Thursday, November 10, 2005
Nature stories, free-ranging from local parks to distant forests
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The parks of our neighborhood had a fine season. Both Stuyvesant Square parks were gorgeous in hot colors, dark crimson, with orange and yellow highlights, red sage, blue sage, verbena, hibiscus and rudbeckia, backed up by masses of lime green coleus. We have been well cared for. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Connie Casey, our gardener for the past few years, is leaving the Parks Department to return to another profession (she teaches journalism). We wish her the best of luck and hope that the new supervisor of District 6, Ronnit Ben David (replacing Elliot Sykes) will take care of us as well.
There is this thing about gardeners – they are dedicated and focused. While being interviewed, Connie never stops her task – most recently, laying out hundreds of tulip bulbs in the triangles between rose bushes in the Eat Park’s fountain, clean- cleared of the Summer’s bloomers. Why? Well, the weather is threatening, and she has 2,000 bulbs to plant in the area. As we are talking, a lady ranger arrives, with a truckload of 2,000 more bulbs, from Bill Steyer of the mysterious Forestry, and Connie has to depart, to find space. Her final message – she may be leaving, but the park will be blooming in the Spring.
The West Park will not be neglected, another 2000 bulbs are designated for it. Also, on November 5 sixty volunteers from Friends Seminary were scheduled to plant masses of tulips and daffodils throughout the parks. As for the Summer's bloomers, they have been removed, chopped up for mulch and readied for next Spring’s use. Even the hibiscus, which I know in the South as a perennial bush; the variety used here is a Caribbean annual. Current blooming décor consists of the hardy pink-red roses, green berberis bushes of and the fuzzy leaves of lambs’ ears along the edges. The tall hollyhocks, supported by thin sticks, which we admired in the summer, were contributed by a neighbor, name of Bob, who walks his greyhounds in the park. Thanks, friend.
If you wonder what plants were blooming in the park, Connie had a list posted, which was scratched out by a vandal. We also have had tree plaques removed. Keep your eyes open for enemiess.
Speaking of hibiscus, our experience is with the tree variety, known as the Rose of Sharon, in upstate New York, a beautiful purple bloomer. Fortunately the deer do not bother it. Currently it is the bow-and –arrow deer season in Columbia County. I ran into a camouflage-dressed hunter at the gas station, replenishing supplies. He claims that, though plentiful, deer seemed to stay out of public lands, hanging around homesteads, where No Trespassing signs abound (hey, the Mayor does claim that we are more literate). This year the hunting seasons start on weekends rather than Mondays, making the woods dangerous with city hunters, arriving in droves. Soon as the gun season starts he will change into fluorescent oranges, taking no chances.
Speaking of chances, consorting with wild animals in nature brings on some risks. In addition to bears, the mountain lion, a hefty knee-high cat, has made an appearance in the Berkshires and Catskills, not good for the deer population. The hunter at the gas station, who knows his way around, having worked for Lido’s Game Farm (they arrange deer and pheasant hunts on private lands), claims to have had an encounter. The Endangered Species Department of the NYSDEC in Albany admits receiving several such reports each year, but maintains that the last cougar in the state was hunted down in 1894, earning the woodsman a $20 reward. Nowadays the only place you can meet one face to face is in the NYS Museum in Empire Plaza, the Rockefeller urban renewal extravaganza. I have tied to see one in person, while hiking in Florida Everglades, the only place where they survive, to no avail.
As to black bear, also a federally protected species, my licensed professional trapper claims having removed several, and wants to build a metal barrel to transport the captives to deeper woods, just the way they do it in Churchill, Manitoba, the world’s polar bear capital. This family has met several in that Canadian preserve, both in nature and in the transportation barrel (a mother and cub), courtesy of the management of what is locally known as the “bear prison.” Also the coyote, known hereabouts as coyot, accent on the first syllable, who give the willies to solitary hunters dragging their deer harvest through the woods. They follow the man around, in packs. The hunters know that all the coyote wants is the carcass, but, nevertheless, the lodge chitchat is that 90-odd coyote attacks on humans have been registered in New York State over the past 20 years. The Eastern coyotes, tall an crafty as timber wolves, are real, all right, their sometime howling at night bothers our cats.
If you’re wandering about having a personal licensed trapper, that is the only legal and humanitarian way to remove a family of woodchucks squatting under your deck, or deep below your garden. Our seven uninvited guests left at a price of $35 per, a bargain, much preferred by effete cityites (typical Liberal, the OC would scold) over the local alternative of gunning them down or smoking them out.
Ed.: OC, the Old Curmudgeon, is a friend and sometime contributor of wisdom to this column.
The parks of our neighborhood had a fine season. Both Stuyvesant Square parks were gorgeous in hot colors, dark crimson, with orange and yellow highlights, red sage, blue sage, verbena, hibiscus and rudbeckia, backed up by masses of lime green coleus. We have been well cared for. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Connie Casey, our gardener for the past few years, is leaving the Parks Department to return to another profession (she teaches journalism). We wish her the best of luck and hope that the new supervisor of District 6, Ronnit Ben David (replacing Elliot Sykes) will take care of us as well.
There is this thing about gardeners – they are dedicated and focused. While being interviewed, Connie never stops her task – most recently, laying out hundreds of tulip bulbs in the triangles between rose bushes in the Eat Park’s fountain, clean- cleared of the Summer’s bloomers. Why? Well, the weather is threatening, and she has 2,000 bulbs to plant in the area. As we are talking, a lady ranger arrives, with a truckload of 2,000 more bulbs, from Bill Steyer of the mysterious Forestry, and Connie has to depart, to find space. Her final message – she may be leaving, but the park will be blooming in the Spring.
The West Park will not be neglected, another 2000 bulbs are designated for it. Also, on November 5 sixty volunteers from Friends Seminary were scheduled to plant masses of tulips and daffodils throughout the parks. As for the Summer's bloomers, they have been removed, chopped up for mulch and readied for next Spring’s use. Even the hibiscus, which I know in the South as a perennial bush; the variety used here is a Caribbean annual. Current blooming décor consists of the hardy pink-red roses, green berberis bushes of and the fuzzy leaves of lambs’ ears along the edges. The tall hollyhocks, supported by thin sticks, which we admired in the summer, were contributed by a neighbor, name of Bob, who walks his greyhounds in the park. Thanks, friend.
If you wonder what plants were blooming in the park, Connie had a list posted, which was scratched out by a vandal. We also have had tree plaques removed. Keep your eyes open for enemiess.
Speaking of hibiscus, our experience is with the tree variety, known as the Rose of Sharon, in upstate New York, a beautiful purple bloomer. Fortunately the deer do not bother it. Currently it is the bow-and –arrow deer season in Columbia County. I ran into a camouflage-dressed hunter at the gas station, replenishing supplies. He claims that, though plentiful, deer seemed to stay out of public lands, hanging around homesteads, where No Trespassing signs abound (hey, the Mayor does claim that we are more literate). This year the hunting seasons start on weekends rather than Mondays, making the woods dangerous with city hunters, arriving in droves. Soon as the gun season starts he will change into fluorescent oranges, taking no chances.
Speaking of chances, consorting with wild animals in nature brings on some risks. In addition to bears, the mountain lion, a hefty knee-high cat, has made an appearance in the Berkshires and Catskills, not good for the deer population. The hunter at the gas station, who knows his way around, having worked for Lido’s Game Farm (they arrange deer and pheasant hunts on private lands), claims to have had an encounter. The Endangered Species Department of the NYSDEC in Albany admits receiving several such reports each year, but maintains that the last cougar in the state was hunted down in 1894, earning the woodsman a $20 reward. Nowadays the only place you can meet one face to face is in the NYS Museum in Empire Plaza, the Rockefeller urban renewal extravaganza. I have tied to see one in person, while hiking in Florida Everglades, the only place where they survive, to no avail.
As to black bear, also a federally protected species, my licensed professional trapper claims having removed several, and wants to build a metal barrel to transport the captives to deeper woods, just the way they do it in Churchill, Manitoba, the world’s polar bear capital. This family has met several in that Canadian preserve, both in nature and in the transportation barrel (a mother and cub), courtesy of the management of what is locally known as the “bear prison.” Also the coyote, known hereabouts as coyot, accent on the first syllable, who give the willies to solitary hunters dragging their deer harvest through the woods. They follow the man around, in packs. The hunters know that all the coyote wants is the carcass, but, nevertheless, the lodge chitchat is that 90-odd coyote attacks on humans have been registered in New York State over the past 20 years. The Eastern coyotes, tall an crafty as timber wolves, are real, all right, their sometime howling at night bothers our cats.
If you’re wandering about having a personal licensed trapper, that is the only legal and humanitarian way to remove a family of woodchucks squatting under your deck, or deep below your garden. Our seven uninvited guests left at a price of $35 per, a bargain, much preferred by effete cityites (typical Liberal, the OC would scold) over the local alternative of gunning them down or smoking them out.
Ed.: OC, the Old Curmudgeon, is a friend and sometime contributor of wisdom to this column.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 8:47 PM 
