birch | nichepoetryandprose

Posts Tagged ‘birch’

harvesting colour – soaking the bark

Birch bark is on my top ten list of natural phenomena. Just the outer covering of a tree, but for me it has so many associations.

'Yellow Birch Bark' revision

Walking in a stand of birch is an experience like no other. The trees are ghosts, wavering and pale, unable to speak but capable of subtle quiet communication. In the slightest breeze, they whisper in short syllables, dry murmurings I cannot quite understand.

Birch bark is magical. Unravelled from its tree by a little tugging of the wind. Like paper, in thin dry sheets. Covered in unreadable script. You know removing the bark could be dangerous for the tree but it lures you, encourages you to reach out and strip it away in unbroken, unblemished reels.

Such a useful tree: birch bark canoes, tinder for a campfire, sweet sap from yellow birch, the wintergreen scent of crushed yellow birch twigs. And now, the promise of colour.

Using bark as dyestuff requires time rather than heat. Jenny Dean (Wild Colour, New York, 2010) suggests soaking the bark for days, even weeks to extract the first colour. She says never to boil bark since heat may release tannins and dull any resulting colour. From her book, I expect birch bark to yield colours ranging from purple to pinkish-red.

birch bark, donated by my brother-in-law

I am so grateful to my brother-in-law for allowing me to use the birch bark he has collected as he works on next winter’s stove-wood supply. I am sure he was saving it for a project of his own.

strips of birch bark layered in the dyepot

To start, I stripped the sheets of bark into narrow pieces and set it to soak in cool water in my big dye pot.

strips of birch bark, set to soak in water

I intend to leave it for a month before I take the next step of simmering the bark and dying my wool.

requesting the favour of a reply

these leafless trees

brush against

a linen sky

ink strokes

on rice paper

letters penned

at midnight

hidden in the hollow

heart of an oak

afraid to reach in

to feel only

curls of birch bark

desiccated leaves

these trees

all seem the same

empty envelopes

parchment ghosts

branches tangled

messages

lost

black spruce scribbled on sky

Poem previously posted 19/08/2011

Written by jane tims

April 25, 2014 at 7:18 am

Posted in harvesting colour

Tagged with art, birch, birch bark, natural dyes, pencil drawing, plant dyes, poetry

(brackets in the birch grove)

with 2 comments

Last week we went for a walk (more like a struggle) through the birch grove at the base of the grey woods (see the ‘map of the grey woods’ under ‘about’). To get there, we crossed the fern gully, mostly dry this time of year, and entered a mixed wood of birch, maple, spruce and fir, much younger than the mature spruce in the grey woods.

These trees grow in very wet conditions, and the forest floor is a hummocky, spongy growth of Sphagnum moss and fern.

There is no path through this woodland, so the ‘walk’ was an up-and-down, over-and-under kind of trek. To stay dry, you must take giant steps from hummock to hummock. To stay upright, you must check your footing and hang on to the young trees. With all this concentration on moving forward, I tend to miss some of the interesting detail, so I try to use each ‘balancing moment’ as a time to look around and observe the wild life.

One occupant of the birch grove is the bracket fungus. This is a type of fungus that grows like shelves on both living and dead trees. The fungus forms thick flat pads on the tree, usually parallel to the ground. They remind me of steps, a spiral stair to ascend the tree.

The semi-circular body of the bracket fungus is called a conk. The conks of the bracket fungus growing in our woods are thick, often oddly shaped, and constructed of various cream, tan and brown coloured layers. The conks are the outwardly visible, reproductive part of the fungus. The vegetative portion of the fungus grows as an extensive network of threads within the tree.

bracket fungi

in this forest

staid

practical

grey

could any form

construe to magic?

fairy rings

moths in spectral flight

spider webs, witches brooms

burrows and subterranean

rooms, hollows in wizened

logs, red toadstools

white-spotted, mottled

frogs

bracket fungi

steps ascend

a branchless tree

Written by jane tims

October 28, 2011 at 7:09 am

Posted in above the ground, in the grey woods, where plants grow wild

Tagged with birch, birch grove, bracket fungi, nature, pencil drawing, poetry, Sphagnum moss, woodland

the stone between farms

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How do you show the boundary line between you and your neighbor?

At Ågersta Village in Uppland, Sweden, is a rune stone positioned to mark a boundary between two properties. The stone is carved with two serpent creatures entwined, their heads in profile. Each has two sets of legs, the forelegs strong, and the rear legs weak and helpless.

The stone was carved by Balle, a frequent carver of rune stones in Sweden, and raised by Vidhugse, in memory of his father. The boundry, established in the twelfth century, showed the boudary until 1856 when the property lines were finally changed!

The inscription reads, in part: Hiær mun standa stæinn miđli byia – “Here shall stand the stone between farms.”