Historic Brooklyn Arboricide

Don't worry this tree is fine, it's not even in Brooklyn. I just posted it because it shows a characteristic of White Oak bark very well; the ski trail pattern. I read somewhere that the Dongal Oak was a White Oak, so enormous that when it was felled in the Prospect Park Battle Pass by American soldiers trying to save themselves from an onslaught of Hessian mercenaries, it actually gave them a little time. To no avail, they were mostly bayoneted to death. Some escaped, ran off to Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope. I wonder why the massive oak was called the Dongal Oak.

Plant Stories #2

Purple Coneflowers at the beginning of July and the beginning of August. Looks like the July sun subtracted some major cyan. By October, the tattered petal tutus will be gone and they'll be black balls of quills, perfect for a witch's bouquet. Carefully wedge your finger into the spur and the seeds start to come apart by the hundreds.

Once, a few years ago, I came out of my house and an old man was gaping at the coneflowers, transfixed. He asked me what they were, said he had never seen such strange flowers before. He asked if he could take one to his wife. I screamed at him "Whassa matter with you, ya romantic. Now, get outta here!" OK, I didn't. I just wrote that because I've been up for 2 hours in the middle of the night afer receiving a painful mosquito bite.

Actually, I gave him one of the flowers with great pride, happy that he hadn't been too ashamed to ask.

Vice in the Garden

Since I started writing this it seems like there's more laundry to do, but it's just that I haven't been doing as much daily so it builds up. I feel like such a jerk using the dryer, blowing heat out into the already hot air, but on humid days towels just hang on the line without drying, going sour. I'm want some of those quick-drying travel towels. I want it!! I wonder if they're good. Wonder if you can get quick-drying travel jeans. Oh yeah, there called pajamas! Good for blogging.

Found a little green dope bag in the front garden, wonder who tossed it there? I put it on our kitchen table hoping my husband would ask me why I had started shooting up, but he was preoccupied and never noticed. Plus the table is covered with junk so the bag doesn't really grab attention. It's a really small bag, I wonder what was in it. My friend found a bullet in her tree-pit garden, brought it in, somehow left it lying around the house so her husband found it and naturally asked "what's this bullet doing here?" It's interestiong to find evidence of vice in the garden. If I were to find evidence of virtue instead, what would it be? Maybe gold coins tossed in by a really generous person. That always happens here in Brooklyn, someone drives down the street throwing money out of the window of their car. That's why we're all so rich here.

Plant Stories

On a day like 2 days ago (heat index 105) you come to understand the splendor of street trees. I was walking down a stretch of 10th Avenue without the trees and I was baking. At that moment i was reminded of the words of a South American shaman: never underestimate the love of a tree. And I love the trees more than ever. The beauty of the heat is that shade takes on a whole new coolness.

Speaking of unexpected kindness, my friends keeps a little curb garden, about 2 feet square. It's a geyser of marigolds, petunias and an enormous sunflower plant with about 8 buds on it rising out of the cement. She mentioned that a while ago someone vandalized the sunflower plant and removed the only two buds that it had at that time. I was flying into a snit when she steered the story on a different course and told me that because of that premature dead-heading her plant developed the abundance of buds it now has. I wonder if it will get to hold on to them, and if they'll stare their big seedy eyeballs at future Ocean Avenue pedestrians. What you lookin' at?

Meanwhile, I have to weed the forest of mint that is taking over our 11th Avenue front garden. I never have time. I hereby declare it open season on the mint for any interested mojito or taboule-loving garden vandals. Don't feel bad for it, it is a superplant no man is a match for, and a wily source of freshness. You pull it up in one spot and it sends up shoots in another.

I was also outwitted by the rose bush that grows in the corner of the backyard plot we have, an approximately 8 by 12 foot rectangle of hostas, bleeding hearts (i'm getting tired of their melodrama) basil, solomon's seal, clematis, assorted mysterious plants of unexplored usefulness, lillies and 3 fruit-bearing trees that I wish I could take credit for but they were here when we moved in. Looking up into the old apricot tree that only grows unsavory fruit I noticed it seemed to be bearing rose blossoms. I think I felt the sensation of the wind being knocked out of me. The feeling of being blessed with a miracle ended when I noticed a long skinny branch of the rose bush jutting straight up and lodging itself in the branches of the tree, a true city dweller of a bush claiming it's right to vertical expansion. What else does it have up it's thorny sleeve? I love it when things play with my head.