Many in Princeton and beyond knew and loved Dorothy Mullen, for her spirit, generosity, community activism, and her many initiatives, most notably the school gardens and the Suppers Program.
A memorial service will take place this Saturday, Oct. 30, at 10am at the Presbyterian Church in Lawrenceville, NJ. The service will likely be very crowded, but there will also be an opportunity to witness the occasion via zoom. I wrote a song called Dorothy's Garden after seeing Dorothy for the last time, back in the fall of 2019. The song on the video starts about two minutes in. I will play a recording of the song at the open mic after the service, and recite the lyrics. Here's the sheet music, transposed to G for easier reading, and a post from a couple years ago about the garden she created in her front yard, which is now being tended by the new owner of her house.News from the preserves, parks and backyards of Princeton, NJ. The website aims to acquaint Princetonians with our shared natural heritage and the benefits of restoring native diversity and beauty to the many preserved lands in and around Princeton.
Friday, October 29, 2021
Celebrating the Life of Dorothy Mullen
Princeton Finally Plants its Fuel Tank Raingarden
The raingarden in front of the municipality's fuel tank on Witherspoon Street finally got planted. Like just about every piece of real estate in Princeton, large or small, this raingarden has a long and turbulent history. It was presumably created to receive runoff from a roof the town had built over the fuel tank. The roof was meant to protect staff from rain while they poured fossil fuel in their gas tanks, but spurred passionate complaints from neighbors, who complained about the visual blight upon a main entryway into town.
Thus began a long period of deliberation and rethinking, leading to the removal of the much-maligned roof, and consideration of whether to spend even more money to move the raingarden somewhere else, for whatever reason.While humans hemmed and hawed, nature began populating the bare dirt with various weeds, leading to a post on this blog called Princeton's Fuel Tank Raingarden Wannabe, identifying the various weeds and discussing which would be worth keeping. If one knows and loves plants--knowing and loving being very much intertwined--it's pretty easy to develop a new raingarden planting simply by editing what pops up on its own, augmented by taking excess plants from an existing raingarden and planting them in another. Planting one raingarden makes the next one all the easier to create at no cost beyond time spent.
The town has its own logic, however, for better or worse. The raingarden was left untended for a couple years until the brick facade disguising the fuel tank was completed, and then in mid-October a host of plants were purchased and installed, along with a thick layer of mulch.A Threatened Old Bridge, and Dead Fish Along Harry's Brook
We mostly hear about collateral damage, but there can be a lot of collateral discovery in the actions we take to care for nature or history.
Before a new bridge was built beside it in 1965, this old bridge was used by the Pynes of Drumthwacket to reach their horses at "Pyne Ridge", and by the Whiton-Stuarts, the Veblens and Einstein to reach what we now call Veblen House. The bridge carried Princetonians out to Herrontown Woods during its first years of existence.
It's a beautifully made bridge, built of arched stones, and as you can see it is starting to slowly come apart, flood by flood, stone by stone. If it were to collapse, the town would have a big mess on its hands, with the stream blocked by rubble.Tuesday, October 19, 2021
A Beautiful Release Dove Lingers on Franklin Avenue
It's gone now, but for ten days, a beautiful white dove lingered at the street edge in front of a recently vacated house on Franklin Avenue in Princeton.
The first time I saw it, I thought it strange, but kept driving. The next day, it was there again, and I stopped.The fact is, I don't remember ever seeing a bird quite like this. It wasn't a rock dove, or a mourning dove, or a seagull. It looked like a displaced pet, yet when I approached, it suddenly flew up like a bolt of lightening, and made a breathtaking arc far above. It began to circle back, saw I was still there, then headed north beyond the trees. I had never seen such a fabulous flight. The next day, it was there again. The neighbors who told me the dove had been there a week and a half said it "looked like it was waiting for an Uber."
Sunday, October 17, 2021
Phyllis Marchand and the Benefits of Deer Culling
Phyllis was mayor of Princeton Township for 14 years. For those accustomed to Princeton having an all-Democrat town council, it's astonishing to read that when Ms. Marchand was first elected in 1986, she joined a township committee that had been all-Republican. Her long tenure preceded the merging of township and borough. Since I lived in the borough, she was not really my mayor, but her environmentalism has had a lasting impact on the natural areas I've helped to manage over the years.
Among her many achievements, her courage in starting a deer culling program 21 years ago had all kinds of longterm benefits--dramatically fewer car accidents, recovery of native plant species, improved wildlife habitat, and a healthier deer herd. The culling program was very controversial at the time, with Mayor Marchand and other supporters having to endure heated criticism and personal attacks.
The data are very strong on the benefits of annual culling by professional hunters. Here is some data collected for a post about deer hunting in 2013. Deer killed in roadway collisions dropped from the high of 342 in 2000 down to 68 in 2010. In 2019, 555 deer were killed in the township by vehicles and amateur hunters. In 2010, after ten years of professional deer management, the total number killed by vehicles, hunters and professionals had dropped to 286. Thus, one can say that investing in professional deer management actually has served to reduce the total number of deer killed each year.
The township tried to save money by cancelling the deer culling in 2014, but deer numbers rapidly increased and the annual contract with professional hunters was quickly reinstated.
Given all of Phyllis Marchand's contributions to society through her long life, I had assumed that the deer culling issue was larger for me given my primary interest in nature. But the NY Times began its lengthy obituary with a detailed account of the controversy surrounding deer culling, including one sentence that is demonstrably false:
In the end, town officials declared the program a success because it had reduced collisions between deer and vehicles by 40 percent. But it didn’t solve the problem. The deer remain abundant, and while Ms. Marchand had contracted with White Buffalo for only five years, the town is still using its services.
The contract has been in place every year since 2000 except for one, and the deer herd is now small enough that many native plant populations have been able to recover. The obit doesn't mention the ecological benefits, but the article it links to does. Spicebush--a native shrub that is particularly important for bird habitat--is a dramatic example of recovery, once liberated from intense deer browsing. And the reduced browsing pressure has allowed many native wildflowers to bloom and provide nectar and pollen for insects. Having banished wolves and other predators of deer from the landscape, we then bear the responsibility to keep deer numbers in some semblance of ecological balance. Hunting is a way of stepping in to fill the void in natural predators. Mayor Marchand understood this twenty years ago, and weathered the storm to institute a policy that has proven its worth.
Phyllis Marchand, I've learned through her family, was a great fan of music sung by Nat King Cole and others. Sustainable Jazz usually plays all-original jazz and latin, but we added some of Phyllis' favorites from the American song book, including High Hopes, first sung by Frank Sinatra--a song whose lyrics can grow on you if you happen to have a dream. It's interesting to read in wikipedia that John F. Kennedy used a version of High Hopes as a theme song in his presidential campaign in 1960.
Tuesday, October 05, 2021
What to Think of Black Vultures?
The other day, I was thinking about how much I love chipmunks, and how much my sister hates them. How do we reach opposite opinions about the same animal? Are the chipmunks that now run amok in her vegetable garden the same chipmunks I fondly remember from childhood, scampering over rocks, their cheeks puffed out with their latest gleaning of nuts?
Vultures also tend to get mixed reviews. Some find them creepy; others laud their soaring skills and their ecological role of cleanup crew. There are two types in Princeton--the common turkey vultures and the less common black vultures that have been expanding their range to the north over time. Many people look up, see a bird soaring, and think it must be a hawk. More often it's a vulture, usually a turkey vulture, which is black with a feint streak of silver along the back of the underside of its wing. Black vultures' wings from below appear to be tipped with silver.
For years, black vultures have perched on the chimneys of the Veblen Cottage at Herrontown Woods. At first we considered them a bad omen, but then as we learned more about them we gained respect and began to appreciate their presence. The photo is by Julie Tennant, a neighbor to the preserve who has taken an interest in the birds. The vulture still has a ring of fluffy immature feathers around its neck.
Each spring a pair of black vultures raises its young in the corncrib next to the cottage. People of course want to take a peek inside to see the chicks, but we worry that loose dogs and too many visitors could ultimately scare the vultures away.It looked like that had come to pass this summer when the vultures disappeared for awhile, but then we saw a chick out for a walk on the cottage grounds, its plumage very much in transition. Four years ago, one of the two chicks was slow to mature, causing the family to linger far longer than usual, often perching on the chimneys of the Veblen Cottage. We were won over by the patience the parents showed as they waited for the second chick to mature.
Monday, October 04, 2021
Help Your Local Trail Crew -- Sew a Rock Net
Here's an indoor way to help out the volunteers who take care of nature trails in your local nature preserve. Sew a "rock net" for carrying the big stepping stones that help hikers get across streams and through muddy patches. I was corresponding with Alan Hershey of DR Greenway to update trail info for Herrontown Woods on NJTrails.org, and somehow the conversation turned to rocks--big rocks, the kind that work really well for trails--and how to get them to places too rugged for a hand truck. He recommended a rock net--a kind of cargo net developed by Deb Brockway, who has made several and steadily improved the design.
Below are instructions for anyone who has a knack for sewing and is looking for a good project. I know we could use one of these at Herrontown Woods, and other organizations could benefit as well. Thanks to Deb and Alan for this information.
The rock net, sometimes called a cargo net, looks like this:
Here are instructions from Deb:
Below are some helpful ideas from Deb on where to find materials:
"It is possible to buy a custom-made cargo net but they are relatively expensive, which is why I decided to make them. I have used 2-inch width recovery tow straps. The first straps I used I bought at Home Depot, which allowed me to feel the weight and clearly see the weave of the webbing. Those straps were no longer available from Home Depot, so I bought the next ones from Amazon and was not as pleased with the quality of the webbing (though there are lots of options, so I’m sure there are some with a tight weave). Next time around I will go to one of the online webbing sites to purchase it. That is a less expensive option and some of those outlets will cut all the pieces to requested lengths for no additional charge as compared to cutting a single entire length. The added benefit is that all of the ends would be (or should be) heat sealed when they arrive. If you cut the webbing you will need to melt all the cut ends to prevent fraying.
The attached document has additional information and sketches for cutting, assembling, and sewing a net like the orange one in the photo.
FYI… another option is to tie a net using thick rope. A trail crew I have worked with created such a net fashioned after a fishing net. It had a diamond net design, with knots tied at the junctures and some sort of gummy substance covering the knots."
Thursday, September 30, 2021
Where Have All the Pollinators Gone? -- Summer, 2021
Wherein is discussed the season's paucity of pollinators, the curiously prolific presence of hornets, and possible causes thereof.
With the coming and the going of this year's autumnal equinox, it's time to look back on a long summer and ask, "What happened?" Or, more precisely, "What happened to the happening that didn't happen?"
There's lots of talk about how insects are in decline and that we need to plant more wildflowers to support them. A local ecologist and avid birder, David Wilcove, co-wrote an oped in the Washington Post about the danger posed by insect decline, and the need to better monitor populations, as is done with birds.
In past years, a summer's climactic buzzfest on the boneset
This year, there was a steep decline in pollinator numbers in Princeton. Each year I grow a banquet of wildflowers in my backyard for all manner of insects to feast upon. In past years, they'd come from near and far, their numbers building through summer, climaxing in late August in a buzzfest on the boneset. Though mountain mint is another great draw for insects, in my yard it was boneset in particular, clustered here and there in the garden, that in past years drew the multitudinous shapes and sizes of the insect world. Its broad disks of tiny white flowers seemed like a Serengeti in miniature, an open plain perched conveniently four feet above the ground, teaming with life. It was a chance to see the insects close up, they being so focused on the nectar or each other that they took little notice of me.
Then, two years ago, and again last year, the numbers of insects were down--still numerous but not enough to stir that late-summer's jazzy feeling of frenzied activity.
2021: An astonishing diminishmentWhat I found on Sept 2nd were perhaps a hundred wasps flying in their usual criss-cross manner a foot above the lawn. Some seemed fatigued by it all, and would abandon their flight to sit among the grass blades for awhile. Though their numbers were down from the thousands I'd seen two years prior, I was glad to see any at all. And a student sitting in a lawn chair, scrutinizing his computer, told me there had been many more ten days prior when students first began moving in.
Sunday, September 19, 2021
Mile-a-Minute Spreading into Princeton
One of the more noxious invasive plants that has been spreading across NJ is Mile-a-Minute. It's a prickly vine that, though an annual that must grow back from seed each spring, grows so fast that it can cover large areas of roadsides and field edges. Over the past several years, I've been knocking out small infestations at the Princeton Battlefield and near Rogers Refuge, but this year I'm finding new patches springing up around town.
Then, driving my daughter to MarketFair along Canal Pointe Blvd a week ago, I saw a massive infestation that surely is a major source of the seeds that birds are then spreading across Princeton.Treepedia Author to Speak at Veblen House--Sept. 24
Saturday, September 18, 2021
Butler Tract Meadows Restoration?
"Butler Tract Meadows is under an invasive management program for this year."
For most of the summer, it wasn't clear what that meant. The signs appeared early in the growing season, but I could find no sign of any action.
This photo tells the story of what happened to the native meadow over the course of five years. The usual nonnative invasive species moved in and began to dominate, with mugwort foremost among them. The white flowering plant on the left is Japanese knotweed, which can form large monocultures as well. Bamboo is getting a foothold in the lower lefthand corner of the photo, and in the distance can be seen the sproutings of black locust, a native tree that nonetheless can move aggressively into native grasslands. Sericea lespedeza (L. cuneata) is another super-aggressive nonnative. Newer on the Princeton scene, it can rival mugwort in its capacity to displace diverse native plants, for instance along the gasline right of way that crosses the Princeton Ridge.
And here's crown vetch, which climbs over everything around it. Both crown vetch and Sericea lespedeza were planted extensively along freeways to control soil erosion, reducing one environmental harm while creating another.
This big patch of mugwort shows some sign of dieback, but pretty uneven results thus far.
I'm guessing that patch in the background of this photo was crown vetch. In the foreground is probably common cinquefoil (Potentilla simplex), which is native but a very rapid spreader.
Sunday, September 12, 2021
Nature's "Depressions" Bring Beauty and Resilience
Another in my writings about the ecological, logistical, and psychological aspects of tending to a detention basin at Smoyer Park that we converted into a native meadow. Most of the photos and writing are from mid-July, 2021.
There's a garden that many people pass by but few notice. I saw my second monarch butterfly of the season there in mid-July, attracted to the subtle flowering going on there. It's at the far end of the parking lot in Smoyer Park, out Snowden Lane. Drive or bike down to the lower end of the lot, and by heading downhill, you're essentially following the water, doing what rain does after it hits the ground. And there you will find what most people, if they have any name for it at all, will call a detention basin, so-called because it detains runoff, slowing it down, capturing it in a depression so that it can seep into the ground and feed the aquifer rather than feed a flood.
Bureaucracies require it, engineers designed it, but probably none of them were thinking about what a great place this wet, sunny spot would be to grow native plants. That came later, when another arm of the government, Partners for Fish and Wildlife, worked with me and the town to turn this previously mowed space into what could more aptly be called a wild garden, or a wetland garden, or a wet meadow.
"Depression" is a word that in psychology may have a negative connotation, and extended depression is surely something one would want to cure. But if you're an artist of some sort, a depression may mean the mind is doing important work at a very deep level, putting things together in a new way that may lead to a burst of creativity, insight, or both. To experience highs, one must be able to experience lows.
Nature, too, needs its lows, even though depressions in the ground, too, tend to get a bad rap. "Drain the swamp" is a politician's stirring call to clean up the mess inside the beltway, and lots of swamps were drained when they got in the way of expanding our towns, cities, and farms. But as with people, a depression is where nature does some of its deepest thinking and finest work, feeding the aquifer and laying the foundation for foodchains with a rich variety of native plants. Gardeners like to lift plants up in raised beds, but many native wildflowers prefer the opposite, somewhere low down. Those are the seedheads of big bluestem in the photo, a dominant prairie grass in tallgrass prairies of the midwest, historically munched on by bison.You can see a fence bordering one of the ballfields at Smoyer Park in the distance, and most of the surprisingly many detention basins scattered across the Princeton landscape, in developments or at parks, are managed like a ballfield, with grass mowed to the ground, though no one would think to play a game there. One thing I've managed to do in town is get some of these converted to wet meadows--first at Farmview Fields, then at Princeton High School, then at Greenway Meadows and Smoyer Park.
I walked through the Smoyer Park wet meadow in mid-July, to see how it's doing and to do some weeding of this half-acre wild garden. As any gardener knows, there's a lot that can go wrong, even in a meadow that's supposed to grow naturally. Many of these raingarden-like plantings, if untended, fill with a host of aggressive weeds, like mugwort, Canada thistle, and Chinese bushclover (also called Sericea lespedeza). Even natives like blackberry and some kinds of goldenrods can tend to take over.Thursday, September 09, 2021
A Summer-Long Residency of Paper Wasps in My Window
Our house is solid, but for some reason there is one storm window that is slightly out of square--just enough that the storm window can't be fully closed. And through that small crack each spring come paper wasps, not to enter the house but to build a nest in the space between inner and outer windows. It starts with a queen--a kind of homesteader, or who in the business world might be called an entrepreneur. I haven't watched closely enough to see if she uses last year's honeycomb of cells or builds new, but at any rate she does the early work herself, as if starting a colony, or a small business, until she can raise young to do most of the work for the rest of the summer. Occasionally I'd take a look to see how they were doing.
The most common species of paper wasp, it turns out, is originally from Europe. A simple distinction between bees and wasps is that bees are vegetarians and wasps are carnivores. Bees raise their young on protein-rich plant pollen, while wasps feed their young other insects.
My best guess as to what's going on in this picture is that the three wasps with their abdomens sticking out are feeding the young by delivering them food in their chambers. When ready, the larvae cap their chambers, pupate, and then eat their way out as fully formed adults.
Some types of insects, like butterflies and cicadas, have to remain still after emerging, to let their wings slowly expand and dry. But these wasps emerge with their small, narrow wings ready to go. You can see one of the new wasps at the bottom of the photo, emerging like a chick from an egg.
One day in July, I heard a scuffling sound at the window, looked up,
and saw a bird balancing on top of the window.It was a red-bellied woodpecker--a bird named after a part of the body one almost never sees, rather than the red hood that is so distinctive. From its precarious perch just above the crack in the window, it could use its keen eye, flexible neck, and lightning quick reflexes to snatch any wasps coming or going.
Sometimes it stuck its beak right in the crack, as if my house were a tree.
Finally, the bird noticed me and flew off. Whether this was a singular visit or one of many, the wasp nest was considerably diminished and never regained its earlier hustle and bustle. By the end of August the nest stood empty, which meant I could now open the inside window again.
There are many questions to ask. Do the wasps feed their young regurgitated insect puree, or do they serve sliced and diced versions? Inquiring minds want to know. I spent some time trying to figure out which one was the queen. No wasp stood out as distinctly different from the next. Some of the wasps on the nest were vibrating their abdomens. Others were not. What does this mean? And what impact do the paper wasps have on my garden? Are they responsible for keeping my kale unexpectedly free of caterpillars, and if so, do they nicely limit their diet to garden pests, or are they also preying on the rarer sorts of butterflies and moths we wish there were more of?
I found a few answers at this Galveston County master gardener site. Here are some excerpts:
Adult paper wasps are efficient predators, mostly of caterpillars. They carry them back to the nest and feed them to the developing larvae. They will collect large numbers of caterpillars from the area around the nest during the course of a season. Adult wasps typically prey on a wide variety of caterpillars including corn earworms, armyworms, loopers, and hornworms. Adult wasps also utilize beetle larvae and flies as food for their young..
Adult paper wasps primarily feed on nectar or other sugary solutions such as honeydew and the juices of ripe fruits. Adults also feed on bits of caterpillars or flies that are caught and partially chewed before presenting to their young.
and:
In early fall, the colony begins to produce males and special reproductive female wasps. These reproductive females, which constitute next year�s queens, mate with males and soon leave the nest in search of protected spots in which they spend the winter. The remaining worker wasps eventually die and the nest becomes vacant. Paper wasps will not reuse their nests the next year.
Even some websites that are trying to sell products or pest control services have useful info, such as this comparison of paper wasps and yellow jackets.
I sometimes think of fixing the window, but I suspect that, come next spring, a lone queen of the paper wasp variety will come along and still find a suitable spot to take up residence. Maybe that's for the best.