Thursday, May 12, 2016

A Misty Walk Through Herrontown Woods


Last Saturday, towards the end of a rainy patch of weather, Herrontown Woods offered a special mix of solitude, surprise, promise and peace. An early surprise along the trail was a native azalea. What might this one solitary azalea, with a grand total of three clusters of flowers, tell of what these woods once held, and could there be others surviving in pockets yet unfound?

Near the parking lot, a vernal pool--one of many generous legacies a fallen tree leaves behind--was alive with the tadpoles of woodfrogs.

While the rainy week was not getting good reviews in town, Herrontown Woods was patiently taking it all in, filling its ground full of water, to be slowly exhaled through a rock-jumbled stream, no rock the same in the patterns of life upon it.

Witch hazels and christmas ferns grow just up-slope of the stream, with vistas lengthened by the habitat restoration work our Friends of Herrontown Woods volunteers have done.

Spicebush is growing more common, with leaves that give off a citrusy fragrance.

Now's a good time to see wild geraniums,

and the last of the rue anemone flowers.

Maybe if carrion flower (Smilax herbacea) had a more flattering name, I'd remember it more reliably.

Here are the wings and flowers on winged euonymus, a very numerous nonnative shrub we've been cutting down. In this regard, we play a role complementary to the deer, exerting browsing pressure on the nonnative species the deer won't eat.

In the case of winged euonymus and multiflora rose, the deer then follow up by nibbling the tender sprouts from the stumps we leave behind. With these two shrub species, at least, we can actually partner with the deer to bring the habitat back to greater balance and diversity.

The greatest delight came while crossing a large boulder field near the top of the trail. It's a miniature version of what can be found in the Sourlands, where a stream flows largely hidden, through and under the boulders, making music the way we make music by exhaling into an instrument.

In some places, there was an uncanny stereo effect, with the sound of water coming from multiple directions. Returning three days later, the music was gone, as if the woods' breath were spent until it can be recharged by another week of rain.

Moonseed's a cool little vine that seems only to grow among large boulders along the ridge, at Herrontown Woods and Witherspoon Woods.

A cherry millipede, giving off a maraschino scent when you pick it up, finds a home in the leaf litter.

One of the quiet, distinctive beauties of Herrontown Woods is the showy orchis, growing in only one spot and not found anywhere else along Princeton's ridge. Botanists Henry and Betty Horn tell the story of photographers making a pilgrimage each spring in years back. One thing our Friends of Herrontown Woods group is doing to hopefully allow this small population to grow stronger is removing the nonnative shrubs whose biological clocks, evolved elsewhere, cause them to green up too early in the spring, casting shade before the orchids have had a chance to absorb enough solar energy for the next year.



Far more numerous is Smilacina racemosa, what we used to call "False Solomon's Seal", because it's easily mistaken for Solomon's Seal. Note the terminal flower cluster, which makes Solomon's Plume a useful way to name it for something other than what it is not.


Solomon's Seal is called Polygonatum biflorum because it has a couple flowers at each leaf axil, rather than at the end. Even latin can make sense sometimes.


Other wildflowers peeping up through the leaves are wood anemone and trout lily, their flowers past,

mayapple

pink wood sorrel,


and jack-in-the-pulpit. Three of these grew near my childhood home, their hoods an object of early fascination.




Maple-leaf Viburnum seedlings and bloodroot rise above the natural mulch of leaves protecting the soil.


There's a heartening diversity of native shrubs in the understory. To the blackhaw Viburnums and spicebush common elsewhere are added the maple-leaf Viburnum,


and occasional blueberries (the Kramer inventory from the 1960s lists four species of Vaccinium).

Among the thousands of nonnative winged euonymus are a grand total of two native Euonymus americana, sometimes called strawberry bush or hearts-a-burstin, that somehow grew tall enough to elude the deer, who seem to prefer munching on this shrub above all others. They keep the rest of this shrub's population in a state of arrested development, several inches high. With some protection, those too could grow to maturity.


Either a new discovery or an old forgotten discovery was a dogwood that doesn't have the cobbled bark. Digging back into the memory banks, I checked the branching--alternate rather than the flowering dogwood's opposite branching. Alternate-leaved dogwood! And not one but two found during the walk. For someone wanting to see Princeton's preserves regain a past diversity, these warmed the heart.



And then a mystery shrub, a Viburnum with reddish tint and red petioles. Also two found, but its name not to be found in any past inventories.

Note: This has been identified as Tea Viburnum.



Other sites seen: a musclewood secure in its height, feeding the deer with its stump sprouts.

We've done enough researching of his papers at the Library of Congress to know that Oswald Veblen, who with his wife Elizabeth donated land for Herrontown Woods in 1957, was not happy about the gas pipeline being built. As you can see, it's become a monocrop of mugwort.

One curious, bristly nonnative is the Japanese angelica, which looks very similar to the native Devil's Walking Stick. We've been "browsing" this one, too, since the deer do not.

Last stop was the Veblen House grounds, where the Friends of Herrontown Woods has planted native hazelnuts, pawpaws, and a few of these butternuts--a tree with edible nuts that we're helping local expert Bill Sachs to reestablish in Princeton's preserves.

More info about Herrontown Woods and the generous legacy left behind by the Veblens can be found at VeblenHouse.org, including a map. Join us on facebook at facebook.com/friendsofherrontownwoods.



Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Losing Control of the Lawn

Most everyone has at least a little lawn, pleasant to walk upon, setting off the shrubs, or simply a default means of dealing with that rectangle of nature a homeowner inherits with the house. Collectively, lawns are a show of cultural unity in the form of a vast expression of control and uniformity, with growth kept within strict limits, each grass blade the same height. Oftentimes, the uniformity is enforced by noisy, machine-laden coiffeurs, akin to paramilitary outfits that land and deploy, then hasten away when the mission of growth-control has been achieved.

Early in spring, where chemicals aren't used, there can be small rebellions here and there in the lawn, instigated by the "early risers", e.g. assertive wild garlic, or star-of-bethlehem, forming an effect I call "lawn blotch". When the grass starts to catch up, there's a peaceful week or two of quiet conformity, the green spotted with the pleasant yellow of dandelion blossoms. And then, lulled by spring into reverie, proud of our environmental high road of chemical free lawn care, we wake up to the white, seedy roar of the dandelion, going rogue, letting its freak-flag fly, rocking the sea of green with its passion for propagation.




The photo, taken a week ago, is of my neighbor's lawn, a rental, but mine was "hearing the roar" as well. There may be approaches to organic lawn care that minimize the dandelions, but for most of us who do nothing beyond periodic mowing, the dandelions hold reign for a couple weeks each spring. The sense of losing control, though, is temporary, and though it may add to the number of dandelion seeds parachuting in to other yards, it has no ramifications for natural areas. Maybe the deer eat them, but for whatever reason, dandelions pose no threat to our stream corridors or nature preserves that I've noticed.

This contrasts with an introduced species like lesser celandine, whose rapid spread not only triggers feelings of having lost control of one's yard, but also threatens transformation of nearby preserved lands.


Friday, May 06, 2016

Tree Seedlings Everywhere, But Not a Street Tree To Plant


There's irony to be savored, or puzzled at, while pulling out the hundreds of trees sprouting through the woodchip mulch in my yard. The tradition of Arbor Day, which slipped past this year on April 29, is to encourage people to plant trees. Free trees are distributed, often spruce seedlings--a species more likely to be found growing naturally in cooler latitudes. Planting a tree is often mentioned as a small, partly symbolic but meaningful way to counter global warming. While serving on the Shade Tree Commission, I did some math and figured out that the 50-100 street trees being planted in Princeton were not even coming close to replacing the 250 trees being lost each year. The 2-3" caliper trees deemed most likely to survive and prosper cost $250 each, eating up the budget.

Clearly, there's a perceived and sometimes real need to nurture trees, and there's pleasure in watching a tree, planted in the right spot, grow with deceptive speed towards towering heights. What, then, to make, in meaning and utility, of these hundreds of red oak seedlings rising from the earth each spring?


Or the elm seeds that carpet the patio,


filling the drain,

and making an improbably lightweight but effective dam that needs to be cleared for our low-budget drainage to work. Thousands, perhaps millions, of achenes will soon follow, spinning earthward from the maples--red, silver and sugar--adding another layer of trees-to-be, and trees-to-be-pulled.

Those Arbor Day tree giveaways are a tradition that likely dates back to early in the past century, as fields slowly shifted back to forest. Now, with reforestation long since accomplished, trees in this neighborhood, at least, hardly need our help. When it comes to reproduction, they don't fool around, which is to say, fooling around is what they're doing a whole lot of.

The issue is more a matter of how to get the right tree growing in the right place. There is no lack of gaps in the street canopy to fill, no lack of parking lots where cars bake in the summer sun for lack of shade. And no lack of trees, free for the transplanting. There's also no lack of logistical issues--getting permission to plant them, hemming and hawing about which species would be best, watering the first year and protection for a few years after that, and so forth. Meanwhile, the trees are showing us how its done, on their own. So simple, and yet so much conspires to keep our world just as it is, filled with persistent problems side by side with an abundance of solutions. If future generations can find sustenance in irony, they will surely prosper.



Tuesday, May 03, 2016

University Students Experience Mountain Lakes


Two weeks have flown since co-leading, with local writer and historian Clifford Zink, a tour of Mountain Lakes for a group of Princeton University students. All are taking a course taught by history professor Vera Candiani, who passionately believes that students need to break out of the academic bubble of campus and get acquainted with the world around them. Much of the university's emphasis in this regard has been to encourage students to study and experience distant continents. But Vera believes there is also a great deal to discover and perspective to be gained just a short walk or ride from campus.

On the premise that we leave our human legacy primarily through our "actions on matter", her students are learning to "'read' the material and landscape record that our species’ interaction with nature over time created."


"Actions on matter" at Mountain Lakes could include the double-walled ice houses built to store ice harvested from the lakes in the early decades of the 20th century. Or the pastures and plowed fields that had such a big impact on what plants grow there now, long after the fields grew up in trees.

While Clifford spoke about the dams and their restoration, I introduced the students to the aromas of spicebush and eastern red cedar, and explained how to crack the color codes of spring. A quick survey of red maples in the forest can be done by looking for the red hue they cast in spring, and woody species that evolved on other continents and climates can often be spotted as they green up earlier than most native shrubs and trees. This early greening can impact other species by preventing the spring ephemeral wildflowers beneath them from collecting enough solar energy to prepare for the following year. What looks like lush, healthy green, then, may actually be throwing a wrench in the ecological functioning of the landscape.


The students learned also to "read" the history of deer management in the growth pattern of a spicebush. I explained how the spicebush, now thriving in the preserve, had just 15 years ago been barely hanging on, as heavy deer browsing pressure prevented any new sprouts from growing up. Many spicebush shrubs held on through that era with only one stem high enough to escape the deer. When the town took action to fill the vital role of the absent wolves and other predators, by culling the deer, the spicebush were able to grow multiple stems up and beyond the reach of the deer. With these new "solar panels" in place, the shrubs quickly abandoned the old one--a once precious lifeline that was no longer needed. The photo shows one of those "heroic" old stems still standing in the middle of all the new ones.




A spigot sticking up in a floodplain meadow near Mountain Lake House hints at the prior existence of an olympic-sized pool, once used by the high school swim team for practices. Back when I worked for Friends of Princeton Open Space, we'd plant Hibiscus and other wildflowers in that field, finding shards of ornamental tile as we dug holes for the new plants.


Like pages torn out of what once was an epic poem, we saw a few scattered wildflowers--a trout lily near the path, or a Solomon's Seal hidden beneath a thick patch of winged euonymus. Call it a first step on a long return from the disruptions of the agricultural era a century ago. Though the students saw lots of areas where past plowing and pastures erased the native diversity, they also got to see the few spots that had somehow escaped those historic impacts, where otherwise rare species and lush native herbaceous growth has survived and prospered.




There was a pop quiz midway through to test the students' reading abilities. As Woody Guthrie says about a sign, "On the back side, it didn't say nothing."

Whenever I see the upper dam, I think of Clifford's insistence that the stone masons restore the dam's spillway to be as level as possible, so that water would spill evenly across its length.

It was a gorgeous day in a beautiful local preserve, with bright, inquisitive students who opened up to the peacefulness of the setting and all the stories it had to tell of past, present, and future, less than a mile from campus.

One idea Professor Candiani has, for expanding this connection of university students to the locale they call home for four years, is to make field trips like this a required part of the freshmen class's orientation, so that students can get to know each other and their new community at the same time.

Saturday, April 30, 2016

Arbor Day Walk Today, and Other Events

Saturday April 30, 2-4pm: Friends of Princeton Nursery Lands invite you to an Arbor Day Celebration. Including planting of tree in memory of David Reed followed by a tree identification walk led by Bob Wells at Mapleton Preserve/ DR Canal State Park Headquarters, Princeton Nurseries Kingston Site, 145 Mapleton Road, Kingston, South Brunswick Township

Sunday May 1, 11-2: Native Plant Sale and Education at Whole Earth Center in Princeton. I'll be there to spread the good word, along with Wild Ridge Plants, the NJ Native Plant Society, and others.

Sunday May 1, 4-6: Gala Event at DR Greenway. My band, the Sustainable Jazz Ensemble, will be performing. This is a ticketed event. Check the DRgreenway.org website.

Saturday, May 8, 8am: Washington Crossing Audubon annual spring bird walk at the Institute Woods. Scroll down at this link for details.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Letter On Lesser Celandine Strikes a Nerve

A letter I sent recently to the Town Topics newspaper in Princeton struck a nerve. It was about a pretty but very aggressively spreading nonnative flower called lesser celandine. One reader, I was told, even printed the letter out and distributed it to her neighbors, in hopes that they would take a look in their yards, and take action before the plant took over the neighborhood's flower gardens and lawns. My next post on the subject was going to be a critique of You Bet Your Garden, the widely heard radio program, whose website posting on lesser celandine is full of misinformation. It's both fascinating and alarming to see how even a supposedly authoritative source like Mike McGrath can end up spouting nonsense, which then spreads to listeners, one of whom in turn further spread McGrath's misinformation in a response to my letter published in the Town Topics this week. As with climate change, the intimidating reality of invasive species has led many people to seek refuge in denial of either the problem or the solution, or both.

In the meantime, below is the letter I wrote:


If you’ve noticed a little yellow flower starting to take over your lawn and garden, you aren’t alone. Appreciation soon turns to distress as the plant spreads to become a form of green pavement, outcompeting other plants, then leaving the ground bare when it dies back in early summer. It has lots of names—lesser celandine, fig buttercup, figroot because of its fig-shaped underground tubers, or the scientific name Ficaria verna.

Like many introduced species, it gains competitive advantage by being inedible to the local wildlife. Along with nonnative shrubs that wildlife also avoid, like honeysuckle, winged euonymus, privet and multiflora rose, lesser celandine prevents solar energy from moving up the foodchain from plants to insects to birds. This foiling of natural processes effectively shrinks the acreage of functional open space Princeton has worked so hard to preserve.

The most dramatic example of this plant’s dominance locally is in Pettoranello Gardens, from where it has spread downstream into Mountain Lakes Preserve. That situation is beyond control, but in homeowners yards, and many local parks and preserves, early detection and treatment can nip invasions in the bud. I’ve been encouraging homeowners and the town rec. department to take this work seriously, because one small infestation can quickly spread to affect downhill neighbors, parks and preserves. Effective treatments can be found online, but typically consist of using 2% glyphosate, the active ingredient in products like Roundup, the wetland-safe Rodeo, and other similar formulations.

As with the abuse of antibiotics by the meat industry, glyphosate is now vastly overused to grow bio-engineered corn and soybeans. That abuse has in part driven a demonization of herbicides in general. But just as antibiotics remain a critical medicine, various herbicides remain a critical means of dealing with invasive plants. Personally, my avoidance of herbicides is nearly total, but in the case of lesser celandine, with its tuberous roots, no other approach is practical. Only if there are just a few plants can one dig them out, bag them up and throw them in the trash, not the compost.

Adding to the distress of these radical transformations of our landscapes is a strange narrative that is showing up in places like the New York Times and the radio show You Bet Your Garden. Through a denial of both the problem and the solution, reminiscent of climate change, it claims that we should learn to love invasive species, and hate those who dare to take action against them.

This view cheats us of the deep satisfaction of identifying a problem and working together to solve it. This past weekend, as part of my work for Friends of Herrontown Woods, I was able to convince a couple neighbors of the preserve to treat their lesser celandine. By doing so, they will not only spare their own yards but also the stream just down the hill.

As a bonus, I got to meet some new neighbors. By taking our local nature’s problems seriously, we also build community.

Saturday, April 23, 2016

Conquering Backyard Ivy in an Ivy League Town


After weeks of inaction, paralyzed by inertia and wondering if once again the garden would bowl me over with its growing power, I finally ventured out with gloves, dirt-friendly clothing, and some clippers to take on some of the backyard's longstanding "issues". To my surprise, there was satisfying progress to be made, that actually built on progress past.

Many gardeners have "border issues", that is, plants invading their yards from their neighbors', or vice versa. A friend recently showed me how lesser celandine was continually spreading into his yard from his uphill neighbor, and there are many stories of bamboo's indifference to society's artificial boundaries.

For years, my yard had waves of english ivy coming in from three sides, but two of my neighbors, without my saying a word, got rid of all of theirs. And where my yard abuts the park in back, I was able to get rid of the parkside ivy by taking the liberty of mowing it, after which the parks crews apparently have been weedwhipping any resprouts.


Taking advantage of the soft soil after yesterday's rain, I finally took on the legacy of ivy on my side of the fence, using physical means. The first phase was an on-hands-and-knees approach, pulling and cutting off any ivy growing on the fence.

Ivy heading up a tree got cut at the bottom. No need to pull it down. Cutting at the base is enough, though some people find it more satisfying to pull it all off.

For phase two, large pieces of cardboard were placed along the fence, overlapping, and any ivy still exposed further in was pulled out and thrown on top of the cardboard, where it will dry out. Some native vines--virginia creeper, wild grape, and poison ivy--were pulled as well, though the main goal was to eliminate english ivy. Gloves, long sleeves, and periodic washing of any potentially exposed skin with water should be enough to avoid poison ivy's effects, but we'll see.

The chickens came over to inspect my work, and seemed satisfied. Phase three would be to cover up the cardboard with chips or some other organic material that will hide the cardboard and keep it from getting blown by the wind. But the cardboard will quickly disappear behind a screen of growth in the yard, and some exposed cardboard may prove instructive to park users, who may decide to try using cardboard to deal with their own border issues.


Elsewhere in the yard was additional proof of how even intimidating weeds can be controlled by timely intervention. Only a few garlic mustards came up this year, because they've been getting pulled each spring before they go to seed.

And the big bamboo patch that once was advancing across the fence on the north side is down to a few weak sprouts easily cut. Other weeds--the Canada thistle and the dandelions--got the undercut treatment with a shovel.

There is, of course, the option of eating the young leaves of garlic mustard, and I saw a chinese woman inspecting some bamboo clones across the street, in search of bamboo shoots.



Some of the more aggressive native species got a rebalancing. A native floodplain species of goldenrod that spreads via underground rhizomes got pulled out in places. In the photo is the base of a bottlebrush buckeye--a beautiful native shrub that can start grabbing territory once established. It was a relief to discover that its expansionist ambitions are realized via above ground stolons that can be easily cut.




Mixed with the pulling and digging and rebalancing was some appreciating, of the subtle pendulant blooms of a Bladdernut, a native shrub found in only a few isolated spots in Princeton.



Thursday, April 21, 2016

Native Plant Event at Whole Earth Center


On Sunday, May 1, 11-2pm, the Whole Earth Center in Princeton will have a native plant shindig. That's what Alex Levine, Whole Earth's master artisan of deli cuisine calls it. The official title is "Landscaping With Native Plants", and will feature native plants for sale and free advice from some of us landscaper, native plant seller, naturalist types. There's more info and a pretty photo of Alex's wildflower garden at this link.

Unrelated to the sale, some flowers to be enjoyed this time of year, native species occurring in gardens but not in the wilds of Princeton, is this Fothergilla I planted in the raingarden in front of the Whole Earth Center,



and, if I can get the chicken out of the way,

some celandine poppy. Unrelated to the lesser celandine that's radically spreading through gardens, parks and natural areas of Princeton, the celandine poppy is in the poppy family, makes small mounds that look good even when they aren't blooming. New ones pop up nearby, but not in a way that threatens to take over or spread unwanted into the neighbor's.

Friday, April 15, 2016

Some Spring Views at Herrontown Woods


The unfolding of spring, slowed by cool weather, can be viewed within a short walk of the Veblen House at Herrontown Woods. There's the grand view from the cliff (careful, folks!),

and the domesticated view in front of the corncrib. Sally Tazelaar, of our Friends of Herrontown Woods nonprofit, cleared the multiflora rose that had obscured the daffodils for years.

One of my favorite views is very small and mundane-looking, belying its ecologically significance. Here's evidence that deer are browsing on the smaller shoots of winged euonymus, an all too dominating, nonnative species in some areas of the park. The winged euonymus has been outcompeting native shrubs in part because the wildlife tend not to eat it, but we've noticed that if we play the role of extinct megafauna, by cutting down the winged euonymus too big for the less-mega deer to reach, the deer will browse the resprouts and thus reduce the nonnative's unnatural competitive advantage. There's a good feeling in this collaboration with deer, though they don't seem to have developed a taste for privet or Asian photinia. For those, it's completely up to humans to do the browsing, if some semblance of ecological balance is to be restored.

Another quiet, welcome sight is water trickling out of a long-abandoned drainage pipe. It's a spring of sorts, fed by seepage from the ridge.

Typically one finds more native plant diversity in the vicinity of a spring, because it provides the stable soil moisture of a pre-drained America, where wetlands and all the native species adapted to them once prospered. Mosses, Equisetum, jewelweed, and even what looks like an iris, which would not be found in the more drought-prone, altered terrain elsewhere.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Sustainable Jazz at Communiversity and DR Greenway

We grow all sorts of things here at Princeton Nature Notes, including melodies. Here are some upcoming performances. Click on the links for more info.

COMMUNIVERSITY--Sunday, April 17, 2-2:30pm, Paul Robeson Stage
              Pianist Phil Orr and I will be dropped by solar powered helicopter into the midst of the Princeton Arts Council's Communiversity, for a half hour of locally sourced jazz. The stage is on Witherspoon Street, close to the Princeton Public Library and the Arts Council.

DR GREENWAY'S MAY DAY PICNIC FOR PRESERVATION--Sunday, May 1, 4-6pm, Johnson Education Center, 1 Preservation Place, Princeton
           Sustainable Jazz returns to DR Greenway's mission central to play as part of a gala event celebrating the preservation work of Wade R. Martin. Tickets available at this link.

Friday, April 08, 2016

Upcoming Events at Princeton's Rogers Refuge


Most people don't think of Princeton as having a large marsh to look out upon, but you can find such a view by taking Alexander Rd and West Drive to Rogers Refuge, down from Institute Woods. Though owned by the American Water Company, it is open to the public, with trails, a small parking lot, and observation towers.

This Sunday, April 10 at 10am, the group that cares for the marsh, the Friends of Rogers Refuge, will host a dedication to honor Louis Beck, "who, in his passion and enthusiasm for birds, inspired many to cherish birds and work for their preservation."

The dedication, like the marsh itself, is open to the public. Here's the announcement sent out by FORR president Fred Spar:

"As Bluebirds and Red-winged Blackbirds stake out nesting territory, and leaves begin to emerge on our row of willows, we are getting ready for spring migration at the Rogers Refuge. Thanks to the support of the Washington Crossing Audubon Society, we will soon be installing new informational signage and, in memory of our dear friend Lou Beck, setting up an extensive series of nesting sites for Purple Martins, Bluebirds, Wood Ducks, Tree Swallows and other cavity nesters.  
Please join us as we dedicate a memorial to Lou Beck and celebrate the coming of spring. On Sunday, April 10th at 10:00 A.M. we will convene at the main platform at the Refuge for a dedication ceremony, refreshments, and a walk around the marsh."
On May 8 at 8am, the Washington Crossing Audubon's Brad Merritt and Mark Witmer will lead the annual bird walk at Rogers Refuge. Details at this link.

The marsh is kept wet in the summer with the help of a pump that feeds the marsh extra water from the Stony Brook. It's a good example of how a volunteer Friends group can collaborate with town government and the private land owner, American Water, to sustain one of the finest birding spots in the area. The town maintains the pump, and its long-running deer management program has allowed spicebush and other native flora to rebound, greatly improving the nesting habitat for birds.

Take West Drive off of Alexander Road near the StonyBrook bridge, and keep left at the fork in the gravel road.

Sunday, April 03, 2016

Kids and Chickens

There's a special transaction happening across this chain link fence that separates Potts Park from our backyard. The kids in the park have discovered our chickens. Maybe they heard the plaintive call of our duck, and came over to take a look. Though the park has some nice play equipment, a sandbox, ballcourt and a couple picnic tables, one parent told me the main attraction is now our four chickens.


I like to think that the chickens are teaching the kids to regard their surroundings with a keen eye, because a chicken is constantly scrutinizing the ground and plants around it, scratching the earth to see what's there. Are farms, gardens and chickens a gateway into the natural world? Follow an environmentalist's genealogy back a generation or two and you'll often find a farm.

Our chickens and duck have the run of the place all day, returning dutifully to the coop at dusk. I put some feed out, but mostly they forage for themselves, and so in a sense occupy a spot along the continuum between tame and wild. Such animals can serve as intermediaries, ambassadors, allowing a connection to that living world beyond neat yards and indoor pets, a bridge to the wild that the heart can traverse.

Saturday, April 02, 2016

Princeton Environmental Film Festival--April 2-10

Check out the tenth annual environmental film festival at the Princeton Public Library. The festival begins today, then continues Tuesday through next Sunday. Films day and evening. Many of the films include discussions afterwards with makers of the films. Trailer for the festival below.


 
Princeton Environmental Film Festival 2016 Trailer from Princeton Public Library on Vimeo.