Archive for December 2011
a conch shell doorstop
Do you have a conch shell for a doorstop in your home?
If you visit a farm or home museum in the Maritime Provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick or Prince Edward Island), look down as you enter the house. You will often see a large sea shell used as a doorstop. These are usually a conch-type shell (the Queen Conch is a large Caribbean sea-snail). The shells were usually brought to maritime doorways by seafarers who collected them on their travels.
My grandfather’s house had one of these shells, a large white conch with a pearly pink interior and whorls of spines. Always on duty at the door of the glassed-in porch, it was an imported marvel of the exotic seas.
I remember my Dad holding it to my ear, saying, “listen”. From deep within the shell came the steady hum of the ocean, like the sound of waves advancing and pulling back from the shore.
This shell was part of my Dad’s life, growing up in the big farmhouse. As an adult, Dad gradually built his own collection of sea shells, large and small, usually buying them at auctions. A couple of the large shells are now in my own home. When I am far from the ocean, I can still lift one of those shells to my ear and hear its eternal roar.
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doorstop
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kitchen door kept
open with a conch shell
stop
~
spines cropped
by incoming and outgoing
careless cousins
~
ignore
complaining ocean
captured roar
~
© Jane Tims 2011
Copyright Jane Tims 2011
measuring my space
Niche space can actually be measured. Biologists and others apply a technique called ‘niche width analysis’ to determine the characteristics of a niche. This analysis defines aspects of ‘niche’ such as climate, food use, temperature, moisture, and so on.
One of the characteristics of my niche is – I love collections. My favorite collection is my handful of jointed rulers. I might not be able to measure every aspect of my ‘niche width’ with my collection of rulers, but I can measure any aspect of its linear distance!
My collection of jointed rulers was given to me by my Dad. He and Mom loved to go to country auctions and they often bought items for me and my sister and brothers. Dad gave me my first jointed ruler for Christmas and then, over the years, added to my collection, one ruler at a time. The rulers were especially meaningful because my Dad was a wonderful carpenter and came from a long line of carpenters:
- my great-great-great grandfather, ‘killed-by-lightning’ William
- my great-great grandfather, ‘shipwrecked’ William (see my post ‘Briar Island Rock #1, #2 and #3′ of December 2, 2011 under the category ‘family history’)
- my great-grandfather, ‘kneeled-on-his-beard-and-couldn’t-rise’ Esau
- my grandfather Robert
- my Dad
- my brothers and sister and me (my husband and I built our own house).
I keep my rulers in a box made of conventional rulers, and I love to take them out and look at them.
Jointed rulers have existed for a long time. They are listed in the 1813 book The Circle of the Mechanical Arts by Thomas Martin (London).
a Plate from Martin, 1813, showing a jointed 'rule' (item # 38)
Jointed rulers are not used very often by carpenters of today since the tape-measure is so much easier to store. However, plumbers still use folding rulers because they can measure twisting pipes.
Most of my jointed rulers are made of wood with joints of brass. They can be folded away quite compactly when not in use, and unfolded when they are needed. Unfolded, they have a spidery quality. One of my favorites has a leveling glass built in…
They are precisely made and have the combined beauty of varnished or painted wood, painted numbers, shiny metal and ‘mechanism’.
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Great Blue Heron and reflection
~
on water, bent legs unite two images
of heron, brass connections
varnished wood
~
jointed rulers unfold, legs
disconnect, images detach
concentric circles swell
~
distance and diameter measured
between droplets
and trailing toes
~
© Jane Tims 2011
bringing the outside inside
Mindful of how busy I am at this time of year, my Mom always said to take Christmas where I found it. She meant to enjoy every moment of the season and glean Christmas from the smallest experience. So, on my drive home from Halifax, I was on the lookout for what I call “Christmassy things”.
One of these was a big truck, well-packed with Christmas trees, bound for markets in the United States. I thought of how these simple natural fir trees from New Brunswick would be the center of Christmas decorations far away.
We are lucky in New Brunswick to be able to buy a freshly-cut tree. In years past, we often went with my brother’s family to cut our own Balsam Fir at a U-Cut. It was fun, watching the kids running through the snow, so excited to choose a tree. Some years, we had a tree from my Dad’s property, one of the many he and my Mom planted and tended. I have also cut a Christmas tree from our own woods, although sometimes they are a bit lopsided. Today, we usually buy our tree from a local grower, in a lot where the trees lean against the fence, categorized by height.
It is so hard to decide on the perfect tree. We have high ceilings, so the taller the better. And I want a tree without a bird’s nest (some people think it is lucky to have a bird’s nest in the tree), so I check between every branch! I also usually want a relatively thin tree, to let the decorations hang easily.
Today or tomorrow, my husband and I will go out to get this year’s tree. We will wrap the tree in a red bedspread, set aside for this purpose, and tie the tree securely to the top of our car. We will take it home to settle for a day or so, and then bring it inside. And the fresh smell of cold air and balsam will expand from the tree into our living room. And, as in other years, it will be the best tree ever.
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evergreen
~
*
under
snow prismatic
white distils to green
wintergreen and woodfern
clubmoss and conifer, chlorophyll
wedged into slim space between
earth
and
ice
~
© Jane Tims 2011
a place in the marsh
For the last few weeks, as I drive by the ditches and wetlands on my way home from work, I am charmed by the way the bulrushes have burst and made their bountiful seed available to the winds.
The heads of the bulrush (Typha latifolia L., also known as common cat-tail or masette in French) are usually neat and tidy cylinders of dark brown, held high on a sturdy stem. At this time of the year, the seeds emerge in a copious fluff clinging to the brown seed-head like a beard, a lion’s mane or a furry hat.
When I was a child, we always called these plants ‘busby rushes’, presumably after the tall bearskin hats worn by the Queen’s Foot Guards in front of Buckingham Palace. Actually a busby is not the correct name for the bearskin, but is a hat worn by Hungarian hussars, or the Royal Horse Artillary, a ceremonial unit of the British Army.
Our two usual species of Typha are distinguishable by their leaves. Typha latifolia (broad-leaved cat-tail) has flat leaves. Typha angustifolia (narrow-leaved cat-tail) has narrower leaves, convex on the back.
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bulrush in December
(Typha latifolia L.)
~
4:45 PM rush, the Marshlands
bus expels tired folk to familiar sidewalks
exhausts them in diesel cloud
a bulrush pushing its seed
to the wind in cold December
bearded and wise, fur hats and
ear flaps against the cold
breath expressed as icicles and rime
~
© Jane Tims 2011
Fringed Loosestrife (Lysimachia ciliata L.)
In any season, I think it is important to slow down and look closely at the ground to catch a glimpse of the natural diversity occurring there. This time of year, in our snowy climate, there are tracks to find, evergreens to notice, and seeds and berries to discover.
Since I am trained as a botanist, looking down is the norm for me. Often, I fail to look up and see the landscape and horizon. When we first bought our lake property, it was quite a while before I looked across the lake and realised there were farms and a church on the opposite shore!
As a result, I identify strongly with Fringed Loosestrife (Lysimachia ciliata L.), a yellow flower we find growing along the lakeshore in early summer. It has a downward-facing flower and can only ‘see’ the ground. Its shy demeanour encourages close inspection, but you have to get your own eyes quite low to see a view of its ‘face’.
Fringed Loosestrife has five yellowish-green petals and a reddish center and blooms from May to July. The petals are fringed and each is tipped with a ‘tooth’.
The genus is called after King Lysimachus of Thrace who, in legend, used the plant to calm a maddened bull. Ciliata comes from the Latin word cilium meaning eyelash, referring to the hairs on the stem of each leaf.
Fringed Loosestrife grows in thickets and along shorelines like ours.
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Fringed Loosestrife
(Lysimachia ciliata L.)
~
at the edge of lake are two perspectives:
distant and near
horizon and shore
~
horizon
low hills and orchard
a farm, a steepled church
the flat of the lake
three waterfowl
~
the shore
yellow Loosestrife
Fringed petals
look down
~
red eye studies
flat rock and sticky bedstraw
a wood frog, a feather fern
winterberry petals new-fallen
shoe leather, shoe laces
~
© Jane Tims 2011
a safe space in the bridge
This past week I have been in Halifax for a conference. A part of my morning commute was the slow moving traffic on the ‘old bridge’ across Halifax Harbour, the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge. The second day, I was more familiar with the traffic and the correct lane to be in, so I had a chance to experience the architecture and some of the wild life of the bridge (by this I do not mean that the commuters are holding wild parties).
The Angus L. Macdonald is an amazing structure, built the year I was born and opened in 1955. It is a long-span suspension bridge, supported by cables between two vertical towers. The bridge is 1.3 km long, with a supported length of 762.1 meters.
The bridge is usable by pedestrians and cyclists. Because of its reputation as a suicide bridge, it is equipped with various barriers to potential suicides, including high inward-facing bars on the pedway and nets suspended in the open area between the traffic deck and the pedway.
In these areas, hordes of starlings (Stumus vulgaris) gather, creating a din and an occasional cloud of startled starlings. Starlings are known for their synchronized group flights – the birds move as one in a shifting horde of birds. To hear the birds, I had my car windows open, but I quickly rolled them up since the birds were flowing very near to my car!
Starlings are an invasive species, introduced by Eugene Schieffelin to Central Park in 1890 as part of a project of the American Acclimatization Society. Their goal was to introduce all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare’s writings into North America. All of the birds I saw in the bridge are descendants of the 60 to 100 birds released in 1890!
A group of starlings is known as a ‘murmuration’.
For those of you familiar with the excellent series of made-for-TV Jesse Stone movies (starring Tom Selleck), The Angus L. Macdonald Bridge is the bridge featured in the movies (although the setting for the movie is a small town in Massachusetts).
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morning, Angus L. Macdonald Bridge
~
traffic huddles and a thousand Shakespearian
starlings squabble one another
yellow beaks and feathers packed
soft slate bodies rolled into the safety
of the suicide net and pedway bars
porous barriers: a cyclist whips by
and starlings sift through wire
a mumuration between orange
cables and green girders
impossible way, red and blue
pulse of bridge security
weaves the path materialized
within three tangled
lanes of traffic
~
© Jane Tims 2011
roses of summer
When I go for a walk this time of year, I visit our rosebush and I think of how rosebushes have been a part of my life:
- the little bush beside our road at the lake, delicate pink double roses and small rosehips… my husband loves this little bush and is always very careful not to cut it when he trims the lane…
- the huge rosehips on the rose bush (Rosa rugosa Thunb.) at Castalia Beach on Grand Manan Island, rigor in the harshest conditions; once I tried to bring a slip of the bush home in a banana peel (to keep the moisture) but, although it lived and grew, it only survived a few seasons…
- a tunnel of rosebushes and huge rosehips next to a parking lot where we stopped in Matane, Quebec on our trip to Gaspé a decade ago…
- a pair of long-gone rosebushes at my Mom’s old home place – when she and my Aunt were little girls, they called the rosebushes Mrs. Pears and Mrs. Rhodes and would visit them with their doll carriages to collect the red rosehips.
~
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fragments from a walk
~
brambles and bedstraw
insect frass and dew
the petals of a wild rose
a rosehip
a red gall
swollen as a nose with crying
~
Nuphar and Nymphaea
lily leaves a plate
offering yellow to the sun
~
familiar trees
suddenly grown tall
~
© Jane Tims 2008
string for Zoë
Our cat Zoë’s niche includes a ‘string’.
I often say our Zoë is ‘telepathetic‘. She will sit and stare me down until I understand what she wants. Sometimes she wants food. Sometimes she wants fresh water, or an ice cube (yes, an ice cube). Sometimes she wants to play, with her string. Her trust that we will figure out what she wants is pitiful.
The string is not a special toy. Any long thin peice of string will do. A shoelace or a length of thread are all the same to Zoë.
Zoë can be an acrobat when her string is part of the action. She will stalk the string and pounce on it. She will walk upright on her back legs to reach it. Sometimes she just wants to look at it.
~
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telepathetic
~
Zoë thinks she is telepathic
sits intently, stares at me
narrow pupils on pale green eyes
~
I run the list
water, cat food, litter
such simple needs
but no thought resonates
with telepathic tremble
~
string
the word vibrates
as if plucked on a guitar
Zoë blinks her eyes
looks over her shoulder, utter longing
ten inch shoelace, knot at one end
pathetic on the hearth
~
black pupils open round
frank pathway to brain
~
© Jane Tims 2010
© Jane Tims 2011
in the branches of the White Pine
- the White Pine is the larger tree to the left of the road
The most frequent denizens of the pine are a pair of Bohemian Waxwings (Bombycilla garrulus). They prefer berries for food and so are in their ideal habitat. Our property must look like a big dinner plate to them, with its orderly presentation of wild strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, hawthorn and winterberry.
Another bird who stops to rest in the pine is the American Goldfinch (Carduelis tristis), also known as the Thistle bird. These are seed-eating birds who fly across the fields in a distinctive pattern of loops. They are also one of the most common birds at our winter bird feeder.
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building homes
~
we fly kites
to learn the field and sky
set copper whirligigs to spin
~
yellow flirt crosses blue
per-chick-or-ree
potato-chip potato-chip potato-chip
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we build our cabin
with 2 by 4s, boards and trusses
woodscrews and spiral nails
~
firm framework
woven grass and birch
bark rim and spider silk
~
you fill walls with fiberglass
I quilt curtains for windows
~
goldfinch waits while his female tucks
her nest with thistledown
tufts of cattail, puffs of dandelion
~
© Jane Tims 2011
Briar Island Rock #4
~
~
jointed ruler
(Wreck of the Trafalgar, 1817)
~
the ship is broken on rocks
and we leave in fog
I hold my brother’s hand
we stumble up the shore
in a yellow room of fog
it stumbles with us
they set the baggage down
together, folded
we wait
~
my step-father
pats my mother’s hand
leaves to talk with the Captain
the ship is lost
I look up at my mother
she watches him go, her lips move
she says we will lie in green pastures
~
I look for grass but only see
black rock and grinning fog
lanterns and men calling
my brother sniffs a little
in my pocket I clutch my father’s jointed ruler
he was a carpenter, would have fixed the hole
the mate says
there’s no going back to her now
we stay where we are
folded in a yellow room
luggage at our feet
~
the walls move
the ruler opens
I see the ship
black hull held high
on dark and pointed rock
against the early morning sky
white waves beyond
the ruler closes
~
pink and yellow mix, and the room
is the color of pumpkin
the ruler opens and I know
the black shore has bristles
I heard the mate call it
Briar Island
~
the rock I stand on tips a bit
I step down
the rock is wet and grey
five sides
a funny-looking stone
fits with other stones
strange puzzle
~
I take my ruler
help it to unfold
I measure the rock
I make it jiggle and my brother smiles
a little smile
the ruler folds, unfolds, the room expands
I see my step-father’s uneven walk
across uneven stones
~
~
Copyright 2011, Jane Tims
nichepoetryandprose 