Eclipsed

 
 

Where were you during the solar eclipse? If you were fortunate enough to be in the heart of its shadow, it must have been a spectacular experience. My husband and I made do with our Virginia garden, testing out our homemade pinhole devices and photographing the effect of the partial eclipse on a variety of surfaces. Since we couldn’t look at the sun directly (though the pull to do so was intense), we observed the shifting light and the shadows it cast on the flowers, leaves, paths, and walls around us. We knew it wasn’t going to get very dark, but we weren’t prepared for the eerie glow—a bright gold with a purplish undercast that varied its intensity as the moon passed in front of the sun. We were also quite surprised by the uneasiness we felt as the light shifted. As artists, we pay a lot of attention to light, and its disruption felt threatening. It makes sense, I suppose, as the sun is what keeps us alive on this planet. We humans do our best to pretend we’re not affected by the natural world. This was one instance when I completely understood the urges of primitive peoples to bang on drums until the sun returned!

 

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Veraison

 
 

Photographing at Linden Vineyards on a rare cool and sunny August morning, I couldn’t help noticing the variations of color in the grapes. Where only a few weeks ago I walked past rows and rows of yellow-green grapes, I was now seeing clusters arrayed in a rainbow of hues from bright green to deepest purple. I learned from wine grower Jim Law that the grapes had reached veraison, the point of transition from berry growth to berry ripening. During this process, sugars increase in the grapes and acids decrease, creating color change most obvious in the red varieties (which are green up to this point). This is an exciting time for a vineyard, as once grapes complete veraison (a process that takes 5 to 7 days), the clusters will be ready to pick in about 6 weeks. The countdown for harvest has begun! It’s also a reminder to a photographer who responds to the beauty of grapes and vines that I'd better get to work, as my season in the vineyard will be ending soon.

 

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Equivalent

 
 


How is a zinnia like a tangle of electric extension chord? In my studio the other morning I was winding up the chord when I glanced out the window as the morning sun caught an orange zinnia in its rays. I walked closer to the window, and the sunlight lit up the orange chord. I had to photograph the two together in that golden light. We never think that an extension chord can be beautiful, but highlighted by the sun, it paired elegantly with a glowing zinnia.

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Rediscovered

 
 

I just spent a delightful week working harder than I have in a long time. Though I'm exhausted, it's fatigue that comes from physical work with a rewarding purpose—in this case helping our son move his family into a house of their own in Connecticut. They had everything well under control, but this is the kind of transition that is greatly aided by a little extra elbow grease. And since their house sits on a small plot of land, I focused some of my efforts on evaluating the overgrown vegetation and tackling the weeds. Someone years ago must have loved this yard, because under weed trees and wisteria that had run amok I kept finding remnants of a garden planted with care—varieties of irises, some hidden sedum, and two different hydrangeas, one with lacy violet-tinged flowers. It made me think of the possibilities inherent in a garden, of the dreams and disappointments that go along with owning a piece of the earth. With the arrival of a new family, a house and garden take on new life—literally—and suddenly there is a revival of possibility in a neglected garden. It was very exciting, especially watching our two grandsons discover places to hide (and places where toads and bunnies hide!). I came home with a fresh perspective on my own garden. What would I do now if I were just moving in and discovering this garden for the first time? A lot! I can't wait for cooler weather so I can get started.

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Figs and Financiers

 
 

This is the time of year when making dessert gets really interesting at my house. Despite an otherwise strong commitment to healthy eating, dessert is often on the menu—reasonable, healthy desserts, of course, but I’ll use any excuse for a session of baking therapy. With all the fruits available this time of year, I get a little carried away. In the past week I’ve made peach tart, dark chocolate cake with cherry brandy sauce, peach shortcake, and cherry clafoutis (we’ve also eaten lots of plain blueberries and cantaloupe, but no baking was involved). Then a friend brought me fresh figs, and I can get quite ecstatic about figs. They are so delicious on their own that I decided not to bake them into anything. Instead I tried out a recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s new dessert cook book, Baking Chez Moi, to go with them. I had just gotten some matcha (green tea) powder, and I remembered Greenspan has a recipe for matcha financiers. Figs and financiers? Why not. Financiers are a staple of French patisseries, a small, firm "cupcake" made with egg whites, sugar, almond flour, and brown butter. Who knows what prompted me to pair matcha with the figs, but the combination of flavors and contrast of textures was inspired. I was also rewarded with a visual bonus—their colors matched perfectly! Here are links to Dorie Greenspan's recipes for regular financiers and matcha financiers.  But you'll have to find your own source for the figs.

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Long-Awaited

 
 

Three summers ago, in an impulsive act common to gardeners, I fell in love with the drawing on a packet of hollyhock seeds and bought them. The delicate illustration showed stalks of flowers of such an unusual purple-black that I knew I had to see them in actual bloom. Hollyhocks are tall flowers demanding space and full sun, both of which are lacking in my small urban plot. But when has reality ever deterred love? I found a space along the bamboo fence that gets a few hours of afternoon sun, and I carefully lined up all the seeds in the packet and planted them per instruction. I waited and eventually two tentative stalks emerged. I watered and watched them as big, round leaves appeared. Both plants reached the height of one foot and stopped. A few more leaves circled the middle of each, and that was it for the season. Hollyhocks are self-sowers, but without blooms there can be no seeds. I bid them goodbye as the frosts appeared, though I couldn’t resist a stern lecture on their ingratitude. I would just cross hollyhocks off the list of plants able to survive in my garden. To my complete surprise, the two plants reappeared the following summer, though they repeated their disappointing performance. Well enough of this, I thought last fall. I know when I’m being manipulated. Something prevented me from pulling them out, and now I’m glad I resisted the urge. This week the first flowers appeared, and as promised, their color is a sultry black tinged with purple. I wasn’t prepared for the alluring spray of pink stamens bursting from the center, though. Ah love!

 

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Fluffy Meadows

 
 

Early June rains kept the ground too wet for mowing during our Vermont visit, so the pastures were beautifully overgrown and full of wildflowers. I took my two grandsons for a nature hike up the hill to share my love of wildflowers and the surprising names we give them. They giggled when I held buttercups under their chins to see if they loved butter, and both enjoyed the ragged robins fluttering like pink feathers in the breeze. The five year old considers himself a horticulturalist (his word), and he proceeded to give me alternate names for each of the flowers. Purple vetch became white horses, and wild parsnip became yellow stars. His versions were certainly in the spirit of wildflower naming, which is based on local observations and customs going back centuries. The same flower in a different locality (or language) will often have a different name. The orange paintbrushes we picked are also called devil’s paintbrushes and orange hawkweed. The two year old had the last word, though. He was more tuned in to the sensual experience of the meadow, smelling and caressing each flower he picked. Stepping into the tall grass in pursuit of pink fleabane, he petted the stalks and flowers around him and smiled. “Fluffy,” he said, and it struck me how accurately that adjective fit the meadow—soft and full enough to lie down in comfort.  

 

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Long Day

 
 

Part of the fun of being at the “lake house,” as my grandsons call our rental cottage, is staying up and celebrating the summer solstice. In Northern Vermont, the longest day is especially long, with the sky brightening just after 4 a.m. and darkening around 10:30. Reflected in the lake, the twilight seems to go on forever.

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Unexpected Blue

 
 

Standing up to my knees in the icy waters of a northern lake, I gaze at distant mountains framed by the infinite blue of a summer sky. I’ve returned to Vermont to celebrate the solstice with my family, and the ritual of decades begins with testing the temperature of the water as I acknowledge the power of the landscape. And yes, as usual, the lake is too cold for swimming. I take another step out and slip a little on the rocks. Through the clear water, I am surprised to see a piece of the blue sky sitting in the sand. I bend to look closer and discover a crayfish, its blue claws setting it apart from the surrounding stones. With a little research I learn this is the virile crayfish (Orconectes virilis), a common denizen of northern streams and lakes. The blue pigment is caused by proteins and may be part of a phase in its growth, but apparently it doesn’t occur in all virile crayfish. This one is lucky to get those beautiful, sky blue claws that perfectly complement its sandy brown body. Nature at work doesn’t need a design degree! I’m not sure what advantage the blue claws give the crayfish, but they certainly have delighted me.

 

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Evasive

 
 

Since the end of April, when I first noticed the return of the catbird pair, I’ve been trying to take a decent photo of one or the other. It’s a pursuit I start every year, and so far it has failed miserably. I see them constantly—on the hanging branch of the cedar, in the birdbath, on the fence, in the gravel outside the porch, in the garden wherever I’m digging, and most prominently perched (for just a second!) on top of the dead Japanese maple. They are the most active birds in this season of bird activity. They seem to taunt me, and I swear they know what they’re doing. They land within feet of me, cock an eye in my direction, and fly the instant I point the camera. Even when I’m lurking behind the corner of the house or waiting with camera aimed from my bedroom window, they move so quickly I only get a record of their grey blur. Named for their mewing cat-like call, grey catbirds also have a fascinating repertory of bird sounds. Like their mockingbird cousins, they skip through their playlist at the least provocation, but unlike mockingbirds, they string the phrases together only one at a time. Since they migrate each winter as far south as the Caribbean and Central America, I get to hear bird calls I’ve never heard before. I suppose I should just be content observing their energetic movements and listening to their lively concerts in my overgrown garden, but I’m not giving up my quest for a photo. I’m now looking into a GoPro with a tripwire that I can rig up in the birdbath...

Instead of posting any of my fuzzy photos, I’m relying on this detail from an 1810 sketch by the master, John James Audubon. It appears in an inspiring new book, Explorers Sketchbooks: The Art of Discovery & Adventure.

 

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Secret Serviceberry

 
 

Okay, I admit it. I love to gather fresh food for free, especially if it’s right in front of me and nobody else is noticing. I’ve discovered that the polite term for this habit is urban foraging. I’m not a fanatic, though I have gotten some curious looks from passersby as I’ve been picking linden flowers off the trees in front of the library. If someone asks, I’m glad to share my knowledge about the trees and my plans for my harvest. Little leaf linden (Tilia cordata), the European species of linden, are commonly planted for shade along city streets. The flowers appear in June and July and fill the air with their honey fragrance (bees love them). When dried, they make a pleasing, mild tea that has a calming effect (in France it is called tilleul). Our county does not spray (a good thing to check), but I take the flower bracts home and wash them in warm water, then dry them on wire racks before storing them. I add the flowers to mint and chamomile for a delicious and soothing tea. Perhaps my favorite source for free gastronomic delight is the serviceberry (Amelanchier), a small tree or multi-stemmed shrub that has been used widely as a landscape plant in cities. A native plant in the rose family, serviceberries have lovely white flowers in spring and bright reddish orange leaves in fall. During the summer, they produce small red to purple berries that taste like a cross between blueberries and raspberries. Most people ignore them, though the birds don’t. I recently discovered a nearby street that has three trees in a row. The berries are just ripening (a little early this year), and I got right to work picking and putting them in a brown bag I just happened to be carrying. The entire time I was selecting berries, a robin was dashing in and out of the branches scolding me. I apologized but I didn’t stop picking. Urban foraging is a growing movement, and a number of websites help identify safe urban food sources. There’s even an organization called Falling Fruit that has created a huge, collaborative map of urban areas where fruit and other foods can be foraged for free. I will not be contributing the location of the serviceberries, though. For now they are my selfish secret!

 

 

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They're Back!

 
 

Like red-eyed emissaries from another planet, cicadas started appearing in my garden this week. I first spotted exoskeletons—the empty brown “skins” left behind when they emerge—on leaves as I was weeding. I wondered if these were leftovers from last year, but I kept finding more and more of them. It didn’t take long to stumble across the former inhabitants of those exoskeletons lurking under my plants. Cicadas are big and skittish, and though they don’t fly far, they can startle when they take to the air. It seems a bit early for their emergence, and I wondered why there are so many of them off the 17-year cycle. Apparently I’m not the only one puzzling over the problem, as this article from the Washington Post makes clear. Cicadas don’t live long, so when one of them landed on me I walked with it into the house and set it up in my studio for a posterity portrait. It was surprisingly cooperative, though it followed my movements with those eerie red eyes. After a few quiet moments, it decided it had had enough attention and started to walk away. I released it, indignant but unharmed, into the rhododendron.

 

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Rosemaniac

 
 

Despite the erratic spring weather (50˚ rain one day, 90˚ humid heat three days later), the roses are showing off their splendor. From the frothy, peachy blossoms of “Collette,” to the round rosiness of “Queen Elizabeth," to the bright magenta of “Zepherine Drouhin,” to the prolific pale pink of “New Dawn,” all my roses are competing for attention. I’m crazy about roses (and their names), but my shady garden doesn’t permit me to divide up the space into classic “parterres” full of tea roses as Empress Josephine did at her estate, Malmaison. Dream on! Instead I’ve had great success with a dozen climbing roses planted along sunny patches of wall or fence. Those patches change as trees get taller, and some of the roses put up with a lot of shade, but it’s hard to transplant roses once they’re established. One exception is “Don Juan,” which continues to provide velvety, deep red roses with a fragrance hinting of cloves. This was the first rose I planted thirty-six years ago, but it was engulfed by shade within a decade. When I moved it to its new sunny spot, it took off again. It’s beginning to show it’s age, producing fewer blooms each year, but in the tradition of its namesake, it has no plans to quit seducing! And I have no plans to quit enjoying all my roses.

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Tallest Tulips

 
 

Unless you can fly, you probably have never seen intact flowers of the tulip poplar close up. The flowers appear near the crown of these tall trees, and I only know the blooms exist because their yellow-green and orange petals (and occasionally a whole flower) begin to show up on my hiking paths this time of year. But last week’s windstorm blew entire branches off the tops, and I was lucky to find three entire blossoms in various stages of opening. The blossoms are a delight to hold (and photograph), because their color combination is so striking. Though the flowers resemble tulips in outward shape, they have a lot more in common with magnolia blossoms. As it turns out, the tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) is actually a member of the magnolia family and not a poplar at all. Tulip poplars are also the tallest native trees in eastern North America, which is why I was grateful for a little help from the wind.

 

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Fresh Eyes

 
 

A visit to the Virginia House, as my grandsons call our home here, is a treat for everyone—parents get some rest, kids get lots of attention (and vintage toys to play with), and grandparents get plenty of hugs. We also get to experience our familiar world through fresh eyes. We visited the Zoo, where new pandas reign and a small farm with cows, alpacas, and goats captured the enthusiasm of the two year old. We went to the Air & Space Museum, where the Mars Rover enthralled the five year old. We spent time in the garden, where touching a wriggling worm set off a burst of giggles. And we took a nature walk through the park on a bright, cool day, watching out for poison ivy. “Leaves of three, let it be,” we chanted, but the older grandson found plenty of examples of three-leaved plants that needed qualifying. His favorites were the jack-in-the pulpits, many of which were blooming right next to the poison ivy! The curiosity and enthusiasm of children never stops. I’m always exhausted after they leave, but it’s because I’ve been paying attention—to them and to the world around me.

 

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Green

 
 

It sneaks up on you, even when you are watching for it. This year I was determined to catch it. I walked almost daily through my favorite park, looking for signs—elegant beech buds stretching long and plump; thorny briars filling up bare ground; jack-in-the-pulpits popping up along the paths. I missed a couple of days, but they were warm and sunny, and that’s all it took. After a soft rain yesterday, I went back. Bare winter trees have leafed into spring—an explosion of bright green. The woods are completely transformed! I swear I’ll catch it next year.

 

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Dutchman’s Breeches

 
 

Jumpy weather has distracted me from my usual preoccupation with spring wildflowers. I found myself walking in the woods this week wondering if I’d missed the early bloomers, especially the delightful Dutchman’s breeches (Dicentra cucullaria). I hurried down the path and was relieved to see them flapping in the breeze. In the same genus as those old-fashioned garden favorites, bleeding hearts (Dicentra spectabilis), Dutchman’s breeches bloom and fade quickly. I recycled my poem to celebrate their sighting.

Fed up with winter
and lines of dingy laundry
drying by the smoky hearth,
the Dutchman's wife
hangs her husband's breeches
in cloud-strewn April sun
where billowing white flags
announce to all her neighbors
that spring has come.
—ACF

 

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The Violet Vase

 
 

As I survey my garden, clippers in hand, there isn’t much to cut for my dining room table. The azaleas are perking up, but they’re at least a week from flowering. I see signs of life among the Virginia bluebell leaves, and the celedon poppies are forming buds, but nothing is ready to pick. So I’m relieved to discover a large patch of two-toned violets waving for attention. These are among my favorites, reminding me of my childhood in France, where violets are a treasured flower, and street corner sellers can still be found today. I pick a bouquet to place in the violet vase, one of the few pieces of my mother’s ceramics that still survive.  She went through many phases of creative endeavor as I was growing up—from colored pencils to oil paintings, cake decorating to ceramics—seeking an outlet for her restless energy. As I look back from this vantage point in my own creative life, I realize that she usually abandoned her efforts just at the point when she was about to break through into mastering her medium. She didn’t like to be frustrated—who does? She wanted to be the best at everything, and if she wasn’t, she moved on. When I hold this vase in my hands, I regret her impatience. I would have liked to see what came next. She had a wonderful eye for color and a gift for picking just the right details. The violet vase is the perfect shade of green to complement the purple of the flowers, and the swirls of playful raised dots transform its traditional shape. I’m glad she left this pretty vase painted by her own hands. I can enjoy the simple beauty of the violets as I honor her efforts.

 

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Random Lines

 
 

The arrival of the vernal equinox—yes, it is officially spring—brings more cold and gray. Given the weather roller coaster we’ve been on for the last few weeks, I’m not surprised. In my neighborhood, few of the flowering trees and shrubs survived last week’s ice storm. The famous cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin are doing their best for the upcoming festival, but it’s being reported that 50 percent of the flowers succumbed to the cold. Nature is generous, though, and many spring plants that bloom later, like lilac, rhododendron, and azaleas, will soon make up for the losses. Even as winter leaves reluctantly, there is plenty of random beauty to be found. These bare wisteria vines outside the National Gallery create lines worthy of any of the venerated artists whose work is displayed inside. But the vines provide a bonus—as the weather warms up, they will erupt into clusters of lavender blooms. All is not lost!

 

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