White Wildflower

White Wildflower1
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

Hi.

Looking for quick help from smart people.

Can anyone identify this wildflower? Tiny white flowers, blooming mid-May. Southern Indiana location.

Thanks!

Young Explorers

Young Explorers 2
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

Hey, everyone!

I guess that, like me, y'all've been busy. Adulthood stinks, sometimes. But then it's better than the alternative (the alternative being adolescence!!)

Anyway, thought I'd share a photo of some young adventurer friends of mine and a quote, just to let you know I'm still around...

You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.

~EB White, "Charlotte's Web"

Writers' Retreat in Craftsbury, Vermont

My friend, Julia Shipley, has a Writers' Retreat in Craftsbury, Vermont. She's a delightful spirit and a very talented writer and poet. If you're looking for a good excuse to spend more time in the Northeast Kingdom, she's got one for you: 

http://www.writersretreat.com/vermont.htm

Spring comes ...

Spring comes ... and with it, new life in the desert.

KNOCK Ecolit Contest

Ecoliterature Contest Submission Guidelines

* Manuscripts will not be returned, but recycled.
* Notification of winners will take place by August, 2008.
* Include your name, category, and "Ecolit & Green Art Contest Submission" on your cover letter (or in your subject line).
* Include a SASE for notification of results (email address may substitute). Submissions can be made by email and regular mail.

Categories:

Poetry :: Fiction :: Nonfiction :: Plays :: Art :: Cartoons

Please:
* Limit prose to 10 pages.
* Limit poetry to 4 poems, or 8 pages total.
* Limit plays to 10 pages. 
* Art & cartoons can be B&W or color; limit to 5 pieces.

Send Submissions to:

KNOCK
Antioch University Seattle
2326 Sixth Avenue
Seattle WA 98121

or:

knock@antiochseattle.edu

http://www.knockjournal.org/submit/ecolit-contest.html

E-Conference -- Looks Interesting

Environmental (In) Justice: Sources, Symptoms, and Solutions ~ Online

April 11-24, 2008 ~ Online Join academics and activists, scientists and social critics, researchers, journalists, and concerned citizens from around the world in this EcoRes online forum as we examine the roots of environmental and climate injustice and search for ways to right these indefensible wrongs.

http://eelink.net/cgi-bin/ee-link/newclick/5168794

Mexican Gold Poppies

After the desert rains ...  the poppies.

Waterman Fund Alpine Essay Contest

The Waterman Fund announces it new Alpine Essay Contest and seeks submissions until May 1, 2008.

The Waterman Fund seeks the submission of essays about life in the mountains of the northeastern U.S. for its inaugural Waterman Fund Alpine Essay Contest.

Guy and Laura Waterman spent a lifetime reflecting and writing on the Northeast's mountains. The Waterman Fund seeks to further their legacy through essays and stories that celebrate the spirit of the Northeast's mountains. We encourage the submission of essays that explore the relationship between the human spirit and that environment. For example, we seek scientific essays about the effects of global warming; personal stories about hiking experiences; or writings that explore the relationship between people and wildness.

Essays must be original works ranging from 2500 to 4000 words. The submission deadline is May 1, 2008. The winning piece will be published in Appalachia Journal, and the winning essayist will be awarded $2,000.

Writers who have not published a book on such topic or who have not been published in a national magazine on such topic are eligible for participation. For details on how to submit an essay, go to http://www.watermanfund.org/categories/events/essay_contest.php.

Everyone's Friday Free for All

Every week, there is a general "free for all" post where any reader at Whorled Leaves can share something about his/herself--some tidbit inspired by nature--a poem, an essay, a clip from one's field notebook--whatever it is that makes you smile.

Residency for Nature Writers

Artist at Pine Needles residency program

The St. Croix Watershed Research Station seeks applications from artists and writers for the summer 2008 Artist at Pine Needles residency program. The project invites natural history artists or writers to spend 2 to 4 weeks in residence to immerse themselves in a field experience, gather resource materials, and interact with environmental scientists and the local community. Applications will be accepted from writers and visual artists who focus on environmental or natural history topics. Participants will have an opportunity to interact with environmental scientists and to create links between their art, the natural world and the sciences.

Go to http://www.smm.org/static/science/pdf/pineneedles.pdfto download application for this residency.

EPA Photo Contest for Earth Day

Show Us Your Best Photo for Earth Day

Contact: Jeffrey Levy, 202-564-4355 / levy.jeffrey@epa.gov

(Washington, D.C. – March 10, 2008) Has your community organization cleaned up a stream? Have you enjoyed a day in the woods? Has a wild animal ever sparked your imagination?

If you've caught anything like those moments in a photo, share it with us! We want to see how you would show EPA's mission to protect human health and the environment. Send us your best photos in three categories:
· Enjoying the environment
· Protecting the environment
· Nature and wildlife

To encourage participation and provide maximum public access, the contest will be hosted on the photo sharing site Flickr.com. People around the world are encouraged to enter.

The contest will run as follows:
March 24: entries due
April 1: Finalists announced, public voting for winners begins
April 15: voting ends
April 22 (Earth Day): winners announced

Finalist and winning photos will be featured on EPA's Web site.

Full details about the contest, including how to enter: http://www.epa.gov/earthday/photocontest

Cloud Appreciation Society

Tell me this doesn't renew your faith in humanity: there is a Cloud Appreciation Society! I'm so excited it's ridiculous. I found this clan by picking up a book yesterday called The Cloudspotters Guide: Science, History, and Culture of Clouds.

This comes from their Manifesto:

WE BELIEVE that clouds are unjustly maligned

and that life would be immeasurably poorer without them.

We think that they are Nature’s poetry,
and the most egalitarian of her displays,

since everyone can have a fantastic view of them.

We pledge to fight ‘blue-sky thinking’ wherever we find it.

Life would be dull if we had to look up at

cloudless monotony day after day.

We seek to remind people that clouds are expressions of the

atmosphere’s moods, and can be read like those of

a person’s countenance.

Clouds are so commonplace that their beauty is often overlooked.

They are for dreamers and their contemplation benefits the soul.

Indeed, all who consider the shapes they see in them will save

on psychoanalysis bills.

And so we say to all who’ll listen:

Look up, marvel at the ephemeral beauty, and live life with your head in the clouds!

The tall grass whispers

Racoon 3
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

I heard the tall grass whispering,
gossiping,
spreading rumors of spring,
even tho the ground is hard with winter.

With ice underfoot
and my breath in the air,
Spring seems an unlikely fable,
but I do so want to believe.

Everyone's Friday Free for All

Every week, there is a general "free for all" post where any reader at Whorled Leaves can share something about his/herself--some tidbit inspired by nature--a poem, an essay, a clip from one's field notebook--whatever it is that makes you smile.

Friday Free for All: Coldest Morning of the Winter So Far

While some may be dreaming of spring, here in Vermont it's too early for such things. We can be deluded at times by the changing power of the sun, the way soil softens even on the edge of a 10 degree day. But this morning, this morning when even the door slammed hard in defiance, nearly popping in half with -18 degrees, we are abruptly reminded that we're not out of the snow quite yet (46" snowpack + 6-10 inches tonight).

Letting It All Hang Out

This was me 9 years ago in Yosemite. I still had my long Africa beard, but had just shaved my head. I was on the fast track with The Nature Concervancy and with each promotion the facial hair got shorter. If I grew out my beard to that length today it would take two years and would have streaks of gray. I believe this style most resembles a "Spanish Spade." DeNiro used to have a beard like that.

Orion's New Series: What I Am Reading...

I just noticed on Orion's website that they've started a new series called What I Am Reading. Terry Tempest Williams and Alan Weisman share the names of books they have piled near their reading chairs.

The Cellphone Novel

I just read an article in the Christian Science Monitor about cellphone novels. Yes, novels written on cellphones with emoticons and broken language. Apparently, they're the new hip thing in Japan (and maybe here--maybe I'm just far enough out of the mainstream to know it).

Thought you might be curious about this trend. Here's the article: The Cellphone Novel: Ain't it G8! :).

Friday's Almost Flower

The Skunk Cabbage will soon be blooming in this small stream. I put the photo up on my blog but thought other might see it here.



I continue to go out every week in search of flowers and, thanks to late blooming Witch Hazels, I have seen a flower of some sort every week for over a year now.

Friday Free for All

Yesterday, the entire downtown area of Montpelier, our nation's smallest state capital, was covered with hundreds of hearts. Windows and doors, bulletin boards, and some even taped to people traveling around. The Valentine bandit has struck all five years I've been here. I'm not sure when this tradition started, but it is a glorious one.

Cheers to the bandit with hundreds of hearts to give. Happy Friday.

Everyone's Friday Free-for-All

Protest Crowd
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

Every week, there is a general "free for all" post where any reader at Whorled Leaves can share something about his/herself--some tidbit inspired by nature--a poem, an essay, a clip from one's field notebook--whatever it is that makes you smile.

Teak harvesting and mid-century furniture

Most of our furniture was purchased in the middle of the 20th century. It's a style known as "Danish modern" and is predominantly teak.  Ghosh's The Glass Palace (see previous post), has a description of teak harvesting in late 19th century Burma. I became curious about how teak forests are currently sustained. I was happy to alleviate some of my concerns when I read this in a Wikipedia article:

Teak consumption encompasses a different set of environmental concerns, such as the disappearance of rare old-growth teak. However, its popularity has led to growth in sustainable production throughout the seasonally dry tropics in forestry plantations. The Forest Stewardship Council offers certification of sustainably grown and harvested teak products. Experiments are ongoing to achieve vegetative propagation from one year old stem cuttings.

Popular in the 1950s and 19602 in a style often known as Danish modern, teak furniture has had a second boom in popularity. Teak is one of the most sought-after types of vintage furniture.  

In late 19th century Burma, once teak was harvested, it was floated down the rivers to seaports. Here's another excerpt from The Glass Palace [p. 60]:

In the dry season, when the earth cracked and the forests wilted, the streams would dwindle into dribbles upon the slope, barely able to shoulder the weight of a handful of leaves, mere trickles of mud between strings of cloudy riverbed pools. This was the season for the timbermen to comb the forest for teak. The trees, once picked, had to be killed and left to dry, for the density of teak is such that it will not remain afloat while its heartwood is moist. The killing was achieved with a girdle of incisions, thin slits carved deep into the wood at a height of four feet and six inches off the ground ..."

The assassinated trees were left to die where they stood, sometimes for three years or even more.  It was only after they had been judged dry enough to float that they were marked for felling. That was when the axemen came, shouldering their weapons, squinting along the blades to judge their victims' angles of descent.

Dead though they were, the trees would sound great tocsins of protest as they fell, unloosing thunderclap explosions that could be heard miles away, bringing down everything in their path, rafts of saplings, looped nets of rattan.  Thick stands of bamboo were flattened in moments, thousands of jointed limbs exploding simultaneously in deadly splinter blasts, throwing up mushroom clouds of debris. [Ghosh, Amitav, The Glass Palace, p. 60]

Teak and mint

I've just started reading a novel, The Glass Palace, by Amitav Ghosh. The story is set in Burma during the British invasion of 1885 and tells the story of the exile of one of the Burmese royal families and also the growth of a teak trading empire. I'd like to share an excerpt that talks about the teak tree. (There are references to teak in Colin Tudge's The Tree, our August book selection.)

Once, while sheltering beside a dying and girdled trunk of teak, Saya John [a Chinese trader] gave Rajkumar [an  Indian boy then living in Burma] a mint leaf to hold in one had and a fallen leaf from the tree in the other. Feel them, he said, rub them between your fingers.

"Teak is a relative of mint, Tectona grandis, born of the same genus of flowering plant but of a distaff branch, presided over by that most soothing of herbs, verbena.  It counts among its close kin many other fragrant and familiar herbs -- sage, savory, thyme, lavender, rosemary and most remarkably holy basil, with is many descendants, green and purple, smooth-leaved and coarse, pungent and fragrant, bitter and sweet.

"There was a teak tree in Pegu once with a trunk that measured one hundred and six feet from the ground to its first branch. Imagine what a mint's leaf would be like if it were to grow upon a plant that rose more than a hundred feet into the air, straight up from the ground, without tapering or deviation, its stem as straight as a plumb-line, its first leaves appearing almost at the top, clustered close together and outspread like the hands of a surfacing diver."

The mint leaf was the size of Rajkumar's thumb, while the other would have covered an elephant's footprint; one was a weed that served to flavor soup, while the other came from a tree that had felled dynasties, caused invasions, created fortunes, brought a new way of life into being. [Ghosh, The Glass Palace, pp 61-62]

Wildbranch Workshop (Attn: Writers)

(I attended Wildbranch the past two summers and would highly recommend applying if you're interested.)

Join DAVID ABRAM, JANISSE RAY, SCOTT RUSSELL SANDERS, and SANDRA STEINGRABER for the 2008 WILDBRANCH WRITING WORKSHOP.

Cosponsored by Orion magazine and Sterling College Craftsbury Common, Vermont, June 1-7, 2008

Wildbranch is a week-long working retreat for writers of all kinds, as well as activists and environmental professionals who want to study the craft of writing about the natural world.
Orion editors H. EMERSON BLAKE and JENNIFER SAHN will be present to consult with writers about their work.

Enrollment in the workshop is limited to 32, and the deadline for applications is March 14, 2008.
For information and an application, go to:

http://www.sterlingcollege.edu/wildbranch.html.

A Place to Start . . .

Morning. Thich Nhat Hanh's book, Call Me By My True Names, he says:

My friend, when we are not present, mornings repeat themselves. If we are present in front of life, each morning is a new space, a new time. The sun shines over different vistas, at different moments. . . . A book is a path where one can come and go. . . . A morning is a symphony; for it to be there or not depends on your presence. (183)

Be there for the symphony. And if you're given words, please bring them to us.

Everyone's Friday Free for All

Every week, there is a general "free for all" post where any reader at Whorled Leaves can share something about his/herself--some tidbit inspired by nature--a poem, an essay, a clip from one's field notebook--whatever it is that makes you smile.

I have a tradition of collaging Valentine postcards for friends and family. Some are sweet; others are outrageous. This is one of many that I made tonight. Happy Friday.

I Love the Mountains

Love Mountains Poster
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

I went to a concert this weekend, organized by a bunch of teens to benefit the Mountains.

Specifically, it was a benefit and consciousness raiser about the topic of Mountaintop Removal. Here in my nearby Appalachian region, we've turned a grotesque number of Mountains into Mesas, dumping waste and sludge into the streams and valley below. Many folk here in Kentucky and about are pretty pissed about it all.

Wendell Berry spoke and several bands played. It was a good evening for an important cause. That it was done by a group of teens made it all the more amazing.

Some days I'm more inspirited, and some days I'm more splenetic.

Today, I'm both.

Everyone's Friday Free-for-All

Winter Barn
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

Every week, there is a general "free for all" post where any reader at Whorled Leaves can share something about his/herself--some tidbit inspired by nature--a poem, an essay, a clip from one's field notebook--whatever it is that makes you smile.

Slow Road Home

Purple Flower
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

On page 63 of First's book, he begins an entry about local names that I enjoyed. He had a weed on his land that he couldn't name. He asked around and found a neighbor called them "Gallant Soldiers."

First reminisces about other stories in his life where he learned the local names and how it related (sometimes) to the Latin name. For instance, he had a story about some "rangy trees" that a forester called "Lancers." The Latin name for it was Ailanthus.

Another story was about a fella who wanted to go cut down some Baloney Wood because there was a market for it in China. Turns out he was talking about a tree called Paulownia.

Eventually he learns his "gallant soldiers" are a plant identified as Gallinsoga. Fun.

I'm pretty pitiful on plant names, but would like to be better. Anyone have similar stories (ideally associated with a photo so I could see the plant in question)?

How 'bout my purple flower above? I'm sure someone can tell me its name (scientific and/or local)...

Everyone's Friday Free for All

Every week, there is a general "free for all" post where any reader at Whorled Leaves can share something about his/herself--some tidbit inspired by nature--a poem, an essay, a clip from one's field notebook--whatever it is that makes you smile.

Squirrel Squabble

Chipmunk
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

On my walk to work yesterday, I noticed two squirrels loudly wrestling in a tree, rolling around beating the snot out of each other (assuming that squirrels have snot). They were doing so on a branch about 20 feet off the ground. I was amazed that they could do all that rolling and wrestling without falling.

Well, they couldn't. They both fell, still locked in struggle and tussling all the way down. They hit the ground with a noticeable thud and, to my amazement, didn't miss a beat. They just kept on fighting.

This wrestling continued for a minute or two as I watched from just about ten feet away. For whatever reason, I said to the squirrels, "Okay you two, break it up."

They ignored me.

After another minute, they broke apart and one ran back up the tree with the other in hot pursuit. Having to get on to work, I walked on, assuming that they would work it out on their own.

So, what makes a squirrel that angry?

[By the way, I know of course that this chipmunk is no squirrel, but I had no squirrel photos handy.]

Introducing "Esker: Tales of Woods and Water"

I am very happy to announce that I have published a chapbook of my writing and the work of several other people. Titled Esker, it features not only my "greatest hits" from the past few years of The Dharma Blog, but also two never-before-seen pieces. All the essays and stories concern explorations of woods and water, from fly fishing trout streams to canoeing lakes and rivers and many points in between.

In addition to my own writing, it also includes a beautiful poem from Whorled Leaves very own Lené Gary. Also included are a short piece by Sam Haraldson, art by Ed Haydin and a poem by Kate Seitz (my wife).

Esker is available for $12 by clicking here.

Happy Solstice...

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season....Lené

Everyone's Friday Free for All

Every week, there is a general "free for all" post where any reader at Whorled Leaves can share something about his/herself--some tidbit inspired by nature--a poem, an essay, a clip from one's field notebook--whatever it is that makes you smile.