8/09/08 TUMBLES AND BERRY PIES

Saturday, 8:30 AM. 60 degrees, wind NW, light with gusts. The channel is wrinkled. The skies are mostly clear, and the barometer predicts rain.
Joan and I went to the Larsen’s camp for dinner yesterday evening. Their daughter Libby and husband Scott and kids Tyler and Luke were there, they are going home today. We arrived just in time to see Tyler crash at the end of the zip line. He got banged up some but went right back and zipped again. He contemplated his injuries while eating raspberry-blueberry pie. Andy took a fall in the woods and is banged up pretty good, with a big infected knot on his right arm. We are all rather concerned.
Dinner was good as usual, featuring Andy’s camp chicken and Judy’s Dutch oven berry pie. Everyone had their fill, including the dogs.
I collected Coreopsis seeds this morning and will strew them at the back of the garden. Routine cores are in order today, with good weather to do them.

8/08/08 BEAUTIFUL BERRIES

Friday, 7:30 AM. 60 degrees, wind NW, light with stronger gusts. The channel is dimpled. The sky is clear with a few clouds on the eastern horizon. From a good vantage point one can see the distant iron ranges.
If the apple tree and the mountain ash tree in the yard are any indication, it should be a bumper harvest for Bayfield apple orchards. The mountain ash tree (not an ash at all but a member of the rose family) is loaded with berries to the breaking point. The European mountain ash, Sorbus aucuparia, most used in landscaping, has orange to red berries. The native, Sorbus americana, is more shrub-like and has red fruit. It is found close to the great lakes and is really a boreal forest species. Birds eat the berries of both plants.

8/07/08 A LITTLE RAIN, AND LOTS OF PINE CONES

Thursday, 7:30 AM. 58 degrees, wind NW, moderate with heavier gusts. The channel is crawling. The skies are nearly clear, and the barometer predicts mostly sunny skies. A strong high is coming in. We had a quick storm yesterday afternoon that resulted in one-tenth of an inch of rain.
I have seldom seen the white pine, Pinus strobus, bear seed cones so heavily. Both male and female cones occur on the same tree, the former, producing pollen, grow on the lower branches, the female on the upper, where the can most efficiently catch the wind blown pollen. The seed cones take two years to ripen, the cones then opening to disperse the small triangular seeds, which are an important wildlife food (these “pine nuts” are also good people food if anyone has the patience to collect them). The tall, beautiful, long-lived white pine is a major timber species here along the big lake.
In nature, they become dominant after a fire or blow down, and can persist over huge areas for hundreds of years if undisturbed.

8/06/08 WHAT EVERY KID NEEDS: THEIR OWN ZIP LINE

Wednesday, 7:30 AM. 60 degrees, wind NW, light with stronger gusts. The channel is wrinkled, the sky blue and mostly cloudless, but the barometer predicts rain.
I found several raspberry patches, one with some stunted ripe berries, the other with lots of green berries. The bottom line is that our soils are so sandy that we need an inch of rain every week for good wild fruit production. Trees fare O.K.
We stopped at the Larsen’s sugar bush camp to see how Andy and Judy survived a whole lot of company last week. They did well, and their daughter Libby and son-in-law Scott and grandsons Luke (toddler) and Tyler (grown-up ten year old) were still there. Tyler, pictured here, demonstrated his skill on the zip line erected by his grandfather and uncle Eric. It starts out in a tree about 12’ up and goes down a bit of an incline about 100 yards. It looks scary but is a nice ride. Ode grandkids Nickolas and Katy in Denver, you have to check this out on your next visit!
We have been very lazy the last few days and house and yard work are badly backed up!

8/05/08 THE GUILTY AND THE INNOCENT

Tuesday, 7:15 AM. 61 degrees, wind NW, light. The channel is glassy in the lee of the bluffs, and wrinkled further out. The barometer predicts sunny skies which are currently cloudless and blue.
For the past week I have been sneezing and my eyes have been irritated so I knew that ragweed pollen was in the air, as few other things bother me. Ragweed causes more hay fever symptoms than almost any other irritant. The polleng rains are minute and are airborne, the plants are everywhere in disturbed places, and are difficult if not impossible to eradicate.
The species most folks will encounter is Ambrosia artemiisifolia. It is a short plant most often occurring along disturbed roadsides and similar places. It will bloom even when mowed very short. There are other species as well, including the giant ragweed, A. trifida, which can reach 15 or 20 feet in height in farm fields and ditches.(think of the pollen it produces)
The goldenrods are totally innocent plants (Solidago canadensis shown here) often wrongfully blamed for hay fever symptoms. They are insect pollinated and the pollen does not blow about. The species of the genus Solidago are showy native plants, some grown in gardens. The species are difficult to identify and often interbreed, but all are innocuous and definitely not guilty as charged.

8/04/08 DUELING WOODPECKERS, STINKY BEARS

Monday, 8:00 AM. 62 degrees, wind W, calm. The channel is mostly glassy. The barometer predicts clear skies, which are currently partly cloudy, with high, thin dark clouds. It is almost foggy on the east and south horizons. It looks like an unsettled day.
Everyone is picking berries, at the farms, or in their yards. It is a bumper berry year.
Two hairy woodpeckers (couldn’t see them clearly but probably males) were beating their respective tattoos on a metal shield at the top of the wooden light pole on the corner of Tenth and Wilson. I don’t think it was a territorial challenge, it just looked like they were having a friendly jam session, ‘a la the ”dueling banjos” of the movie Deliverance.
Later: Took Lucky and went looking for wild raspberries this afternoon, and am sorry to say the crop doesn't look good. Only saw a few ripe berries and not an awful lot of green ones, and it looks as though it will take some rain and another week or two to have any berries to pick in my usual haunts on and near Echo Valley Road, which is nothing more than a dirt logging road through Bayfield County Forest land. We did come across a young bear, about my size but obviously in much better shape, but it was not a close encounter as we were already back in the truck, and the camera was not within reach. But, fighting our way through the underbrush to reach my secret raspberry patch I do think I actually smelled a bear, an experience which I have not had before. A little stinky, a lot wild, very distinctive and much too close for comfort. Or maybe I just stepped in bear poop. Who knows? Also saw a doe with two pretty spotted fawns.

8/03/08 LORE AND SCIENCE

Sunday, 8:00 AM. 60 degrees, wind ENE, calm. The channel is calm with some ripples. The barometer is down, predicting partly cloudy skies, which they are at present. It is a very quiet morning, even the birds are silent.
Millfoil, also called yarrow, genus Achillea, is an interesting group of plants important to the garden and to herbal medicine. The yellow millfoil pictured here is A. fillipendula, a stalwart garden perennial. A. millifolia is white, or occasionally rosy, and a common roadside weed and native plant throughout the northern hemisphere. The genus is named after the Greek conqueror Achilles, who reputedly used the plant A. millifolia to staunch the bleeding of battle wounds, and military plant and woundwort are Euorpean common names. The leaves of the A. fillipendula have a strong camphor-like odor that is quite unmistakable, and will separate the Achillia from the somewhat look-alike Tanacetum. The species name millefolia refers to the finely divided leaves, and another common name is “million leaves.” I have not, fortunately, had the need to use this herb to stop copius bleeding, but will try it the next time I get a nosebleed or cut myself.
Later: being an honest and hopefully scientific observer of the natural world, I must report that our indicator tree did not predict the rain currently falling, but, to be fair, neither did my barometer. Chalk one up for the weatherman, who predicted showers this afternoon.

8/02/08 BOYZ WILL BE BOYZ

Saturday, 8:00 AM. 57 degrees, wind W, calm. The channel is mostly glassy with a few swaths of breeze-dimpled water. The barometer predicts sunny skies, which are currently blue and cloudless.
This is now the tourist season in Bayfield, dependent upon cool weather here and hot weather elsewhere. Our economy exists basically on 90 days of potential tourism, and we have a good year if we get them and a bad year if we don’t. There are lots of mundane guy things to be done around here…water the garden, take care of the car and truck, try to fix the boat motor, etc.
The humming birds have been very active again and very curious, one just now helicoptering a foot away and looking me right in the eye. They are chasing each other about in mock battles, teenage boys probably, practicing their adult roles of dive-bombing each other off the feeders.
The mourning doves are exhibiting a lot of nesting behavior, chasing each other about, and fluttering in and out of the pine trees with sticks and things. I would think it late in the season to raise another brood, and the first barely out of the nest. Someone should tell the guys they have already done their annual duty for the survival of the species.
If I get a chance I will go raspberry picking in the boonies this afternoon or tomorrow. I will bell the dog, carry a bell myself and a big walking staff and assume any bears will leave ahead of us. It is also time to start thinking about doing a little target practice out on the Town of Russell shooting range, as hunting season will be here before we know it (and its a lot more fun than working).

8/01/08 A WEED IS A WEED IS... NOT A WEED

Friday, 8:00 AM. 61 degrees, wind WNW, light to moderate. The waters of the channel are again prettily patterned with varying degrees of wind and wave action. The sky is blue and mostly cloudless, and that is what the barometer predicts.
Soapwort, or bouncing Bet, Saponaria officinalis, in the Caryophylaceae or pink family, is a common perennial field weed of European origin. It is as pretty as many garden perennials. It may have arrived on our shores mixed with seed grains, or may have been brought by settlers as a useful plant. It exudes a mucilaginous substance which when mixed with water forms a soapy lather, from which it gets its common name, and it was so used by early settlers.
Many, if not most “weeds” are associated with food crops, the one not likely to be available to us without the inconvenience of the other. And, many “weeds” once had their own food, medicinal or other utilitarian uses. So, most of the plants we now call “weeds” were formerly nurtured by us as being useful, and yet we actually blame these “weeds” for our own current ungratefulness or ignorance. Sounds typically human, doesn’t it?

7/31/08 ROADSIDE CAUTION SIGNS

Thursday, 7:20 AM. 60 degrees, wind W, calm. The channel is beautifully patterned with areas of glassy and rippled water. The sky is partly cloudy and the barometer predicts rain.
Many rather obscure roadside plants are blooming now, most people ignoring them. A ubiquitous plant is the common tansy, Tanacetm vulgare, known from ancient times as a garden and medicinal plant. The leaves have an unusual and not unpleasant, pungent odor. It was used as a strewing herb in Medieval times, when dirt floors were the norm. It was also used medicinally as a tea for various stomach and internal ailments and as a gout remedy (I may try it for that). It has some toxic properties and probably should not be used without sound advice. Its small yellow flower heads give it the English common name of “buttons;” It is prolific and colorful but will take over a garden if you are not very careful. It is best left in nature.
Another common plant of waste places and sometimes a garden weed is nightshade, Solanum dulcamera, also unfortunately called bittersweet, as though it were somehow edible. It is in the same family, the Solonaceae, as the tomato. Don’t taste the attractive red fruits, as they are at least mildly poisonous. It is a semi-woody, climbing plant, and its blue flowers have yellow centers. Children are often attracted to it and it should be eradicated if found around the home.

7/30/08 INTUITION, SUPERSTITION AND SCIENCE

Wednesday, 7:30 AM. 60 degrees, wind W, calm with light gusts. The channel is slightly wrinkled. The sky is blue with a bit of haze and the barometer predicts rain.
Along with the barometer, which can predict weather about 12 to 24 hours in advance, I watch certain indicator trees. An old time local fisherman told me some time ago, “when the hillsides turn gray, I head for port.” Certain trees turn their leaves over in anticipation of rain, thereby exposing the stomata on the lighter colored undersides of the leaves to it. This is a subtle indicator and I think must be a response of the leaf petiole to changing barometric pressure. Red maples seem to pretty consistently do this and probably other maples, and maybe poplars and other species as well. The response also seems to vary with individual trees within a species. There is a large red maple in a neighbor's yard that Joan and I use as an indicator of rain and it is consistently accurate. It turns its leaves over about an hour before it rains.
We have available to us a tremendous amount of culturally accumulated and filtered knowledge which we moderns usually ignore as questionable intuition, or worse, superstition and "old wives tales." It behooves us all to give due credit to our own observations and to the accumulated, if “unscientific” knowledge of our collective cultures. To not do so may lead us to “miss the boat,” or worse yet, sink it.

7/29/08 WILDFLOWERS AND BUTTERFLIES

Tuesday, 8:00 AM. 60 degrees, wind W, calm. The channel is wrinkled. The sky is overcast and it has been raining off and on. The barometer predicts more rain.
It is a quiet morning except for the robins rejoicing in their wormy breakfasts, and the dripping of the rain from the eaves to the decks. Our walk was just around the block.
Summer flowers are coming on strong now, purple cone flowers and brown eyed Susan's beginning to bloom. The hollyhocks are beginning to recover from the thrips.
Pictured are evening primrose, Oenothera biennis, a common native plant of fields and roadsides, and common milkweed, Hibiscus syriacus, of similar habitats. The former is a cheery flower which opens towards evening, and the latter is noted for its perfume, which is unbelievably sweet and powerful. Milkweeds are very important ecologically as the obligatory host plant for the Monarch butterfly caterpillar, without which this wonderful insect cannot survive.
The tree board discussed the invasive plant issue at some length at our meeting yesterday, just to get us all actually thinking about…rather than just reacting to…this issue. Then we carried buckets of water to all our newly planted street and park trees, which of course caused us to have a nice rain this morning. The rains have come at fortuitous intervals this year, providing just enough nitrogen-rich rainwater when needed by gardens and rain barrels.
It has stopped raining, but is pretty wet and this may be mostly a clear-the-desk day.

7/28/08 FRIEND OR FOE?

Monday, 7:30 AM. 56 degrees, wind NW, dead calm. The channel is glassy. The skies are blue and hazy, and the barometer predicts rain.
Invasive plants are becoming a big issue in the community. The DNR has had a team visit Bayfield for several years in a row, doing demonstrations of chemical eradication of Polgonatum cuspidatum, “elephant ears” in local parlance. This plant (those pictured are eight feet high, and create a virtual cane break) was introduced by the USDA for erosion control in the dust bowl ‘30’s, along with kudzu (“the vine that ate the South”) and other plants, mostly Asiatic in origin. Many of these, while doing their erosion control job admirably, have become noxious weeds, and are targeted for control or elimination by state or federal agencies. The dilemma is: if the plants are eliminated, what will happen to the eroding lands they have stabilized? There have already been such questions asked by Bayfield property owners, and battle lines are being drawn between those who see the plants as useful or benign and those who see them as foreign invaders to be eliminated. There is also the nagging question of the environmental hazards posed by the poisonous herbicides to be used, which is a legitimate concern. Our “elephant ears” were planted in the local ravines after a disastrous 1942 flood, and they do hold the banks in place. Trouble is, few people alive today are familiar with the flood except through grainy old photographs.
As volunteer city forester and weed commissioner I am sort of in the middle of a growing controversy, which won’t be easy to resolve because the facts and the science cut both ways. There are many similar issues, on a much larger scale, and what is most needed is a common sense, cost-benefit analysis of each. But common sense, unfortunately, is sorely lacking in contentious ecological issues. Wish us luck!

7/27/08 SUMMER'S MOVIN' ON

Sunday, 8:30 AM. 62 degrees, wind W to variable, moderate with gusts. The channel is crawling. The sky is blue and hazy, the barometer predicts rain.
There are a lot of interesting summer weeds and wildflowers now, and fruits on many trees and shrubs are obvious and ripening. The spring and summer, being so late, makes it seem as though the year has flown.
The white fruits of the red twig dogwood, Corns stolonifera, are obvious now in the fields and woods, and the fuzzy fruits of the sumac are suddenly turning red. The twin, beaked fruits of the American filbert, Corylus americana, are already ripe and disappear immediately, the tasty nuts quickly eaten by animals. It won't be long and the first subtle signs of fall will appear.

7/26/08 UNDER THE SPREADING CHESTNUT TREE...

Saturday,8:00 AM. 58 degrees, wind variable, at times gusty. The skies are blue with some haze. The channel is slightly wrinkled and the barometer predicts rain, but it is not humid and any rain will be passing showers.
Today is the start of the two-day 47th annual Arts Festival, and there are over 90 exhibitors. Two years ago it was virtually blown into the lake by a mini-tornado, and everyone will have their weather-eye peeled.
The American chestnut, Castanea dentata, was a dominant tree species in North America until it was virtually wiped out by the Asiatic chestnut blight a hundred years ago. Almost everyone knows the story. Its wood was highly valued and its nuts prized by man and squirrel alike. There are still remnant population of chestnut trees here and there which may or may not be resistant to the blight, and despite much research, no truly resistant varieties have been developed. The chestnut tree (in flower) pictured here was grown from a seed collected from trees on the Apostle Highlands Golf Course by Howard Larsen. There is also a mature chestnut tree on Seventh and Wilson. The American chestnut was a fabled tree, and it was said that a squirrel could travel from the Atlantic to the Mississippi jumping from one chestnut tree to another without ever touching the ground, and yet they are now virtually extinct. Other trees have taken their place in nature’s scheme of things. Perhaps someday they will return, spreading from resistant populations or through man’s ingenuity. But they will probably remain, like so many other once-dominant species, mostly a memory.

7/25/08 FRUITS OF OUR LABORS

Friday, 8:00 AM. 66 degrees, wind SW, just strong enough to make the aspen leaves tremble. The channel is calm. The sky is partly cloudy with some rain clouds in the west, and the barometer predicts rain. It is rather humid.
This is the big annual arts festival weekend, and Bayfield will be busy. Joan and I Are escaping to the Barrens again today with Andy and Judy to pick wild blueberries. The dogs will go along again to ward off the bears, and we will go to the Delta Diner for a 50’s late lunch.
Mike Bonney, who has the great garden on 8th and Manypenny, told some berry picking stories when I mentioned to him this morning we were going. He said he and Sharron hadn’t picked wild berries in years, and warned about the bears in the berry patches. He said he has been picking blackberries when you didn’t see the bears, but they were so close you could actually smell them. Anyway, its off to the boonies where it looks like it will be a hot day.
Later: It was a good day in the berry patch, we picked lots of berries, including some huckleberries, before we go chased to lunch by thunderstorms. I got to the point where I passed up the occasional berry to look for a large plant or a whole patch of ripe berries, where one could make some progress. Malts and more at the Diner were great as usual. They were quite crowded. Ice cream and wild blueberries after dinner topped things off.

7/24/08 "HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY TREE, SO EARLY IN THE MORNING"

Thursday, 7:30 AM. 56 degrees, wind S, calm, channel glassy. The sky is overcast and the barometer predicts rain. It is a very quiet morning, only a few birds singing.
Judy’s wild blueberry pie is proof positive that wild blueberries are tastier than tame, and well worth the effort. We all had blueberry pie with ice cream around the campfire last evening, and I am fortunate to have a piece waiting for me for breakfast (sans ice cream).
I need to mow the parsonage lawn and get ready for tonight’s concert but if the rain holds off I will harvest mulberries. The white mulberry, Morus alba, has been cultivated for thousands of years in Europe and Asia, both for its fruit and for the leaves, upon which the silk worm feeds. The silk industry is no longer viable in most places outside the Orient. The blackberry-like fruits of the mulberry are still somewhat popular, but most people are no longer familiar with them. This is unfortunate, as every farmstead used to have its mulberry tree. For some reason, the mulberry as a fruit has never been commercially viable in this country.
Joan remembers climbing high into the huge mulberry tree on her aunt’s farm, she and her cousins collecting the fruit for preserves and deserts, and collecting skinned knees and blue stained fingers and faces in the process. It is indeed unfortunate that most children today no longer have the opportunity to have such innocent and rewarding adventures, but are relegated to the artificial and controlled adventures of playgrounds (or worse, video games), designed by adults.
There is also a relatively little known native red mulberry, Morus rubra, sometimes grown for its fruit, but it does not occur this far north. Selections of both species can be very handsome trees.

7/23/08 WILD BLUEBERRY PIE AND ICECREAM

7/23/08: Wednesday, 8:00 AM. 52 degrees, wind SW, calm. The channel is glassy, the sky blue with some haze. The barometer predicts rain.
The blueberry picking excursion to the Barrens was a modest success, fun in the fresh air and sunshine with pals Andy and Judy. The berries were rather sparse, but we picked enough for a few pies and a lot of pancakes. The wild blueberries are mostly Vaccinium angustifolium, with a few closely related huckleberries for good measure. Wild blueberries have a stronger flavor than domesticated, and some folks much prefer the former. They are also much smaller than the domesticated, and hard to pick in quantity. Marlene Paap, who grew up on the Rez, says that her whole family picked and picked to sell the berries, and Jack Erickson of Rocky Acres berry farm says that in the ‘30’s families would camp out in tents to pick the berries to sell at, I think he said, $8 for a 16 quart flat. Even during the Depression that would have been a pittance, as it would take me all day to pick a quart I am sure. There is a reason blueberries are farm grown. Most of the wild berries are eaten by animals as soon as they are ripe, and it occurs to me that the most efficient way to harvest wild blueberries is to shoot and eat the deer that has browsed them. Anyway it was fun, and we topped the day off by drinking schooners of cold beer at Fishlips tavern in Cornucopia. Judy is baking a pie today for desert tonight. We will bring the ice cream.
No bears or anything else were encountered which is one reason it is called “the Barrens,” thousands of acres of scrub oak and pine forest with all the interesting plants associated with them, but apparently not much else. The “critters” come out mostly at night, and it is a good place to conduct a “wolf howl,” going out at night and howling to see if you get an answer (roll up the window real quick if you get a reply right in your ear).
Having gotten into the hunt and gather mode, I am going to pick mulberries from a tree in the woods across the road from the house, and will try to get up the ambition to pick wild raspberries from a huge patch, at least an acre in size, that I came across out in the boondocks while grouse hunting.

7/22/08 CHORES FIRST, THEN OFF TO THE BERRY PATCH

Tuesday, 8:00 AM. 56 degrees, wind NNE, calm. The channel is slightly wrinkled, the sky mostly blue, and the barometer is predicting partly cloudy skies. It promises to be a fine afternoon for blueberry picking in the Pine Barrens.
The morning will be spent mowing the lawn and tending to the garden. The hollyhocks have an infestation of thrips. Yesterday I dead-headed and fertilized the roses and all the pots and baskets.
I doubt we will meet any bears wile picking blueberries…one is far more likely to have a face to face encounter with one in a patch of tall raspberries or blackberries, in which case one announces, “Nice berry patch you have here, sir (or madam), and please, take these berries which I have in my bucket as well.”

7/21/08 WEATHER, WEEDS, BERRIES AND BEARS

Monday, 8:00 AM. The temperature is 53 degrees, the wind SW, calm. The channel is calm, and fog is lifting from the channel and the Island, and the barometer predicts sunny weather.
Andy and Judy came back yesterday after two weeks in Cedarburg, and had dinner with us. They both remarked that this year’s weather, cool and moist up here, hot and humid further south, is what they remembered it to be thirty and forty years ago. It is a good reminder that weather is cyclical over decades and even hundreds and thousands of years, dependent upon sun activity, volcanic action, ocean currents, variations in the earths orbit and other complicating factors; as the old saying goes, “whether it’s cold or whether it’s hot, we’ll have weather, whether or not.”
The strawberries have been excellent this year, and the raspberry crop, just starting now, looks heavy. The blueberries will soon follow, and in about three weeks the blackberries. We are going blueberry picking with Andy and Judy in the Moqua Pine Barrens Tuesday afternoon. They have a well-kept “secret” spot they have been going to for many years (Judy's wild blueberry pies are a culinary treasure) . Andy has a pocketful of M180 firecrackers he says will keep the bears at bay if necessary; I’m not sure that is a good idea.
The common Old World mullein, Verbascum thapsus, is a ubiquitous field weed almost everywhere. It is a pretty thing and very strong as a vertical element in the landscape, the one pictured being almost six feet tall. The birds love the seeds and spread them everywhere. They can be a troublesome weed, but I like to keep a few around. The fuzzy leaves, applied as a wrap to a festering sore, are a wonderfully healing poultice.
Lots of yard and garden work to do today.