Taking a leek in the woods… [originally posted Spring 09, but in the wrong place]

Betsy holding freshly dug wild leeks.

I went leek picking the other day. Betsy, the dogs, and I hiked into a super top secret place I know of where they are abundant.

Years ago, when I first came upon this trove of plants, I thought they were some kind of lily. A sniff of a leaf quickly dispelled that assumption — smelled like an onion. The leeks (Allium tricoccum), also known as ramps, grow in the hundreds along a shallow brook. Every year, I make a point to bring home a handful. I love their garlic/mild onion flavor. They make for a more flavorful onion in onion dishes. In garlic dishes, they are a slightly milder substitute.

Part of the allure in harvesting these plants is the hike to get to the spot where they grow. It’s a bit of a trek, but there’s always much to see along the way.

A bigger part for me, though, is the whole seasonal phenomenon aspect. The ramps grow at a time when spring has found its feet. It’s something to celebrate. I’m not alone. Spring is time for the Ramp Festivals down south, where the tuber’s culinary accents are celebrated. They’re often accompanied by bluegrass music and the odor of ramp-fueled dishes cooking under the tents.

Our little handful of wild leeks should keep us festive for a while.

Blueberry season next…

Rinsed wild leeks.

What a horrible existence!

No milk for my morning coffee? AND we’re out of the emergency creamer?

I’ll drink it, but I won’t like it!

Clinton to the Rescue

It’s great that the former president was able to contribute to the release of the two women held prisoner in North Korea.

But now for the most dangerous part of their ordeal – the ride back with Bubba!

I hope he doesn’t expect his usual payment.

New Book – “Who’s at the Seashore?”

Out Summer 2009!

What a journey this book has been on. It began at Northword. As I was halfway through the paintings, I got an E-mail from my editor saying Friday was her last day and the company was in the process of being purchased by another – nameless - company. She told me there were no guarantees the new company would pick up my contract. Their declining to do so, of course, would leave me unpaid for the work I did.

She said that it was up to me to take the gamble of finishing the book for some yet-to-be-named publisher who may have no interest in it. Legally, they were under no obligation to do so.

This kind of thing happens way more than you think in the children’s book publishing industry. I’ll tell you about a nearly identical situation with an upcoming (Fall 09) book I illustrated (A Daddy Longlegs Isn’t a Spider) some other time. I should say that as bad as I was feeling about the fate of this seashore project, I felt even worse for my editor, who had just lost much more.

I still had a month’s worth of paintings to create in order to complete the project. That’s a lot of time that could be spent working on other projects with a better outlook toward producing income. I don’t do this as a hobby.

I decided to keep going, the main reason being that I was enjoying the way the illustrations were coming out. I’ve done a number of children’s books with a nature theme, but this was my first about life on the seashore. This “assignment” forced me to explore a habitat I generally don’t make enough time for. Why didn’t I come up with this sooner? I mean, my job required me to hang out at sunny New England beaches. Oh, the sacrifices one makes for art…

One of the research highlights occurred while looking for sandhoppers, little crustaceans that live among the seaweed and hop like fleas (they’re also called beach fleas). I noticed that 2 young boys were watching me, trying to figure out why that man was sifting through the beach jetsam. They finally got up the courage to ask, and when I told them what I was doing, they asked if they could help.

This attracted more attention, and I was soon joined by a little girl, her brother, and then, her mother. I remembered being warmed by the sight of this loose band of seaweed flippers spread out along the beach hunting for something they most likely never noticed before. This is the kind of stuff I dream my books will inspire after they read them. That it came before, was just as fulfilling.

Oh, so anyway… the publisher turned out to be Taylor Trade, a division of Roman and Littlefield. They picked up my contract and it’s now a book. I guess my gamble paid off.

*phew*

If you want a copy, and your local bookstore doesn’t have it, they will order it for you. Amazon and B&N carry it online – or go here.

Unicycle Spaceman

God, I love the Internet. Ever get one of those nostalgia brainworms? You know, when you remember something, like a cartoon from your far past, but can’t recall much about it? It’s really more of a memory of the feeling you had while watching it. For years I tried to hunt down the details on a memory I had of an old black and white cartoon. It took place in outer space and had three main characters. My search queries would include these words:

Spaceman on unicycle
White on black cartoon (it sort of looked like it was done on scratchboard)
Caveman

I couldn’t remember the third character.

So, that’s all I had. It was sort of a creepy show, probably had something to do with how young I was. What stuck out most in my mind was that little spaceman who flew with the aid of a single wheel he propelled with his legs. He was so alien-looking, and, I remembered, quick to lose his temper. He took me to a strange, uncomfortable, but compelling, place.

Well, I finally found the show! First of all, it wasn’t in black and white. I had neglected to factor in that our TV was black and white! Duh!

Colonel Bleep, with Scratch and Squeak

The show was Colonel Bleep! There’s even an Wikipedia page on it! When I saw that third, forgotten, character, it was a slap to the forehead. It was Squeak! I now remember him very well because I couldn’t quite understand what a cowboy marionette was doing as part of the trio. That the other character was a caveman didn’t bother me as much. Funny, where a child’s mind draws those lines of logic.

Nothing like a mystery solved. With this new information at hand, I was even able to watch some of the episodes on You Tube.

It’s pretty hokey by today’s standards, but it captivated me as a child. It did what it was supposed to do. When I look at the pictures, I’m taken back to the den in our home in Oceanside, NY, where a 5 year old boy was taken to outer space via a black and white Zenith television.

Thanks, Internet. Is there nothing you can’t do?

My Wife Doesn’t Care About Me!

The injury is circled so you can all see what I'm talking about.

I sustained this injury wrestling with my dog Jimmy. His claw scratched the cuticle area of my left ring finger. I told Betsy I wanted to go to the emergency room for this, to play it safe. So what does she say? “Go ahead, but you have to drive yourself because I have to get up early for work tomorrow.”

Drive MYSELF to the emergency room… Real nice. Here my finger is torn to shreds and I have to drive myself to the emergency room, if I choose to go.

I decided instead to share this story of betrayal here for the millions of you to read. She is sitting right next to me, not caring how much agony I am in as I type this. I don’t think she realizes the backlash of reprisal that will rain down upon her once everyone sees the real Betsy Himmelman.

The finger’s actually not really hurting so much anymore. In fact it’s fine now. But that’s not the point, is it…

A Tale of Chatfield Hollow…

The blood-red eye of a vireo. Oh the horror... OH THE HORROR!

A Rather Chilling Field Trip Report: Chatfield Hollow SP, Killingworth, CT, May 3rd, 2009 – for the New Haven Bird Club

Sixteen birders braved the (level, mostly paved) trails and (bit chilly) climate on a birding expedition into the most savage, untamed (lawns weren’t mowed yet) wilderness on that particular spot on the map. The rather modest total of 38 species was but scant reflection of the august efforts of the stalwart lot choosing to throw caution to the wind on that dark (overcast) Sunday morning.

Walking across a winding platform of mere lumber (the boardwalk), only inches above the roiling waters, we espied, at eye level, warbling Warbling Vireos and yellow Yellow Warblers. A Song Sparrow caroled, perched on an alder — typically a common sight, but this one sang a chilling version of its song none there had heard before. It was shortened; cut in half. Despite this, we moved on.

I know I was not the only one thinking we should have heeded the ominous warning of that croaking Common Raven we heard at the onset. Hubris; birding’s cruel mistress…

Curiously shrunken mockingbirds flitted like butterflies above our heads. These tiny “blue-gray” aberrations were surprisingly adept at “gnat-catching”, despite having to overcome the asthmatic wheezing this activity seemed to bring on. Two American Redstarts were seen and heard. Pine Warblers were not. Could there be a connection? Of course not. A Worm-eating Warbler was discovered along a stream. However, on this morning, and in this place, one could be forgiven for expecting to see worms eating warblers.

Louisiana Waterthrushes called, and yet, none were seen. How could this be?

One ray of sunshine was a Yellow-throated Vireo, who, like its Warbling cousins, chose to sing for us in the open, at eye level. It gave our loins the much needed girding for pushing forward. With necks craned at torturous, inhuman angles, we watched singing Baltimore Orioles and Northern Parulas. A lone vireo, its eyes blood-red, murmured to itself in short, repeated phrases. It was stuck in a vocal loop, oblivious to our presence. The bird was beyond anyone’s help.

Along a stream, a pair of Gray Catbirds tossed leaves angrily into the air. They may have been looking for food, but on this day, who could say? Hunger drove a normally sane Downy Woodpecker to hammer its bill, repeatedly, into an old black birch. White-breasted Nuthatches ran up and down the trunks of trees, scoffing gravity, and who knows what other laws of nature? That compelling force — hunger, undoubtedly pushed a Broad-winged Hawk into the air, where it whistled like a killdeer. An osprey circled over the pines. Was it looking for fish? Was it compelled by past success in finding fish in the upper canopy of the conifers?

On any other day, in any other place, I would not have even entertained such thoughts.

Sixteen people entered. Fourteen returned. Dean and Maryanne Rupp had succumbed to the whispered invitations of a path off the main trail. I could see in Maryanne’s eyes there would be no convincing them to leave the park. That was twenty-three hours ago.

I have not seen them since.

(Prepared for the New Haven Bird Club newsletter)

My New Book!

Mike DiGiorgio and I did an interview on NPR’s Faith Middleton Show. It was for our book “Guide to the Night-singing Insects of the Northeast” (Stackpole, 2009). I was at the tail end of a bout with bronchitis, and my voice barely held out, but managed to get through it.

NPR puts their shows online a few days later – you can hear it here –

Link to NPR Faith Middleton Show

About this book – We worked on this book for 8 years. I wrote “It started as a hobby, turned into an obsession, and then, when I decided to write a book, it became my job. As much fun as it’s been, I am looking forward to this becoming a hobby again…”

I figured the easiest way to tell you about it is by cutting and pasting the “Introduction”. Here it is:

Introduction

We all hear them. The true katydids scratching out their raspy chirps; the crickets staging their choruses of trills. They are the sounds of summer. They have replaced the calls of the Spring Peepers and Gray Tree frogs, which have already seen to their nuptial duties. Come July, the night singing insects begin to sing. By the end of summer, they’ve reached their crescendo, filling the soundscape of every yard, meadow, woodland, and tree-lined street. Most of us take these sounds for granted. They are just there. But some of us listen. We hear these songs and are grateful for our ability to appreciate what they do for us. Sometimes the sounds create an aural thread to our past, bringing us back to another time and place. Sometimes, we just enjoy that very moment and realize there’s something going on outside our homes that may have little to do with us, but touches our senses.

But, what are making those sounds? While we can hear the katydids and crickets, we rarely get to see them. That cryptic ability allows them to survive. It’s not easy being a bug. There are so many other creatures out to eat them that evolution had to come up with ways to usher them to adulthood. Katydids took the path of cryptic shape and coloration. They look like the leaves and grass upon which they live. Field and ground crickets blend with the soil and dead leaves on the ground, and spend most of their lives under things. They possess a rich diversity of forms that allow them to look like what they eat and the habitat in which they live.

While most guides deal with the eyes – what things look like, this one focuses on the eyes and ears. I don’t know how this happened, but it appears orthoptering has arrived, and seemingly from out of nowhere! It helps that this new interest offers much of the satisfaction of the popular pastime of birding. For one, you have the songs, which can be used to identify the species. You also have the pleasing aesthetic quality of the makers of those songs. Add to that the advantages of having fewer species to learn and the fact that your subjects tend to spend their entire life in one area.

It could be that the growing interest in butterflies and dragonflies got people thinking that insects had more to offer in terms of “the hunt”. It is often the case that one interest leads to another. When you’re out looking for one thing, it is impossible not to notice what else is around. That’s what makes us naturalist types who we are. We’re curious. One answer leads to three questions. One pretty bug makes us want to see another.

However, while a swallowtail butterfly gets noticed as you walk down a trail, a bush katydid is just one of the many leaves along the way.

The purpose of this book is to make those leaves jump out at you. You hear them; now it’s time to put a face to the call. It’s time to see them.

Ladybug, Ladybug

Ladybug, Ladybug,
stay right here.
Don’t fly away home,
You have nothing to fear.

Your children are sleeping.
Your husband is shopping.
Your father is sweeping.
Your mother is mopping.

Your grandma is strumming.
Your grandpa is clapping
Your auntie is humming.
Your uncle is napping.

Your brother is riding.
Your sister cooking.
Your niece is hiding
Your nephew is looking.

Ladybug, Ladybug,
stay right here.
Don’t fly away home,
You have nothing to fear.

Amazing!

Yes… It’s amazing how little time one has to update one’s blog when one is frantically writing to meet a deadline.