Stollen

I baked a couple of Stollen. One for our Christmas breakfast. One to freeze for dark days. The dried fruit is a mixture of hoshigaki (the air dried persimmons I make every year), black currants (dried after I made a fermented syrup in summer), and raisins. Soaked in some bourbon.

It is spiced with ground cardamom seeds and nutmeg.

That loaf has disappeared. Several slices were eaten while we drank coffee and unwrapped gifts. And the rest was devoured by some giant French mouse in the night. I need a bigger trap.

The recipe is from the King Arthur website, with minor changes( my own fruit mix, an extra quarter cup of water, and two loaves rather than three). But it's a good recipe. Try it.

Solstice Owl

On my afternoon walk recently I hunted for possible sign of owls. Signs of owl?  Sign of owls? Hmmm. Anyway: I was looking for owl pellets, under likely trees - often evergreens, that provide cover. Pellets are the wadded leftovers of owl dinner: fur, bones, bits that used to be animated and cute and hat now look like parts of an archaeological dig. And there they were, under a tree where they definitely weren't a few weeks ago. I looked up. 

Hello!

I took a phone picture that day. Not good in the darkening afternoon, but proof of life.

Today, the Frenchman and I went back, and there was the owl.

A wind-tossed great horned owl. Bubo virginiana. Why horned? Why not great eared owl? 

But magnificent. 

If you want to find owls, look down. Then look up.

It is the longest night. Be thankful that you are not a rat.

 

A Wreathy Business: Take 20 Mugwort Sticks...

There is snow on the ground in Brooklyn and it is wreath season.

For the last couple of years I have made our own wreath, attaching the pretty bits to a circlet of bent mugwort stems. Here is the most recent version.

 More about how to make this wreath in my story for Gardenista.

Snow Day

Snow began falling in the small, dark hours of the morning, and then it stuck. To branches and stems and leaves and blades of grass. To the ice on the lake in the park.

We went walking to see it, despite work to do and deadlines to meet. Wind was coming and would shake it off the trees.

The humans we saw were happy. 

Under our feet the snow squeaked and crunched as it compressed.

Every small hill was commandeered by sledders. Once, Washington commanded troops here. Fewer died on this snow day. One boy was rescued from the ice.

We received about four-and-a-half inches.

Not too much. 

Not too little.

Just right.

 

An American Woodcock at Dusk

Until two days ago, I had never (really) seen an American woodcock. Timberdoodle. I knew they sometimes rested at nearby Green-Wood Cemetery, whose quiet grounds and hundreds of trees create the safe shelter they need during migration. A few years ago I accidentally flushed one, there, but it rocketed off so fast that all I saw was a blur of brown. 

These shy birds do not roost in trees, but in leaf litter or underbrush, making them very vulnerable to the local urban pastime of letting dogs roam off-leash, which is what happnes in the wooded areas of city parks (remember the birding incident in Central Park?). 

But no dogs are are allowed at Green-Wood and only infrequently passing humans disturb these brown balls of feathers from the grass and leaves where they rest.

A few days ago a local bird photographer posted her timberdoodle pictures to Instagram. I took a very close looks at the leaf litter, the surrounding plants, and the trees under which the sweet, round, dead leaf-coloured birds were sitting. And then we went for a walk.

Plant identification might be a hidden superpower. "Those are the right species," I said to the Frenchman, looking at two trees, as we walked slowly over. Within minutes two woodcock took off ahead of us, and we felt awful for having disturbed them. We tip-toed on. Later, we spotted another one, and the Frenchman with his telephoto took pictures in the setting sun. 

Digging madly for dinner

Yesterday, I returned alone with my own lens, and much, much more carefully. Sure enough, there was a woodcock, where we'd seen them before. And for another forty minutes, as dusk descended and I lost light, I lay flat on the grass, or sat cross-legged ten feet away from this funny, bobbing bird, who relaxed and went about their business of hunting for worms and insects with that rapier-long bill. Nearby voices on the tarred road didn't phase the bird, but when someone stepped on leaves nearby, they froze and crouched again. No one discovered us.

Ma, Ma, I have a worm (look closely)!

It was wonderful to see the woodcock hunting in undisturbed peace for dinner, and even better to know that in this intensely inhospitable city, there is green refuge for them (the birds, not the dinner). But I also follow accounts like the Wild Bird Fund, whose work revolves around rescuing and rehabilitating injured and ill birds migrating through or living in the city. Woodcocks, like so many other birds, collide with building windows. If they are not killed, they lie stunned until someone rescues them. 

You can see a video of a recent release of their woodcock-patient gang here.

I think of my late friend, the naturalist David Burg, who first told me about woodcocks migrating via the city and coming out into the open only in spring, when they strut and display at Floyd Bennett Field, the abandoned aerodrome on Jamaica Bay. We sat at a cold picnic table one early April at the campgrounds there and ate smoked salmon sandwiches as he described the city as it once might have been, before the concrete arrived. 

I am not sure how long the woodcocks will stay, but I hope that they manage to stay alive, and to thrive. What are the odds?

From Sibley Birds East: 

"American woodcock, Scolopax minor: Uncommon and secretive on damp ground under dense cover in woods, where it is rarely seen except when flushed at close range. Displaying birds emerge ont open grassy fields at dusk in spring. Round body, long bill,, large head, and unifrom buffy underparts distinctive. Wings produce a high twittering on tae off and when making sharp turns in in flight...wlaks slowly with constant rocking and bobbing motion of body."

And a last wing-stretch, before I had to leave to catch the gates as they closed. 

Goodnight, woodcock. Wishing you many earthworms and a safe passage: no dogs, no cats, no guns, (can you believe they are hunted?), no windows. 

Are you here for the content or for me?

I noticed, the other day, that in August my blog began to see a dramatic spike in traffic (hi, China). Google analytics allows you see the origin of that traffic (hi, China). Many thousands of views of each post, after a previous average of several hundreds of views (hi, China). 

I don't think that my blog suddenly speaks to more than a handful of Chinese residents and citizens (and you are always welcome, here), yet suddenly that country is this blog's main source of views.

This is a screenshot of a right-now scenario.

The best conclusion I can draw is that AI bot farms in China are training themselves to...what? Write about gardens? Write about food? Foraging? Cats? Canadians? Be me? 

It's an interesting age we live in. For content creators - not to be pedantic, but that would be people who create content as opposed to those who use it (writers vs readers, photographers vs viewers, recipe developers vs cooks, etc.) - AI is to original research or creativity, to reporting and to documenting, what digital media was to most print publications, which went out of business.

If you google "what killed newspapers and print media" the first result you will find at the top of your screen is the AI summary. And many, many people will not go further than that summary, not even to the first cursory, algorithm-prompted search result. Nor will they visit the linked citations in the AI summary. 

Jeff Bezos was right: We humans are inherently lazy. That is why he is a gazillionaire. (Want something? Click.)

All of which is to say, the balloon plant, the hairy balls, the southern African milkweed, the Gomphocarpus physocarpus, are glorious in the last days autumn of this tiny terrace.

And it means that if you are looking for the answer to something, anything, that someone once took a great deal of time to write, based on a great deal of real life experience or real research (how to move citrus trees indoors, for example), the chances are increasingly good that you will never reach their work, because AI found it first, summarized it, and spat it out at the top of the page for you. It also found some inaccurate work, and smooshed that in there, too, because AI doesn't really know how to move citrus trees indoors, or what a chanterelle really looks like; rather, it relies on everything that has ever been written on the subject, and cherry picks. 

I don't really know what that huge spike in traffic means. I don't like it, and I have been in some existential despair about the fate of the truth for some time. In general, I mean. It is very hard to tell what is real. And obviously my concern isn't about citrus trees overwintering indoors.

For me, the only thing between us and the abyss is true journalism, which is increasingly marginalized, because it takes time, training, and money. To me, journalism is simple. Real people reporting real things, without bias. That's it. 

So go give it some money. Now.

Men who love cats

The Frenchman and Pirelli sharing some boy-time before the human goes out for a walk. 

Rainbow

After a day of rain, and an hour of rain so hard it looked like a white out, there was a long lull. I went for a quick walk to Green-Wood Cemetery, expecting to get very wet. I turned around after five minutes and looked behind me, to the north, and there was this beautiful bow, with its double, made of rain drops and sunlight.

It has been very dry. I could almost hear the trees drinking.

Feathers

On a recent yet oh-so-far spring day in Cape Town I stood on the higher slopes of Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, and listened to birds. A cacophany of sunbirds and sugarbirds. And in the taller trees, a boubou shrike and its mate, calling constantly.

The pincushions were in full bloom and most of the birds were invisible, in the depths of the woody shrubs. But I was lucky to see the inky, negative-black form of an amethyst sunbird male. Just the throat is the color of the gem.

The speckled female, above.

The sugarbirds are showy only at the base of their their long tails - a flash of yellow. 

And despite their myriad presence (judging by the twittering clatter from the bushes), I only caught one southern double-collared sunbird feeding.

Quiet, hen-like francolin (Cape spurfowl) browsed in the lawns and took dustbaths in the planted beds.

And the big surprise was a spotted eagle owl, nesting on the ground beneath a tree and behind some crassulas. I could see a small, white-fluffed chick beneath her feathers. (And took this photo with a telephoto lens, from behind a protective barrier.) As much as I love caracals, I hope the red cats that live on the mountain leave the owls alone.

Black cats

Who is this handsome boy, with a big bite out of his left ear? (Thanks to a very zealous neutering program.) He is Peanut, of course. In South Africa, Black Cat Peanut Butter is a national icon, in terms of name recognition and inclusion in many pantries, be they vast or bare.

He is my aunt's cat, and when I went to look for him in her large, rambling garden, he came when I called, mewing as he moved invisibly through a thicket of nasturtiums. 

A stocky, strong boy. I wonder what Pirelli would make of him? They have a lot in common, except that Peanut is allowed to roam. Both street cats, both boys, both fierce and tender. 

False Bay

The 6.48pm light in Kalk Bay. This deck enjoys warming sunlight in the morning, but when the sun dips under the mountains behind us, the shadow begins up here, on the slope, while surfers and seals still bask in the waves and on the breakwater below.

It is a good place to sit, and the poppies have been enjoying the view.

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Aloft

 Furry balloons? Green balloons, or hairy...?

This graceful plant needs more respect.

Its air-filled seed capsules will form until frost, slowly dry, split, and release puffs of gossamer-borne seeds.

Puffs in the woods

The Frenchman, posing with perfect puffs (young giant puffballs, Calvatia gigantea) that we discovered on a walk in the woods. 

We left most of of the surprise patch and alerted other foragers to their location - too delicious not to share. 

These mushrooms are one of my favorites, with a surprisingly strong mushroom aroma and a texture like very delicate tofu, although also...not quite.

At home, I skinned one and cut it squeakily into into snowy white cubes that were added to last night's butter chicken. Very delicious.

Left alone, these puffballs can grow huge. But I love this small, neat stage, and anyway, there they were, despite only a whisper of rain in the last week.

Tiny, tiny white orbs an inch or two in diameter might be the so-called eggs of Amanita species, and potentially exceptionally toxic. So don't collect puffs unless you absolutely know how to tell the difference. Cutting those Amanita eggs in half (they have very different texture) reveals the silhouette of a mushroom inside - you most definitely do not want to eat that. Giant puffballs are pure white, and firmly spongy (unless old, in which case they turn yellow and more mushy.

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Fall Walks and Picnics

A Hummingbird Evening

The lablab beans are looking very good. Lablab purpureus, beautiful and edible. 

And yesterday evening, after six, we were treated to fifteen minutes of enchantment as a tiny ruby throated hummingbird came to feed on their flowers. We have spotted several in the previous days, but none has stayed this long, taking breaks to sit on the trellis, on the milkweed, on the vine, even on the African basil stems. 

Low light, and I have not developed these images, other than re-sizing them - the Frenchman's will be much better. But that exquisite little creature was not further from us than a terrace's width. And we standing inside the door, so...six feet.

How these tiny little birds fly so far, with so many obstacles, I don't know. They are heading south now, all three inches of each of them. And tonight, as last night, the powerful beams of the 9/11 memorial will attract and disorient thousands of migrating birds.

I do know that lablab flowers are not native to the hummers' range, but I also can't help wondering about the long-term effects (if any) of feeding these little birds sugar water, from feeders. Aside from the actual sugar and the water (and quality of the water), there is the risk of disease-transmission. Please sterilize those feeders daily.

I have wondered whether the hummers also visit the agastache we have planted for them. Possibly. We have not caught them in the act.

Look at the little feets!

Nkwe Pirelli says this would be a very nice snack. Which is why Nkwe Pirelli does not go outside, unsupervised. Mr Tuxedo cares little for conservation. 

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New Fall Walks