Miniature Watersheds in Princeton

Spring snow melt is a good time to take note of all the miniature watersheds in Princeton. A great river like the Mississippi drains vast regions of the U.S., while this little rivulet drains the front lawn of Westminster Choir College. Instead of emptying into the ocean, it disappears down a drain that pipes the water into Harry's Brook, which in turn feeds into Carnegie Lake. Westminster's south lawn could be thought of as a subwatershed of Harry's Brook, which is a subwatershed of the Millstone River that heads east, merging with the Raritan before reaching the Atlantic Ocean.

Our drinking water comes from the confluence of the Raritan and Millstone Rivers, so the water draining off this lawn takes a journey that could well lead it 20 miles downstream and into the water treatment plant, for a return trip to Princeton's faucets. This is one of the ways that Princeton's countless miniature watersheds are connected to our lives.

Your backyard is part of a watershed, large or small, and it can be fun to explore where the water comes from that flows through our yards. Some comes from our roofs, and the neighbors' roofs, but patterns in the snow suggest another source.

For instance, the channel for my miniature branch of Harry's Brook, which can be seen as a blue line on old maps, has long since been erased by backyard lawns. Some of the houses were actually built where the stream used to flow, so it now expresses itself by seeping into basements, then getting "daylighted" by sump pumps, beginning in a rental four houses up from us.

The water being discharged from basements is warm enough to melt the snow and show the pattern of flow that would otherwise be hard to see in a lawn.

In the next house down, another sump pump adds its share,

and further down the gentle slope, two more sump pumps contribute flow. Most of it seeps into the ground,

but some may reach our backyard, keeping it moister than it would be otherwise, and sustaining a mini-pond where the resident ducks can swim and clean their feathers.

The Hungry Hawk Pays a Visit

My daughter called to me yesterday from the family room that looks out on our backyard. She had just seen a hawk swoop down on our freely ranging ducks and chickens. Only the loud complaints of the largest duck, it seems, caused the hawk to veer back up to a nearby tree. In this dreary late winter time of tired snow and lingering chill, it's not surprising this beautiful, unsubsidized red tailed hawk, living by its wits through lean times, would take an interest in our backyard fowl.

Our first impulse, seeing it posing so nobly on distant tree branch, peering with less than noble designs at our small flock, was to take a photo. There was time, particularly given that the objects of its desire had taken cover behind a thick tangle of brush in the back corner of the lot. Brush piles have their uses in the winter, when the landscape is otherwise stripped of hiding places.

We went out into the yard expecting the hawk to fly away. Instead, and despite its clearly diminished prospects, it continued to look down at us, apparently having no better place to go. Finally it flew off and the runner duck and Buttons the chicken re-emerged from behind the woodpile.

And who do we have to thank for our birds' continued survival in a world of very hungry hawks? Why, it's the very clumsy but very brave Pekin "guard duck", with the keen eye and a voluminous quack she's not afraid to use when it is most needed.

Her quack has had no effect on the snow, however, which lingers despite the ducks' clear preference for a more liquid world.

We had another scare a few weeks ago when Buttons disappeared without a trace. Had a raccoon snatched her when we left the coop door open too late one evening? Strange that there were no feathers scattered around to indicate a struggle. It took me a couple days to break the news to my daughter, who went outside, poked around, and found that the chicken had somehow gotten trapped under the plastic cover on the bales of bedding straw. She had survived on a diet of snow until she was discovered.

Though the ducks clearly miss taking baths in the backyard miniponds, the birds have done remarkably well through a difficult winter, without any supplementary heat. The chickens stopped laying for a month or two during the shortest days, but then resumed, and the ducks continue laying eggs like clockwork, one a day, each, oblivious of day length, cold, and the lack of anything beyond chicken feed.

Pollarding in Princeton

Hidden in Princeton's stark winter canopy are subtle signs of a quiet revolution, or at least something decidedly French. Some may view this tree profile as deeply troubling, while others may see a useful approach to solving several problems Princeton and other NJ towns are currently confronting. Halfway down the trees, you'll see a sudden thickening of the trunk. That's where the tree was given a buzz cut, maybe ten years ago. New shoots then sprouted from the cut tips.

This practice is called pollarding, defined as "a pruning system in which the upper branches of a tree are removed, promoting a dense head of foliage and branches."

When I've mentioned this practice to local arborists, the response has typically been negative, with talk of increased risk of disease, and structural weakness.  It's true that I've seen a couple radically pruned trees send out a few feeble shoots the next year, and then die, leaving the likes of a telephone pole in the yard. But results depend on technique, timing, and species of tree. In Europe, where pollarding has for centuries been a clever means of harvesting fuel and forage from trees without cutting them down, the pollarded trees are said to actually live longer than untrimmed trees. (Coppicing, a related practice of periodic heavy pruning once commonly used in agriculture, allows repeated harvest from a tree root that can live for 1000 years.)

My first reaction years ago, seeing a grove of trees getting hacked back in a city park in Madrid, was one of disdain and disgust. How could anyone choose to interfere with a tree's yearning for the sky? There's pleasure in tracing a massive tree's natural ramification, up and up to the top of the canopy. A tree, like a river, should run free.

Though a natural growth form works in most situations, I began to question my dismissive attitude towards pollarding about 15 years ago, when hurricane winds flattened many of the oaks in the NC town where I was living at the time. My view of oaks as being deeply rooted and timeless also came crashing down that day. Though most of the giant trees displayed an uncanny knack for missing cars and houses on the way down, I was made suddenly aware that we essentially accommodate wild trees in our midst, reaping all the benefits and potential downsides thereof. One of the willow oaks that survived the hurricane winds unscathed had been pruned years prior, pollard-style, causing the crown to be populated by many narrow, flexible branches, none of which was large enough to damage a house if it broke off. For years I had looked at that tree's altered growth form with dismay, yet there it was after the storm, a healthy survivor continuing to provide shade with minimal threat of doing harm to the house it was shading.

With Hurricane Sandy and other highly destructive storms sweeping through Princeton in recent years, some homeowners are torn between all the benefits trees can bring in the urban landscape, and the potential downsides of having all that weight poised above the roof. Personally, I have our trees looked at periodically to make sure they're healthy, and accept the risk. But if there's a way to manage trees so that one gets the benefits while minimizing the hazard, that could lead more homeowners to keep the trees they have and plant more.

Now, before buds open, is the time to check out what's being done around town. This photo and the closeup that follows shows evidence of trimming back on a tree that beautifully shades the house in the summer.

Perhaps the tree lost some high branches from high winds, or maybe it was an intentional effort to minimize any additional height.

Once one opens up to the idea of manipulating tree growth, a whole new range of possibilities opens up. Fruit trees of course, like this one in an Italian neighbor's backyard, greatly benefit from regular pruning. But a related approaches can be used for trees grown for any purpose, be it firewood, nuts, forage or shade. Pollarding and coppicing (a related practice) are used particularly in permaculture to maximize production in small spaces. If Princeton is serious about growing its food and fuel locally, a more engaged approach to managing trees will be a big component. Interestingly, these practices are also a means of managing lands for biodiversity, by creating more varied habitat.

These periodic prunings can also have benefits for both soil and atmosphere, by increasing soil organic matter and sequestering carbon. To grow roots, a tree utilizes carbon dioxide from the air to manufacture the building blocks of its structure. By growing roots, trees essentially transfer carbon from the air down into the soil. Each time a tree is pruned, a portion of its root system will die back to rebalance the ratio of roots to limbs. The roots that die back provide a legacy of carbon-based organic matter in the soil and channels for rainwater to seep into. New roots then grow as the canopy recovers, sequestering additional atmospheric carbon underground. More on the many benefits of coppicing at this link.

How these practices would fit into Princeton's goals for shade, food and sustainability are worth considering. The blanket condemnation of pollarding found in pruning manuals doesn't fit with examples past and present of its usefulness. If techniques specific to New Jersey's trees can be developed and accepted by arborists, this approach to pruning could add to the ways tree growth can be controlled to better coexist with homes and solar panels, and thereby increase the number of trees in town.

Here are some examples of pollarding in Paris. 

My writeup on another transformative agricultural practice with big consequences for sustainability, the growing of the currently banned crop called hemp, can be found at this link.

Snowbound Language

As a salve for winter weariness, follow herein the travails of a snowbound family. With unrelenting snow obliterating the features of their once familiar world, they become even more disoriented as snow begins to blanket their language as well. A convenient glossary of terms can be found at the accompanying post entitled "Principitation."

SNOWBOUND LANGUAGE

“Isn’t it snice?” asked the snaughter, looking out the window at the latest principitation. “Looks like snizzle to me,” answered her snaddy with a snown. His snack was still snurting from snoveling the sniveway the snay before.

As they gazed out over the snooftops of their beloved snown, the sunlight danced on the snazzeleen snowscape, all snapples and snazeycakes after sneeks and sneeks of snow.

Snay after snay, Snaddy had snoveled the snidewalk so the sneighbors could sneeze through with their stroller. First had come the snuff, which was pretty enough, but soon followed the snizzle, the snain, and the dreaded snice. The snaughters had been snappy not to have snhool, but as the snours turned to snays, and the snays to sneeks, and the snow rose towards the snooftops, they grew sneary of being snowbound.

“I can't snake it any snore!,” said the snife, sneepless after another snight of her snusband’s snoring. She had snuffered the snings and snarrows of outrageous snortune one snight too many. “I’m snorry, Snowcakes," offered the snusband sneepishly.

All power in the sneighborhood had been snost. “Snead as a snoornail,” declared Snaddy when his snellphone finally snied. “Maybe we could snask the sneighbors to call,” said a snaughter. “But we don’t even snow their snames,” answered Snaddy, snooking out at the snarkening sky.

“I better take the snog for a slog before we get any more snow,” said Snaddy, climbing out the second floor window, snog in snand. The snog, too, was losing touch with other sneighborhood snogs, as each snay’s p-mails became buried under new-fallen snow. Snavigating the snarrow, snow-lined snidewalk, the snog sniffed disappointedly, then snarled at a snogger snotting by.

Seeing the sneighbors approaching, Snaddy hastened to cross the sneet, snarrowly snissing being snit by a snar. "Snow down!", he snouted at the sniver. Just the other snay, the snog had snarked suddenly at the sneighbors, snaring the snickens out of the sniny snot in the stroller.

The trees had long since become snees, and snice had turned many a weak-trunked snee into a snoodle. “Once a snoodle, always a snoodle,” worried Snaddy, snooking at a birch snee arched completely over in front of a snouse. Dodging the snool snipping from the snees, Snaddy wondered how he had ever become the designated snog-slogger.

Finally they returned snome, the snog’s fur filthy from the snirty snow lining the sneets. That evening, as they snat down to sneat some leftover snoup, sneary beyond snords, Snaddy wondered if he’d ever snortle again.

“Is it possible to be blinded by the snight if it’s snight-time?” asked one snaughter, confused by the new snowbound language. “Why are we snalking like this?” asked the other. “I don’t snow,” answered Snaddy, “but it has something to do with snimate snange. Just snink good snoughts, and snope it snoon will be snover.”

Principitation

Repeated snowstorms this winter, while burying us in their beauty, have laid bare the English language's paltry vocabulary for describing winter's crystalline creativity. "Wintry mix" only goes so far. Nor will importing Eskimo terms like aqilokoq and piegnartoq rescue us from this deficit. We need words that grow out of our own cultural soil, locally coined--words we can use to heap praise or hurl insult, as we gaze in wonder at the opulent beauty of it all, or curse the foot of snow covering the sidewalk.

To fill the linguistic void, I offer the following illustrated glossary, primarily developed during the winter of 2011, when the atmosphere's wizardry was on full display. Study these terms carefully, and you will be better prepared for the next time the heavens let loose with some snowlike substance. An accompanying post, entitled Snowbound Language, uses these terms to tell a precautionary tale of what can happen when snow begins to blanket not only the physical world but our language as well.

GLOSSARY OF USEFUL TERMS

Principitation: All the different forms of precipitation that fall on Princeton, NJ. Largely indistinguishable from precipitation that falls anywhere else, but made special nonetheless simply by falling in the 08540 area code.

Snirt: blackened snow lining streets

Snapples: tree limbs broken off by the weight of the snow

Snapples and snirt lingering after a thaw.

Snight: light reflecting off of snow. Also, a snow-covered night

We-cicles: A family of i-cicles

Snoodle: A weak-trunked tree that bends over under the weight of snow and/or ice.

Snouse: A snow-covered house.

As in: "The trees had long since become snees, and snain had turned many a weak-trunked snee into a snoodle. “Once a snoodle, always a snoodle,” worried Snaddy, looking at a birch snee arched completely over in front of a snouse."

Snuff: Fluffy snow.

Kerfluffle: The falling of fluffy snow onto your head when you bump into a snow-covered branch.

Snubbins: snow that falls in the form of tiny beads

Snidewalk: A narrow channel carved through deep snow to allow passage. Also called a sneezeway, because one has to squeeze through it, often while sneezing.

Snazeycake: Snow glazed with a topping of freezing rain.

Other useful terms:

Snain: very wet snow

Snice: icey snow

Snizzle: freezing drizzle

Snool: snowmelt dripping from trees

Snibble: A diplomatic term for any snow of ill-defined category whose name would otherwise be quibbled over.

This vocabulary can easily be expanded by replacing the consonent at the beginning of a word with "sn", to describe that object or action when it is covered with snow. A snow-covered dog, daughter, day or chortle become, respectively, or disrespectfully, a snog, snaughter, snay and snortle. For practice, try applying this rule to "tiny tot". Additional examples can be found in the accompanying short story, Snowbound Language. 

Where Vines Tackle Trees

Perhaps we'd suffer cold more gladly if occasionally reminded of how a warmer climate can power unwanted invasions. Our cold NJ winter may, for instance, be knocking back the pine bark beetles that have been moving north into the Pinelands as the climate warms. And we can be thankful that Asian wisteria is not as aggressive here as it is further south. There's a place I used to live, in Durham, North Carolina, where the wisteria grows so densely you needn't touch the ground when you walk. The lateral shoots make a web on the ground,

while the vines reach up and rob the trees of sunlight.

Whole trees collapse, weakened by the weight and lack of sun. The wisteria, which probably started as one small plant brought home from the nursery long ago by a neighbor, has over the intervening decades invaded several acres of woodland that the homes back onto.

Now a 17 acre nature preserve, the woodland displays an exaggerated version of the classic eastern woodland profile--native trees with a mostly exotic understory. Most of the non-native invasives can also be found in NJ, but behave less aggressively because of the cooler climate. Here's a very robust climbing Euonymus, whose hairy stem rivals that of poison ivy.

This tree's branches are actually the lateral shoots of the Euonymus vine.

Elsewhere in the preserve are extensive swaths of Vinca major, English ivy, bamboo and privet, growing so densely that native understory species have little chance of surviving. The preserve was free of Japanese stiltgrass until its seeds hitchhiked in on the tire treads of vehicles brought in to do emergency repair on a sewer.

My friend Perry has been leading workdays to remove the thick stands of privet in this floodplain woods. On the left is before, on the right is after. Invasives removal creates pleasing vistas, safer trails, and sometimes leads to the discovery of a few solitary native shrubs that have been hanging on despite all the competition, such as hazelnut and blackhaw Viburnum.

Herrontown Wood in Deep Snow

The parking lot at Herrontown Wood was filled to the brim Tuesday, with snow. The combination of thick, wet snow and no wind made for beauteous effects.

Evergreens like Norway spruce were particularly good at catching and holding,

though the few remaining white pines paid a price.

Some deciduous trees that hold their leaves through winter, like American beech, got into the act,

looking well tressed,

along with the white oaks.

A giant tulip poplar went two-tone

while another looked to be the victim of a cream pie prank.

Some of the shrubs took on a jazzy mobile look.

Even the lateral branches of poison ivy (note the hairy main stem climbing up the side of the tree)

and the old fence demarcating the Veblen House property took on an ornamental look.

The moss-covered cliff was nicely framed from below,

and from above. What a great birdwatching spot it looks to be.

Today's catch, a robin.