just booked my next adventure
off to the rainforest in costa rica
104 days from now.
they had me at
coffee, monkeys, trees, water, the unknown, and chocolate.
—
“the rainforests hold answers to questions we have yet to ask.”
-mark plotkin
Apr2
Category Archives: trees
Nov13
why not fry a year-old leaf?
What does a year-old, salted maple leaf taste like? Nothing much, apparently. Instead, merchants use the leaf as an attractive frame for the sweet coating, which is drier and crispier than the tempura surrounding, say, a shrimp. Some cooks also add sesame seeds for an extra pop of flavor.
Vendors first commercialized tempura-fried leaves after a train station opened near Minoh’s most notable waterfall in 1910. Outdoorsy tourists visiting the Osaka prefecture flocked to the site, taking the tasty, iconically-shaped souvenir with them when they left. (The salt preserves the young maple leaves, making them a year-round snack.) The novel delicacy became a symbol of the region, and it remains difficult to find in other parts of the country.
You’ll hear locals refer to maples as momiji, which means “becomes crimson-leaved.” The word also translates literally to “baby’s hands,” but don’t be alarmed: No human babies were harmed in the making of this unusual snack. Baby maple leaves, on the other hand, were not so lucky.
“my first semester i had only nine students.
hoping they might view me as professional and well prepared,
i arrived bearing name tags fashioned in the shape of maple leaves.”
-david sedaris
—
credits: bert kimura, gastro obscura
Oct26
tiny tree tour.
bonsai in the autumn
add the bonsai and penjing garden to your list of color tours this fall.
they may be small, but these little trees have a big impact.
the outdoor garden closes for the season on October 30th.
matthei botanical gardens, ann arbor, michigan, usa – autumn 2022
—
“the world of bonsai is miniature, but the natural world that it evokes is boundless.”.
-arthur joura, bonsai curator
May13
hard wood.
the class discovered this tree with magical writing all over it
and even though he’s only mastered the alphabet this year
‘a’ chose to read it out loud to everyone
in his own magical language
a master translator at work.
—
“he was made of hard wood.”
-hungarian proverb
—
Arborglyphs, dendroglyphs, silvaglyphs or modified cultural trees
is the carving of shapes and symbols into the bark of living trees.
May1
crowds.
” i love places where there are crowds of trees.”
-nitin namdeo
—
scio woods county preserve, ann arbor, mi, usa
Mar23
no point in hurrying.
a walk in the woods, northern michigan style, in the new spring
—
“there is no point in hurrying because you are not actually going anywhere.
however far or long you plod, you are always in the same place: in the woods.”
Jan21
memoir.
the kinder wondered what happened to the big, old tree they used to play under
it was a good tree
we sat under it when it was hot in the sun and its shade kept us cool
we collected pretty leaves that floated down from it in the fall
it was on a hill and we ran by it in the winter when we were playing in the snow
pieces of it had been falling off for a very long time
we guess that maybe it was very old and very sick and it was getting too tired
the kinder began to put its little pieces back on to decorate it
we hope that in the spring
a new sapling will come up near where the old tree used to stand so tall.
—
“a tree’s wood is also its memoir.”
-hope jahren
Dec29
new light.
as you step on, vacuum, sweep-up, curse, recycle
those painful and elusive pine needles
fallen from your wreaths, trees, garlands
stop a second to take a very close look
at the beauty of a sliced pine needle magnified
and you may see them in a new light.
—
“seven clans” – photo by elm mitchell
—
“the close-up says everything”
-marlon brando
Aug7
hidden life radio.
listen….
Silent tree activity, like photosynthesis and the absorption and evaporation of water, produces a small voltage in the leaves. In a bid to encourage people to think more carefully about their local tree canopy, sound designer and musician Skooby Laposky has found a way to convert that tree activity into music.
By connecting a solar-powered sensor to the leaves of three local trees in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Laposky was able to measure the micro voltage of all that invisible tree activity, assign a key and note range to the changes in that electric activity, and essentially turn the tree’s everyday biological processes into an ethereal piece of ambient music.
You can check out the tree music yourself by listening to the Hidden Life Radio—Laposky’s art project—which aims to increase awareness of trees in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the city’s disappearing canopy by creating a musical “voice” for the trees.
The project features the musical sounds of three Cambridge trees: a honey locust, a red oak, and an 80-year-old copper beech tree, all located outside the Cambridge Public Library. Each tree has a solar-powered biodata sonification kit installed on one of its branches that measures the tree’s hidden activities and translates it into music.
According to WBUR, between 2009 and 2014, Cambridge was losing about 16.4 acres of canopy annually, which is a huge loss considering that tree canopies are crucial to cities, cooling them down during the summer, reducing air pollutino, sucking up carbon, and providing mental health benefits.
Laposky hopes that people will tune into Hidden Life Radio and spend time listening to the trees whose music occurs in real-time and is affected by the weather. Some days they might be silent, especially when it hasn’t rained for several days and they’re dehydrated. The project will end in November, when the leaves will drop — a “natural cycle for the project to end,” Laposky says, “when there aren’t any leaves to connect to anymore.”
—
“in a cool solitude of trees
where leaves and birds a music spin,
mind that was weary is at ease,
new rhythms in the soul begin.”
-william kean seymour
—
source credits: Kristin Toussaint, The Optimist Daily, WBUR Radio
May18
under the canopy.
after hiking to the secret climbing tree
mother nature designed
only for kids
we enter under the canopy of emerald leaves
to find the magic inside.
—
“wood is only one-syllable word, but behind it lies a world full of beauty and wonder.”
-theodor heuss
I have my glasses on.... 