Homage to a Swimming Pool

It was a summer like many others at the Community Park pool, with blue umbrellas and well-tended purple coneflowers gazing skyward at the entryway,

and blazing stars playing off the banners stretched across the main pool.

Sun and shadow played upon the walls of the dressing rooms,

whose patterned weatherings spoke so richly of the years.

Clock hands counted hours slowly,

and whistles 'round the watchful lifeguards' fingers twirled, as timeless summer days sped by.

By Labor Day, the last day for summer and for this pool, the flowers had faded,

to merge with deeper greens.

The sun cast no shadows, and it was time to take some last shots of what will soon be gone.

Forty years of passing days, arcing suns and summer squalls, etched in a wall.

Wondrous space where in is out and out comes in,  welcoming breeze and tips of trees,

sheltered but not enclosed,

seamlessly shifting from in to out.

Up the spiraling stairs, perched on stilts,

gentle authority spoke from humble highrise,

voice reaching round the rounded shrubs,

whose soft ramparts sheltered birds,

and others who might wish to fly.

There were town folk tan with splash gargantuan,

and a past Olympian

who cut

the water

clean.





It seemed, as final lengths were swum, the rippled light could dance forever 'cross the bottom of the pool,

but in the end, time ran out on the timeless. The well-aged words of closing came, to ask the scattered to be gathered, the gathered to disperse, reminding us that all goodbyes come by and by.

A place so welcoming of people and the elements will now to the elements return. For sun and shadow, birds and bathers, a new year will bring new habitat.

May this place play long upon our memories.

Surprises Along the Boardwalk

When the township, with the help of a grant from the J. Seward Johnson, Sr. Charitable Trust and considerable initiative by the Friends of Princeton Open Space, built the long boardwalk below Coventry Farm, it provided a convenient link from the Great Road and Farmview Fields Park over to Mountain Lakes Preserve. From a botanist's point of view, it seemed moreover a great place to show off native wetland plants. The boardwalk extends three feet high over a corridor typically kept wet by seepage from Coventry Farm. Unfortunately, early planting efforts fell victim to the smothering growth of an invasive plant called reed canary grass, here seen growing over the edges of the boardwalk like a green wave.

On a recent visit, however, a few self-planted native wildflowers were found holding there own in spaces left open by the reed canary grass. Here's some arrow-leaved tearthumb, so called because its stem is raspy if you run your fingers down it.

Moths grazed on a goldenrod.

Virginia creeper imitated topiary on a fencepost.

An elderberry bush showed promise of providing edible berries in years to come.

Clumps of ironweed were about to add purple blooms to the picturesque view.

A prairie grass called purple top gave the meadow a colorful sheen at the Great Road end of the boardwalk.

Most intriguing was a clump of boneset. Type "boneset" into the search window at the upper left of this webpage and you'll find many posts documenting the seemingly endless variety of insects and spiders that take up residence for the month of August in its miniature metropolis of white flowers.

This particular boneset did not disappoint. A close look at the center of this photo holds a surprise--for people as well as a hapless wasp that had been feeding on the nectar.

Waiting just under the flowers was a praying mantis, which had grabbed the wasp and was now enjoying its lunch. The accumulation of wasp legs on the leaf below suggests the praying mantis is particular about which pieces of the anatomy it consumes.

Heading back towards Mountain Lakes, the seeds of green bulrush,

and the prospect of a fine picnic for humans in a week or two.

Towpath Seeks Mule Team After Flood

Maybe the mules that once towed the boats along the canal could return to scrape all the mud off of the towpath. When I stopped by, three days after Hurricane Irene's deluge, a fine layer of goo had been deposited throughout the floodplain. Rivers have long deposited sediment in floodplains during floods,  enriching the soil. Hopefully, lighter rains will wash the mud off of the trail.

It was easy to see how deep the floodwaters had been--about knee-high along the towpath near Harrison Street.

Meanwhile, at Rogers Refuge, upstream from Alexander Road, floodwaters rose halfway up the kiosk.

Unexpected Beauty In a Thistle

This may be a bull thistle, found along the sewer right of way at Mountain Lakes. Bull thistles are not native, but the seed head is quite a sight.

Close up, the seeds look as if they're auditioning for the role of the forest spirits in the movie Avatar.

Pictorial Impression of a Bee Sting

This hardwon image might rightly be entitled: "Portrait of a Forest While Being Stung By a Bee". It's poignantly called "Ouch!!" for short. Few have dared to try this innovative, impressionistic approach to nature photography. Fortunately, the camera landed on leaf litter rather than a rock. Identification of the bee down to species level was made more difficult by its capacity for remaining unseen.

Princeton High School Floods Again

Yesterday, with Hurricane Irene headed our way, I stopped by the Princeton High School to check on preparations for the coming deluge. This part of the school had stormwater seep under the doors a week ago, and was most emphatically flooded two years prior when Hurricane Bill paid a visit. I've heard from several sources that the bill for Hurricane Bill included a new stage floor for the high school's performing arts center, which had become warped by flooding damage. Even if insurance paid for the replacement, one has to wonder if the district school's insurance rates took a jump afterwards.

Here's how the flooding happens: The retention basin in the photo (a.k.a. "ecolab", which we have planted with native wetland species), is surrounded on three sides by the high school and receives runoff from the high school roofs and also from nearby parking lots. The basin in turn drains into the system of stormwater pipes underneath Walnut Street. If it rains long enough and hard enough, however, the street's underground stormdrain system becomes filled to the brim, water has nowhere to go, and the basin overflows. At that point, pipes no longer matter and surface flow dictates where floodwater goes. Since water flows downhill, the only way to get rid of the water is for it to flow out to Walnut Street and safely away from the building. Unfortunately, Walnut Street is higher than the high school doorway thresholds. In these heavy rains, Walnut Street floods and becomes a river, and stormwater actually flows towards the high school rather than away.

The highschool has responded to this by placing sandbags in front of all the doorways during heavy rains. These help, but when I stopped by at 1am this morning, after Irene's fury had begun to ease, the music room and hallway into the performing arts center showed signs of having again been flooded. (These photos were taken this morning, after stormwater had receded.)

Exasperated school staff were trying to pump water out of the school. The custodians had just finished prepping all the floors for the return of students, and now they would have to do it all over again. The cafeteria had flooded, and it looked like utility rooms in the basement were now under water.

One staff member tried to blame the vegetation in the retention basin, but all around him was evidence that the vegetation had played no role in the flooding whatsoever.

 

The drain, photographed this morning, showed no signs of blockage, which is no surprise given that, when the street storm drains become overwhelmed, the water reverses flow and heads in to the retention basin from the street, rather than out.

At 1am this morning, this whole area was a lake.

A curb cut meant to carry surface water away from the retention basin was instead carrying water towards it.

The only solution I see is to lower the curb on the other side of Walnut Street so that the mighty Walnut Street River can flow into the field owned by Westminster Conservatory.

This, in fact, is what some water was doing last night, but to an insufficient extent.

A pond formed in this field last night, next to the Westminster parking lot. Last year, the field was declared by Westminster's own consultants to be a wetland that could not be developed. Since the conservatory uses the highschool performing arts center for some of its performances, utilizing this field more effectively to prevent flooding of the high school seems to be a solution that would benefit all involved.






What needs to be made clear to decision-makers is that the native plantings in the retention basin have no impact on flooding, lest this ecologically vibrant and educational planting become the victim of an invasion of red herring.

Hurricane Irene--A Reprise of Hurricane Bill's Flooding Two Years Prior

Most of these photos are from a post two years ago after Hurricane Bill paid a visit to Princeton. Hurricane Irene, because it passed through 'round midnight last night, was less photogenic, but the impact of the torrential rains was the same. The underground pipes designed to carry away stormwater get overwhelmed, the streets become rivers, and the flow of the water becomes dictated by the lay of the land (and streets).

In my part of town, these massive downpours cause water to flow from the high school and Westminster Conservatory onto Franklin Street. It then takes a right down Ewing before making an unfortunate left turn into the apartment parking lot.

The water then flows pell mell down to the bottom of the parking lot, (photo taken today, after flooding was over)

quickly overwhelms the stormdrain, then heads under the fence into people's backyards.

This is not good. The water came within one inch of the neighbor's threshold.

After flowing diagonally across the block through backyards and around foundations, it emerges across the street from me, spilling over the curb at Ewing and Harrison Street on its way down to the intersection with Hamilton, where it serves as a traffic calming device.

Back at the point where things go wrong on Ewing Street, this unfortunate foray of stormwater runoff into people's backyards could be avoided if the entryway to the apartment parking lot off Ewing Street was raised slightly so that the surface water would continue down Ewing rather than flow into the parking lot.

I proposed this solution to the borough engineer two years ago, to no avail. Reportedly, the borough has no control of the matter, and the apartment complex is within its rights to (unintentionally) "harvest" stormwater from a public street and divert it into the yards of neighbors.

All this seems strange. Since the needed modification is within the boundaries of the borough's street right of way (the street right of way actually includes the sidewalks), the borough would seem within its rights to intervene. In the meantime, history continues to repeat itself.

More White Pines and Spruce Dying

The latest white pine fatality in the neighborhood is at the edge of my backyard and Potts Park. Across the street from my house is a dead spruce. The township arborist believes that the drought last summer, plus another drought this year in late June and July, may have stressed some of the local white pines and spruces beyond their limits.

Another arborist tells me that the herbicide Imprelis, mentioned in a previous post as a possible culprit, would only affect the more manicured areas where herbicides are more likely to be used. Spruce and white pine have been dying in many unmanicured areas, and he sees climate shift as a likely cause. White pines and spruce were introduced to Princeton from their more natural range to the north, suggesting they'd be the first to show stress from increasing heat and drought.

Though all urban trees eventually have to be removed, typically at a cost of $1000 or more, one can speculate that the weather extremes associated with climate change are making those costs come due earlier than they would otherwise.

This particular tree had a scar that surely didn't help.

Kayaking Through A Wetland Garden--the Lehigh River and Glen Onoko Falls

Say you love to whitewater canoe, and want your kids to experience the same joys of running rapids that you remember from childhood. But you live in New Jersey. Chances are, your internet research will lead you beyond the Delaware River to the Poconos, which turn out to be in Pennsylvania. As it happened, they were right on the way to a family gathering we were having at ancestral grounds further west.

Rentable canoes for whitewater apparently no longer exist, but Blue Mountain Sports offers a ten mile do-it-yourself kayak trip through some easier rapids on the Lehigh River, starting at the town of Jim Thorpe.

The rapids were a perfect introduction for my daughter, who quickly figured out how to follow the current and steer clear of the rocks.

Meanwhile, Dad was getting distracted by the native plant diversity flourishing along river's edge. Conducting plant inventories while negotiating rapids may prove to be the next new fad in extreme botany. Cardinal flower (red) and JoePyeWeed (pink) grew thick along the shore, mixed with a host of other familiar native species that sometimes made me feel like I was kayaking through my backyard.

One surprise was the streamside stands of big bluestem, a tall native grass more typical of midwestern prairies. It's also called turkey foot, for the 3-pronged seedheads it sticks up into the air like an upside down turkey. (Other species seen as the current pulled us along: river birch, red maple, alder, spiraea, buttonbush, deciduous holly, buckthorn (hopefully the native Rhamnus lanceolata), meadow rue, fringed loosestrife, cutleaf coneflower, and what looked like a native hosta.)

Causing some worry were a few sightings of Japanese knotweed, an exotic species that can replace native diversity with a monoculture over time.

Here, a cardinal flower is trying to hold on at the edge of an expanding Japanese knotweed clone. A several-acre field of solid J. knotweed seen on the way in to Jim Thorpe foretells what could happen to this beautiful river corridor if no preemptive action is taken to nip knotweed's invasion in the bud.

Later on, camping at Mauch Chunk State Park, the lakeshore offered still more familiar wetland garden species. Here's deer tongue grass, which in Princeton is numerous along the towpath.

Pickerelweed blooms all summer long just out from the shoreline, thriving in the stable water regime of the park's impoundment.

The next day, after making a note to research better pads for sleeping in a tent, it was back to the Lehigh River for a hike up a narrow valley to the Glen Onoko Falls.

The trail is unmaintained, and described as steep and dangerous. On a dry day, and exercising some care, the hike was easily doable. We had almost as much fun going up as the water clearly was having cascading down the hillside.

For a picnic at the top, the view provides the main sustenance.