A Taste for Sausage?

Two weeks ago I posted some pictures of a "sausage tree." It took me nearly an hour to identify the tree as it was not a native of Hawaii where I saw it and I had no idea what it was. I jokingly named it a "hanging potato tree" which isn't all that different from its actual name.
A week later I stumbled across a postcard of the same tree in one of those small world moments. I guess now I'll be seeing hanging sausages wherever I look, especially when I'm hungry. Here is another one of my photos of the fruit and flowers of the tree.



For more postcards, visit Postcard Friendship Friday here.

Hanging Potato Tree

OK, it isn't really a hanging potato. But it sure looks like one. Anyone know what it actually is called? Posted below are some pictures of the flowers.
Actually after much ado I am adding to this post with the identification of the tree in question. I must have spent nearly an hour on Google searching images of trees from Hawaii.
Courtesy of the University of Hawaii website, I have discovered the following:
The tree is Kigelia africana, or the sausage tree. It comes from west Africa. Somehow it doesn't surprise me the tree is introduced. The island of Oahu seems to have trouble taking care of its native species. Most of the birds I saw were also introduced but that is for another post.
I am so relieved that mystery is solved.





This post is being submitted to Festival of the Trees. Check them out and consider submitting your own tree thoughts.

Let Them Eat

The poor tree is totally overwhelmed by the display behind it. Also from New York City.

Sequoias!!!!!!!!!!!

Read It and Weep, a Book Review

The Golden Spruce, by John Vaillant

This is a great rainy day read for someone wintering in the Pacific Northwest. That being said, I’d recommend it for anyone whether wintering in Chicago or summering in
Australia or New Zealand.
The Golden Spruce is the memoir of a tree with assorted ramblings by the author. It takes the reader to a part of the world most of us have never been and never will have the pleasure of visiting, the Queen Charlotte Islands. These islands off the west coast of British Columbia are known for their rain and fog, their wild beauty, their native American population and, formerly, for one mutant tree, known as the Golden Spruce. This tree was revered by native and non-native folk alike for its size and unusual color. That color made it a symbol of myth and of the twisted logic of one logger, turned environmentalist and madman.
This book makes for a wonderful teaching tool. The story of one tree is not long enough to fill a book so Mr. Vaillant rambles through bits and pieces of American and Canadian history, Native American lore, a bit of psychology, some environmental science and a two mysteries, the mystery behind the death of a revered tree and the mysterious disappearance of the man who toppled it. Although the story itself is fascinating, the take home message for me, was the tale of the despoiling of the North American forests. I have driven and hiked through clear cut forests, but in no way did I quite realize the magnitude of destruction that mankind has wrought on our forests. As a kid I remember reading about strip mining and deploring the practice. How could I have missed realizing that similar practices were being done just around the corner from my home but for trees and not for minerals? I doubt anyone can read this book and not feel that we are bleeding our planet to death.
This is not a perfect book. Some of the prose is a bit overdone. “Timber cruisers and surveyors are avatars of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: woods-wise and tree-friendly as they may be. . . .” (p. 101). All I can say is, “Huh?”
I have one quibble I need to mention as a mental health professional. At the time this book was written, the main human character, Grant Hadwin, was still considered potentially alive and in hiding. However, someone seems to have released portions of Hadwin’s psychiatric records to the author. These are attributed to a “Confidential Source.” I doubt very much that Canadian mental health law is much different than that in the U.S. Someone violated Hadwin’s privacy and rights in a shameful way and I question the author’s good judgment in quoting from his medical records. If Hadwin ever comes back from the presumed dead, I hope he sues the Kamloops hospital that allowed this to happen.
Please read this book. It will make you think twice, and three times, next time you waste paper and “kill a few trees,” as we all are known to joke these days.

A forest view

Spring is here

Just in case you forgot.



And then I remembered a song from one of the all time funny song writers--Tom Lehrer. You have to be of a certain age and from a family with a certain kind of inherent nastiness to know of him I think. Some of his Cold War songs are pretty funny in a sick kind of way. Remember the days of nuclear bomb drills in school? If you do, we know you are old like me :).

So here is old Tom from his album An Evening (Wasted) with Tom Lehrer. Go to this site for the full set of lyrics (if you can stomach it). To really appreciate this you really have to hear Lehrer singing and commenting. Enjoy!

Poisoning Pigeons in the Park

I'd like to take you now on wings of song as it were, and try and help you forget, perhaps, for a while, your drab wretched lives. Here is a song all about springtime in general, and in particular about one of the many delightful pastimes that the coming of spring affords us all.

Spring is here, a-suh-puh-ring is here.
Life is skittles and life is beer.
I think the loveliest time of the year is the spring.
I do, don't you? 'Course you do.
But there's one thing that makes spring complete for me,
And makes every Sunday a treat for me.

All the world seems in tune
On a spring afternoon,
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park.
Every Sunday you'll see
My sweetheart and me,
As we poison the pigeons in the park.

Tuesday Challenge--Plant

Another vacation shot from the El Yunque rain forest in Puerto Rico. Looking up at a tree fern. I love this plant--it seems positively prehistoric, like a diorama of the days of the dinosaurs.

Trees

Trees are among my favorite things to photograph. In Chicago in the winter, their bare branches reach like arms and fingers toward the sky. For variety, they become encrusted with snow or ice.
In the state of Washington, where I spent much of my childhood, many trees are evergreen. Forests are generally dense and dark. They are places to get lost in, either psychically or physically.
The Olympic Rainforest, situated on the Northwest corner of the country, is even denser and greener. Like the rainforests of more tropical regions, it receives 12-14 feet (around 4 m.) of rain yearly. This means a high density of plant life. Not only are there the trees, but then there are the moss, lichen and fungi that grow on the trees and under the trees. I always expect to see the trees to come to life when I am in the rainforest. One day I will turn the corner and see an Ent or two tending their herds (for those LOTR fans). It hasn't happened yet but there are worse things to believe in (such as the Sasquatch which theoretically might be espied in these parts).

Here are a couple of photos I took this winter of one birch tree and its colonists. I'm not an expert botanist (or is it mycologist?) so I cannot give you the names of what is growing on the bark. The diversity is impressive, though; isn't it?

Good Planet

This is one of the biggest trees I've ever seen. It is in front of Zion Lodge in (where else) Zion National Park. I had to switch to my wide angle lens which I hardly ever use to capture the most of the tree.
Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I am a nature lover, aka tree-hugger. But this is not a nature blog by any means. If you are feeling an unrequited love for nature and feel like wallowing in it, a good place to start is the Good Planet carnival (I guess it's a carnival). This carnival celebrates our beautiful planet with pictures of same. Last month's is up on Somewhere in NJ (January 6 post) including one of my photos. Susan Gets Native will be hosting next month's and you can submit your shots to her. I'm not sure exactly what the protocol is so head on over to her site with questions.

Photo Friday--My best photo of 2006?

Taken in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

Wordless Wednesday--Branches

Book Review--Winter’s Bone, by Daniel Woodrell

In the jacket reviews, Edna O’Brien and Kaye Gibbons both call Daniel Woodrell’s novel “lyrical.” Although I am somewhat wary of novels described as lyrical, in this case the word is apt, yet need not scare a prospective reader away.
Woodrell’s use of language approaches the poetic but is able to hold to the novel form. It involves an intense juxtaposition of the grim and the beautiful. Aptly named, the novel takes place entirely in the space of a few winter’s days. Weather is another character in the book, as painfully beautiful as its people. “Sleet crackled down, laid a cold sheen across everything. The afternoon sky dimmed and lights from the house carried into the yard as gleamings stretched by skidding across the ice.”
Winter’s Bone is an intimate look at a culture that is more foreign to my experience than most distant countries although geographically only a day’s drive from home. The heroine, Ree Dolly is a young woman caught in a cycle of poverty, crime, and isolation in the Ozark Mountains. After her father disappears, she discovers that he put up their house as bond and goes on a search for him.
The men she meets along the way carry names like Uncle Teardrop, Thump Milton and Little Arthur. They carry guns, deal drugs and do not hesitate to hit a woman. The women are as harsh as their lives, kind at times but in ways more vicious than the men. But Ree’s courage earns her a grudging respect and reluctant answers to her questions although not without pain. As the author says: “Love and hate hold hands always so it made natural sense that they’d get confused. . . .”
Read Winter’s Bone on a cold day, with snow falling outside and the wind blowing. Then read it the next morning with the sun sparkling on the snow and the tree limbs bowed with excess weight. It is worth the journey.

Wordless Wednesday #1

Nature's Embrace

Taken in Indiana this weekend.

My first Thursday Thirteen

I had a weird dream last night. It was probably triggered by the war novel I was reading just before bedtime. The highlight was that I was living in a war-torn country and had to flee to the mountains to avoid shelling. I packed the necessary food items, and what bedding and clothes I could carry (all were in short supply due to looting), but was upset because my digital camera could not be located. I’m glad I had my priorities straight.

I’m going to try a Thursday Thirteen, although the details of establishing the links seem confusing. If all those other bloggers can do it, maybe I can too.

Thirteen dreams I have (in no particular order):
1. Take my kids backpacking for the first time.
2. Study psychoanalysis formally.
3. Learn a new foreign language.
4. Learn to manage my temper better.
5. Have something I wrote published.
6. Write my memoirs.
7. Be healthy enough in my old age to play and travel with my grandchildren.
8. Learn more about my roots.
9. Retire (when the time comes) but keep a small private practice going.
10. Own a house in Provence.
11. Go on Sabbatical to a foreign country.
12. Go on an archaeological dig.
13. Hike the entire Pacific Crest Trail.

Night trees

Submitted to Lens Day--topic "night".
Since I don't have a tripod, I had to prop my camera on a concrete lamp post and set the timer. The exposure may have run as long as 8 seconds by my count.

PhotoFriday--Destruction

To continue the weather theme--on October 9 we had quite a storm here in Chicago. Estimates I read stated that 3000 trees were down. One suburb likely had microbursts (something like a mini-tornado). In my neighborhood, there were down trees or large limbs on nearly every block. Nothing too impressive for the "destruction" theme but I thought I'd post this just for fun. It is sad to see all these beautiful trees gone.

Tree in Bryce Canyon

Tree in Bryce Canyon
Originally uploaded by skron.

I did take this picture a few days ago. Bryce Canyon has to rate as one of the world's most beautiful places. More on how I spent my summer vacation (officially over next week) in later posts.
For now, I hope you enjoy the picture.