It’s hard not to see it as wishes spun from the spring air, spores of hope.

I read about the tree, learn that it’s a type of poplar that does well in stressed soil. It became the official state tree of Kansas in 1937, the state legislature dubbing it “the pioneer of the prairie.”

Funny then to see it cast its seeds out onto the tidy, mulched lawns of suburbia. Perhaps we are the final frontier.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Bouncing and Bierstadt

Bouncing and Bierstadt

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Last evening, a late-in-the-day bounce on the trampoline. I’ve jumped at this time before but had forgotten how transcendent it is.

The sun was low in the sky but not yet setting. From my vantage point the trees in the front yard were shining. And though I knew it was a reflected gleam, I could not shake the belief that they had generated that light themselves. Beyond the leaves was the sky — and it was the shade of blue it turns before going out for the night — a radiant hue.

The landscape had the sentimental, heroic scale of a Bierstadt painting, which was no doubt caused by exhaustion and bouncers’ (instead of runners’) high.

But it was as real to me as any humdrum scene, as real as the pale dawn now unfolding outside my door.

(Albert Bierstadt, Forest Sunrise)

Stopped in Their Tracks

Stopped in Their Tracks

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On the High Line yesterday nature-starved New Yorkers clustered around a red bud tree as if it were a work of high art. It halted them mid-promenade — the beauty of the nubby blossoms, the radiant color against the neutral palette of lower Manhattan.

I compare this tree with all the wild red buds I saw driving through the hills of West Virginia ten days earlier. Brilliant volunteers alone and unnoticed, living out their bloom on lonely hillsides.

Not this tree. It’s well loved, earnestly photographed. And it’s no volunteer. Even its position — pushing up through the rails of an abandoned railway— is no accident.

New Yorkers stride nonchalantly past soaring skyscrapers — but a single tree stops them in their tracks. It’s a reversal worth noting.

Tree with a Story

Tree with a Story

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Still thinking trees from yesterday, I snapped a few shots of them on my run. This one has a story.

As I was lining up the picture, I noticed a man making his way to the curb with a small bag of trash. He paused, waited for me to finish before moving forward. It was like we were at the Washington Monument or something.

When I thanked him, he smiled and said: “Do you know what kind of tree that is?”

I admitted that I did not.

“It’s a pumpkin ash. Way out of its range but somehow it survives. It’s called pumpkin ash because of its shape. Probably several hundred years old. Lost a big branch in the ice storm but it’s still here.”

A tree with a story. How many trees have them? More than we think, I bet.

Old Guard

Old Guard

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The Bluegrass region of Kentucky is a natural savannah land, and trees here are in short supply. The old oaks, the ones that have been here 100 years or more, are gnarled and magnificent.

They stand sentinel in fields. They rise handily above young maples or pines. 

Because trees are scarce here, I notice them more. To come upon one now is to see what a tree can be.

The Hedge in Autumn

The Hedge in Autumn

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I have a thing for hedges. Don’t know why. Maybe it’s the Anglophile in me dreaming of British hedgerows. Or maybe it’s the hospitality of hedges, the way they open themselves to sparrows and other small creatures.

Whatever the reason, I pay close attention to hedges, their colors and seasons. The hedge I pass each workday, the one I’ve written about in spring — the equipoise of pink and green as it buds — is now in brilliant autumn leaf. 

I like to think the pink-red part of the spectrum has asserted itself at last. After wearing green all summer the hedge is finally letting its true colors show.