Posts Tagged ‘birch bark’
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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birch bark, donated by my brother-in-law
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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.
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strips of birch bark layered in the dyepot
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To start, I stripped the sheets of bark into narrow pieces and set it to soak in cool water in my big dye pot.
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strips of birch bark, set to soak in water
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I intend to leave it for a month before I take the next step of simmering the bark and dying my wool.
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requesting the favour of a reply
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these leafless trees
brush against
a linen sky
ink strokes
on rice paper
letters penned
at midnight
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hidden in the hollow
heart of an oak
afraid to reach in
to feel only
curls of birch bark
desiccated leaves
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these trees
all seem the same
empty envelopes
parchment ghosts
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branches tangled
messages
lost
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black spruce scribbled on sky
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Poem previously posted 19/08/2011
Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
messages on a still winter day
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intentions
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snow, crystal-quiet
a sluggish breeze
riffles the woodland
sunrise lost in a rose sky
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listen to the rustle
of paper on wood
the mutter of unwritten lines
birch-bark, deckle-edged
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tatters and shreds
sorted by a sluggish wind
words I meant to write
letters ready for the mail
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misplaced
behind parcels
wait for postage
brown paper and string
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Copyright Jane Tims 2013
a nest in November
On Saturday, we drove to the lake to gather boughs of fir and pine for our Christmas decorations. While we were there, we poked around in the thicket. We found a few bird nests, still intact, easily seen now the trees and alders are free of leaves.
The first nest was cup-shaped, made of tightly woven grasses and weeds. Nests of songbirds are not easy to identify since they are similar in size and construction materials. If this little nest survives the winter, perhaps I can watch who uses it next spring.
The second nest probably belonged to a Robin. It was high in a tamarack tree, welded firmly to the branches. Robins often return to the same area and sometimes use the nest of the previous summer, so I’ll be watching this nest too.
The last nest we saw was a beautiful little hanging basket covered with birch bark and woven with grasses. It appeared to be frail but it was very sturdy and stubbornly clung to the bough in spite of its exposure in the November wind. I think it is the most delightful sight I have ever seen.
A biologist with the New Brunswick Department of Natural Resources was able to identify this nest from my photo. The nest probably belonged to a red-eyed vireo, one of our common songbirds. I have never seen this bird at our lake property, but we hear it all summer, endlessly asking its question and giving an answer.
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Red-eyed Vireo
(Vireo olivaceous)
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drab little
olivaceous outlaw
black masked
red eye
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can’t see you
can’t find you
can hear you
where’re you?
over there
where’re you?
nowhere
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in November
ghost-self flutters
in birch bark tatters
a basket in the alder
remnant of summer
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gone now
what’d ya do?
did an answer finally
come to you?
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© Jane Tims 2011
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