Wildflowers and other sights along Chimney Rock Trail

Tags

ants, bitterroot, desert, nature, purple sage, scat, trees, wildflowers

Hi everyone, here’s a posting with photos of a hike we took on Memorial Day. One of my passions is wildflowers and I’m puzzling my way through learning more of the sagebrush steppe plants and flowers. Our destination was Chimney Rock above the Crooked River in Central Oregon. The trail was sand and rocks, steep in places, and the weather was not too hot. The distance (round-trip) was somewhere between 2.5 and four miles and the elevation gain about 500 feet. It took us just over two hours, without hurrying.

Before starting up the hill, we watched the cliff swallows swooping above the Crooked River and feeding their chicks housed in mud daub nests.

Cliff Swallow Nests at the edge of the Crooked River

Across the highway from the river, the trail begins with switchbacks then trends upward through a narrow valley. The most obvious vegetation is juniper and sagebrush but there is much more. The rocks and cliffs are basalt–volcanic origin–which the Crooked River cut through (over a very long time).

Trail to Chimney Rock

The clouds kept the day cool and the shadows at bay — good weather for hiking and photographing.

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

Unlike rainy climates where the hills and meadows have a lush verdancy, the sagebrush steppe is arid and along the Chimney Rock trail you notice a lot of rocks. Certainly the rocks are as much the landscape as the plants.

Daisy

As we hiked upwards into the narrow valley, the vegetation became denser and sometimes quite aromatic, especially the scent of juniper and sage. We lost the sound of cars on the highway which made an aural space that was filled with the high-pitched trilling of crickets (or cicadas), a constant sound not easily forgotten.

Sagebrush

Even in the dry steppe, there is color, like the startling green of lichen splayed across a dead branch.

Snag with Lichen

Hiking on a new trail is a chance to piece together–as in make sense of–a pattern of shapes and textures, colors and smells. Consider the familiar and what you hope to learn more about. I am fascinated by the open space between plants, the pattern of rocks and grass. Death Camas, always a plant I notice, because it’s poisonous, because I learned that from my Dad, when I was young.

Death Camas (Panicled zigadene) — poisonous.

I expect to recognize plants with a wide range, especially those I encountered in Alaska but others are new to me, and so quite exciting, like the desert buckwheat:

Desert Buckwheat (Eriogonum caespitosum)

Emerging above the narrow valley, you get a view of where a waterfall would be if there was water.

A Dry Falls

Rocky dry slopes. We did not see any snakes.

probably Linear Leaf Daisy (Erigeron linearis)

The trail climbs with a few more switchbacks then curves around the ridge until you see Chimney Rock in the distance.

Chimney Rock. Notice the juniper and sage grasslands and Crooked River.

Red! A beacon for insects!

Desert Paintbrush

A lizard I am quite certain is a Western Fence Lizard not a Sagebrush Lizard (Amphibians and Reptiles of Oregon web site). Notice the great camouflage!

Western Fence Lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis)

I grew up around sagebrush but this is the first time I have seen Purple Sage. Indeed, sage (actually in the mint family) with purple flowers.

Purple sage (Salvia dorii)

Besides the view of Chimney Rock, the trail along the high ridge offered panoramas of the Crooked River and deeply etched landscape.

Crooked River from near Chimney Rock

Paying attention to the tiniest details, the hole in this photo is the entrance to the subterranean residence (home, house, cave, palace, place) of red ants. Consider this the view you have walking along the trail. There are at least ten red ants visible in the photo.

Red Ants entering and leaving their hole.

Bitterroot is a surprising plant, one you won’t soon forget if you happen to encounter it blooming. There are no obvious leaves at this stage and it seems to have heaved its way up out of the hard soil and unfolded a glorious flower which is well adapted to desert survival, having a large root to store water. Bitterroot has been a source of food for indigenous peoples. The genus (Lewisia) was named after Captain Meriwether Lewis.

Bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva)

For your patience with the photo of small stones and red ants, here is a close-up of the lovely Bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva), some were pale others a startling shade of fuschia.

Bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva)

The surprises! A fern which would have been as easy to miss as the little red ants. How does a fern survive in the desert? Perhaps, growing quickly in the spring and then going dormant when the weather gets hot?

Fern

There are many penstemons. Several pages worth in the plant books. Penstemon is clearly another plant that ekes a living from the rocky landscape. The question is: why is nothing else growing here? Does the small penstemon consume all the resources? Or is the penstemon so frugal that it survives where nothing else can? Or perhaps in a week or a month everything will have changed.

Penstemon

Scat. Coyote, perhaps. Bones, and what looks to me like a bird skull with beak. Comments, anyone? I am working on my Oregon Master Naturalist credentials and find the minutiae of the trail to be fascinating.

scat and tiny bones

For the curious, here’s a zoomed in view of the scat and bones:

close-up of scat and bones

Along the Chimney Rock Trail, we had many views of lichen, from the a fake-seeming green plastered across the rocky faces of cliffs, to the longer-branched lichen on dead limbs, to various hues and patterns on boulders along the trail.

Boulder with Lichen

Comments anyone? Suggestions? Corrections? Plant names? Thanks for visiting!

________

References:

Great Basin Wildflowers. Laird R Blackwell. A Falcon Guide (2006).

Wildflowers 2, Sagebrush Country. Ronald J Taylor and Rolf W Valum. The Touochstone Press. Beaverton, Oregon (1974).

Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest. Mark Turner and Phyllis Gustafson. Timber Press Field Guide (2006).

Photos: Katie Eberhart (5/28/2012).

Poetry of Planting Mania – Part 1

Tags

bees, Carolyn Kizer, Fanny Stevenson, garden, Samoa

Ready for planting, Alaska 2003.

It would appear I still have the planting bug. Moving from ten acres in Alaska to a very small lot in Oregon, you would think I’d stop. But at night I plan what I’ll plant the next day, or what I’ll cut. A few days ago, I pruned two flowering crabapples that were spindly-tall, growing in the shade of several large Ponderosa pines. With the pole trimmer extended to 14 feet, I snipped the top branches in a way I hoped wouldn’t draw attention to my efforts. Pruning requires studying the tree and imagining the results before you cut—like poetry.

I’ve also been collecting plants, starts of iris, salvia, phlox, two Monardas (bee balm and bergamot), rhubarb, and Oregon grape—a native plant with leaves like holly. Already, I have planted lettuce and spinach, onions, three kinds of mint (pineapple, chocolate, and “mint julep”), thyme, sage, chives, parsley, one cucumber, and two peppers. Plus seeds: columbine, purple coneflower, and sunflower. I’m hoping for two dozen magnificent sunflowers leaning over the fence by the end of summer.

What is the magic that planting brings to poetry? Or poetry to planting? Is there a cause, or cure, for planting fever?

I conceived this post to be a sampling of poems of planting by women. Or perhaps I should say, sampler. Think of it as a quilt, each piece unique and yet sharing a color or thread, theme, or idea.

Carolyn Kizer’s poem “Fanny” is biographical of Fanny Stevenson’s time in Samoa with her husband Robert Louis Stevenson. With the first line, Kizer throws the reader into Fanny’s horticultural universe:

“At Samoa, hardly unpacked, I commenced planting.”

Even under normal circumstances, a gardener’s environment is one of planting binges, lucky occurrences, and loss and Kizer gives us an epic of the changes one woman makes on the landscape, as well as her personal experiences of loss—but I am more interested in the planting so if you want the loss part, please read the poem (link at the end of this post). Fanny:

“October, 1890. I have been here nearly a month;
Put in corn, peas, onions, radishes, lettuce. Lima beans
Are already coming up. The ripening cantaloupe were stolen.
Carruthers gave me mint root and grenadilla
Like a bouquet; he delivered a load of trees,
Two mangoes among them. I set them out in a heavy rain,
Then rounded off the afternoon sowing Indian corn.”

What you know if you plant, and notice reading this poem, is the communion with the dirt. The person who does the planning and planting has a rapport. Planting, you notice things, like whether there are worms, slugs, cutworms, or centipedes in the dirt you uncover. The act of planting can be bliss, and indifference to what others think. Fanny:

“When I’d opened the chicken crates, built the Cochins a coop.
The Reverend Mr. Claxton called, found me covered with mud,
My clothes torn, my hair in a wad, my bare feet bleeding.”

Or the criticism of a loved one:

“Louis has called me a peasant. How I brooded!
Confided it to you, diary, then crossed it out.
Peasant because I delve in the earth, the earth I own.
Confiding my seed and root—I too a creator?”

Any gardener knows the magic of discovering what the dirt offers, of instigating with seed or plant “starts” whole new (often edible) aspects of landscape. The gardener knows the magic of scents and smells, especially in a place where everything is new. Fanny:

“I discovered the ylang-ylang tree: a base for perfume,
Though it suggested to me the odor of boots.
Another tree is scented like pepper and spice,
And one terrible tree, I am forced to say,
Smells like ordure [...] It nearly made me ill.”

“Fanny” is epic. Thirty-three stanzas, six pages printed. Kizer has gracefully condensed life and death, and a war, allowing us a poetic view inside the mania or obsession of the gardener. The gardener who plans and acquires seeds and plants, plans some more then sows or transplants. The gardener who keeps myriad tasks organized and everything watered and fertilized, weeded, and even sometimes devises frost protection. Not to mention dealing with insects, wildlife, or a gift of bees. And then there’s harvesting and processing or making perfume. Fanny:

“I discover wild ginger, turmeric, something like sugar.
Roots of orange, breadfruit and mango, seeds of cacao
Came with a shipment from Sydney; also eleven
Young navel orange trees. The strawberry plants are rotten.
I am given a handful of bees. I plant more pineapple.”

This is fantastic! For the gardener reading Kizer’s poem of Fanny’s time in Samoa! Following a tight rope of difficulties with aplomb and flexibility, the poem always rushing forward, like Fanny did. What a gardener will love: the effort and energy, and refusal to be intimidated, whether by the Reverend, her husband Louis (which worried her most), or the Samoans. I think this quality of Fanny’s remarkable story is why Kizer chose to create this poem and have it be the fourth part of her Pro Femina collection.

What haunts me is the “handful of bees.” Indeed, what does one do with a handful of bees? I’m certain Sylvia Plath would have released them immediately.

I hope you will read the entire poem, “Fanny,” by Carolyn Kizer. You’ll find it on the Poetry Foundation web site. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171311

Well, I thought I would cram a discussion of six poems of planting in one post but this is enough for now. I hope you will check back for my next post on Planting Mania! Or “follow” my blog! Thanks for visiting!

Comments, anyone?

__________

Photo: Katie Eberhart.

Reading Sylvia Plath’s poem “The Arrival Of The Bee Box”

Tags

bees, poetry, reading, Sylvia Plath

Pear Orchard Blossoming, and Beehives

May is the season of bees. The crabapple in our front yard is flamboyantly blooming, attracting bees so the tree itself seems to be humming. Driving down the alley behind our house we have to watch out for a multitude of bees energetically entering and exiting a hive, their speedy flight crossing the alley. Even on the hot days we roll up the car windows.

Bees have been on my mind as has the poem-reading technique introduced by David Beispiel* at the Northwest Poets’ Concord a couple weeks ago. Searching for bee-themed poems, I quickly encountered Sylvia Plath’s series of five poems: The Bee Meeting, The Arrival of the Bee Box, Stings, The Swarm, and Wintering. Rather, I read references to the five and that they were in the book Ariel, a book I had bought at a used book store about a month ago.

So regarding reading “The Arrival Of The Bee Box,” please bear with me, let’s see how the method of becoming familiar with a poem without actually reading it fares a second time.

The first step is to consider the first and last lines. “The Arrival Of The Bee Box” begins with the line “I ordered this, this clean wood box.” and ends with “The box is only temporary.” A lot must happen between first and last line since it seems unlikely anyone would go to the trouble of ordering a box that is intended to be temporary.

Next look at the last word in each line. Some of the words are intriguing like midget, baby, exit, hands, clambering, mob, maniacs, owner, veil, honey, and free. Within some of the stanzas sounds repeat in the last word, such as in the first stanza: box, baby (first and fourth line) and lift, midget, it (second, third, and fifth lines). In the last full stanza there is repetition of the long “e” sound in immediately, honey, me, and free.

Regarding the first words of each line, many of the lines begin with “I” indicating a self-centered poem, but also a story, or more aptly memoir with conflict, but the conflict is within the poet. The first in Plath’s bee poems, “The Bee Meeting,” shows the beginnings of her bee training, or rather her introduction into the community or culture of beekeeping. She learned about the garments—veils and smocks (or jackets), and gloves—and bee management, including smoke, and the “mind of the hive.” She hovers between fear and empathy.

Writing this, I learned more than I thought, especially taking my time thinking since I began the notes for this post slightly over a week ago (my excuse on the absence of posts—I’ve been thinking, and gardening).

Next look at the whole poem and pick out the most interesting words, like coffin, midget, baby, locked, grid, hands, clambering, mob, maniacs, laburnum, colonnades, petticoats, cherry, funeral. 

So what have we learned? A bit about structure and language? Before turning you over to the poem, here’s my more story-based discussion of Sylvia Plath’s poem “The Arrival Of The Bee Box”:

Plath ordered a box of bees which arrived (as stated in the poem’s title). The first stanza is thick with facts: the box is clean, square, heavy, and loud (“such a din in it”).

The second stanza: we see the mesmerizing nature and mystery of the bee box (“. . . I can’t keep away from it”), that the inside is invisible and there is no exit.

Third stanza: Plath tries to look inside but the box is too dark, then she compares the box to what is strange and mysterious.

Next there is a ratcheting up of the intensity (“How can I let them out? / It is the noise that appals me most of all,”), and that the din of the bees is “like a Roman mob.”

She listens to the box and considers her options (“I have simply ordered a box of maniacs. / They can be sent back,”) or that as owner she could let them die.

Bee on Bergenia Blooms

But by the second-to-last stanza Plath becomes more empathetic, wondering if the bees are hungry, if they might forget her if she opened the box and changed herself into a tree (“There is the laburnum, its blond colonnades,” / And the petticoats of the cherry.”)

Finally, Plath makes up her mind what to do, but not right at that moment. She will wait until the next day. Notice throughout the poem that the language charges forward, also notice all the questions asked, and the emotions expressed.

What do you think? Have you ordered, owned, or cared for bees?

Sylvia Plath

The Arrival of the Bee Box

I ordered this, this clean wood box
Square as a chair and almost too heavy to lift.
I would say it was the coffin of a midget
Or a square baby
Were there not such a din in it.

The box is locked, it is dangerous.
I have to live with it overnight
And I can’t keep away from it.
There are no windows, so I can’t see what is in there.
There is only a little grid, no exit.

I put my eye to the grid.
It is dark, dark,
With the swarmy feeling of African hands
Minute and shrunk for export,
Black on black, angrily clambering.

How can I let them out?
It is the noise that appals me most of all,
The unintelligible syllables.
It is like a Roman mob,
Small, taken one by one, but my god, together!

I lay my ear to furious Latin.
I am not a Caesar.
I have simply ordered a box of maniacs.
They can be sent back.
They can die, I need feed them nothing, I am the owner.

I wonder how hungry they are.
I wonder if they would forget me
If I just undid the locks and stood back and turned into a tree.

There is the laburnum, its blond colonnades,
And the petticoats of the cherry.

They might ignore me immediately
In my moon suit and funeral veil.
I am no source of honey
So why should they turn on me?
Tomorrow I will be sweet God, I will set them free.

The box is only temporary.

__________

* See my May 5, 2012 post: How-To-Read “The Illiterate.“

Sylvia Plath. The Arrival of The Bee Box. “Ariel.” Harper Colophon Books, 1966 (59-60).

Photos: Katie Eberhart.

not for the deer or lucky escape

Tags

bloom, deer, tulips

tulips in a vase safe from the deer still a brief bloom

Talking with friends and neighbors, I’m learning what deer like (tulips and arborvitae) and what deer don’t like (daffodils and bleeding hearts). The deer had already nipped some of the tulip buds before I picked these.

Does anyone know whether crocuses appeal to a deer’s taste?

urban wildness: the swarm

Tags

bees, swarm

When a swarm of bees comes, the sensible reaction is to retreat from your outdoor morning tea and put a barrier of house between yourself and the bees. You know a swarm approaches by the persistent buzzing, irreducible motion and clamor.

the sky with cirrus clouds before the swarm

This morning, I had just photographed a front of cirrus clouds when the ordinary neighborhood sounds of traffic and birds were interrupted by a swarm—thousands of bees, tiny amber bodies zinging in what would surely be a wild scribble should one attempt to map their route in any detail more than from-here-to-there, from point of departure to where the swarm ultimately sets down, coalescing into a mass, the place where someone calls the bee man. With the swarm only a few feet above my head, I withdrew indoors. Being beneath a swarm of bees for even a few seconds raises your heart rate. It’s a real attention-getter like sleeping in a tent and hearing a mountain lion scream just over the hill. Inside the house and through a screened window I watched the swarm shift east, hovering for a few moments over the neighbor’s backyard then vanishing from my sight, following (I presume) the queen.

After the swarm departed, three violet-green swallows circled the roof and very high in the small patch of sky between eaves and trees three bald eagles soared in languid loops. Once again, there was the sound of traffic.