Who comes when you call?

This friendly FDNY company belongs to Engine 279/Ladder 131, from Red Hook. 

When you are looking (desperately) for the good things about a country (this country) you are reminded quickly, at least in New York City, that competent help arrives fast, when you call. There are caveats, I know - who you are, where you are. 

This morning I stepped out to have coffee on the terrace under a deep blue October sky. Strong smell of gas. I went to the other side of the apartment, lifted a window and sniffed. Gas. Very strong. I called 911. Yes, said the FDNY operator I was patched through to, there was a "major" gas leak on our block and that the FDNY was en route.

Soon, I counted at least 10 engines. Our block was closed off. Buildings behind the company above were evacuated. Cars were towed. Dozens of fire fighters stood about. Neighbors gathering on the sidewalks met each other for the first time. I went back upstairs and readied our go-bag, packed our passports, and got the cat carrier out. The cat snored peacefully.

The pneumatic drilling that woke us yesterday - one hole right outside our house, one up the block, belonged to a plumbing company whose work this morning ruptured a a gas line. Now, the plumbers were sitting around, looking sheepish.

Three hours later the leak has been repaired and most of the fire people have departed, leaving just a couple of trucks. There are many more holes in the street and sidewalk. The gas company and the woeful plumbing company workers are still here.  Cars blocking a fire hydrant have been ticketed.

And life goes on.

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. 

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.

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.

_________________

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. 

___________________

New Fall Walks

Early autumn on the terrace

Funny that it takes a whole growing season for things to fill out this much. The moonflower vines are rampant, the African basil is a forest, and the lablab beans and South African milkweed have reached the arm-waving stage, tall flowering stems tilting in any breeze.

At the lower end of the terrace is an eccentric leafy collection. It includes Thai lime, calamansi, bergamot citrus and a spicebush tree grown from seed that someone gathered on a plant walk with me, then germinated, and later gifted to me before she moved to Germany. Beside the trees are galangal and myoga ginger (producing edible buds through these fall months), ferns, ramps (now dormant, having set seed), sand ginger and asters. Natives of the Northeast, of Southeast Asia, and of East Asia.

Both annual vines take a long time to take off, but they are worth the wait. Moonflowers open every evening, and now, in the newly cool mornings, they remain open to greet us before folding up and withering by 10am.

The last leaves

The last of the autumn leaves, at Green-Wood Cemetery. Fall has stretched out very gently, in this little corner of Brooklyn.

_______________

Find me on Instagram @66squarefeet

Outside, now

This is Harris, our resident red-bellied woodpecker.

Harris is apparently the brand name for an ant poison. Their slogan is: Got ants? Get Harris. 

Woodpeckers love ants.

Also, apparently, the suet feeder that we put up in autumn.

Now you know everything.

_______________

Books are Good Holiday Gifts:

66 Square Feet - A Delicious Life

Forage, Harvest, Feast - A Wild-Inspired Cuisine

I am...

Thankful for FDNY firefighters.

For blue New York skies.

For Sun Sai Gai, the best roast-duck spot, that has made it through the pandemic.

For the Tropics, on Mulberry Street in November.

For the fruit of cacti.

For Fuyu on Canal Street, and the vendor carefully handing me her recommendations.

For fresh rambutan.

For fragrant Thai bananas.

 And for tiny Mosco Street.

For a city of immigrants.

________________

Inside and Out

At this end of our apartment, despite a welcome skylight, the afternoon light has become somber. The last roses have been picked, the first ripe yuzu have arrived (these are from Bhumi Growers in New Jersey, whose trees live in pots. They are protected from freezing by greenhouses in winter). And in the shadows is a bunch of mugwort, drying quietly for winter use ins soups, stews, sides...

Outside, the suet feeder has some regular guests. We've named the downy woodpecker Pique, because whenever they land they announce: PIQUE! There is also a much larger woodpecker, which I think is red-bellied. Even though its reddest part is its head... Possibly to be named Harris. (There is a very unfriendly hardware store nearby with a permanent sign outside: Got Ants? Get Harris! And yesterday we received some ant visitors, who had to be discouraged. But now...we got Harris.)

______________

Autumn Walks and Picnics

The creek in the Catskills

Every time I am here I feel this is it, this, here, this is the place, this is me, this is where I want to be. We sit on a rock for about an hour, with small forays up-river, and down. There are no trails. Just the water. The roaring. 

I imagine camping here, and realize at once that I would be frightened, all night. The sound of the water drowns everything. I would not, could not, hear a footstep, a crunch on leaves, on soil, on spring or on winter ground. The squeak upon snow or the soft depression of spring humus. I rely a lot on my sense of hearing. This true white noise would cancel everything, and that's fine if you trust there is nothing else to be heard, but I do not trust.  I am conditioned Jumpy. The Frenchman has spent nights on watch in extraordinary places because of my..."What's that!?"

For our hour we sit quietly and watch the water. We have known it -  together, always - in every season except summer. Knitted in ice, the valley guarded by icicles five feet long and hanging from ledges. In early spring, the tender, first spikes of ramps in the brown leaf litter, branches still bare. Later, when the cutleaf toothwort and the squirrel corn and the violets are in bloom. We stay away in populous summer. We don't know what it might be like, then. Swimmable. In early fall when the narrow road is hemmed by jewelweed we have stopped to watch hummingbirds feast.

Here in the leaf litter of late October sleep foam flower, wake robin, rue anemone, violets, squirrel corn - the spring ephemerals.

And here, from a car window in New Jersey, is the industrial sun setting on the brief escape that makes me wonder, every time, whether the Northeast might really, after decades, run in my veins.

___________________

November Walks

Red on grey - Gowanus Canal

Autumn is in the saturated Virginia creeper beside the opaque Gowanus Canal. The gray/grey cement factory behind it is one of the industrial remnants of the polluted waterway, now undergoing daily dredging (of the toxic gunk nick-named black mayonnaise) to the tune of many millions of Superfund dollars. 

(I just fact-checked my glib millions. It's $1.5 billion.)

I have always liked the Gowanus Canal, even in its oil-slicked state. When I lived in Cobble Hill, to the west of the waterway (we now live east of it) I sometimes walked across the Union Street Bridge to Prospect Park, or to eat at Al di La, and would see schools of minnows jumping in the water at night, leaping above the reflections of lights, perhaps chased by a larger fish. It seemed incredible that life persisted in that sluggish and dark passage.

Red chokeberry (Aronia arbutifolia) grows here, too, planted in a small, un-maintained park that came very close to dying this last summer, through rainless months. Its neighbors are serviceberry and bayberry, black cherry, and linden. In June I like to lead walks here, when the lindens are in perfumed bloom and the serviceberries are ripe.

___________

Wild November Walks

The first to turn...

...are the ash trees. Fraxinus pennsylvanica. Their yellow leaves blaze.

The New York Tree Map still seems magical, to me. Every tree on the city streets, mapped.

We'll be celebrating New York's City of Forest Day on Saturday in the forest: Central Park's North Woods. And on the 16th, in the forest at the NYBG. Book here - there are some tickets left.

____________

September flowers and a gingery treat

The rosemary on the terrace thinks it is spring, and is in full bloom. Tomorrow the remnants of Hurricane Ian will rain down on it, but I'm not sure that will change the herb's mind.

After growing mighty leggy in August the hyssop (the trusty Agastache 'Black Adder') was given a haircut. I trimmed each stalk back by about a third, to above a leaf, and it has bushed out and bloomed again, more compact, like another version of itself. Good for late bees. Even our occasional little hummingbirds have tried it.  As ubiquitous a plant as it has become, there are very few perennials that will bloom as long and be as attractive to pollinators. So it is very welcome.

And September and October mean...myoga buds at last. They appear like little presents at the base of the plant, and every morning becomes a treasure hunt as I wiggle my fingers in the soil to see if another one is ready to snap off. This one - washed and slivered - was lunch, tossed with the first Honey Crisp apples, in a mayonnaise, lemon and gochujang dressing.

______________

Next walks and classes? 

15 and 16 October, North Woods and NYBG

Picnic fare for fall

In Brooklyn we are breezing into fall. It seems sudden, but how can it be? Days pass, nights cool, mornings feel fragile. The September blue has settled over the city, and in park woodlands white snakeroot flowers are in full, white fluff. 

My plant walks and forage picnics are more frequent. Carrying a 20 - 25lb backpack when the weather is 70 degrees is remarkably more more pleasant than when it's 90 and humid. 

The buns above are made with a luxurious, cream-and-milk-based dough, and are stuffed with a beach plum paste, made by cooking down the pulp of the small, native fruit (it is intense - sweet with just the right amount of sour).

And the tiniest of Seckel pears have arrived at market, perfectly-sized to fit into the stainless steel picnic containers. I poached them in a juniper (eastern red cedar - Juniperus virginiana) and Meyer lemon syrup.

______________

Find me on Instagram
@66squarefeet