Friday, November 04, 2011

Contrasts in Leaf Fall

The juxtaposition of Norway Maple and Kentucky Coffee Tree makes for a stark contrast in relative timing of autumn leaf fall. The native coffee tree (Gymnocladus dioicus) strategy for life is to play dead for half the year. Thus its latin name, which means unclad. It drops its leaves early in the fall, and is the last tree to leaf out in the spring.

To the left of the coffee trees in the photo is a Norway Maple that has yet to react to fall weather. Like many woody plants introduced from other continents, it tends to leaf out early in the spring and drop late in the fall.

The Ginkgo tree, believed at one time to be only a fossil, then found alive and well in remote valleys of China, is now a common street tree with a dramatic approach to losing its leaves,

sometimes dropping them all in one day.

Thursday, November 03, 2011

Sustainable Jazz Ensemble Demonstrates Note Upcycling

This month, during two Princeton performances of its original jazz and latin compositions, the Sustainable Jazz Ensemble will demonstrate the art of musical note recycling. Tonight, Thursday, Nov. 3, we'll be at the Labyrinth Bookstore, down in the book-lined basement.


Friday, Nov. 18 at 8pm we'll perform a concert at the Arts Council of Princeton, with their beautiful grand piano.

The group specializes in the so-called "upcycling" of notes, which involves fashioning fresh, new melodies out of well-worn C's, B flats, G sharps, what have you. Our sophisticated jazz technology allows us to even utilize an occasional C flat or B sharp--notes that might otherwise sadly end up in a landfill. As is well known, most note recycling these days is done by iPods and other mechanical devices. To see a Sustainable Jazz Ensemble performance is to witness an updated form of ancient note recycling techniques, performed by real people operating real note-regenerating instruments.

In a culture where so much goes to waste, it can be satisfying to hear notes getting recycled in melodious ways at sometimes dizzying speeds, right before your very ears. Audience members are encouraged to bring spare musical notes for reuse during the performance. All scale tones, numbers 1-7, are accepted.


To hear music selections: www.myspace.com/sustainablejazz

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

A Banner Year for Hickory Nuts, Hicans, Butternuts and Beechnuts


It's easier to dream of what bounty the forest once offered in a year when hickories and hicans are littering the ground with delicious nuts conveniently packaged for longterm storage. These in the photo are hickory nuts, which may trigger memories for some of Euell Gibbons pitching Grapenuts cereal.

In this photo, hicans from a hybrid pecan/hickory tree rub shells with butternuts (Juglans cinerea), also called white walnut. The butternut, particularly one that is pure native and not a hybrid, is fairly rare and made rarer by butternut canker. The canker disease, like so many diseases and insects that threaten our native trees, was likely introduced from another continent.

Some good news on that front is that local expert on nut-bearing trees, Bill Sachs, harvested 80 native butternuts from a local tree this fall, and has planted most of them in a small nursery for spring germination. He has already grown some from previous crops and planted them in various parks and preserves in Princeton, in an effort to help the species rebound in our area.
A good harvest of nuts deserves a good nut cracker--one that exerts pressure on either end so the meats inside don't get smashed in the process.

Given that this blog courageously endeavors not to turn its back on reality, and nature being what it is, there are some other--not particularly appetizing--species that take an interest in the nut crop. This, to me, seems like part of the adventure of real food, as opposed to the factory-like conformity favored on grocery shelves. Open-mindedness, though, is easier if the insects leave a goodly portion of the nuts untouched.

After collecting nuts from the ground, it's best to leave them in a metal bowl for a week or so to allow time for any pecan weevils to emerge. Nuts that don't have the characteristic exit hole should be fine to eat.
Another nut being scattered in Princeton's woodlands is the beech nut. Though it's reportedly edible, word of mouth has not been encouraging, and these in the photo turned out to be empty.

Monday, October 31, 2011

Save!, With Naturally Scary Halloween Decor

"Holy habitat!", Batman. What's a giant spider doing climbing our chimney? Influenced by E.B. White and Charlotte's Web, I decided to approach the spider as friend, not foe, and asked if it would kindly pose over our front door for Halloween.
It proved to be an obliging spider, and will save us trying to find the fake spider stowed somewhere in the basement.



If the truth be known, these photos were generated a month ago when my standard approach to the house was suddenly complicated by some seriously strong fibers some twenty feet out. Suburban navigation is not usually impeded in this way. The fibers extended from a tree limb down fifteen feet to the ground, and held a spider calmly consuming its most recent catch, which appeared to be a yellow-jacket.

While I was thanking it for its good work in reducing the population of stinging insects, it apparently decided I would be too cumbersome to wrap up, and so headed back up to the tree limb, there likely to reconsider its web placement.

When I returned half an hour later, one of the two main vertical strands of the web had disappeared. The Wikipedia page on spider webs states that spiders often consume their own webs--a sort of recycling that is problematic for humans with store-bought Halloween webs.

For E.B. White fans, there's a good interview about the book "The Story of Charlotte's Web: E. B. White's Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic" on NPR's Science Friday from August. It details White's careful research of spider behavior. Most amazing for me, watching the Charlotte's Web movie with my daughter years ago, was the "ballooning" scene, in which the young spiders make silk strands that become their sails to ride the wind to new locations.

Friday, October 28, 2011

In Death, a Long Life

A big white oak, veteran of many storms, finally met a windstorm it couldn't match.

All its sprawling limbs came crashing down, leaving the trunk as a monument to its long and acornful life. The monument even bears its name on a label attached fifteen years ago as part of an eagle scout project.
One limb decided to patronize a heavyduty picnic table--those old tables that loom like lost battleships in the overgrown woods at Community Park North, strong enough to last for centuries but so uninviting and misplaced they never get used.
The tree was hollow, and last year rather gruesomely sported a raccoon that had sadly gotten stuck trying to exit through a hole 15 feet up.
Now, in its long life after death, it will begin the slow return to soil, sheltering and feeding life of all sorts in the process.

Edible Landscaping--Serviceberry

Serendipity can really add to the flavor of food. How else to explain the delicious taste of serviceberries encountered several summers ago out along Route 1 in front of the FedEx store, formerly Kinko's. The tree--more like a shrub, or a shree or a trub or maybe a trush, given its size--is still there. Hopefully it doesn't get sprayed when bearing.

I mention it in case anyone is planting in fall, or wants to daydream through the winter of new native fruits to try out next year. It must be a cultivar, because the unbred serviceberries I planted in my yard years back have not borne anything to rival its berries' size and taste. Maybe FedEx could be talked into boxing up theirs and sending it along.

Serviceberry (genus Amelanchier) is also called shadbush, because it is said to bloom in early spring when the shad migrate up New Jersey's rivers to spawn. A cluster of mature serviceberries, of tastiness unknown, can also be found near the play equipment behind Community Park school.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Talk Tonight, 7pm, About New Mid-Atlantic Native Seed Bank

Here's a chance to hear about an exciting and timely new collaboration between the NY City parks dept. and DR Greenway, to develop native seed production locally and elsewhere along the mid-Atlantic. Plant species exhibit genetic variation across their ranges, and there is an effort to preserve the distinct traits of local populations. One approach is to have multiple nurseries along the eastern seaboard, each of which grows natives drawn from local wild stock. Ed Toth of NY City Parks will be the speaker. More info here, and below:

"DR Greenway's St. Michaels Farm Preserve is host to a new pilot project in native seed production that could change the future of conservation. The 13 species of native seeds being grown at the site, with support from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, will be used to restore landfills in New York City and will contribute to a Mid-Atlantic Native Seed Bank. New York City Parks is our partner in this project, led by naturalist Ed Toth, Ph.D.

Seed is a critical natural resource that has been largely unrecognized, unprotected, and undermanaged. Locally adapted seed sources are widely acknowledged as critical for habitat restoration because they do not pose a genetic risk to surrounding native plant populations. However, our seed resources are in danger of being lost from misuse of non-local source seeds.Learn how to begin to wisely manage resources through seed banking and seed networks to prevent the extinction of these critical natural resources."

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Ring-Necked Snake

Why did the Ring-necked snake cross the road?

Answer #1: Because the habitat is always greener on the other side.
Answer #2: So it could learn its name from a biologist passing by.

Thanks to Tim Anderson, environmental science teacher at Princeton High School, for the photo and email below. There's long been talk of putting "Turtle Crossing" signs along the driveway up to Mountain Lakes House. Here's another denizen of the woods whose wanderings sometimes intersect with asphalt.

"Biking up the road to the house at Mt. Lakes, ran into a couple trying to help a juvenile snake cross the road...It was so small we couldn't pick it up with fingers...but got it off the road while a car waited to pass.  It matches this northern subspecies picture of ring-necked snake juvenile. It was about this size too." --Tim

Friday, October 21, 2011

Nature Walk This Saturday, 10am-noon, Herrontown Woods

For all those who happen to be fancy free and wanting to get out tomorrow, I'll be leading a nature walk through the color-coded forest at Herrontown Woods in the morning. Meet at 10am at the preserve's parking lot, which is at the end of the deadend road opposite the Snowden Lane entrance to Smoyer Park. Included in the walk will be a visit to the grounds of the Veblen Farmstead, and a discussion of recent progress towards preserving and restoring the long-boarded up buildings there.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Porcelain Berry--New Jersey's Kudzu

Anyone for a little topiary? This shot was taken last week at Princeton Battlefield, where the battle for Princeton's open space is currently being won by the kudzu of the north--porcelainberry. A vine native to northeast Asia, porcelainberry is related to grapes, and grows over ground, shrubs and trees like a grapevine on steriods.
It has beautiful berries, which may have helped gain it transport originally to our continent, but its rapid advances along the DR Canal, at the Princeton Battlefield, and elsewhere in recent years does not bode well for any other species seeking to share in the sun.

Lest one think all is lost, the Oct. 11 Princeton Packet includes a picture of volunteers at the battlefield removing another invasive weed--bamboo. The recent workday was a collaboration of the NJ Div. of Parks and the Sierra Club.

66 Acres Along Princeton Ridge Preserved

The mood was celebratory at the ribbon cutting for two newly preserved tracts along Princeton Ridge. One tract, the 14 acre Ricciardi property, came very close to being developed several years ago. The adjoining 35 acre All Saints Church parcel connects the Ricciardi tract to Herrontown Woods, which in turn connects with Autumn Hill Reservation and additional undeveloped lands towards Kingston. With the 17 acres along Bunn Drive to be donated by developer Bob Hillier, an extraordinary corridor is now preserved, due to the persistence and generosity of many people and organizations.

Here's an attempt to list all the organizations involved in the effort: Friends of Princeton Open Space, DR Greenway, NJ Conservation Foundation, NJ Green Acres, Mercer County, Princeton Township, Save Princeton Ridge, Stonybrook-Millstone Watershed Association, and Kingston Greenways.

Afterwards, everyone got to say a few words at the reception at Mountain Lakes House, including U.S. Congressman Rush Holt.

In the middle of this remarkable corridor stand the boarded up house, cottage and barn of the Veblen homestead. See veblenhouse.blogspot.com for information on efforts to restore these county-owned buildings, to serve as a useful destination that could increase utilization and appreciation of the preserved open space by the public.

Monday, October 03, 2011

What to Do With Grass Clippings

This photo may not be worth a thousand words, but it started a nice conversation. It so happened that, during one of my ongoing documentations of the export of nutrients from Princeton's yards, the owner pulled in. I figured he'd think, "Oh, just another Princetonian photographing my beautiful grass clippings," but to my surprise he came over and expressed interest in knowing what was so interesting about two blobs of discarded green.

It seemed inauspicious to begin a conversation by saying there's a (unenforced) borough ordinance against putting grass clippings on the street, but a mutual interest in composting quickly emerged. I offered news that the county extension master gardeners recommend leaving grass clippings on the lawn, so that all the clippings' nitrogen returns to the soil rather than getting washed down the street into Carnegie Lake. The dreaded thatch buildup of yore, which once spurred homeowners to bag up grass clippings, apparently dissolved into a myth.

Grass clippings' high nitrogen content endows them with the power to do great good or considerable harm. Massing them in piles tilts them towards harm. They pack tightly, shutting out oxygen, thereby making perfect habitat for anaerobic bacteria to feast on the rich organic matter. Break open a pile of grass clippings that have been sitting for awhile, and you will learn the hard way that the anaerobic decomposition process produces vapors profoundly repellent to humans. Aerobic bacteria, by contrast, do not produce nasty odors. Therefore, the best thing to do with grass clippings, if one is determined not to leave them on the lawn, is to give them access to air by spreading them in a thin layer either on a compost pile or as a thin mulch under shrubs.

Particularly relevant this time of year, autumn leaves, chopped up as one's mowing the lawn, can also be left to settle down into the ground between the grass blades.

Television Composting

With contributions from friends, and periodic curbside rescue efforts in the neighborhood, 4 TVs, 2 computer monitors, 2 printers and a microwave were diverted from the landfill and made their way to the Oct. 1 Mercer County electronics recycling event.

There, all the rejected middle-aged TVs finally got to socialize again after their long careers of solitary confinement in living rooms, and soon set to commiserating about the boring programs they were forced to show, and the humiliation of being dumped after years of high fidelity for some slim young thing their owners met on the internet. Soon they would depart on their final journey to (we can hope) an environmentally benign deconstruction and recycling facility.

Though the delivery seemed a small victory, it also dramatizes how far short society falls in imitating nature's recycling program, which brilliantly deconstructs and reuses any and all of its creations wherever they land.

Friday, September 30, 2011

Fall Foliage Walk by Henry and Betty Horn

An upcoming walk of note:


Kingston Greenways Association Fall Foliage Walk
Saturday, October 15, 2011 -  2:00 pm at Mapleton Preserve/D&R Canal State Park headquarters – 145 Mapleton Road, Kingston

Naturalists Henry and Betty Horn will lead the walk.  Both Betty and Henry are enthusiastic teachers and will share their expertise on a walk that focuses on trees (Henry), flowers (Betty) and whatever other discoveries are made during this leisurely hike.

Betty is an avid botanist with an intimate knowledge of our local wildflowers.  She has served as Curator of the Biological Collections at the Princeton University Museum of Natural History since 1978.  Henry, now Professor Emeritus, has taught in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton since 1966, and is well known for his professional enthusiasm and dedication.  He has wide-ranging interests in natural history, a passion to understand our local environment and its context, and a deep fascination with tree ecology.

With any luck, the fall foliage will be in full display.  If desired, bring binoculars or tree or wildflower identification books.  Don’t forget to wear sensible shoes, and dress for the weather.  

The meeting is free and open to the public.  

Electronics and Hazardous Waste Collection Event Tomorrow, Oct. 1

It's time to fill up the old pickup truck with collected electronics and drive over to the Mercer County event to have them recycled. If you can't make it out there and want to drop something off for me to take along, give me a call in Princeton at 609 252 0724 or find my email address on the View My Complete Profile link. Here is a link to detailed information about what can be recycled at the event.

Of particular note, they recycle televisions, which people often put out on the curb, unwittingly violating a state law that is on the books but very hush hush.
     
For directions to the event, which is 9-2 this Saturday, use this address: 240 Bakers Basin Road, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648-3308 (Lawrence Twp Public Works). There can be a line of cars there, but it moves along at a good rate.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Signs of Fall

Every year, it's good to remind people that goldenrod is NOT allergenic. Goldenrod is golden as a means of attracting bees that then do the work of spreading the pollen, rather than the wind. The true allergen is ragweed, which blooms at the same time of the year as goldenrod and has inconspicuous green flowers--green because ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) is wind-pollenated and therefore doesn't need to attract insects with bright colors.

Walk along most any nature trail in Princeton this time of year and you're likely to see a shrub that is turning yellow a few leaves at a time. This is spicebush (Lindera benzoin), an important shrub for bird nesting and also for its lipid-rich red berries. Lipids are fats, and fat is a more concentrated form of energy than sugars and carbohydrates. Birds like to travel light, so high lipid foods are the best fuel for their migrations. Professional deer management in the township over the past decade has allowed spicebush to make a dramatic comeback in Princeton's forests.

Now is the the last chance to pull out Japanese stiltgrass (Microstegium vimineum) that may be invading your flower beds, before its seeds mature and fall to the ground. Stiltgrass is an annual introduced to the U.S. back when it was used as packing material for porcelain from Japan. At Mountain Lakes Preserve, it forms monoculture meadows on the forest floor. It uses a "warm season" growth strategy similar to crabgrass, sprouting from roughly a gazillion seeds late in spring, maturing in late summer. You'll find it growing in miniature in your lawn, or crawling 4 or 5 feet high, up and over other plants. This plant's a big, big problem if one's interested in promoting biodiversity, and the best way to keep it from becoming an ongoing nuisance in one's yard is to catch it early and pull it out before it drops its seed. If deer would eat it, some sense of balance could return to the local woods, but don't expect their taste buds to change any time soon, despite the presence of this hugely abundant food source. Read more here.

Persimmon is a native tree that typically bears fruit out of reach. This photo was taken thirty feet up, looking down from the new university bridge over Washington Road, between the chemistry building and the athletic fields. A couple more years growth and we'll be able to pluck the fruit from the bridge.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

One Man's Mess Is Another Bird's Habitat

Sometimes, most of the time, it's easier to conceive of possibilities than realize them. Take this pile of wood, for example. Great stuff, and delivered at no cost! It can be chopped up to make carbon-neutral fuel in a modern, clean-burning stove,


or it can be stacked to make sculptures in the backyard.

Or, it can sit in the driveway, unsplit for most of the summer.

Free time and determination finally converged in the Princeton doldrums of late August, and I was feeling celebratory about the diminishing size of the pile when a Carolina wren came over and perched on the remaining wood, just three feet from me. Puffing up its feathers in an endearing show of chutzpa, it seemed to be pleading with me to leave the pile be. From the human perspective, I was cleaning up a blighted part of the driveway. In the bird's world, I was messing with what?, a nest?, a wonderfully chambered kindergarten for fledglings?, a playground?, a safe harbor from neighborhood cats? A birder friend told me they would not be nesting that late in the summer.

Later, four wrens were seen having some sort of discussion on another woodpile, with a similar indifference to my approach. By the time I had returned with a camera, they had left, apparently resigned to the inscrutable need of humans to dismantle perfectly good jumbles of wood.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Princeton Day School Community Day at Mountain Lakes

On September 16 at 9am, 100 PDS 9th graders arrived at Community Park North ready to help remove invasive plants, as part of the school's annual Community Day. First step was to buddy up with 4th graders who had also made the hike over from their school.
After a brief intro by yours truly about plant identification, the why and the wherefore of invasive plant control, and some tips on how to use loppers, saws and garden rakes safely, they set about the day's task.

Neither the thorns of multiflora rose nor the sheer numbers of invasive shrubs crowding the woods could deter them from their newfound mission. Those with loppers cut honeysuckle, privet and multiflora rose, while others hauled the cuttings into brushpiles, to serve as habitat.

What I particularly enjoy is showing the kids how to work together, use the tools most effectively, and how to get into a steady working rhythm so that a lot can be accomplished. After a morning's work session, they could see the difference they had made.

Native shrubs intermixed with the exotic invasives had been tagged beforehand, and left uncut to take advantage of the additional sun and water available now that the exotic competition had been removed. In the photo is spicebush (Lindera benzoin), which the kids discovered gives off an appealing fragrance when the leaves are scratched. That natives will fill the void left by the removed invasives helps make clear the positive impact of the work.

An innovative method of transporting litter was developed when some of the kids went back out to pick up stray tools.

During the lunch break, volunteer Andrew Thornton engaged the kids in some juggling.

After lunch, I led the 9th graders on a tour through the 400 acres of preserved land in and around Mountain Lakes. Like so many Princetonians, the majority of the kids had never seen Pettoranello Gardens, the evergreen forest, or the historic fields of John Witherspoon's Tusculum. (the area we worked on is in the lower right; PDS school is in the upper left)

They walked past trees stripped of their limbs by Hurricane Irene,

clambored across a bridge washed askew by the recent flooding,

and past construction to restore the lower dam at Mountain Lakes.

At one stop along the way, a student asked why it's called Mountain Lakes if there are no mountains nearby. I explained that Princeton bestows its ennobling magic on all within its borders, making ponds into lakes and hills into mountains. These words having been spoken, I am sure that all within earshot gazed out upon the landscape with new eyes.

When they reached the turn leading to their school, they disappeared up the trail, their good deeds done and another school year begun.

The Friends of Princeton Open Space thank the students and teachers of Princeton Day School for their contribution to restoring habitat in town.

Thanks also to community volunteers Andrew Thornton and Tony Beesley for helping out with supervision.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Landscaping No No

Landscaping rule #1: Do not plant spreading, spineful rose bushes next to a middle school sidewalk. (My daughter came home bleeding one day some years back, thanks to these schoolyard bullies.)

Note to self last week: Take pruners along on next dog walk.

Followup Observations: An unidentified pedestrian, accompanied by a baffled dog, was seen cutting intrusive nastoids back from sidewalk, in time for Back to School Night. Human intervention may not be necessary in future years. The shrubs appear to be succumbing to the same rose rosette disease that is (fortunately) knocking out the invasive multiflora rose in Princeton's woodlands.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Chestnuts Boiling On A Stovetop Fire

This week's roadside menu features chestnuts. The American chestnut, once a prominent tree in our forests and an important source of food for wildlife and people, was laid low by a lowly imported fungus more than a century ago. The native species is making a slow comeback thanks to decades of breeding to develop immunity to the disease, but in the meantime, there are chestnuts of Asian origin scattered here and there in Princeton that scatter their tasty treats on the streets this time of year.

The treats come encased in a spiny covering that looks and feels like a baby brown porcupine.

Squirrels, as always, get first dibs, combing their whiskers at the same time.
But a few yield up a shiny treasure for lowly humans.


Though Mel Torme makes chestnuts roasting on an open fire sound appealing, the first batch tasted great after 15-20 minutes of boiling, with a flavor reminiscent of sweet potatoes. Recently, though, a friend roasted some on a gas grill for a similar amount of time, and it has to be said that the aroma generated by a plate full of freshly roasted chestnuts is enough to endear one for life to this rarely encountered food.

As any squirrel can tell you, the chestnut is not to be confused with the Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum), which lacks the dense spines and is inedible. Palmate (leaflets radiate out like fingers from the palm of the hand) leaf and nut in photo. I used to collect horse chestnuts as a kid, in part because of their lustrous beauty but also with big plans to use them as ammunition in defense of strategic positions. Can't remember if any battles were actually waged.

Below is some advice from Bill Sachs, our resident expert on nut-bearing trees, about eating chestnuts (Castanea sp.). Harvesting chestnuts from the roadside, it's hard to tell if they've already cured for a week, and the chestnuts we've cooked thus far have been free of any bugs, but it's good to keep these things in mind. Also, be sure to score the shell before cooking. Otherwise they can explode like popcorn. I had one spit in my eye.

From Bill:

"Most nuts need to “cure” for a week or more after harvest to reduce their moisture content before they acquire proper flavor and texture.


One note of caution… before you roast your chestnuts, cut a couple of them in half to see if they contain curculio larvae.  The chestnut curculio or weevil is a fairly widespread pest that lays its eggs in developing chestnuts.  When the chestnuts fall to the ground, the change in temperature signals the eggs somehow and they hatch.  The result can be an unpleasant surprise.  In their natural life cycle, the larvae emerge from the chestnuts by eating a small hole in the shell and burrowing into the ground to emerge a year or two later as the next generation of weevils."