Great Balls of Fir

Okay, actually a great ball of Spruce, but it was too good! I love these things. They are everywhere in the forest once you start looking for them. They are called "burls" and are caused by some sort of problem with the wood grain: insects, disease, or knots from dormant buds. Burls have bark on them even underground. On the giant trees out west poachers will saw off refrigerator-sized burls to sell the uniquely grained wood. My daughter remarked, "Isn't it interesting that a problem results in something beautiful."

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.

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.

Forest Tile Floor

See Forest Anthropologist.

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.

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.

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.

Stumped

If a mirror falls in the forest

And there is no one there to reflect,

Does it still make a scene?

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.

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. 

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?

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.

Feather

"'Hope' is the thing with feathers" -Emily Dickinson

Raindrops

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

May Snow

Yes there is still snow in the forest on May 13. Friday.

Vole Path?

This tiny forest path branches suddenly off the one I am walking on. It is too small for humans, only a few inches across. Who goes this way, a vole? The fox would not trample so thoroughly and the red squirrel jumps from one spot to another. What little feet trod this straight line?

Hey Bud!

The trees have been looking pretty dead for the last eight months or so. Okay, the Black Spruce in the forest are still green and those crazy Larch turn bright yellow, but everything else looks like grey sticks for most of the year around here. So you can imagine how exciting it is when the buds start showing. Tiny wrapped presents all over the place that will magically open and amaze us with their fresh green beauty!

Thanks Nature!
Sharon

P.S. Yesterday in the forest I found a watch, today I found a ten dollar bill! I am thinking of quitting my job and becoming a professional scavenger/beachcomber. The money made me think of La Grande Séduction, that terrifically funny Quebecois film where the Islanders (it was filmed in Harrington Harbour where some of my past students are from) try to seduce a city doctor to like their remote village so he will stay; one of their strategies is to leave money lying around on the boardwalks (there really are no roads on this island, I have been there) and the doctor gets really excited when he finds small bills as he walks around.

Fox Scat

When I decided to take one photo per day as part of the David Suzuki 30x30 Challenge I wondered how I would find something interesting every time I went out in nature. I needn't have worried, in fact I find it hard to choose some days. Today was one of those days. There was a partridge that flew up, startled, as we went by; you should have heard the sound its wings made, as though ten large birds are beating their feathers as fast as they can in a small enclosed space. Here is the forest where the partridge was sitting before it flew away.

Then I found a watch lying in the caribou moss; it must have been lost before the snow melt because it is still set to Daylight Savings Time. I am such a detective.

Then I saw the dogs up ahead (my dog and the neighbour's dog, who often walks with us) sniffing like mad at something they found really interesting. It was poop. I know toilet matters are not the most elegant topic, but they are a part of nature, and, in fact, along with tracks, they help nature detectives (amateurs like me and professionals too) figure out what animals are hanging around.

Leading to the poop were the tracks in the photo at the top of today's post. The foot prints are in a pretty straight line, and although that can also mean a cat, in the middle of the forest and this big, I am pretty sure they belong to a fox. Also, I looked up fox scat on Google and it looks just like my picture. If you do not want to see poop, do not scroll down.

Walking on Ground

I can finally walk on the ground again! From January to the end of April I walk a few feet above the ground, not because I am happy —although I am a pretty positive person— but because several feet of frozen water separate me from the forest floor. Snow is lovely, especially for sliding around on skis. But it isn't great for walking. At least, not when it is six feet deep. So one of the most exciting things about spring in Sept-Iles is walking on the ground. Just the feel of the soft sand shifting under my feet makes me happy! (So happy, I feel like I am walking on ground!)

Pussy Willows

Remember when pussy willows ranked up there with fairies and unicorns only they were even better because you could actually find them and feel their soft fur? I still feel that way.
Affectionately yours,
Sharon

Mom would be proud.

I thought about taking a picture of the dog as he sniffed photogenically in a little melted patch, but then he moved on and I saw that there was a crumpled white paper that would have marred the shot anyway. I continued on and not much further I was dismayed to see a couple fast food bags and wrappers in the sandy path of the forest behind my house. It is fairly wild territory and relatively pristine, so I walked on in consternation.

Then I thought about my mother. As she walked around the block in my small hometown she would pick up garbage, at times to the dismay of her walking buddy who would chide her, "Put that down!" But mom would carry the plastic bottle or shiny chip bag with her and then drop it in the next garbage bin she passed.

A few more steps and I stopped and turned around. I couldn't leave the garbage in the forest. I gathered it up and then continued picking up even tiny bits of refuse as I finished my walk. I remember reading that we should get at least one piece of inorganic matter out of the environment each time we go out. Imagine if we all did that. Anyway. Mom would have been proud.
Love Sharon