Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Not Man Made


The first time I saw these I thought, here we go again, who let all these bits of industrial waste fall off their boat? And what exactly are they? When you pick one up it is dry yet flexible. The texture is smooth yet grainy. They can break apart, but they are pretty resistant.


There they were, scattered all along the beach. I started to wonder if they were organic. When you look closer you can see they are actually made of sand. 


When I read up on them I found out they are a combination of sand, mucus, and snail eggs! They are called egg collars. The embryos use the jelly for food, and then as the jelly disintegrates the larvae are free to swim away in the ocean! (Nature Detective!)  

Monday, May 30, 2016

Water Painting


The rain runs off the rocks into the sand, sorting the iron particles and making these beautiful patterns. The iron really is metal, I know because when my son was younger there was a popular toy that was a miniature skateboard whose riders had magnetic feet that allowed them to cling to the board. My nephew was playing with his in the sand and suddenly the feet of his little plastic skateboarder looked like that science experiment everyone does in grade seven where you put a magnet under a box lined with a sheet of white paper with iron filings sitting on top. Those filings arc out from the poles in a pretty cool pattern there too, but if you put the magnet on the iron filing side, good luck getting the filings off. I speak from personal experience.

Look at these two photos showing the same rock from a similar angle. The first is from a week ago. The second is today. You can see how much sand the ocean has scraped away in seven days. Bring in some stormy weather and it could be very different again tomorrow.

 

Sunday, May 29, 2016

Draw Up a Chair


There is a drawing exercise from Betty Edwards' Drawing on the Right Side of The Brain that I sometimes use with my humanities students. You turn a chair upside down and then you draw it. Your brain doesn't recognize it in this position and you are more likely to draw what you see than what you think it looks like, hence your perspective and proportion will be more accurate.


There is another exercise in the same book that suggests you draw negative space, the space in between the trees instead of the tree itself. It has a similar effect on your brain, you pay more attention to the lines you see and draw what is really there.



Saturday, May 28, 2016

Little Green Square


As I was walking back towards home around six tonight I noticed this little square of green ferns. I don't remember seeing anything like it.


Friday, May 27, 2016

Forest Tile Floor



Lots of rain today. Very cold. Most nature time spent looking through the window of a seafood restaurant overlooking the bay at whitecaps racing in the wind.


Thursday, May 26, 2016

Get the Boot


The pussy willows I posted turned into these things! They look like fireworks. And speaking of fireworks these will be ready to pop soon and my world will turn yellow with the pollen from the millions of Black Spruce gathered at my back door.


Today as I walked along a forest path I looked down and saw something inorganic. My first reaction was the typical disappointment that people think it is okay to leave their garbage behind, but as I picked it up to put in my pocket I felt a sudden rush of nostalgia as I realized what it was. Do you recognize it? (Forest Anthropologist) 


The arrow shaped attachment that held the buckle. The way you folded the smooth rubber flap over to hold them on your feet. Fifty years ago I used to pull these on over my leather school shoes, skinny leotard legs sticking up above to the required skirt since we were not allowed to wear pants. They were ugly, but everyone wore the same thing, so who noticed? I wonder how many years those galoshes have taken to disintegrate to this point.


On my way back home I saw my first flowers, a sprinkling of tiny pink blossoms tucked in the underbrush like memories of last summer.

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Nature and Creativity


I am desperately trying to finish writing a how-to manual for Virtual Team Teaching (VTT), a project started ten years ago (the team teaching, not the book!) with colleagues from Vanier College in Montreal. We get two cegep classes to work together using a variety of communication and collaboration technologies. As I realized when I first tried to teach someone how to windsurf, it is one thing to be able to do something. It is quite another thing to teach somebody else how to do it. Like windsurfing, VTT has so many factors and skills that all need to come together at the right time in the right way. In windsurfing you have the wind, the waves, body position, sail position, board position, the way you hold the boom and the angle of the mast, and all this in relation to the wind and the line of your tack or jibe. In VTT you have the two teachers and their varying teaching styles, their college traditions, the culture of the city they are situated in, the program, department, the course, the activity, the learning objectives, the technology you are using, the classroom or lab setup, and all this in relation to the particular students you have. And you can probably add lots of other things like the time of the year, the day of the week, the hour of the day. You get the idea.

So what does this have to do with nature? Here is the thing, when we go for a walk, our mind shifts into what some like to call "right-brain" mode. This is the creative, intuitive, out-of-time kind of thinking that happens in the shower or on long divided highway driving. You are not really thinking about anything, and then a solution or idea pops into your head.

So I feel lucky to have great access to nature for long walks that can help me be a bit more creative and generate thoughts for all kinds of projects and life situations. I am just hoping today's walk will help me make good progress on my book!

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Foam Balls


Well Nature, what a show! Last night I saw your big orange moon rise over the ocean, then today, I woke up at 4 a.m. and it was already really light out. North of the 50th parallel, winter days are short, but summer days start around 3 a.m. I checked my phone to see the exact time the sun rose; only fifteen minutes to wait. I put on my down parka (yes, parka, the kind with the fur around the hood; it was about six degrees Celsius outside) and headed down to the beach to watch the sun come up. It was a race, because even though the sky was clear, there was a very solid looking fog bank advancing from the south. As the sun emerged from behind Point Noir, the fog bank arrived at the same point on the horizon.



I saw the sun for a few seconds, and then it was blocked out as though it was still below the hills. The fog bank had not reached me yet, but I watched as it met the rocks at the other end of the beach where the moon was setting.



I got to see the sun rise a second time over the fog bank, before everything was swallowed up in the mist.


I was so excited to witness all of this that I had trouble falling back to sleep. Later, when low tide came around I went to see if I could make it to first bay. It was pretty wavy and there was lots of brownish sea foam everywhere, like you see in the photo at the top of the page. The foam was so thick that the wind would blow little balls off the top of the piles and my dog would chase them as they skipped and rolled merrily across the sand. You can see a little foam ball in the middle of that top photo,  it is floating just above the horizon line and it looks like a small brownish cloud. 


The sand shifts, especially over the winter, and it is always a surprise to see what the rocks look like in the spring. You would think that rocks don't change, and they mostly don't, but the sand can go up or down by a few meters, and that certainly changes the familiar landmarks of the coastal edge. This year, there was a lot less sand in the gap between the end of the beach and first bay. This also uncovered lots of inorganic material that was hidden under the sand, so I gathered two bags full of mainly styrofoam to take back and put in the garbage. Styrofoam doesn't go away, it just breaks up into smaller and smaller pieces. The shifting sand also uncovered this tunnel. It wasn't there before, or at least it was full of sand, so I decided to climb through it. Made me feel like a little kid again! 


They tell us the we should watch sunrises and sunsets, we should gaze at the moon and look up at the stars. We feel better when we do, and it's true. That's all. There is no but. 








Monday, May 23, 2016

Swimming on Land


I love this swimming-on-land thing dogs do! He does it just as enthusiastically whether it is on snow, grass or sand.

Saw whales twice today, not the smooth, slow glistening black backs of summer, but the frenzied, frothing, splashing spirals of spring. The Caplan are running, and I know who they are running from!

Snails Have Doors


Snails have doors that fit perfectly on the opening of their shell. If you look closely, you can see how the door grew with its occupant; there are little lines and they curl, just like the snail, only flat!

Fog on a Sunny Day


1. Fog bank rolling in on a sunny morning. 
2. Front edge of fog as it arrives where I am standing. 
3. Couple walking in fog. 
4. Dog in fog.

Fuzzy Purple Sand Dollars


Usually, by the time we see them on the beach, sand dollars have been bleached smooth and white by the sun. But this creature is from the sea urchin family and when alive it has little spines, so fine and short they look like velvet. Burgundy velvet, like royal robes.


But you can still see the star pattern!


Sunday, May 22, 2016

The Back of My Yard from the Bottom of My Heart


When I first moved to Quebec our house was only a couple years old and the back yard was just sand. We brought in top soil and planted grass and gathered rocks from near by to make a line between the forest and the lawn. A neighbour said to me "C'est trés beau, la fond de ton cour." I was not as bilingual then as I am now, and it sounded to me like the expression "the bottom of your heart," in French, "la fond de ton coeur." I told him it was really just the forest that was beautiful, we couldn't take much credit. Years later my sister made a similar remark about the striking beauty of the carpet of little white flowers under the trees. I laughed and said that they were simply the regular ground cover of the forest, it was just the moment of the year when the "quatre-temps" bloom. Today we worked as a family to get the backyard ready for the summer. I love my "fond de cour de la fond de mon coeur!"

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Forest Anthropologist


The forest behind my house goes on forever. You may cross pathways, roads, railways and rivers, but you can go hundreds of kilometres and avoid civilization. Maybe because of the lack of man-made objects, when I do come across something that is obviously left behind by humans, I go into pseudo-anthropological overdrive. I want to know who built it, when they were here, and what was it used for. I don't have answers, but it is interesting to speculate.

Friday, May 20, 2016

Stumped


If a mirror falls in the forest
And there is no one there to reflect,
Does it still make a scene?


Thursday, May 19, 2016

Today I took a new path and discovered a fairy forest!


I consider myself to be pretty adventurous. But we all have a tendency to follow familiar paths. Metaphorically and in real life. Sometimes both, like today. I have been walking or skiing or mountain biking almost daily in the forest behind my house for more than two decades. I know this forest pretty well. Better than lots of my neighbours, even. So I do not know why I never took the little branching path blazed by the town for snowshoers. I have not taken it in the winter. I have not taken it in the summer. I have not taken it Sam-I-Am. But today in the search for my daily #30x30Challenge photo I noticed how pretty it looked.


At first I was just going to take a picture, but then it looked even prettier the farther I went into the woods. The other paths that I usually take are a bit wider, wide enough for a snowmobile or four-wheeler, but this was a thin, winding path, and in the new spring sunlight of the first warm day I was drawn further and further onwards. It was magical. Little meadow-like openings and dips and hills. The other paths are fairly flat and straight, so it really felt like I had entered into another world. 


How could there be this whole other forest hidden in the middle of the forest I knew so well? I had been wondering if there was any snow left in the forest. I had seen patches a few days ago, but it had been warmer and there had been rain, so I was pretty sure it was all gone. But then in the path I saw this:


So of course I leaned down to take a picture. When I raised my eyes to the forest again it seemed like the world had changed somehow. Everything looked different. There was a thick green carpet of moss, and it wasn't flat like the rest of the forest, but hummocky and strange looking. Shafts of light pierced the tall evergreens and illuminated a stack of giant logs.


And as I descended the winding path into a squelching black puddle, I looked up and saw the fairy forest.


Now, this may sound like a fairy story, but it really did happen to me today. Me, who was wondering how I would find something interesting to take a picture of in my forest that is pretty much the same everywhere and all the time. And this fairy forest isn't even close to anywhere. I had gone about 2.5 kilometres when I came across it.


On a tree there is a sign that says (loosely translated from French): "Welcome to the Fairy Forest. My granddaughter and I visit the fairies every week. The fairies, when we arrive, stay still and wait until we leave to run everywhere and take care of the forest. When we are lucky enough to see them, it is important not to capture them because they would never come back and that would be too bad. My granddaughter loves visiting the fairies and bringing them surprises. Thank you for helping me keep the magic alive. Signed: One who believes in fairies."


So when you are feeling like you have seen it all and there is nothing new and exciting, I highly recommend taking Robert Frost's "path less travelled," it really can make all the difference.

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Chicken Foot Root

Ceci n'est pas un pied de poule.

Here is a story I tell my humanity students in their knowledge course. 

First, tell me what this is...


Are you sure?

Okay, here is the story.

I was kayaking one day in shallow rocky water, 
looking down at the starfish and sea urchins. 
Isn't it amazing, I thought to myself,
 how starfish look just like stars. 

Wait a minute.
That's not right.

 A star doesn't really look like that.
 So, probably,
a star looks like a starfish. 
(Here I picture ancient sailors drawing maps, 
and rendering by the stars, 
and using a shape they see all the time to mark their places.)

We have these ideas in our heads
 and sometimes we need to go behind those ideas 
and see where they really came from. 

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

The (In)Visible Past



The forest wears its history, 
Natural and manmade. 
Can you hear the voices?
People who built and slept in this camp.
Articles discarded 
Take years to disintegrate;
On one branching of paths
There were several old shoes 
In various stages of decline;
Who wore them and where did they walk?
Once amid the trees,
Wheels and handle of an old perambulator;
What babies chortled there
Before its last voyage into the woods?
Not far behind my house beside a little knoll,
There lie two car doors
From a nineteen-fifties car;
What towns did they open onto
Before being jettisoned in the caribou moss?

Monday, May 16, 2016

Pattern Recognition


We are drawn to patterns. They catch our eye. Ripples on the sand, stripes in a rock, rows of clouds across the evening sky. Today's blog post offers two book recommendations: the novel Pattern Recognition by William Gibson, and the children's picture book called Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney. These lupine seeds will travel on the wind and make the world more beautiful.

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Saturday, May 14, 2016

Raindrops

Raindrops are round.
We think they are tear shaped
like sadness,
but really
they are globe shaped
like hope.